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>So I suppose ... anyone who claims Shakespeare can be appreciated in anything but English is just "lying to himself and others" (as you said in an earlier post

by Towle_ 17y ago

>So I suppose ... anyone who claims Shakespeare can be appreciated in anything but English is just "lying to himself and others" (as you said in an earlier post). It cannot be appreciated to the same degree, no. Just as a 6-year-old cannot appreciate Shakespeare to the same degree that a 50-year-old English literature professor can appreciate it. How this is at all debatable, I have no idea. > With time, assuming the language is used by a significant number of people, it will acquire such a history. This will of course never happen. > Still, while young languages don't have a rich history compared to older languages, they have other advantages (of which Lojban has plenty). There are alternative solutions to requiring everyone to learn a second language. For example, expressing oneself more clearly. This can be accomplished to any desired degree in modern languages. > Also remember that the history that has accrued to older languages is a double-edged sword. Because of this "baggage" it's sometimes difficult to express precisely what you mean without being misunderstood (or perhaps to even know what you mean -- see the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis). Lojban is designed to help overcome such difficulties. On one edge of the sword: the lasting effects of the most skilled manipulators of the given language. The other edge: occasional difficulties with ambiguity and linguistic relativity. To dull the second edge, Lojban requires that we flatten the first. No thanks.

gnosis 17y ago
> > With time, assuming the language is used by a significant > > number of people, it will acquire such a history. > > This will of course never happen. "Man flying? Impossible!" "A man walking on the moon? Preposterous!" "Slavery/segregation is the natural state of man and will never change." "The Third Reich will last a thousand years." "The Soviet Union will never collapse in our lifetime." History is full of surprises. Sure, today Lojban is a fringe language with a few thousand speakers, tops. And there's no indication of any kind of widespread movement to adopt it. But that could change with time. The language is really in its infancy. Of course, it's not likely it'll ever be as popular as any of the major natural languages are today, but I wouldn't rule out the possibility of hundreds of thousands or even millions of people speaking it (or a future offspring of it) one day.
- Towle_ 17y ago
  Every one of your listed false predictions held within it an inherently great value to prove wrong, a value so enormous and ungodly that anywhere from thousands to billions of spirited men and women pushed everything else in their lives aside for that one cause. They made that choice to give their lives singular purpose because the importance of the goals they pursued necessitated nothing less, and what they knew to be potentially massive benefit to all mankind outweighed everything else in their lives. This goal of millions of speakers of Lojban would require that same monumental level of collective human effort and perseverance, but it does not necessitate anything of that kind to anyone, nor will it ever, because the potential benefit to mankind is just that marginal.
deleted 17y ago
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by Towle_ 17y ago

gnosis 17y ago

> > With time, assuming the language is used by a significant > > number of people, it will acquire such a history. > > This will of course never happen. "Man flying? Impossible!" "A man walking on the moon? Preposterous!" "Slavery/segregation is the natural state of man and will never change." "The Third Reich will last a thousand years." "The Soviet Union will never collapse in our lifetime." History is full of surprises. Sure, today Lojban is a fringe language with a few thousand speakers, tops. And there's no indication of any kind of widespread movement to adopt it. But that could change with time. The language is really in its infancy. Of course, it's not likely it'll ever be as popular as any of the major natural languages are today, but I wouldn't rule out the possibility of hundreds of thousands or even millions of people speaking it (or a future offspring of it) one day.

Towle_ 17y ago
Every one of your listed false predictions held within it an inherently great value to prove wrong, a value so enormous and ungodly that anywhere from thousands to billions of spirited men and women pushed everything else in their lives aside for that one cause. They made that choice to give their lives singular purpose because the importance of the goals they pursued necessitated nothing less, and what they knew to be potentially massive benefit to all mankind outweighed everything else in their lives. This goal of millions of speakers of Lojban would require that same monumental level of collective human effort and perseverance, but it does not necessitate anything of that kind to anyone, nor will it ever, because the potential benefit to mankind is just that marginal.

deleted 17y ago

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