Lojban Final Baseline - Preliminary Announcement

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>]

PRELIMINARY ANNOUNCEMENT
by Robert LeChevalier
President of The Logical Language Group, Inc.

I am pleased to announce that the long-awaited moment is about to
arrive.  After more than 42 years of work, The Loglan Project has
produced a completed language design, which is generally called
"Lojban".  That completed language design is being turned over to the
budding community of Loglan/Lojban speakers and writers for their use
and/or application in any way they see fit.  The language and language
design are being placed irrevocably in the public domain.

The formal announcement, of which this is a preliminary issue, will take
place on 9 January 1997, subject to approval by the Board of Directors
of The Logical Language Group, Inc.  There may be changes, and in
particular, the status of reference grammar publication described below
will be updated to reflect the then-current status.

Comments and questions germane to the text of this announcement, and
suggested changes for the final announcement are welcome either on
Lojban List or sent to me personally at the email address below.


NAME

Having faithfully adhered to the principles set forth by Loglan Project
founder and language inventor James Cooke Brown, the Logical Language
Group, which assumed stewardship of the design process in 1987, and
incorporated in 1988, considers and declares that "Lojban is Loglan".
Backed by a decision of the US Circuit Court of Appeals for the Federal
Circuit, the use of the name "Loglan", "Loglan/Lojban", and "Lojban", as
well as the official name "Lojban- A Realization of Loglan" are all
valid for the current language.


REFERENCE GRAMMAR STATUS

John Cowan has posted the final draft of the Lojban Reference Grammar to
the Lojban FTP site, per the address below.

The text has been turned into HTML format for easier viewing with
HTML/WWW browsers and viewers.  (Accurate viewing will require a browser
that responds to font directives, and will also require the SIL IPA font
and the Symbol font set for correct viewing of non-ASCII symbols
including the IPA symbols for the pronunciation guides.)

Because the HTML conversion of the text was mostly a manual job, there
are irregularities in the conversion.  These do not need to be reported
to us (yet) since we know there are a lot of them.  John will be
continuing to work on the HTML early in the next week, and will also
make corrections for typos, grammatical errors, and grossly unclear
explanations while completing the HTML process.  No changes to the
technical content or the Lojban language itself are intended, but
because the text of the book itself is the description of the baseline,
we are holding off formally declaring the baseline until he completes
(more of the) formatting.

It is intended that the baselined form of the reference grammar will be
the HTML format version posted at the time that the baseline takes
effect.  Following that baseline date, only typos, HTML conversion
errors, and other severe errors that cause reader confusion which are
identified during the printed book production phase will justify changes
to the document, and such changes will be individually documented and
made public as a formal change.


FINAL LOJBAN DESIGN BASELINE DATE

Since the technical work is done, we are now setting a firm date.  The
final baseline of the Lojban language, as documented in the Lojban
Reference Manual, will take place at 0000 GMT on 9 January 1997.  This
is an arbitrary date, set based on John Cowan's estimate of what remains
to be done to complete the HTML conversion.

>From the standpoint of the Logical Language Group, Inc., THE LOJBAN
LANGUAGE DESIGN is considered COMPLETE upon that baseline.


LEXICON STATUS AND BASELINE

Because the Lojban dictionary has not been completed, the lexicon
(consisting of the gismu, cmavo, rafsi assignments, and some lujvo) is
only loosely covered by this baseline.  The final baseline of the
lexicon, and electronic publication of the dictionary is scheduled for
30 June 1997, approximately 6 months from now (a preliminary draft of
the dictionary is available at this time on our FTP site).  Since we
came pretty close to the 1 January 1997 planned date for reference
grammar completion, we believe this target date is realistic.

Lexical items used in the reference grammar are of course totally
baselined as of next week.  The only purpose for the 6 month delay is to
provide an opportunity to verify the dictionary text for consistency
with the rest of the baseline, and to standardize and clarify incomplete
definitions of cmavo and lujvo.  The amount of documentation change and
editing required to complete the dictionary, which is the baseline
document for the Lojban lexicon covered therein, requires that we not
call that document "final" at this time.  The 6 month delay was
therefore approved by the membership of LLG voting at LogFest (our
annual meeting) last summer).


5 YEAR MINIMUM DESIGN FREEZE

At that point, the whole Lojban Language design will not only be
complete, but the language definition will be frozen for a minimum
period of 5 years, during which period LLG commits itself not to
consider ANY change proposals for the language.


DEFINITION OF "BASELINE" AND "FREEZE"

By using the terms "baseline" and "frozen", LLG is stating that during
the minimum 5 year period, it will be committed to supporting the
language status quo, and will neither propose nor make any changes to
the language design.  LLG will actively seek to expand the Lojban user
community, and will encourage that community to actively use the
language.  Presuming that such an active community forms, further
language evolution will NOT take place by prescriptive changes produced
by the Lojban designers, but rather by the sorts of processes that cause
change in natural language.  The language freeze will last indefinitely
beyond the five year minimum period.  LLG's role then will be to promote
the language and to serve a research and description function in
analyzing how Lojban speakers actually use the language.


ALL UNRESOLVED ISSUES TO BE RESOLVED BY ACTUAL USAGE

Design points not covered in the reference grammar and/or the dictionary
are intended to be resolved by actual usage, preferably by skilled
speakers of the language.  LLG may report on such usage when questions
arise, but will not rule prescriptively on whether the usage is
"correct" or not - if a usage occurs in natural communication and it is
comprehended and accepted by other Lojbanists, then the usage is
de facto "valid".

Some Lojban supporters have asked that LLG make specific plans for a
language review following the 5 year period, that it establish a
committee and/or plan a formal procedure for proposing and discussing
proposals during that period for consideration and implementation
following the period.  The LLG Board of Directors believes that this is
contrary to the intended purpose of the baseline and freeze, which is to
turn over the design to the users of the language and to remove LLG from
ANY prescriptive role which constrains the natural evolution of the
language.

LLG makes the commitment, however, that should it ever decide to
establish any such procedures after the 5 year period, that all
discussions of possible changes will occur solely in the Lojban
language, ensuring that only actual users of Lojban will participate in
any decision process.

Editors of publications sponsored by LLG will of course have discretion
to accept or reject or edit Lojban text according to their own criteria,
which may include conformance with the language prescription.  They do
so however as individual Lojbanists who are using the language, based on
their own competence in the language, and not on behalf of LLG.
Similarly, members and officers of LLG who are actively speaking and
using the language may express opinions about Lojban text and issues,
but do so as Lojban users independent of their LLG roles.


EXPERIMENTAL USAGES

The Lojban design has been provided some room specifically for trying
new ideas.  All cmavo of the form "xVV" are formally undefined, as are
all cmavo-form words formed by adding one or more apostrophe and
additional vowels onto the currently used forms VV and CVV.  There is
also an untested concept for a specific subset of 6 letter fu'ivla space
to be used as experimental "fu'ivla gismu" which would have some ability
to be compounded into lujvo (which of course would also be
experimental).

These wordform spaces may be freely be used to experiment with new
usages in actual communication.  We intend (but will not enforce) that
the "xVV" cmavo space be permanently experimental, meaning that if
Lojban users wish to adopt an experimental usage that has been found
workable, that they will choose a cmavo from the longer undefined cmavo
space for permanent usage.  The very small number of undefined cmavo in
the regular cmavo space could also be used, but we urge that they be
reserved only for the most useful, widely accepted, and frequently used
new ideas.

Likewise, user additions to the regular 5-letter gismu forms are
discouraged.  LLG intends to independently verify user-added gismu for
consistency with the existing prescription, and will document deviations
descriptively, but will not suggest or enforce alterations.

Similarly, LLG intends to document new lujvo and fu'ivla that come into
use.  Consistency or conflict with the lujvo-place structure conventions
may be analyzed, but LLG will not suggest or enforce alteration to match
the conventions.  Recognizing that Type IV fu'ivla are difficult to make
and to ensure validity, LLG intends to provide some type of service to
Lojbanists who wish to verify that a proposed word follows the
prescription.  Individual Lojbanists providing this service on behalf of
LLG may suggest alterations, but LLG as an organization will not enforce
the prescription.

----
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/";