
Lojban: A constructed language, grammatically based on Predicate Calculus - RiderOfGiraffes
http://www.lojban.org/tiki/Lojban+Introductory+Brochure
======
human_v2
Lojban: "spelling is phonetic and unambiguous"

They clearly ignored that rule for the name of the language =)

On a more serious note, this is rather exciting. It would make a very good
candidate for a universal language. A great deal of time and effort went into
making this language. Hopefully this isn't the last time I hear of Lojban.

~~~
DanielStraight
If you like this, you should read In The Land of Invented Languages by Arika
Okrent. Aside from the being the best non-fiction book I've ever read, it
talks about Lojban and characteristics of invented languages that make them
suitable for becoming a universal language. It turns out, Lojban would make a
terrible universal language for precisely the reason I pointed out in my other
post. It's too complicated. When we speak, we frequently start a sentence not
knowing how it's going to end. We pause and insert filler words to give us
time to form our thoughts. We use ambiguity because sometimes we just don't
know precisely what we're trying to say (Lojban has, if I recall correctly
from Okrent's book, over 30 ways to say 'and'). Forcing people to have a
complete understanding of what they want to say before saying it won't make
them more clear when they talk, it'll make them not talk.

~~~
tijlan

      > When we speak, we frequently start a sentence not knowing how it's going to end.
    

You can start and continue with a Lojban sentence indefinitely via various
means. Metalinguistic markers such as _sei ... se'u_ allows a discursive (on-
the-fly) predicate or sentence. You can insert parenthetical notes with _to
... toi_ into anywhere. You can insert the attitudinals (used to express
attitudes, emotions, evidentiality, etc.) into anywhere. A construct called
_tanru_ allows an endless sequence of predicates (whose form in Lojban do not
alter according to the natlang parts of speech such as adjective or adverb,
thus imposing less restrictions on the way you keep forming a sentence than
natlangs such as English does). With _li'o_ you can omit any quantity of text
you don't want in your expressions. With _si/sa/su_ you can 'erase' various
mistakes in your utterance. And so forth.

    
    
      > We pause and insert filler words to give us time to form our thoughts.
    

That's what _y_ is for in Lojban.

    
    
      > We use ambiguity because sometimes we just don't know precisely what we're trying to say
    

The unambiguity of Lojban is mostly syntactic, not always semantic. You can be
semantically ambiguous in Lojban with e.g. tanru.

    
    
      > (Lojban has, if I recall correctly from Okrent's book, over 30 ways to say 'and').
    

Which includes _ju'e_ , a vague connective for "and".

    
    
      > Forcing people to have a complete understanding of what they want to say before saying it
    

Which is not the case in Lojban.

~~~
DanielStraight
Syntactic ambiguity is half the point. I still have to decide whether or not I
want to use the vague/all-purpose connective for "and." If I want to add
parenthetical information, I have to realize I'm doing that and indicate it.
If I want to "erase" a mistake, I have to recognize that that's what I want to
do and use the proper word. I still have to know exactly what I intend to say.
When I'm speaking, I don't think to myself, "Ok, this is parenthetical... this
is correcting an error... this is vague and all-purpose." I just speak.

In Python, whether or not a method is private is defined basically by whether
or not you call it from another class. In Java, you have to be explicit about
it. You CAN just declare everything public (be vague and all-purpose), but
aside from being frowned upon, you still have to conciously decide to do this.
If you don't care about the protection of scope, you can make everything
public, but you're still specifying scope. In Python, you don't specify scope
at all. Even if you wanted to, you can't.

The same thing shows up in type checking. If you want, you just call
everything an object in Java. It's vague and all-purpose, but you still have
to specify a type. You still can't write 'a = 4'. You still have to write
'Object a = new Integer(4);', which it's tough to argue is simpler just
because it isn't type-checked.

Explicit ambiguity is not much closer than explicit disambiguity to implicit
ambiguity.

I realize at this point, I'm getting beyond my own knowledge of Lojban, but I
just want to make the general point that being able to be ambiguous does not
automatically afford the advantages of the natural ambiguity in "natlangs."

~~~
tijlan

      > I still have to decide whether or not I want to use the vague/all-purpose connective for "and."
    

If you are undetermined, you use the undetermined option, the vague one. You
don't really make a decision for that.

    
    
      > If I want to add parenthetical information, I have to realize I'm doing that and indicate it. If I want to "erase" a mistake, I have to recognize that that's what I want to do and use the proper word. I still have to know exactly what I intend to say.
    

Planning is not required for adding parenthetical information. You use it on
the spot where you happen to want it.

If you don't recognize that you want to erase a mistake, you just don't use
the erasers.

    
    
      > When I'm speaking, I don't think to myself, "Ok, this is parenthetical... this is correcting an error... this is vague and all-purpose." I just speak.
    

I'm not a native English speaker. When I started learning and speaking in
English, I would think to myself, "Ok, the word "which", when used after a
slight pause, which corresponds to the comma in writing, it means a non-
restrictive relative pronoun, which is what I want now, so I'm going to use it
that way". As I kept practicing the language, I internalized the rule,
becoming less and less actively conscious of it. Lojban is no exception. I
have already internalized some parts of the grammar to which I used to pay
much attention in my earlier period of learning.

Also important to note is that, what English expresses with non-verbal
properties such as intonation, Lojban can do verbally. When you orally say
something in English which you would put in a parenthesis in writing, your
speech act are still subject to some phonetic principles such as inserting a
pause, changing the rhythm, lowering the pitch, using less breath, and so on.
You consciously or unconsciously have to be in command of these properties if
you are to successfully deliver your utterance. A particular combination of
these non-verbal phonetic properties is what Lojban expresses with _to ...
toi_ , the parenthetical markers. Whether or not you are actively conscious of
them is a matter of internalization. Just like an experienced English speaker
not always actively thinks about each noun's grammatical number in their
utterance but still manages to add the plural marker "s" where appropriate, an
experienced Lojban speaker would be able to correctly start a parenthetical
note with "to" but without always actively checking whether or not that's what
they really want to say.

> I realize at this point, I'm getting beyond my own knowledge of Lojban, but
> I just want to make the general point that being able to be ambiguous does
> not automatically afford the advantages of the natural ambiguity in
> "natlangs."

Could you give me an English example with such advantages?

------
DanielStraight
What they don't tell you is that Lojban is so complicated no one can speak it.
Go to the forums and pick almost any thread that contains Lojban, and you'll
find debating about the language. If the supporters can't even speak it right,
what hope if there for those who just want to communicate?

~~~
RiderOfGiraffes
My experience suggests that there are a handful of people who can read, write
and speak the language fairly well, using it, when they choose, as their
primary means of communication.

Most of the discussion falls into two types.

The first type is when a newbie tries to transliterate into lojban, and often
says something they don't mean. This is common with anyone learning another
language, it's just that in lojban one can be much more precise about what was
wrong, because there's a formal grammar. Common confusions are mixing "verbs"
with "nouns", neither of which have an exact matching concept in lojban, hence
for some it's tough to get a grip on what's going on.

The second is debating the semantics. What does this word, explicitly created
for lojban, actually mean? What's the difference between a pot and a jar? How,
in English, do we decide which word to use? What is the defining
characteristic of each?

These are often held up as criticisms of the language, but I think unfairly
so. They provoke debates in epistomolgy, semantics and pragmatics, and touch
on many of the questions that will need to be answered by the machine
translation, semantic web and artifical intelligence challenges.

And what's the point in learning a language that's just a re-coding of your
native language?

The other undeniable short-coming is that there is no underlying "culture."
Much of the interest in learning, say, Russian, comes from the cultural
insights. There is none of that in lojban.

Lojban isn't ready for generic, general purpose communication. It's still
growing. If all you want is a tool, don't go there.

If you want mind-expanding concepts and debate, have a look.

~~~
DanielStraight
First of all, let me get something out of the way. There are no languages that
are just re-coding of other languages.

I understand the idea behind Lojban but you've already conceded my point.
Lojban is not a suitable language for communication.

~~~
RiderOfGiraffes

      > There are no languages that are just re-coding
      > of other languages.
    

That's true, but it's "less true" of Italian/Spanish or Russian/Bulgarian than
it is of, say, Russian/Swedish. I suspect that we are in complete agreement,
and might argue only about precision of expression in our opinions.

And I didn't say lojban is unsuitable for communication. There are a few
people who use it exclusively when communicating with each other. It is not
yet ready for generic, general-purpose communication, just as the newest
computer programming language isn't ready for mainstream use by those not
interesting in the language so much as getting things done.

But again, I suspect we are/would be in "violent agreement" about most of
these points. I contend that lojban is, regardless, mind-expandingly
interesting.

For some.

