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Anyone here learning Lojban? | ||
Tags: Conlang | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| a3 Triglot Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 5257 days ago 273 posts - 370 votes  Speaks: Bulgarian*, English, Russian Studies: Portuguese, German, Italian, Spanish, Norwegian, Finnish | Message 1 of 11 14 January 2012 at 4:05pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
For those of you who dont know, Lojban is a conlang (constructed language). An extract from its homepage summarizes it quite well:
What fascinates me about this language that it is completely different from all other languages that exist - both natural and constructed. Lojban doesn't have nouns, verb, particles, adverbs, etc. Instead, its part of speech are cmavo, brivla and cmene - as you can see they are so different than anything that exists that there was need for new words to be created to describe its part of speech. Another unique thing is that it's not neither analytical nor synthetic - and therefore it has no cases and no prepositions; instead it expresses the relationship between words with predicate logic Some people say it's very or even impossibly difficult to learn; i have to disagree with them. Not only i'll disagree, but i'll go even further and say its basics are easier to learn than the basics of most of the natural languages. Consider this example: once you learn the place structure of klama (x1 comes/goes to destination x2 from origin x3 via route x4 using means/vehicle x5) you can start using it straight away - la djeik. klama la paris. la madrid. zo'e lo karce; On the other hand in natural languages (and in other conlangs as well) you have to worry about using the right case and prepositions. Even English, which got no cases, might easily confuse its learners - which is right: Jake travels Paris or Jakes travels to Paris? Jake travels by car or Jake travels with car or Jake travels in a car or simply Jake travels a car? Some may say that nesting internal gismus into a tanru to form a selbri or several gismus in one sumti can be extremly confusing; but hey, you can nest many relative clauses one into another in naturals languages as well, cant you? Lojban is also easier to understand since it's unambiguous. If we don't count compound words, all of Lojban words are under 2000 in number. And after you know the basic words(called gismu) you can understand and make on the fly millions of compound words without ever learning them! A lot easier than having to learn like 7000 words to understand like 65% of written text in natural languages. Now on the real question of this topic: does any of you learn or speak Lojban? If so, where do you practice and write in it? 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| delectric Diglot Senior Member China Joined 7182 days ago 608 posts - 733 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: German | Message 2 of 11 18 January 2012 at 5:11pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Seems really interesting. I remember there was another language that was also constructed
(not Esperanto). It's invented by a Russian also logical but incredibly difficult. Apparently though it's possible to communicate a great deal in a short sentence. Maybe it's Laadan? I just tried to check it on Wikipedia but can't get on there at the moment. Personally I do think more people should learn cultureless and therefore more neutral constructed languages to counteract English as a world language. The thing is can Lojban challenge Esperanto? It would be interesting to hear comments from people that have studied both Lojban and Esperanto. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Michael K. Senior Member United States Joined 5730 days ago 568 posts - 886 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 3 of 11 18 January 2012 at 10:06pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Láadan is a conlang made by a woman for women. I guess the creator is a bit of a feminist too since she says it challenges the "patriarchy" of natural languages, also she's American.
I read the book "In the Land of Invented Languages" which mentions how Loglan became Lojban. The history of Lojban is really interesting, I think it'd make a good movie. Since it's a logical language the author said it appeals mainly to people with an engineering or computer programming background, and if I remember correctly the inventor of Loglan was a mathematician and the couple (who said their wedding vows in Loglan) that invented Lojban were computer programmers. I'm fascinated by conlangs, but I have some trepidation about learning Lojban because I'm not the type of person who likes engineering or programming, although I liked math when I was in school. Also, I think there are only 1,000 people who speak Lojban, so it would be difficult to get content in the language. It seems like the type of people who learn conlangs other than Esperanto have to want to create content for other people to use, and I don't really want to do that. I've heard good things about Klingon, too, by the late, great Esperantist Don Harlow, and I even like Star Trek, but I'm not really interested in learning Klingon. That's the one problem with conlangs other than Esperanto, finding people to use it with is hard unless you do it online. As far as Lojban supplanting Esperanto goes, I really doubt it. Sure, Esperanto could be supplanted by some other language someday, but there are about 1,000 or fewer people who know Lojban and hundreds of thousands who know Esperanto, so it would take time for Lojban to supplant Eo. Lojban would have to appeal to the average person, not just "logical" people to really gain popularity. Like I said in my Eo log about a year ago, I'm not partisan when it comes to conlangs and I don't think that Eo is the best conlang out there. Like Arika Okrent said in "In the Land of Invented Languages" there are different conlangs for different people: Lojban for some, Klingon for some, Esperanto for some, and there are even some Volapük fans around. And like the other 2 posters, I'd be intersting in hearing from someone who learned Lojban. Edited by Michael K. on 19 January 2012 at 3:13am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| LangOfChildren Tetraglot Groupie Germany Joined 5428 days ago 82 posts - 141 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Swedish Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Thai, Russian | Message 4 of 11 19 January 2012 at 12:06am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Hello, I'm a speaker of Lojban.
I've asked the administrator several times now to add Lojban to the list of Languages, but I haven't received any response. Now to the OPs question. I use Lojban daily to speak to other people on the Lojban IRC on freenode. It's a lot of fun and the people are very nice (myself included :P). Lojban is a very flexible language and allows for a *lot* of creativity. It's also relatively easy to learn the basics. I'd recommend it to everyone who wants to broaden their horizon. :) Edited by LangOfChildren on 19 January 2012 at 12:06am 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Michael K. Senior Member United States Joined 5730 days ago 568 posts - 886 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 5 of 11 19 January 2012 at 2:55am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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LangOfChildren,
Thanks for your response. Yes, the best part of conlang communities is how friendly & encouraging everyone is. Have you tried to learn any other conlangs other than Lojban & toki pona? What sort of advice would you give to someone interested in learning Lojban? What are the difficult parts? Have you ever tried to speak it in a live conversation? Do you agree with Arika Okrent's statement that it mainly appeals to people with an engineering or mathematics background? I hope I don't seem overbearing, I'm just curious about the language. Edited by Michael K. on 19 January 2012 at 3:54am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| LangOfChildren Tetraglot Groupie Germany Joined 5428 days ago 82 posts - 141 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Swedish Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Thai, Russian | Message 6 of 11 19 January 2012 at 11:02am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Not yet, and likely won't be learning any other conlang any time soon. I'm too occupied with my natlangs at the moment, and I don't have any conlangs I'm particularly interested in. Oh, except Esperanto, which I know I'll learn eventually, but it's not a language I consider very interesting. (No offense intended)
My advice would definitely be to come join us on the freenode IRC channel. That's by far the place to start. Me as well as others regularly teach beginners and we get new people all the time (considering how small Lojban still is compared to Esperanto). Whenever you have a question about anything Lojban-related, asking us their will get you an answer almost immediately. Also, you'll get to see how Lojban is actually used in conversations. Apart from the IRC, there are various learning materials available. We have the CLL (Complete Lojban Language, that's the reference grammar), Lojban for Beginners, What is Lojban and the Wave Lessons. Everything can be found on lojban.org. (If you can't find it ask me again or come on IRC :P ) Now the difficult parts of Lojban... Actually, Lojban is quite easy to pick up. The basics of the grammar can be taught/learned in less than a week (depending on how much time is spent) if you take lessons with us. After that it can take a while to get from that beginning stage to a stage where you can freely converse. Most beginner's complain that they don't know enough words so they keep having to refer back to dictionaries mid-conversation. This is obviously a frustrating experience, when you need to use the dictionary 10 times per sentence you see on IRC. This stage can be overcome, however, especially if you make an effort to learn the gismu using an SRS of your choice. Once you know those, you're good to go. While the grammar is the most unique I've seen, it's also where a lot of the fun comes from, so any difficulties in that direction are completely outweighed by how interesting it is, so grammar is usually not a problem. Last but not least, since this language completely regular, it doesn't take long before one can make up their own sentences without having to worry about breaking rules.
Yes, but not very often. We have a mumble server, but due to timezones it's sometimes difficult to find good times to talk. However, using it daily on IRC is "almost" a sufficient replacement due to something called "audio-visual isomorphism", which means that everything is written as it's spoken and vice-versa (this also means that *anything* you convey by speaking must be conveyed through the text as well, including emotions! Lojban's attitudinal system is awesome.) Because of this feature, if you "hear" the words you read, then it's almost the same as actually hearing them, because there is no difference between written and spoken Lojban. (I assume this will become more apparent when trying it for yourself.) Sometimes I just speak Lojban to myself when taking a walk. The biggest, if not the only problem for me at this point is that I sometimes don't know the word for something.
Maybe for some people, having a background in those fields is what provides them with motivation, but me, I'm neither a mathematician nor an engineer. I just simply love languages and learning Lojban has been one of the most enjoyable things related to language. This might seem like an exaggeration, but at least once a month, I just realize (for the nth time) how much I love Lojban and then have to either say it out loud or write it on IRC. I see many others say the same words regularly! =) So bottom line, no, this language is not only for mathematicians at all. It's for everyone with an open mind who's in for a nice journey. Hope this helps. :) mu'o mi'e la selpa'i 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| a3 Triglot Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 5257 days ago 273 posts - 370 votes Speaks: Bulgarian*, English, Russian Studies: Portuguese, German, Italian, Spanish, Norwegian, Finnish | Message 7 of 11 19 January 2012 at 1:13pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Thanks for the info, LangOfChildren. I'll definitely check out the IRC. I have one more question: where did you learn lojban. from?
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| LangOfChildren Tetraglot Groupie Germany Joined 5428 days ago 82 posts - 141 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Swedish Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Thai, Russian | Message 8 of 11 19 January 2012 at 1:28pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I was taught the basics on that very IRC some years ago. After that it's just a matter of practice and vocabulary study. Nowadays, I'm the one giving the lessons. ^_^ Edited by LangOfChildren on 19 January 2012 at 1:46pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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