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From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Subject: Re: International Language.
Message-ID: <D2nG6t.3HF@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK
References: <3ebv7u$qbc@csnews.cs.Colorado.EDU> <3f75o4$g03@mother.usf.edu> <3fjk2f$koj@csnews.cs.Colorado.EDU>
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 1995 11:06:26 GMT
Lines: 63
Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu sci.lang.translation:773 sci.lang:34557

In article <3fjk2f$koj@csnews.cs.Colorado.EDU> juola@suod.cs.colorado.edu (Patrick Juola) writes:
>>I wrote :
>>
>>: I would like to point out that lojban has the same set of "imperialistic
>>: biases" that Esperanto has, except that they're not all Western European.

I should like to point out that this is a truly bizarre statement.

>>: It's strong base in "formal logic" is certainly indicative of a
>>: strong bias on the part of the designers.

What bias?  A bias towards logic?  Truly remarkable.

>>: Furthermore, lexical items and lots of the grammar are produced,
>>: as in Esperanto, by combining the same "word" in many different
>>: languages (5, I think).

That about `lots of grammar' being produced in this way is utter nonsense.
The vocabulary of predicate words is indeed derived by combining the `same
word' in the 6 most widely spoken languages, though, as it was explained
here, not nearly in the same way as in Esperanto.  That is not, however,
a fundamental feature of Lojban; I prefer to discard the etymology
altogether and think of its predicate vocabulary as entirely _a priori_.
I suggest you give it a close look, so that you'll know what I mean.

>Trying to design a bias-free language is like trying to write a
>bias-free history book -- it just *ain't* gonna happen,
>no matter how hard you try.

That's trivially true, if one applies the (worthless) definition
of `bias' that you seem to be going by.

>*If* the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is true (a claim, btw, that lojban was
>explicitly designed to test), then any language will of necessity "warp"
>thought in accordance with its biases.

So Lojban will warp thought in accordance with logic.  Well, I for one
have no problem with that.

>Promulgation of any "international language" as a way of countering
>"linguistic imperialism" is, to put it as kindly as I can, misguided.
>This applies to lojban, this applies to Klingon, this applies to
>Sindar, and this applies a fortiori to Esperanto [...].

Oh boy.  Where shall we start?

(1) Neither Klingon nor Sindarin (NB that's what the language originally
spoken by the Sindar, the Grey-elves, is called) have ever been intended
to serve as international languages countering linguistic imperialism,
nor has either of them claimed to be bias-free, whatever that means.
That said, I wonder what fault you'd find with Klingon, should it
ever be proposed as an international language.

(2) Esperanto and Lojban, on the other hand, are both designed as
international languages.  The difference is that the latter comes
much closer to being bias-free, and in fact I'd support the claim
that it is until you present some real evidence to the contrary.

-- 
`Don't know whit ye're bletherin aboot', said Peter.    (The Glasgow Gospel)
Ivan A Derzhanski (iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk, iad@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu)
* Centre for Cognitive Science,  2 Buccleuch Place,   Edinburgh EH8 9LW,  UK
* Cowan House E113, Pollock Halls, 18 Holyrood Pk Rd, Edinburgh EH16 5BD, UK
