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pc: > arosta@hidden.email writes: > From the outset, the Lojban project took the view that it was better > to have a half-baked loglang that was actively used by a sizable > community than to have a fully-baked loglang that was never > actually used for communication. > > Well, it did not take this view, mainly because it never considered > this choice. Its gaol was to devise a language that would be a ... an appealing typo [for us Brits] > complete human language but would have a markedly different -- and > simpler -- structure from familiar languages. It happened to take as > the base for that structure first order predicate logic (JCB knew a > bit of this from classes Broadbeck -- but not much). It might have > tried the syntax of COBOL or some other computer language just as > easily (except JCB never was much of a computerist, especially in the > early days -- but then, who was?). Any notion of some further > connection with logic was a later addition, probably after the 1975 > publication. It is not in 1960 or 1962. First of all, I deliberating spoke of Lojban, i.e. dating from 1987 or so. Second, I get the impression that even if the connection with logic was originally just a good solution to a problem in designing a Whorfian experiment, it soon came to be an attraction in itself, and if you look at the history of major figures involved with Lojlan/ Lo**an during its history, most have been far more interested in logic than in Whorfianism. > <It's fair to say that the Lojban project is succeeding very well with > its avowed aims, and that as a loglang it is half-baked. > > > Well, half-baked is probably an underestimate. I think it is much > better than that. But then, I think English is at least half-baked > and probably better too. Neither is finished to &'s specifications > -- or any other specification of what logical or semantic form should > be, at least partly because no two people (well, cliques) agree on > what that is. I see no evidence in the many discussions about Lojban, or the few discussions about loglangs, of debates about what logical or semantic form should be being a stumbling block. And I think it is a matter on which it would be relatively easy to reach consensus. Relative to how easy it would be to reach consensus on pretty much anything else about language design, that is. I realize that if professional logicians themselves were involved, then consensus might be harder to achieve, but not if linguists (or your average engelanger) were involved. As for degree of bakedness, it depends how we measure it. If you measure it by how much logical formula can be derived from how many sentences, then I will not insist on the bakedness level being so very low. And since I think that that is the sort of metric you have in mind, we can say we are in agreement. But what I had in mind was how well Lojban (or natlangs, for that matter) do when compared to how well an invented language could do if they actually set out with the goal of being fully baked. It's by this measure that I think Lojban is half-baked. --And.