We should use Lojban as an international language? Do you agree?

Lojban is a carefully constructed spoken, as well as written, 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.

It is said to be the most logical language

lojban.org

why would we use a language that a handful of people took the time to learn? yes i'm coming off as ignorant, but the fact is you won't get the world to up and change languages at the drop of a hat. i already feel like i'm wasting my time sometimes by studying french and japanese in my spare time.

To be honest with you, I have never heard of it. Also, to be honest, to try and teach a person a new language after they are 11-12 years of age is much harder than if you start earlier in their life. I, at thirty years of age, am not about to try and learn a language I have never even heard of. I imagine most others concur.

If you were going to have one international language shouldn't it be one that is already spoken by many? I have never heard of Lojban and I'm sure I'm not the only one...

I'm in agreement with everyone else here. This sounds like another Esperanto experiment.

Helloooooooooooo 1984. Yeah this doesn't have 'Newspeak' written all over it....Horrible idea. The ambiguity is what makes us human. Otherwise we're just organic machines.

I'm a member of the Board of Directors of the Logical Language Group which develops Lojban. I vote "no", do not use Lojban as an international language. We already have an international language, which is English.

Lojban would make a poor choice for an international language. On the one hand, Lojban is consistent where natural languages are full of rule exceptions for no reason. So that makes it easier than natural languages. But on the other hand, the grammar is intentionally alien and strange. That aspect is more difficult to get used to than any language that has ever existed.

One reason we speak it is that it's a fun hobby with which to experiment with linguistics and formal logic systems.
Another reason to learn Lojban is to teach it to artificial intelligences to make it easier to communicate with them.
And finally, it's a private code for geeks. So if everybody spoke it, what good would it be for that?

Well, here is my spin on it. An international language to replace English? Obviously not, but maybe it could be as an ancillary international language for specialized situations where ambiguities cannot be tolerated such as translations of legal documents.

First of all, though, people have to know about it. Only a few hundred worldwide seem to be involved, and that's below critical mass. Lojbanists need to start promoting it!

Why am I interetested? I am fascinated by human-human and human-machine communications which probably comes from my background in marketing communications.

Why Lojban and not, say, Esperanto? Esperanto is Euro-centric and full of the prejudices of the early 20th century when it was first constructed (e.g. sexism built into the grammar). Lojban is based on mathermatical logic, almost culture-independant, and takes advantage of just about everything we understand about human language today.

By the way, I'm 62 years old so, yes, learning a completely new language is a challenge. It's worth it!

I vote for spanglish---almost universally understood by 2 cultures.

What about Franglais?
Its tres bon for beaucoup rossbifs, et is pas mal for les family.
Ouis je know les americans have un problem avec English, mais I dont pense it woul be une probleme pour tous le world.

[edit on 2/10/07 by Chorlton]

Just personal preference----I have a hard time with franglish or germansk, less with koreanglish, ruskish or chinglish.

Damn, maybe we should all use latin.
Those durned Aussies better use "real english" tho, I don't wanna have to learn what "mateship" is.

Well in my opinion if you don't understand english, pointing and shouting usually does the trick. No point learning a language most people haven't heard of

If there is to be another international language, I would vote for German. English seems to be the language of business, but this last year when I was in Hungary it seemed that German was more prevalent (I know of the former Austrian influence). I've been told to that in train in plane stations across Europe, you're more likely to see German on things than English. This is probably due to Germany being the largest and most populous of the European countries. German wouldn't be that had for English speakers to learn either, since they're in the same language family, which results in similar words and such. The only hard thing is that there are some sounds that English speakers would have a hard time making.

A choice that would probably be worse than Lojban would be Hungarian. It's the third most difficult language in the world. It's gramar is ridiculous as well.

Tom

erm.. I don't like that idea, sounds like how England would have been if WW2 went the other way

well, we are just organic machines.

anyway, i think we could establish an international language for both diplomacy and commerce, but that's as far as it should go.

we kind of need it for simplicity... and learning a second language is never a bad thing

That's true, but after a certain point in a person's life, it becomes difficult to learn another language. You have to start early. You can't just take some slob off the street who is 30+ years old, and expect them to learn a second language and for there to not be any hitches or glitches.

English is too hard to learn because most of it's verbs are irregular and illogical. Lojban is easier than any natural language.



The grammar looks alien because of the . and ' but it does root from natural languages. The word mi for example; it's pronunciation is from English but is spelled in a better reform of the alphabet. Also, Lojban is not that hard to get used to, there are a few fluent speakers and there are about 100 speakers and they got by it pretty well.



Here are the reasons to learn Lojban (which are feel are very good reasons):

* a fun hobby with which to experiment with linguistics and formal logic systems

* teach it to artificial intelligences to make it easier to communicate with them.

* a private code for geeks

* to think in a more logical manner

* to talk in a more logical manner

* because it is easy to learn (at least easier than natural languages)

* because it is unique (even though a lot of words have natural word roots)


1337 is also a private code for geeks and alot of people know it. My friends use 1337 as a form of art. That doesn't mean that leet is any better/worst to use.

Also:
I made a Lojban Forum it is called Lojban Community

lojbancommunity.proboards53.com...

I think a global language would make things easier, but for what? The idea sounds great but what point would it serve? What would it help that you and some starving kid in Africa spoke the same language? The only advantage would be for travel, which a good ole translator couldn't do.....


But yes I agree with the posts above after a certain age it's very difficult to learn another language, I mean I'm 15 and I think I am Mr. Hotshot going into German Class, and the first two years our teacher just bashes how English is so backwards and he points out errors in the English language, the language I speak that I have never heard of before and wow it's a slap in the face!

But, I guess after a few generations and a mass effort of everyone one language could be learned, and the people who do not learn will be weeded out..... Eww I sound like Darwin x_x

Oh my.. the promotion of this in here sounds and feels like a religious/cult thing going on...

Anyone care to watch some star trek...maybe pick up a few words of Klingon instead...

Might be a bit more useful as I can only presume more people speak Klingon than a language I can't even pronounce the name for..

lodgeban or loyban?

This is the first I've heard of this language.

On the conspiracy and 'way-out-there' side of things, perhaps this is a universal language used by most ET's that is being introduced to us ready for when they arrive en-mass

Either that or the second coming wont be too long and we gotta learn to speak in tongue which lojban is a major contributor.

It's also a bit like the old London cockney slang. Apples and pears = stairs, whistle and flute = suit...

wanna be a gangsta?

I took a look at the PDF. I'd rather adopt Latin as an international language.