Lojban

By on Apr 29, 2009 in Lojban

I had once assumed that if I were to learn a constructed language, it would be Esperanto. It seems to be the most popular conlang out there, with several studies done on its effectiveness on improving language-aquisition skills. But last week my brother reminded me what assuming does and convinced me to start learning Lojban with him. Lojban is described as a logical language with unambiguous grammar, so it should be easier to learn than a natural language.

Lojban.org describes the features of the language as such:

  • Lojban is designed to be used by people in communication with each other, and possibly in the future with computers.
  • Lojban is designed to be culturally neutral.
  • Lojban has an unambiguous grammar, which is based on the principles of logic.
  • Lojban has phonetic spelling, and unambiguous resolution of sounds into words.
  • Lojban is simple compared to natural languages; it is easy to learn.
  • Lojban’s 1300 root words can be easily combined to form a vocabulary of millions of words.
  • Lojban is regular; the rules of the language are without exception.
  • Lojban attempts to remove restrictions on creative and clear thought and communication.
  • Lojban has a variety of uses, ranging from the creative to the scientific, from the theoretical to the practical.

 Why learn it?

Everyone’s reasons for learning a particular language are personal, whether that language is natural or constructed. For my brother and I, we have always had similar interests, including an interest in learning other languages, but we’ve never agreed on a language to learn. I took German in high school, he took French. I primarily study Spanish now, he studies Japanese on occasion. With both of us studying Lojban, we now have a language that we both study together, and in theory requires less time and energy than a natural language to learn. Hopefully this means we can quickly be effective in communicating with each using Lojban.

Lojban Resources

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  4. Patrick’s Spanish Study Methods
  5. Children’s Books in Spanish
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7 Comment(s)

  1. One problem with learning it is that most resources are technical and hard to learn from.

    The upside is that you can use it on the Internet. Oh, wait.
    But I heard the Lojban community is really nice, though. :)

    lyzazel | Apr 29, 2009 | Reply

  2. What i find really interesting are the emotional and attitudinal indicators. You can take any phrase and tack a couple of these small words on the end to precisely explain what your intention or feeling is about it. sorta like really really advanced smileys.

    doviende | May 2, 2009 | Reply

  3. @doviende: I honestly haven’t gone far enough with Lojban to know that yet, although I did know about a word that indicates that you are speaking figuratively instead of literally. It’s pretty fascinating stuff!

    I like your blog btw, and have subscribed to it.

    peter | May 2, 2009 | Reply

  4. fi’i do (welcome!)

    We do try to be friendly. :)

    The attitudinals belong to the selma’o UI (selma’o = se cmavo = cmavo category). One good important historic reference for cmavo is this list:

    http://www.lojban.org/publications/wordlists/cmavo_selmaho_order.txt

    The second column of that list, in all caps (for odd historical reasons), is the selma’o. The heart of selma’o UI is the 39 scales listed there under UI1. Each can also have “nai” appended to turn it into its opposite, or “cu’i” to turn it into a neutral midpoint, for instance: “.o’a” = pride, “.o’a nai” = shame, “.o’a cu’i” = modesty. There are also intensity modifiers, “ru’e” for a weaker version, “sai” for a strong version and “cai” for an extremely strong version (“cai” is rarely used, it’s reserved for very strong emotions, like cursing): “.o’a ru’e” a little bit proud, “.o’a nai cai” dying of embarassment.

    I think that a good way to begin communicating with attitudinals, especially if you’re studying with someone IRL, is to just start with an attitudinal or two (I suggest “.ui”, happiness/sadness) and learn to ask & answer a basic emotion question. The basic emotion question word is “pei”, used in place of an intensity indicator, like “.ui pei”, how happy (or sad) are you. You can give answers like: “ru’e”, a little happy, “nai sai”, quite sad, “cai” extremely happy, “nai ru’e”, a little sad. So a simple sample conversation:

    A: .ui pei
    B: nai ru’e .ui pei
    A: sai .uu

    A: How happy/sad are you?
    B: I’m a little bit sad, how bout you?
    A: I’m quite happy. I’m sorry you’re not feeling well.

    Please write to me, selckiku@gmail.com, and I’d be happy to answer any questions that you have. There’s a lot of Lojbanic activity online, more and more places these days, so please come hang out with us. It’s true that we only have a few pedagogical materials so far; I’m working on a set of video lessons but I’m a terrible perfectionist. :) We have a strong oral (pe’a, actually typing mostly) tradition, though, where we ask and answer a lot of questions about our language. That’s still the best way to learn Lojban.

    The traditional Lojbanic forums are the mailing lists, and #lojban on Freenode. These days there’s also a lot of activity on identi.ca (!lojban) and Twitter (#lojban). You can also find less active forums places like Livejournal, Facebook, etc.

    Thanks for your interest.

    .e’o sai ko sarji la .lojban.
    Please, support Lojban.

    .i ko ko kurji
    Take care of (and be taken care of by) yourself.

    (Two traditional sayings.)

    mu’o mi’e la stela se ckiku
    (c-ya i’m Lock Key-Opened)

    la stela selckiku | May 13, 2009 | Reply

  5. .i’i fi’i do la’o .irk. irc://irc.freenode.org/#lojban .irk. do rinsa .oi-nai

    Twey | May 13, 2009 | Reply

  6. @Twey: ki’e

    peter | May 13, 2009 | Reply

  7. mi tugni la’o gy twey gy i pe’u do’u ko vitke so’omi la’o .irk. irc://irc.freenode.org/#lojban .irk. e irk irc://irc.freenode.org/#makfa irk i so’ami xendo gi’e sidju do lo zu’o cilre

    Stephen Pollei | May 13, 2009 | Reply

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