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My story

12/28/2013

11 Comments

 
A little less than a month ago, I took a break from Lojban, more specifically from the Lojban IRC channel(s). What led me to that? Well it's a long story, but I'll try to explain as much as I can. It all began several months earlier.

I've been logjammin' for a little over four years, and I've put in a lot of time, effort, passion and love. I have contributed to lots of mailing list discussions, I have translated well over 60.000 words of literature into Lojban, I have spent countless hours on IRC conversing with people in Lojban to represent it, I have helped dozens of people learn the language, I've made several videos/audio recordings that you can find on youtube, and I even created the first Lojban rap song of all time. Why did I do all this? It's simple: Love. I love Lojban, and I'm hoping that that's sort of evident seeing how much I've done with and for the language.

Now, over the years I have also acquired a lot of knowledge on the history of Lojban, mostly by reading insane amounts of mailing list threads. I thoroughly enjoyed reading them. A few of them I read multiple times, and those threads had over 500 posts in it. Day and night, Lojban was on my mind. I take a walk everyday, and when I have nothing specific to think about, my mind automatically wanders back to some Lojban topic, it's become automatic.

With so much knowledge, it was just natural that I would want to help get the language into a finalized form. When you love something as much as I loved Lojban, you want it to be in the best condition possible. You want it to shine, and you want it to be liked by others, and that means taking special measures to make it attractive to a wider audience. Those were my ambitions, anyway. The BPFK had long since vaporized, and for almost a decade the language has now been in a state that is somewhere between a coma and chaos. I wanted so badly for that to change for the better. I think you can empathize with me.

I was not the only one to want Lojban to change, nor the only one unhappy about its unclear state. Of course I wasn't. In the history of Lojban, there have always been a few people at any given time who wanted to make adjustments, fix things, reform things. They tend to get dismissed as tinkerers, who are just never happy with what they've got. So, naturally there was a small group of such tinkerers around at this point of Lojban's history as well. For tinkerers, one common activity is to openly discuss potential changes and get on everyone else's nerves who see their established system as being threatened. I was surely one of those people who had many ideas of what could be done to improve the language. Mostly, I wanted to have clear definitions for everything, something which is still only a dream, but more on that later.

After the BPFK's death (and yes, I won't stop calling it dead), Robin (camgusmis) became the only person in charge of the Lojban project. Some like to refer to him as the Benevolent Dictator For Life. Well, let's home it's not literally "for life". Not even he himself wants that. Still, it's the current situation, and has been for almost a decade. It's a sad state, so of course people like myself and other tinkerers would ignore the fact that they have no say in anything, and they'd just go ahead and talk about changes, despite there being only one person to have any rights: The Dictator.

Lojbanist gleki would always call that position "nolraitru" (king) when we talked. Seeing me propose things and expressing my opinions on things, he eventually began suggesting that I could be the new nolraitru. He kept bringing it up, too, so it seemed he was actually seriously proposing it. At first, I dismissed the idea. I knew that it was hopeless, since someone else was already "nolraitru" and he surely wouldn't just give me his power. But as happens so often, it eventually got to me. The thought of finally getting a chance to help my beloved Lojban achieve its final state of beauty. So I ended up liking the idea of "taking over". It was like someone had put an idea in my mind and it was too late too get rid of it. I had to go for it, somehow. So I slowly
began to ask a few people on IRC what they thought about me becoming nolraitru. I operated quite cautiously. I could have written a huge mailing list announcement like "I am offering to take over. Say yes, if you want Lojban to be complete!", but I wasn't exactly convinced anybody there would say yes. Even after all this time, I felt people still didn't really give me any credit. Thus, I limited my aspirations to the IRC channel first. tsani, who was basically among the aforementioned group of tinkerers, said he wouldn't mind my being nolraitru, despite our differences. I'm not sure who else expressed approval, but overall, it wasn't much. More importantly, the people whose opinions weighed the most clearly stated that they "don't want Lojban to change", and Robin himself let me know quite clearly that he would not let me take over, since I am "too much of a tinkerer". So there I had it: proof that all the effort and love I had thus far put into Lojban got me no more than anyone else had got. I was just another random tinkerer. Out to destroy the language.

Let me stress again how much Lojban meant to me all this time. It meant everything to me.

For many, Lojban is just a hobby on the side. But for me, Lojban for a long time had been the number one priority in my life. And that's just crazy. And then, to get so little in return; it kind of makes you wonder if it's all worth it. Heck, not only get so little in return, but to also have other people think that I would willfully destroy this language I love so much if I were given the chance; that was just a very painful experience. And it was the reason I eventually got so bitter and sad; the fact that the help I was willing to offer was not the kind of help people were willing to accept from me. It really hurt.

Looking back, I can now simply say that they missed their chance. I'm not exaggerating when I claim that I could have finished the whole damn documentation of the language within only a few months. But well, they apparently thought I was just going to change the language willy-nilly according to my own wishes only. They were wrong
. I would have been a moderator, first and foremost. I would have steered the long overdue discussions and I would have made sure to see them through to completion, culminating in a complete description of the language that incorporates all the many things we as a community have learned over the years. A language that we could have been proud to show to newcomers. They missed their chance. Now I'll just wait patiently.

What happened next?

To tell you the truth, leaving the channel was hard. I'd been on it 24/7 for years. It was like cutting off an arm. But I had to take a break. I was starting to give off negative vibes without realizing it. My sadness was radiating and right then I realized that I could no longer allow this. I quit the channel.


The first few days after that, I still could not stop thinking about Lojban. It was crazy. In fact, it seemed as though I was thinking about Lojban even more intensively for those few days. Cutting out IRC had somehow lifted a weight from my shoulders and mind, and my Lojban thoughts started to flow freely.

Of course, this wasn't the point of the break. What I needed was some emotional distance. I had gotten too deep into the rabbit hole the months before. I needed a change of surroundings. I needed emotional clarity.
A fresh start — perhaps. A new perspective — certainly.

I managed to finally finish The Wizard of Oz a few days before christmas. When I showed my father the text, he was quite impressed. He then went on to ask a question whose core has been bugging me ever since: "Wouldn't it be nice if you could use your ability on something that more people could read?".
If you recall, I said above that I had begun to wonder if it was all worth it. Putting in so much and getting so little, isn't there something else I should be doing instead? Something that will help me make money maybe (or at least something where I'll be trusted)?
I'm still wondering about this. Sure, I can do it just because. A hobby doesn't have to pay your rent. But when that hobby takes on such monstrous proportions, I think you'd better think about it at least a little bit. When I said earlier that Lojban was the number one priority in my life, I meant it. I had my family go on vacation without me just so that I could work on Lojban. Spending so much time on something means that other things will fall short. If I at least got something for it, I wouldn't have to question it so much. I have always wanted to have a Lojban newspaper, for example. But damnit, it's a lot of work to publish one even just monthly. I am no longer convinced it would be the right thing to do to keep putting Lojban ahead of everything else like that. I can't have a job and still do Lojban 24/7. I have to make some choices, and I'm very uncertain right now. I think I have found the desired emotional distance, but there is still a way to go to find emotional clarity considering this.

But whatever my decision will be, I think this post should give you some idea of what's been going on with me recently and I hope you can better understand me now.
As I'm trying to make this a fresh start, feel free to forget everything you think you knew about me and then get to know me anew. I'm in a different place now than I was.

(You may notice that I've stripped the blog down to just Lojban and Toaq Dzu. My Lojban writings can be found on www.selpahi.de, so there is no need to host them here as well.)

Please leave a comment below.
11 Comments
Gleki link
12/28/2013 01:32:01 am

I zo'onai ko jerna lo jdini.
I e'uru'esai ko co'a speni ja patfu ja rorci si rirni (to li'a do jdice ije mi stidi ba'e ru'esai toi).

Ni'o mi no'e prami la lojban. I ku'i si'anai mi milxe xebni ro lo drata bangu. I y u'i

Ni'o ca'o nandu ba'e mi uedai faloka tcidu lo lojbo se ciska. I ji'a la Loglan cu zmadu la Lojban lo ni si ka si ni (to oi toi) mi jimpe zo'ei ke'a.

I au lo jimpyzmadu logjybangu cu zasti. I ku'i a'enai.

Ni'o ta'onaisai ja'o do fenki zo'oru'e mu'o.

Reply
gleki
12/29/2013 02:11:51 pm

I'm not a progger. I wanted to say more but then saw Broca's comment about LMW and L4N. It's true. I have no time nor for writing newspapers nor for anything else. In fact Robin might remember that i never wanted to deploy a mediawiki myself. I had to. Because lo jbopre noroi co'e.

and censa je gletu kalci, Lojban is now compared to Jehova's witnesses. Well, let's start distributing the Red Book on the streets.

What I dont like in Lojban is Lojban itself.

1. gismu are hard to memorise for humans si NORMAL humans si si ORDINARY humans. Brevlo has a better lexicon but I dont like lengthy "mevo and K" pronouns there.

Neither I like phonotactics of Ceqli. It's too limited, we can't borrow names of fu'ivla easily there. In guaspi it's possible to say <.au stralo pi te ku> at the expense of tones which I dont like either.

I think Lojban phonotactics is okay. If we had had more recognisable brivla there would have been many more Lojbanists by now. {dansu} and {liste} (and may be even {karce}) are brivla with transparent mnemonics. {ckaji} is not. {solri} and {lunra} are fucking hard to pronounce.

Lojban grammar is also okay for me. I think all we need is ilmentufa and i even cant see any important drawbacks in it.

2. too many places. ignore most of them.
3. short rafsi and BAI must die except most frequent ones.
4. ' vs. x is a problem for many. I don't know how to get rid of {x}. How shall one live without {xu, xa, xe}?

first three problems can be solved.

Brivla should have fewer places and have a better mnemonics.


This alleged neutrality of sounding of gismu is a road to another Esperanto which therefore leads to nowhere. The power of Lojban is in formal syntax. Which opens doors to searching for formal semantics.

Just take 50% of brivla from English and/or Romance languages and 50% from Mandarin. And you are done.

Lojban must be at-sight recognisable.

Reply
selpahi
12/29/2013 08:34:31 pm

pe'i mi snàda lo ka vìmcu ro lo bi'u nai nàbmi vo mei se pi'o la .tòŭan. .i .y sa'e lo re bi'o vo moi .i mi jìnvi lo du'u lo pa moi na nàbmi .i lo nu tàdni lo na'e slàbu bàngu cu nu bìnxo lo ka se slàbu lo na'e slàbu vàlsi .i la'o gy. Lojban++ .gy màbla lo ka na sai mèlbi fa lo ce'u jùfra .i .au lo bàngu zo'u: làrcu .i la'o gy. Lojban++ .gy to'e làrcu .i ku'i mi tùgni fi lo du'u lo dràta ci mei be lo nàbmi cu je'a nàbmi .i ko dènpa lo nu mi gùbgau lo .tòŭan. gìmste .i la'a do ba zànru

Reply
gleki
12/29/2013 09:13:56 pm

I lo pamoi cu mutce vajni nabmi i do naltugni lo do patfu i do naltugni mi. I ge'e.
Ni'o mi nelci nai lo tonga.

gleki
12/29/2013 03:00:13 pm

Many Lojbanists don't understand that learning vocabulary is the biggest problem in almost any language. Probably because most of us are programmers or semi-programmers and we invent brivla aka variables ourselves every time in our projects. This is not true for the language that describes Real Life (TM).

Therefore Lojban is not popular. Nobody can speak without looking up into jbovlaste.

We can't use it as Esperantists do. Too much to learn.
I promise to fix the problem with the grammar being explained in an insane way (CLL was easy to read, L4B became worse, Wave lessons is even worse), to explain the grammar at least how i see it.

I can't promise that many more will start speaking this language because of L4N+SL+ELG, though. Because {do zukte lo ka fenki} look Greek to most normal humans.

CLL means nothing to me. A tutorial for newbies is enough. It won't teach the full grammar which is not needed at all. I was able to use only one famyma'o in it by far ({vau}). And I will need {zo'u} because that's how Chinese/Japanese works.

One can write a newspaper but for sure I'll write a converter for it replacing impossible lujvo with normally looking fu'ivla. I dont want to memorise lujvo, i dont wanna eat this shit, dont ask me. I do suffer from it. {-gau} is enough for me ba'uru'e

Haven't you heard of Lojban++ / watched on youtube?

εὑ μαἁ ψοὑ ζυκτε λο κα φενκι δοι καμχαδα.

The Eastern Jbogu'e is huge.

Reply
berni
1/13/2014 07:54:57 pm

More power and much respect to you. I wish you'd do as you planned, but there are obstacles, and you've been hurt. I feel sorry for you, and Lojban will decline without the intervention that you spoke of.
I know only one other blog post that speaks about Lojbans pain points: http://teddyb.org/robin/tiki-index.php?page=Lojban%3A+You're+Doing+It+Wrong

berni

Reply
gleki
1/13/2014 09:19:03 pm

No intervention is needed while the language is alive, i.e. spoken.

Reply
gejyspa
1/15/2014 06:04:35 am

Of course vocabulary learning is a challenge in any language. But that is a challenge without shortcuts, unless you already know a language close to the target language (e.g. Esperanto for Europeans. Try asking someone from China how hard it is to learn Esperanto if they don't already know English). Why should lojban be different? But your blanket statement that "Nobody can speak without looking up into jbovlaste" is patently false. I can, and do (reading without jbovlaste is another matter, but I'm always 5x better at producing utterances in non-English languages than I am at understanding them, because I can always use circumlocutions for words I don't know in the former case, but not for understanding a word that I don't know).

Reply
gleki
1/15/2014 02:27:45 pm

>>But your blanket statement that "Nobody can speak without looking up into jbovlaste" is patently false.

Well, ofc I know that there are people who can speak Lojban. Their number is negligibly small. That's the point. Not that Lojban is impossible to speak at all. The sounding of gismu just slows the process down.

Reply
klaku
1/16/2014 12:22:31 am

Hey la selpa'i
It's sad to see you're not on the IRC any more - you're (were, damn!) one of the few active jbocre who didn't just stir from slumber every few hours to factually answer some nintadni.
Having read your post, though, it was probably a good idea for you to get some distance to Lojban - it is indeed in a state of either hibernation or dying, and if you live and die for the language it's pretty easy to get depressed about it.
I, like you, am a tinkerer of Lojban, and though by no means as extreme as you, I agree that the current situation of a conservative nolraitru and a narzasti BPFK is killing the language.
I'm no big guy in Lojbanistan, but I would have backed your taking over, if it didn't cause a great schism, and I could trust someone to restrain you from overturning the language during a holiday :).
I just hope you come back some day, maybe as a more casual participant, and wanted you to know that you are not alone in your opinions on reform
Best wishes
la klaku

Reply
Mewsuaykat
3/4/2014 03:18:56 pm

Hi! I wanted to add here some insights from the viewpoint of a newbie picking at Lojban for the first time.

I find that memorization of the lexicon is currently the toughest part for me. It's easy to remember a selbri by sight but much more difficult to be required to acconotate each selbri with up to 5 unique variables for thousands of words. It rapidly becomes intimidating to me as I'm just starting out.

The grammar seems straight forward. I suppose this is due to the forced compression of selbri.

I would like to say that selpa'i is the reason I stuck it out so far in Lojban. Why? Because simply put I found his videos on YouTube more appealing method to become exposed to Lojban.

If you want to spread Lojban, you need to teach it on YouTube with audio and video. You need to spread it around social media to force exposure. You have to use it as if it's normal throughout the Web. Why? Because that will maintain exposure and YouTube audio visual series on learning Lojban will make it easier for newbs to pickup and gain interest in.

I can tell you that the first time I heard lilisuno sing "la crisa ditcu" on YouTube gave me two amazing revelations...

1) there's beauty in this language
2) imagine a world where language barriers don't exist in any form

Lojban in my mind represents alot of potential for humanity. But it's dispersion needs to catch up with the times if that's to happen. Things like IRC are fine for practicing vocab, but ppl are more prone to identify with the social aspect of any language.

Just like lilisuno... Show the world the beautiful side of Lojban.

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