Lojban: Difference between revisions

|nativename=''la .lojban.''

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'''Lojban''' (pronounced {{IPA|ˈloʒban||jbo-lojban.ogg}}) is a [[constructed language|constructed]], [[Syntactic ambiguity|syntactically unambiguous]] human language<!-- based on [[predicate logic]]--> created by the '''Logical Language Group.''' It succeeds the [[Loglan]] project.

The Logical Language Group (LLG) began developing Lojban in 1987. The LLG sought to realize [[Loglan]]'s purposes, and further improve the language by making it more usable and freely available (as indicated by its official full English title, "Lojban: A Realization of Loglan"). After a long initial period of debating and testing, the baseline was completed in 1997, and published as ''The Complete Lojban Language''. In an interview in 2010 with ''[[The New York Times]]'', [[Arika Okrent]], the author of ''In the Land of Invented Languages'', stated: "The constructed language with the most complete grammar is probably Lojban—a language created to reflect the principles of logic."<ref>{{cite news |date=March 10, 2010 |url=http://schott.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/10/questions-answered-invented-languages/ |title=Questions Answered: Invented Languages |publisher=The New York Times Schott's Vocab blog}}</ref>

The name "{{lang|jbo|Lojban}}" is a [[compound (linguistics)|compound]] formed from {{lang|jbo|loj}} and {{lang|jbo|ban}}, which are short forms of {{lang|jbo|logji}} (logic) and {{lang|jbo|bangu}} (language).

Lojban's predecessor, [[Loglan]], a language invented by [[James Cooke Brown]] in 1955 and later developed by The Loglan Institute, was originally conceived as a means to examine the influence of language on the speaker's thought (an assumption known as the [[Linguistic relativity|Sapir–Whorf hypothesis]]).

As Brown started to claim his [[copyright]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://arj.nvg.org/lojban/why-i-like.html|title=Why I like Lojban|work=nvg.org}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ainewsletter.com/newsletters/aix_0503.htm#loglan|title=AI Newsletter|work=ainewsletter.com|access-date=2012-04-27|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111223111830/http://www.ainewsletter.com/newsletters/aix_0503.htm#loglan|archive-date=2011-12-23|url-status=dead}}</ref> on the language's components, bans were put on the community's activity to stop them changing aspects of the language. In order to circumvent such control, a group of people decided to initiate a separate project, departing from the lexical basis of Loglan and reinventing the whole vocabulary, which led to the current lexicon of Lojban. In effect they established in 1987 The Logical Language Group, based in [[Washington, D.C.]] They also won a trial over whether they could call their version of the language "Loglan".<ref>Johansen, Arnt Richard. [http://arj.nvg.org/lojban/why-i-like.html ''Why I like Lojban''] (accessed August 2007)</ref>

<!--Lojban was developed to be a [[worldlang]].  -->

The phonetic form of Lojban {{lang|jbo|gismu}} (root words) was created algorithmically by searching for sound patterns in words with similar meanings in world languages and by multiplying those sound patterns by the number of speakers of those languages. The list of source languages used for the algorithm was limited to the six [[List of languages by number of native speakers|most widely spoken languages]] as of 1987—[[Mandarin Chinese|Mandarin]], [[English language|English]], [[Hindi]], [[Spanish language|Spanish]], [[Russian language|Russian]], and [[Arabic]]. This resulted in root words being in their phonetic form a relatively equal mixture of English and Mandarin, with lesser influences from the other four.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://lojban.github.io/cll/4/14/|title=The Shape Of Words To Come: Lojban Morphology - The Lojban Reference Grammar|website=lojban.github.io}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://mw.lojban.org/papri/me_lu_ju'i_lobypli_li'u_13_moi|title=me lu ju'i lobypli li'u 13 moi - La Lojban|website=mw.lojban.org}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://mw.lojban.org/papri/me_lu_ju'i_lobypli_li'u_14_moi|title=me lu ju'i lobypli li'u 14 moi - La Lojban|website=mw.lojban.org}}</ref>

Lojban has 6 [[vowel]]s and 17 [[consonant]]s. Some of them have, apart from the preferred/standard sounds, permitted variants intended to cover dissimilitude in pronunciation by speakers of different linguistic backgrounds.

! [[Labial consonant|Labial]]

! [[Alveolar consonant|Alveolar]]

! [[Postalveolar consonant|Postalveolar]]

! [[Velar consonant|Velar]]

! [[Glottal consonant|Glottal]]

! colspan="2" | [[Nasal stop|Nasal]]

! rowspan="2" | [[Plosive consonant|Plosive]]

! style="font-size: 80%;" | [[Voiceless consonant|voiceless]]

! style="font-size: 80%;" | [[Voiced consonant|voiced]]

! rowspan="2" | [[Fricative consonant|Fricative]]

! style="font-size: 80%;" | [[Voiceless consonant|voiceless]]

! style="font-size: 80%;" | [[Voiced consonant|voiced]]

! colspan="2" | [[Approximant consonant|Approximant]]

! colspan="2" | [[Rhotic consonant|Rhotic]]

! [[Front vowel|Front]]

! [[Central vowel|Central]]

! [[Back vowel|Back]]

! [[Close vowel|Close]]

! [[Mid vowel|Mid]]

! [[Open vowel|Open]]

! [[International Phonetic Alphabet|IPA]]

! [[Latin alphabet|Latin]]

<ref name=footnote1>Sonorants {{IPA|/m n l r/}} may be [[syllabic consonant|syllabic]].</ref>

<ref name=footnote2>There is no preferred sound for {{IPA|/r/}}; any [[rhotic consonant|rhotic sound]] is equally acceptable.</ref>

# Lojban is defined by the [[phoneme]]s rather than graphemes; as long as they are correctly rendered so as to maintain the Lojbanic audio-visual [[isomorphism]], a representational system can be said to be an appropriate orthography of the language;

There are 16 [[diphthong]]s (and no [[triphthong]]s). A distinction between diphthongs and monophthongs can be written by inserting a comma in the Latin alphabet. Vowel hiatus is also prevented by inserting an apostrophe, which usually indicates {{IPA|[h]}}, though there are other valid realizations. For those who have trouble pronouncing certain [[consonant cluster]]s, there is the option of adding vowels between them ([[epenthesis]]), as long as they differ sufficiently from the phonological vowels and are pronounced as short as possible. The resulting additional syllables are not factored in the grammar, including for the purposes of stress determination.

* <!-- has a grammar that is based on [[predicate logic]], -->is designed to express complex logical constructs precisely.

* has no irregularities or ambiguities in spelling and grammar (although word derivation relies on arbitrary variant forms). This gives rise to high intelligibility for [[parsing|computer parsing]].

* allows highly [[second-language acquisition|systematic learning]] and use, compared to most natural languages.

* possesses an intricate system of indicators which effectively communicate contextual [[attitude (psychology)|attitude]] or [[emotion]]s.<!--* It does not have [[simplicity]] as a design criterion.-->

Lojban has three [[parts of speech|word-classes]]: predicate words ({{lang|jbo|brivla}}), structure words ({{lang|jbo|cmavo}}), and name words ({{lang|jbo|cmevla}}). Each of them has uniquely identifying properties, so that one can unambiguously recognize which word is of which part of speech in a string of the language. They may be further divided in sub-classes. There also exists a special fragmental form ({{lang|jbo|rafsi}}) assigned to some predicate words and structure words, from which compound words ({{lang|jbo|lujvo}}) may be created.<ref>Cowan, John Woldemar. [https://mw.lojban.org/papri/the_Lojban_Reference_Grammar  ''The Complete Lojban Language: 4.1]'' (accessed August 2007)</ref><ref>Nicholas, Nick, and John Cowan. [http://lojban.org/publications/level0/brochure/morphol.html  ''What is Lojban?: 2.2''] (accessed August 2007)</ref>

Its [[Linguistic typology|typology]] can be said to be basically [[subject–verb–object]] and [[subject–object–verb]]. However, it can practically be anything:

* '''[[Gloss (annotation)|Gloss]]:''' ''many small fire past-continuing burn inside the house'' (Translation after English)

Lojban can easily "imitate" even one-word sentences from [[polysynthetic language]]s, for example:

* '''[[Nuu-chah-nulth language]]''': ''inkiwihl'minik'isit''

* '''[[Gloss (annotation)|Gloss]]''': ''inkiw (fire/burn) -ihl (in-the-house) -'minik (plural) -'is (diminutive) -'it (past-tense)''

A translation of ''[[The North Wind and the Sun]]''<!--, used in comparative [[International Phonetic Alphabet|IPA]] realizations-->.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://mw.lojban.org/extensions/ilmentufa/o/index.html|title='The North Wind and the Sun' in Lojban|website=mw.lojban.org}}</ref>

The activities of Lojban speakers are mostly via the [[Internet]]:

* [https://mw.lojban.org/papri/Lojban_Live_Chat Lojban chat]: Based on [[Telegram (messaging service)|Telegram]], [[Slack (software)|Slack]] messengers and the Freenode [[IRC]] network.

* [[:jbo:Main Page|uikipedias]]: The Lojban Wikipedia, where discussions may be conversed in English.

* [[Bob LeChevalier]] (also known as {{lang|jbo|la lojbab}}): the founder and the President of the LLG.<ref name="LLG Members">{{cite web|url=https://mw.lojban.org/papri/LLG_members|title=LLG Members|work=lojban.org}}</ref>

* [[Robin Lee Powell]] (also known as {{lang|jbo|la camgusmis}}): the author of a novel-sized story, {{lang|jbo|la nicte cadzu}} (''Night Walkers'').

* [[Jorge Llambías]] (also known as {{lang|jbo|la xorxes}}): one of the most active Lojbanists, having done several translations. He is also a prominent figure on the mailing list, helping beginners with the language.

* [[John W. Cowan]]<!-- (aka ''jcowan'')-->: the author of ''The Complete Lojban Language''.

* [[Miles Forster]] (also known as {{lang|jbo|la selpa'i}}): a German Lojbanist who wrote the song ''ca pa djedi''<ref name="ca pa djedi">{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZomVOBE5-0|title=Ca Pa Djedi (Original Song in Lojban by selpa'i)|work=YouTube}}</ref> and made several large translations into Lojban.

* [[Nick Nicholas]] (also known as ''la nitcion''): an Australian linguist, and coauthor of ''Lojban For Beginners''.<!--* Matt Arnold (aka ''la epkat''): has been contributing to the [[translation project]] and software development.-->

The principal difference between Lojban and Loglan is one of lexicon. The words for Lojban were made by the same principles as those for Loglan; that is, candidate forms were chosen according to how many sounds they had in common with their equivalent in some of the most commonly spoken languages on Earth, which was then multiplied by the number of speakers of the languages with which the words had letters in common. The difference with the Lojban remake of the root words was that the weighting was updated to reflect the actual numbers of speakers for the languages. This resulted in word forms that had fewer sounds taken from English, and more sounds taken from Chinese. For instance, the Loglan word ''norma'' is equivalent to the Lojban word {{lang|jbo|cnano}} (cf. [[Chinese language|Chinese]] 常, [[pinyin]] ''cháng''), both meaning "normal".

Loglan and Lojban still have essentially the same grammars, and most of what is said in the [[#Grammar|Grammar]] section above holds true for Loglan as well. Most simple, declarative sentences could be translated word by

In the new phonology for Lojban, the consonant ''q'' and the vowel ''w'' were removed, and the consonant ''h'' was replaced by ''x''. The consonant ' ([[apostrophe]]) was added with the value of [h] in the [[International Phonetic Alphabet]], but its distribution is such that it can appear only [[intervocally]], and in discussions of the morphology and phonotactics, it is described not as a proper consonant, but a "[[voiceless glide]]". (This phoneme is realized as [[θ]] by some speakers.)

{{lang|mis|gua\spi}} is a descendant of Loglan but is [[tonal language|tonal]], developed by Jim Carter. Instead of structure words there are in {{lang|mis|Gua\spi}} six different tones. Predicates have only one syllable instead of two. Some of its characteristics, including tones, phonotactics, expressions for masses vs sets, non-existence of metalinguistic negation, etc., received criticism.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://mw.lojban.org/papri/critique_of_gua%5Cspi|title=critique of gua\spi|work=lojban.org}}</ref>

* [[Case grammar]]

* [[FrameNet]]

* [[Simplified Technical English]]