Lojban in teh wiki!



About
"Lojban is a carefully constructed spoken language designed in the hope of removing a large portion of the ambiguity from human communication. It was made well-known by a Scientific American article and references in both science fiction and computer publications. Lojban has been built over five decades by dozens of workers and hundreds of supporters.

While there are many artificial languages, Lojban has a number of features which make it unique:

* 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 grammar is based on the principles of logic.
* Lojban has an unambiguous grammar.
* 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. "
- Lojban.org

tl;dr Lojban is a logic-based language that does lots of neat stuff.


Purpose
The idea behind its existence follows closely with the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, which basically just says that our thoughts and thinking are defined by the language we use. Going upon that hypothesis, the rationale for adopting and using a language such as this lies in the idea that people will apply more logic with their thinking. This is generally considered a good thing because doing so may lend to better problem solving and expressive ability.

I've been very interested in this language for some time now. I've only dabbled on it myself, but when I get more free time I plan to take some time to learn this properly. But in the meantime, I want to discuss basically whether you agree with this or not, and then what might be some good ways to formally implement a language like this. I just happen to think there's so much potential for this. Imagine all the lawyers a language like this could render unemployed!




Also, I'd like to note an interesting discovery I made: E-prime. It's basically English but without the concept of 'to be'. The idea behind this is to discourage or eliminate dogmatic thinking by removing "to be" language constructs, thus requiring users to specify their thoughts in non-subjective terms. Devilesk should probably speak this.




Joke:
AHAHAHAHAH!

Yeah. I know.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Apr 23 2008, 1:32 am by Tuxedo-Templar.

I can't seriously think about Lojban without wandering to New Speak.

Well they both address the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis stating that language dictates thought. Just in somewhat opposite ways.

If we were to suppose that to be true (or true enough, I should say), then why shouldn't we make Lojban a formally spoken language (sorta like Latin was for academic crap, for instance)?

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Apr 23 2008, 1:46 am by Tuxedo-Templar.

... Tuxlar can has logical language fetish?

Well, this isn't a language based on logic, but I'd say it's just as interesting as Lojban.
Saurus
Soreso, the language that can be spoken by mouth, music, dance, and color.

NOT THE SAME MEANING >_>_>_>

Of all the fetishes I could think to have, I wouldn't rank that as a bad one by a long shot.

Don't dismiss the whole idea as simply a 'fetish', though. I'm quite serious. If language DOES dictate thought, then only willful ignorance could allow you to dismiss this.



And besides. What could be better than being able to talk to computers or put lawyers out of business?

Not sure I'd call that a logical language, but yes it is interesting!





Edit: Before anyone buggers to ask, I'll simply state it this way: Politics, Science, Religion, etc. are all a function of language. Language defines the scope and meaning of these things, in other words. The proposition for the use of a logical language (specifically lojban, in this case) is a valid topic in this context, since it implies an effect on all of these things. Especially if the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis holds credibility.

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Apr 23 2008, 3:29 am by Tuxedo-Templar.

Except it DOESN'T... Thought dictates language.
Thinking often happens without language, although language cannot be used without thought. (Although some people come awful close.)
Language is simply a way to convey ideas from one person to another, the only byproduct which language has on internal thought is the order in which we arrange our thoughts. We package our internal ideas in a manner so that we may communicate them to others. The concepts themselves do not change when you change the language used, only the packaging in which they are delivered.

But onto the subject of Lojban. As long as a language is used, it will develop inherent misinterpretations. The reason Lojban remains logical and without exception is because nobody uses it. The same argument could be made for Latin, or many other dead languages. The fact that nobody uses the language maeans that no double meanings can develop, no innuendos can form, and no emotion can be described. But as soon as it is spoken regularly, it will develop these issues, and people will make it just like any other language.

In my opinion, this language is one of the worst, as it is designed to be simple to understand. The more complex a language, the more complex thinking must be required to speak it, and therefor the more complex thought processes a person will be using in using the language. In this way, an illogical language would promote original thinking. Simple language leads to simple thoughts.

Newspeak, essentially, is what you're saying.

Maybe. But when you say one thing, and it comes across to others in a different way than you intended (subjective terms and all that), that part does, in a way, alter the thought behind language when it's passed to others.

Except Latin isn't expressly intended for predicate logic and isn't built expressly to at least minimalize misinterpretations. At least I don't think so.

In any case, if there is a worthwhile value in establishing the use of a logical language (like, say, putting lawyers out of business or giving Politicians a hard time ), why not adopt it? Let's just focus on that part for now: Reasons to adopt the language or not. The actual process of adopting it would be based on having a reason, ultimately, so first thing first.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Apr 23 2008, 4:47 am by Tuxedo-Templar.

I don't really believe that language dictates thought, but a logical language can only be a step up. A language optimized for speed and expressiveness would be GRAET. I don't see anything about speed on there, but I assume it's faster then English or French or something.

It would be really difficult to implement this, however - in fact, I would say that it would be pretty much impossible without solving a lot of lesser problems first. If America embraced Lojban, a large percentage of the world would have to too. Schools start teaching it - after a certain grade of Lojban language class, every single teacher speaks Lojban instead of English.. it could be possible. But not in the near future, and certainly not when half the world thinks that God exists. How can those people speak a logical language?

EDIT: Oh, and tux, I'm pretty sure that when we reach the technological point where a computer can fluently communicate with a human via Lojban, the programmers in the whole wide world would be able to make it work with English. Just to consider the exceptions, all that. Not that hard.

I can play minesweeper and dictate a novelette simultaneously (I did, in fact). Minesweeper is a logic-based game. When I play, I don't even really think about it hardly. Same with programming.

People can mold their minds around logical concepts if they really wanted to, and when they do, it becomes second nature. You just gain so much from expanding your thinking that way, too.


That's not to say a logical language would inspire logical thinking in and of itself. But it would remove illogical constraints on words and meanings that most languages have now, which would allow sharing messages as they are intended logically. THAT is the part that would bring about better logical thinking in general from the use of the language.

At least, I would suspect so.

Well, let's deal with the reasons to make learning something like Lojban worthwhile first. Then deal with finding a process for implementing it.

It'd be far easier for a computer to fluently communicate in Lojban than it would in English. We wouldn't have to wait as long for them to do so, at least.

But what happens to wordplay? Lojban comedy doesn't seem like it would be too funny. No double meanings, ya know? It would entirely kill Shakespeare upon translation.

I'm pretty sure a ton o' programmers working at once can create a good Lojban <-> English converter, or a more to-the-point specialized method to talk via English. And delay will be so minimal in 20 years or so we won't notice it.

Computers won't say much, though.

Well, it sounds much easier to learn, and once people learn it, useful a language then French is. Enough for me.

Sure, we'll lose the English-specific stuff. But we gain so much more. And apparently there IS wordplay possible with Lojban, from what I've been reading.

I dunno. I'd love to be able to program my computer to do shit by talking to it.

Plus you'd get to avoid crap like this with using Lojban:

Open Firefox, SEN, Null, New, U, Search, OMGOMGOMG, play, reone, find Lojban & Other Logic-Based Constructed Languages.

That would be awesome. Still, possible with English.

But no classic 'Duck!' stuff.

and none of this would be prevalent. (Warning: immature humor)

If I had my way, language would be a lot like what Lewis Carroll had attempted. Words would be made up on the spot, and explained if needed, then forgotten. People would be quick to catch on to what sort of meaning they conveyed, not by following strict structural patterns, but by creating various connections between known words and the newly formed ones. Thus "Twas brillig and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe, all mimsy were the borrogoves, and the mome wraths outgrabe." (Quoted from memory.) would be a perfectly understandable sentence at first glance. (Of course that would be if those creatures actually existed...)

It might seem as if such a language would be incomprehensible by anyone who spoke it. But if we listen to children first beginning to speak a language, often times they perform a similar technique. My point is that, among confusion develops a learning, not of simple logic problems, (Which all come down to rather simple formulae. Even computers can solve minesweeper, and much faster than you can.) but rather of learning creative problems. (How do you create a new word to express this idea your having, in a way that it would be immediately understandable to the person your communicating with?)

Holy crap!

Edit: Well you came close to hitting one of the key issues I wanted to address with this thread in this suggestion. You're suggesting that language should be made intuitive. But you're suggesting the answer lies in the human brain's method of formulating words from existing terms. That implies that human brains always have a uniform and consistent way of forming such terms, and that the meanings of existing terms used to formulate with are always agreed upon.

Those are some sharp requirements to count on. Much sharper perhaps than learning a logic-based language to nearly the same (albeit non-intuitive) effect.


To be honest, I'd say humans are just too fucking stupid to function intuitively. Logic, on the other hand, is damn near foolproof.

Post has been edited 4 time(s), last time on Apr 23 2008, 8:14 am by Tuxedo-Templar.