mark@nsc-pdc.UUCP (Mark Nudelman) (07/11/85)
Does know of anyone currently doing work on Loglan, the artificial language devised by James Cooke Brown? Some years ago the Loglan Institute published a newletter called, I believe, _Loglandia_. Is it still being published, and what is the address of the Loglan Institute (if it still exists)? Thanks in advance. Please MAIL replies to me via USENET: Mark Nudelman ihnp4!nsc!nsc-pdc!mark National Semiconductor tektronix!reed!nsc-pdc!mark
wscott@joevax.UUCP (W. Scott Meeks) (07/12/85)
I am also interested in the current state of Loglan and would greatly appreciate any information. Mail can be sent to: ihnp4!joevax!wscott Thank you.
jack@rlgvax.UUCP (Jack Waugh) (07/19/85)
THE LOGLAN INSTITUTE, INC.
1701 Northeast 75th Street
Gainesville, Fla. 32601
USA
Phone: (904) 371-9574
sent me the following, dated 28 May 1985:
"Dear TL-Subscriber:
"You will not, I think, be very surprised to learn that *The
Loglanist* is going to disappear for a while. In a sense in
already has. Probably it won't appear regularly again until
the 4th Edition of *Loglan 1* has actually been published and
we have a completely new learning kit ready to sell with it.
So when TL does come back it will probably be more newcomer-
oriented than before.
"But there's good news, too. Our monthly newsletter *Lognet*
has recently become stronger. So if you'd like to continue
to keep track of what is happening in Loglan, it looks lake
*Lognet* is a good bet for you now. You may easily shift
your subscription over to it; and it's an especially good
time to do that now. The current *Lognet* probably has more
news about the language in it than it's ever carried before;
and the growing pains of the young corporation -- which once
occupied a good deal of LN's space -- appear to be over. Two
new Member-participation projects of potentially wide appeal
are just getting started, namely word-making and translating
scientific prose; and its new content strongly suggests that
*Lognet* is taking over TL's old role.
"For instance, here is the kind of thing you can expect to
see over the next few months in *Lognet*:
o Descriptions of several "fast tracks" by which many
natural words may be swiftly borrowed.
o The handling of Linnean binomials, e. g.,
'Escherichia coli'.
o Some translation problems and their solutions.
o New or changed affix assignments.
o Announcements of the availability of new word-
lists. E. g., all the new words that were built
during 1983's 'Shakedown Cruise' have new been
collated and listed, and will soon be available for
distribution. Later lists will incorporate the
scientific vocabulary now coming out of
Gainesville.
o Policy statements about 'when to borrow and when to
mataphorize' and discussion of same.
o Proposed grammar changes and their discussion.
o Announcements of the availability of items in the
new learning kit." . . .
"*Lognet* is still a publication of the membership. So to
get *Lognet* you need to be a Member. But dues are still
only $25 a year, which is about $2 a copy if you figure that
most of what you get is *Lognet*. Dues are only half that
for students."
. . . "we like to get two years dues paid at once."
[paragraphs about an article destined for CACM (arguing that
Loglan is syntactically unambiguous), translation of
scientific texts underway, ongoing authorship of a program in
FORTH to do flashcard management, and other stuff]
The letter was signed "James Cooke Brown".tmb@tardis.UUCP (Thomas M. Breuel) (01/08/86)
Does anyone have more recent references on LOGLAN than the 1960 Scientific American article? From what I read, the language did not strike me as too well designed. Among other things, the authors didn't seem to know whether they wanted to create a language that is easy to learn or that is expressive in certain respects. Nevertheless, I would like to see a more detailed description of it, and I would like to know what ever became of it. Thanks, Thomas.
cdsm@icdoc.UUCP (Chris Moss) (01/13/86)
In article <10128@tardis.UUCP> tmb@tardis.UUCP (Thomas M. Breuel) writes: >Does anyone have more recent references on LOGLAN than the 1960 >Scientific American article? There are several books by J.C. Brown published by the Loglan Institute. at Ann Arbor. The two I have immediate reference to are "Loglan 1", 1966 (a grammar) and Loglan 4 & 5 (1969) Dictionary. >From what I read, the language did not strike me as too well designed. With hindsight I agree. I got a couple of students here to do dissertations on it around 1980; they didn't do too well and it wasn't all their fault (or all mine). The last I heard from the Loglan conference was that nobody had yet learned to *speak* Loglan and that seems pretty damning. Things may have changed but I doubt it. Incidentally, has anyone opinions about the Esperanto project which is part of the Eurotra project. (Book called "Distributed Language Translation" by A. Witkam - BSO Utrecht 1983). He attempts to avoid ambiguities in the syntax by markings not unlike Russell's original scheme for Logic. It's designed as the intermediate language for the multi-language translation project, with interactive disambiguation. He doesn't seem to have paid much attention to semantic ambiguities.