(Originally appeared in Lognet 99/1)
Members of The Loglan Institute realize, I’m sure, that I am the editor of our occasional journal, La Logli, and as you see, I’m standing in for Terry Smithwick in the present issue of Lognet.
Our Founder, Dr. James Cooke Brown, needs to devote much of his time to the publication of his book on the Job Market, and to the writing of a further book which is dear to his heart. Along with this he will be engaged in several specific Loglan projects, projects which only he is qualified to accomplish. As a result, I have been easing into the role of Chairman of the Board of Directors of TLI (The Loglan Institute), and CEO of the Institute. So from now on, it will be up to me to organize the day-to-day running of The Institute, and to establish policy with my board concerning, among other things, our publications.
I must first apologize to members for the paucity of Lognet issues in the last couple of years. You must all be feeling rather neglected. But in part, you know, it’s your collective fault. There hasn’t been a great deal of material to make into the three or so Lognet issues that have been missed.
There are two things that we can do about that: you can send material—articles about Loglan, or about logic or linguistics in general, your letters and anything loglandical you can think up—what about a Loglan crossword puzzle? Brief translations, poems, anything you care to create in Loglan. The more we get, the fatter the issues can be.
Secondly I intend from now on to produce Lognet as a regular thrice yearly journal, even if it be only a few pages. We can at least keep you abreast of what’s been happening in The Institute and particularly the Keugru, and you’ll see that we are still alive and kicking. I hope, though, that we’ll have more to give you than that.
In the case of La Logli the immediate future is pretty clear: There will be a couple of issues devoted to part of the novel I’m working on, Ne Neri po Vizgoi je la Loglandias, (A First Visit to Loglandia, generally referred to as “FVL”). A couple of early sections have appeared in Lognet and La Logli, and those will be republished, with more extensive notes. One of JCB’s projects is the fine-tooth-combing of that text, to turn it into “perfect” Loglan. The novel is not yet finished, but the 35,000 words that are ready now are worth presenting to our membership for reading practice—something that has hitherto been rather scarce in Loglan.
In addition to that, we have enough material, I think, for a La Logli issue devoted to the history of language. With Loglan, we are poised on the growing tip of the linguistic tree: to look back at where we came from may help us determine where we are going next.
Because, hoi Ra Dipri je mi (all my dears), it is we who have assumed the task of taking this language into the future. JCB originated it, and, helped over thirty-some years by numerous gifted people, brought it to the stage where it now stands. And for as long as he remains with us (Eo stolo, hoi Djim!) he will be helping us along, particularly with the ftc-ing of FVL, with the Resolver project, and with an extension of the MacTeach programs. That leaves a lot for us to do.
So I’m appealing to you, the membership, to lend your many and varied talents to TLI.
First of all I’d like to know how many of our members have computers, and how many of those have Internet access. Maybe we could distribute our publications electronically, or a large proportion of them. That could save us some money, but at the same time, like me, you may prefer to read print on paper rather than on a computer display.
Then I’d be interested to know what Loglan-relevant talents are out there, and whether they relate to any particular projects that I’d love to see implemented.
For example, it would be great if we had a Loglan Institute in a virtual world. On the Internet there are a number of such worlds that one can visit, ranging from simple text-based MUDs (Multi-User Domains) to sophisticated 3-D graphical environments, some even with sound. Active Worlds is one that I’ve looked at: it’s a three dimensional space which you visit as an avatar—a graphic representation of a human or animal. You can use a stock avatar, or design your own. The space is full of buildings that people have constructed: you enter the buildings, explore, and interact with the avatars of other visitors. What people say appears as a text balloon.
You can lay claim to unused space, to construct your own building, and there are ready-made components to help you do this. That’s where I’d like to see some talented youngster build us an Institute, where visitors could come and get a taste of Loglan, then perhaps stay on for a real-time class or seminar. For our widely scattered membership, that would be a very practical method of learning the language.
Another area vital to TLI is the recruiting of more logli. This is the most important thing we have to do. How are we going to do it? We need a publicist: someone who knows how to find all the people out there, and there must be a horde of them—even though a Logical Language is certainly not everybody’s cup of tea—who could become fascinated by this extraordinary language of ours. Publicity is expensive of course: TLI could spend a modest sum, if we could be pretty sure of achieving a worth-while result. Selling things on the Internet seems to be growing exponentially at present: we need to take advantage of that, but we’d probably do well to look at more traditional avenues too. Is there anyone out there who can advise us?
We have reserved the domain name loglan.org, and I hope that pretty soon the Loglan materials that James Jennings and Bob Maclvor have kindly been hosting will all be brought together on our own site. Someone with expertise in designing Web pages could help us a lot there. It might even be worth acquiring the server software to include our own virtual environment. Someone could have a lot of fun setting that up. Perhaps a teenage son or daughter of a TLI member?
There’s an exciting new development in Loglan that JCB and I have been brainstorming just recently. I won’t say any more about it until it’s been fleshed out rather more. I hope, though, there’ll be enough to present to you all in the next issue of Lognet, which should appear in March or April.
Tо make it easier for you to give us your feedback, theres a questionnaire on page 21. Please complete it; then scan it and email it to me at: (Web Editor's Note: Contact information is been left out as it is no longer current.)
—Hue Liq Aleks
Copyright © 1999 by The Loglan Institute. All rights reserved.