Hallo conlangers!

On Saturday 24 September 2011 18:03:05, Jim Henry wrote:

> On Sat, Sep 24, 2011 at 3:33 AM, R A Brown <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > On 23/09/2011 21:17, And Rosta wrote:
> >> I have claimed that there are three different and
> >> discrepant Lojbans: (1) the formal definition, (2) the
> >> langue internalized by the ablest speakers, (3) the
> >> langue inherent in actual mainstream parole. (1) is
> >> unspeakable, but (2) is speakable and is functionally
> >> equivalent to (1); if (1) had been created by people
> >> with some kind of reasonable understanding of human
> >> language, it could have been like (2) and hence
> >> speakable.
> > 
> > This IMHO is hair-splitting. By Lojban I mean and understand
> > the language developed by the Logical Language Group and
> > used by the Lojban community.
> 
> If I understand correctly, it's And's claim that "the language
> developed by the Logical Language Group" and the language "used by the
> Lojban community" are two different languages.  I don't know enough
> about Lojban to say whether that's a true claim, but it seems to me an
> intelligible claim, not mere hair-splitting.

I also don't know enough about Lojban and the Lojban community
to say whether the claim that "the two languages" are not the
same holds or not; it remains to be explored how great the
differences actually are.  It may be true that some constructions
specified in the official Lojban grammar are never used by
practical Lojbanists, but I know nothing about that.  It is the
Lojbanists themselves who have to answer this question.

> > Lojban, as I understand it, is the
> >
> > language of the Lojban community.
> 
> That's how I'm inclined to see it, as well; but I'm admittedly biased
> toward a parole-centered view of language, where And seems to be
> inclined toward a langue-centered view, if not of languages in
> general, at least of engelangs like Lojban.

Yes.  And is very strongly inclined toward a langue-centered
view, to the point that at least with conlangs where the langue
is specified explicitly by the author, he considers the actual
language usage irrelevant.  At least that is what I read out of
his statements.  It clearly has to do something with that And
is a Platonic idealist.
 
> If, as And says, the formally specified Lojban and the actually spoken
> Lojban are two different languages, -- and that seems to me a
> plausible claim, by analogy with the conlang speaker community I know
> more about, that of Esperanto -- then it gets harder to make
> statements of scientific interest about what Lojban tells us about the
> human capacity for language.

I think any observed differences between formally specified
Lojban and actually spoken Lojban would tell us something about
which features of Lojban are difficult to master (at least for
speakers of SAE languages; one must carefully check how non-
European Lojban speakers, e.g. in Japan, cope).  If a feature
is avoided by Lojbanists around the world *regardless of the
affiliation of their native language*, and the particular
feature is not found in any natlang on this planet, we are
probably dealing with something that lies outside the range
of the human language capability.

>        If for instance the Lojban formal
> specification violates some human language universal, we can't simply
> say, "people speak Lojban, therefore this universal pertains to
> natlang evolution and not to our language ability".  We have to
> investigate and see if the actual Lojban *parole* violates that
> universal, as well.

Yes.  If a particular feature of the Lojban reference grammar
is never implemented by the speakers of Lojban, that can be
counted as evidence, though not as proof, that the feature
violates human language universals - but only after one has
checked for alternative reasons for non-use, such as that
most Lojbanists probably speak a SAE language as L1 and
therefore may find non-SAE features of the language difficult
to master.

> But I'm pretty sure that's always going to be the case with any
> conlang which comes to life in a speaker community.  It's almost
> inevitable that there will arise discrepancies between the formally
> specified *langue* and the *langue* implied by the *parole*, if only
> for the same reasons that natlangs change over time.

Sure.  I have been told several times that Esperanto shows
some divergence from Zamenhof's specification in actual usage,
and I see no reason why it should not be the same with Lojban,
which on one hand is much younger and spoken by a smaller
community (which would lead to the expectation that there is
less such development), but on the other hand differs much
more from the structure of the languages familiar to most
members of the community (which would lead to the expectation
that there is more such development).  A systematic study of
such differences is in order here.

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