&#62;So I suppose ... anyone who claims Shakespeare can be appreciated in anything but English is just "lying to himself and others" (as you said in an earlier post).<p>It cannot be appreciated to the same degree, no. Just as a 6-year-old cannot appreciate Shakespeare to the same degree that a 50-year-old English literature professor can appreciate it. How this is at all debatable, I have no idea.<p>&#62; With time, assuming the language is used by a significant number of people, it will acquire such a history.<p>This will of course never happen.<p>&#62; Still, while young languages don't have a rich history compared to older languages, they have other advantages (of which Lojban has plenty).<p>There are alternative solutions to requiring everyone to learn a second language. For example, expressing oneself more clearly. This can be accomplished to any desired degree in modern languages.<p>&#62; Also remember that the history that has accrued to older languages is a double-edged sword. Because of this "baggage" it's sometimes difficult to express precisely what you mean without being misunderstood (or perhaps to even know what you mean -- see the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis). Lojban is designed to help overcome such difficulties.<p>On one edge of the sword: the lasting effects of the most skilled manipulators of the given language. The other edge: occasional difficulties with ambiguity and linguistic relativity. To dull the second edge, Lojban requires that we flatten the first. No thanks.