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Re: LUNATIC again

From:Logical Language Group <lojbab@...>
Date:Thursday, November 12, 1998, 1:15
>And I thought lojbab had been using lojban for some while now. And wasn't >the (one of the) main aims of the original Loglan to test the Sapir-Whorf >hypothesis? Surely, if one can't even _think_ in the loglan, it can't >shed any light on the hypothesis?
I cannot think in Lojban, nor can I think in Russian. It seems that my way of learning languages (which is only mildly successful, since I am far short of fluency in either, does not promote thinking in the language. i can communicate as fast in Lojban as almost anyone, but only by speedy in-my-head translation of English thoughts, and I have to translate what I listen to completely in order to respond. I don't need a dictionary, but I don't think in the language either. But like I said, teh same is true for my Russian. I believe that others may be able to think in Lojban, but I can't.
>As many know I was pretty conversant with Latin for many years. When >reading Latin the meaning normally went straight from the Latin to the >brain, so to speak, without any English intermediary. Indeed, on many >occasions I've been asked "What does that mean?" I can understand the >meaning immediately; but I can't come out with the English immediately. >I'm thinking in Latin when I read it - I have to restructure my thoughts in >a different pattern to get to grips with English.
None of which is true for me. I switch between Lojban and English easily. Likewise between Russian and English. because I've never let go of the English.
>I find if I start to get into a language, some thinking in that language >does take place, tho the extent to which this happens varies somewhat.
The only extent that this is true for me for Lojban is that I generally identify the grammatical frameowrk before translating it so that the realtionships of thge words are clear before I actually identify what the words mean. Likewise in Russian, I know what case each word is in before I identify what the word means; I know which conjugation of the verb, etc. I essentially treat each sentence I run into as a tarnslation exercise as if for homework. I am never satisfied with less than perfection except when trying to converse either, at least in Russian - I look up any word that is being used in even the slightest unusual way to my current knowledge. I admitthis is not a good way to learn a language. But I haven't managed any other.
>Now I guess lojbab must as familiar as any one is with lojban. >The fact that he says: "I admit that the phenomenon of thinking in a >different language remains beyond my understanding" seems to me quite >suggestive. > >I wish to make it _ABSOLUTELY CLEAR_ that I am NOT trying to be sarcastic >NOR trying to put down lojbab in saying this NOR to criticize or attack him >in any way whatsoever.
Not taken as such.
>What I mean is that it does suggest to me that there is some qualitative >difference between a conlang of the loglan type & a natlang and that, tho I >wouldn't have put it quite the same way, Charles may be close to the mark >in suggesting that lojban is rather an elaborate encoding of English.
For me, by the definitions I have given, it is. But then we have native speakers of othe rlanguages who are as comparably skilled in the language as I am, so that would require that Lojban be encoded X, where X is an arbitrary and variable natlang. And no one would accuse Russian of being encoded English, merely because of how I use it. Yet I am pretty much as skilled in Russian as in Lojban. lojbab ---- lojbab lojbab@access.digex.net Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273 Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: ftp.access.digex.net /pub/access/lojbab or see Lojban WWW Server: href="http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/" Order _The Complete Lojban Language_ - see our Web pages or ask me.