Lojban featured on BBC Radio 4's "Word of Mouth"!

Today's segment was on artificial or constructed languages. It was very refreshing that they did not give the entire show to Esperanto and actually spent a fair bit speaking with Colin Fine about lojban, the best invented language as we here know. Follow the link to have a listen!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pkbh9
Lojban starts at 9:49

I am capitalized and You are not?

As some of you may have noticed, i tend to leave my i's lowercase instead of using proper capitalization. This is not, as some of you may have assumed, because i never learned to capitalize my i's, but it is actually a habit i had to work to develop. Yes, i used to diligently capitalize my i's, so when i decided to start being rebellious against the English language it was actually hard for me to remember to not capitalize my i's. Now, it's grown on me entirely. To me, it feels and looks more natural, but let me explain why i started doing this.

I simply questioned why we capitalize our i's, and not our you's (yes, as in the word "you", not the letter). Originally, i's were just capitalized for practical reasons, none of which make any sense anymore, and now, there is no logical reason, grammatical or otherwise, for doing so. Of course, English is riddled with irregularities as all natural languages are, so why did i choose to ignore this particular rule?

In addition to the above, English is the only language that does this, and i have to wonder if it may have an effect on the English-speaking world. I sympathize with journalist Sydney J. Harris' sentiment that "It's odd, and a little unsettling, to reflect upon the fact that English is the only major language in which "I" is capitalized; in many other languages "You" is capitalized and the "i" is lower case". It seems a bit self-righteous, doesn't it? Leaving myself lowercase and capitalizing You has been humbling.

For these reasons, i choose to no longer capitalize my i's, and i'll start capitalizing my You's. I challenge You to do the same as an experiment. Then again, if you want to learn a language that is completely logical, there's always lojban. I'll leave you with this fun little poem:

Lets face it. English is a stupid language.

There is no egg in the eggplant
No ham in the hamburger
And neither pine nor apple in the pineapple.
English muffins were not invented in England
French fries were not invented in France.

We sometimes take English for granted,
But if we examine its paradoxes we find that:
Quicksand takes you down slowly
Boxing rings are square
And a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

If writers write, how come fingers don't fing.
If the plural of tooth is teeth
Shouldn't the plural of phone booth be phone beeth
If the teacher taught,
Why didn't the preacher praught.

If a vegetarian eats vegetables
What the heck does a humanitarian eat!?
Why do people recite at a play
Yet play at a recital?
Park on driveways and
Drive on parkways
How can the weather be as hot as hell on one day
And as cold as hell on another

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy
Of a language where a house can burn up as
It burns down
And in which you fill in a form
By filling it out
And a bell is only heard once it goes!

English was invented by people, not computers
And it reflects the creativity of the human race
(Which of course isn't a race at all)

That is why:
When the stars are out they are visible
But when the lights are out they are invisible
And why it is that when I wind up my watch
It starts
But when I wind up this poem
It ends.

P.S. If quizzes are quizzical, then what are tests?

Why Google Should Learn Lojban

Lojban is designed to be perfectly logical and allow for exact specificity of meaning. Why does this matter for Google? Well, it has huge potential, not only for computer applications based on the language since it's structure can be processed by computers easily, but also more prominently as an intermediate language in automatic machine translation of natural languages. Currently, Google uses English which often yeilds some funny results.

It would be incorrect for me to say that Google needs to use a language like lojban instead of English because their translations are actually pretty great. The issue is that lojban has much more potential for this purpose and English is holding them back. If lojban were used instead of English as Google's intermediate language for automatic translation, it would be much easier to extract the exact meaning of a word used in some context in one language, and translate it into another language. Instead of using a language which does not have a perfectly regular and logical structure, exact meaning, and completely unambiguous grammar, they currently rely on English which doesn't function well to preserve meaning while carrying it from one language and then into another. Lojban, on the other hand, was designed with this in mind.

This isn't to say that Lojban is perfect, or even ready to be used like that on such a large scale yet. Many terms, like computer-related technical terms have not been created yet, and the language needs further development, not to mention the lack of widespread adoption. For this reason, it would be unwise for Google to just go ahead with using lojban and unreasonable for me to request that.

Like many of my ideas, this requires a bit of an investment for the future. Something may not be entirely practical now, but adopting it to a reasonable level will payoff later. For now, it would be safe for Google to simply hire some lojbanana's to work on a lojban translation for Google Translate. If Google is worried about the language being dead and never developing or spreading, this move would get a lot of coverage and get a lot of people interested in it. If Google really wanted to, they could sponsor lojban. I doubt that would happen, but damn it would be cool!

At the very least, they could add lojban to the Google in Your Language program to allow users to translate Google services into lojban for them. We should ask them for it: translation-services@google.com

What's in a name?

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtgcB8aFit8

From my YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheSilentNumber
Please subscribe!

Do you like your name? Forgetting all the standard conventions of personal names, if you did not have a name and had to choose one for yourself, what would it be, and why? 

Lojban Needs to Reorganize

I've already written about why lojban is such an awesome language to learn, but unfortunately, the speaker base is still relatively small. I think the biggest reason for this is the incredibly unattractive website. The wiki currently located at lojban.org is in dire need of an upgrade (perhaps to MoinMoin) and although it would take some effort to migrate all the content, it would more than pay off in the long run. The redesigned site at http://lojban.jim.dabell.name/ is a great start and will hopefully move to www.lojban.org and then the wiki can use wiki.lojban.org to be run parallel to the new homepage. In addition to the already existing mailing lists and imageboards, a phpBB, Vanilla, or some other real forum would be a helpful addition to strengthen and grow the lojban community.

Currently, the wiki (which is the entire site) is slow, unattractive, and disorganized. Its difficult to navigate, space is used very inefficiently, and it isn't easy on the eyes. Visitors that have a potential interest in learning lojban can easily be repelled by their first glance at the site, or get lost before they find what they are looking for. Most people don't feel they should have to look. If they don't see it, they'll just leave. The main page should always be aimed at new visitors, and even if the site redesign example i linked to above took the place of the current wiki, the main page for the wiki should still do the same. Even for those who use the wiki and try to contribute, its slow, the interface is confusing, and the layout is awkward. All the main pages are not user maintained which means that no edit link will appear at the top of the page but it can still be edited by anyone if they copy the URL of the edit page of a user-maintained page and simply replace the page name.

Let's take a look:

So how do we improve the wiki? We use better software and make is easier to edit! Reorganizing, and maintaining the wiki will be much easier on MoinMoin. It would make more sense to fix the content after adopting a better wiki platform. All pages on the wiki should be open and user-maintained. I can only guess that they might not be to prevent vandalism, but with that kind of thinking, Wikipedia would not be where it is today. Wikis are maintained by the users. That's the whole point. Anything that isn't editable doesn't belong on the wiki. It can be moved to the new homepage.

Although mailing lists and the imageboards exist, and it's good that they do, they cannot do what a real forum would. Trying to make the mailing list double as a forum isn't enough. A real forum makes it much easier to give/get support with lojban and have discussions. A mailing list simply can't handle the volume of discussion that a forum can. Its about scalability. A mailing list and a forum are two different things and should remain separate. A real forum handles discussion in a much more organized fashion than a mailing list, and organization is what we need. A forum doesn't replace mailing lists, and mailing lists don't replace a forum-- they both run well in paralell. Take for example the hugely successful ubuntuforums.org-- its a center of communication for ubuntu users but it is used in parallel with mailing lists and irc. All three are essential and effective. Different people may prefer different ones but it is important that they are all available.

Another thing that should certainly be considered is using a content management system (CMS) like Drupal, Joomla, or some other one to make life easier.

So this is what should be done:

1. Lojban redesigned site should take the place of the Wiki


2. Wiki should be moved to wiki.lojban.org


3. All pages should be opened up to be user maintained


4. Upgrade to MoinMoin for reorganization


5. Set up a real forum


6. ???


7. Profit!

This effort will make lojban much more accessible and build the community. More people will be able to find what they are looking for. Communication will be more evenly distributed between discussion on the mailing lists, irc, and forum. The wiki will be a valuable source that continues to improve as more people contribute. All of this will help lojban gain the popularity it deserves.

Top 7 Reasons to Learn Lojban

So i haven't actually learned to speak Lojban yet, but it's really cool. It is a constructed, or engineered, language. Originally called "Loglan" (short for "logical language") by project founder Dr. James Cooke Brown, who started the language development in 1955, it has been built over three decades by dozens of workers and hundreds of supporters, led since 1987 by The Logical Language Group. Why should you learn it?

1. Think differently.
   Learning Lojban is a mind-expanding experience. Lojban was initially designed for the purpose of supporting research on a concept known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: "the structure of a language constrains the thinking of people using that language." Lojban allows the full expressive capability of a natural language, but differs in structure from other languages in major ways. This allows its use as a test vehicle for scientists studying the relationships between language, thought, and culture.
   
   The hypothesis states that the structure of a language constrains and influences the culture that uses it. In other words, if concepts or structural patterns are difficult to express in a language, the society and culture using the language will tend to avoid them. Individuals might overcome this barrier, but the society as a whole will not. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is important and controversial: it can be used as a sociological argument to justify or to oppose racism and sexism (and a variety of other 'isms'). A simple example is the assertion that since genderless expressions in English use 'masculine' forms, English is 'sexist'. This presumes the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis to be true. Understanding the potential for Sapir-Whorf effects could lead to better inter-cultural understanding, promoting communication and peace.
   
   Unique features of Lojban remove constraints on language in the areas of logic, ambiguity, and expressive power, opening up areas of thought that have not been easily accessible by human language before. Meanwhile, the formal rigidity of the language definition allows speakers to carefully control their expressions (and therefore perhaps their thought processes).
   
2. Be specific.
   Did you know that due to the natural language processing of English, the spoken phrase "pretty little girls school" can be interpreted in a bunch of different ways depending on the groupings of the words and interpreted meanings of them? It could be interpreted as {pretty {little {girls school}}}, {{pretty little} {girls school}}, {{pretty {little girls}} school}, and so on. Does the school look little? Do the girls look little? Do the girls look pretty? Does the school look pretty? Then you can also ask, does the word pretty mean 'beautiful' or 'fairly'? Is it the school that the girl goes to, or is it an all-girls school? Lojban can express each and every single one of these meanings without ambiguity and without circumlocution or overhead.
   
   Lojban enables metalinguistic discussion about the sentences being spoken while remaining unambiguous. It also supports a 'tense' logic that allows extreme specificity of time and space relationships, even those implied by time travel. Lojban's grammar is designed to support unambiguous statement of mathematical expressions and relations in a manner compatible with both international usage and Lojban's non-mathematical grammar.
   
   Lojban has an unambiguous grammar (proven by computer analysis of a formal grammar with YACC), pronunciation, and morphology (word forms). The person who reads or hears a Lojban sentence is never in doubt as to what words it contains or what roles they play in the sentence. Lojban has no words that sound alike but have different meanings (like "herd" and "heard"), that have multiple unrelated meanings ("set"), or that differ only in punctuation but not in sound (like the abominable "its" and "it's"). There is never any doubt about where words begin and end ("cargo shipment" can be heard as 2, 3, or 4 words). The function of each word is clear: there is nothing like the English "Time flies like an arrow," in which any of the first three words could be the verb. Precision in no way confines the meaning of a Lojban sentence. It is possible to speak nonsense, to tell a lie, or to be misunderstood. You can be very specific, or you can be intentionally vague. Your hearer may not understand what you meant, but will always understand what you said.
3. Speak to computers.
   Lojban was designed as a human language, and not as a computer language. It is therefore intended for use in conversation, reading, writing, and thinking. However, since Lojban can be processed by a computer much more easily than can a natural language, Lojban-based computer applications are a natural expectation. Due to its unambiguous grammar and simple structure, it can be easily parsed (broken down for analysis) by computers, making it possible for Lojban to be used in the future for computer-human interaction, and perhaps conversation. Lojban's predicate structure is similar to existing artificial intelligence (AI), suggesting it as a powerful tool in AI processing, especially in the storing and processing of data about the world and people's conceptions of it. Linguists are interested in Lojban's potential as an intermediate language in computer-aided translation of natural languages.
   
   Those with a computer background can lead development of the first computer applications for the language. Expertise in the language will no doubt be valuable as Lojban becomes recognized as a useful tool for computer applications by the computer industry. Computer-oriented Lojbanists can also aid in developing computer-aided instruction tools or converting existing software to run on new computers.
   
4. It makes sense.
   Lojban's pronunciation, spelling, word formation, and grammar rules are fixed, and the language is free of exceptions to these rules. Each Lojban sound is uniquely assigned to a single letter, or combination of letters. Each letter is defined to have a particular set of possible pronunciations, such that there is no overlap between letter sounds. The forms of Lojban words are also extremely regular. This, coupled with the phonology rules, allows a stream of speech to be uniquely broken down into its component words. The written language corresponds exactly to the sounds of the spoken language; spelling is phonetic and unambiguous, and the flowing sounds of the language break down into words in only one possible way. These features make computer speech recognition and transcription more practical. Learning to pronounce and spell Lojban is trivial.
   
   Lojban is simple and sensible. Its grammar is based on the principles of logic. It's unambiguous. It's regular and phonetic. It's everything that language should be.
   
5. Be expressive.
   Lojban is a beautiful language. Lojban has a smooth, rhythmic sound, somewhat like Italian. However, its consonants create a fullness and power found in Slavic languages like Russian, and the large number of vowel pairs impart a hint of Chinese, Polynesian, and other Oriental languages, though without the tones that make many of those languages difficult for others to learn.
   
   Original poetry has already been written in Lojban, and some has been translated into the language. Lojban's powerful 'tanru' metaphor structure allows you to build concepts into words easily, as you need them, and has been used to create colorful images and to convey moving emotions. A Lojban speaker doesn't need a dictionary to use and understand the millions of words that can potentially exist in the language. The absence of cultural constraints makes consideration of new ideas and relationships easier than in natural languages, spurring creativity. Lojban aids in communicating abstractions by identifying their nature explicitly. Lojban is thus a very powerful language, not only for poetry, but for discussing such abstract fields as philosophy, physics, metaphysics, and religion.
   
   Lojban poets are already experimenting with new (and old) forms of poetry that seem especially well suited to the rhythm, sound, and flow of the language. Rarely do poets have such an opportunity to affect the development of a new language as they do now with Lojban. Lojban is rich and powerful. Lojban unleashes the full potential of poetic expression to communicate both concrete and abstract ideas.
6. It's easy.
   Lojban is actually much simpler than natural languages. It is only slightly more complex in its grammar than the current generation of computer languages. Lojban seems complex only because the varieties of human thought are complex, and Lojban is designed to minimize constraints on those thoughts. Lojban text can appear longer and more complex due to its lack of idiom, its complete explicitness of logical structure, and most importantly, its unfamiliarity. On the other hand, conversational speech uses less than half of the possible grammatical structures, leaving the rest for writing and for other circumstances when one is likely to take time to carefully formulate exact logical phrasings.
   
   Lojban is free of exceptions to the rules of pronunciation, spelling, word formation, and grammar. Such exceptions, which are present in other languages, are the bane of learning to speak a natural language correctly. Without the burden of ambiguity, Lojban users can be precise and specific more easily than in other languages.
   
   Because Lojban's grammar is simple, it is easier to learn than other languages. Using flashcard-like techniques, a working vocabulary including the complete set of 1350 root words can take 8-12 weeks of study at 1 hour per day. It is by no means uncommon for people who embark on learning Lojban to be able to write grammatical Lojban within a few days, and to hold at least a limited conversation within a few weeks. Natural languages, especially English, take several years to learn to a comparable level of skill.
   
   The available Lojban teaching materials are structured so that you can learn the language without classroom instruction or a close community of speakers. Communication practice with others is needed to achieve fluency, but you can start using the language as you achieve proficiency.
7. Have fun.
   You needn't learn Lojban for any practical purpose. Many of those learning Lojban are doing so because it is fun. Learning Lojban is intellectually stimulating, and provides human interaction and mental challenge. Lojban has all the benefits of games designed for entertainment, with the added prospect of developing useful skills as a side benefit. Learning Lojban as an 'intellectual toy' means that you can get enjoyment from learning Lojban without nearly the effort needed to benefit from studying other languages. While becoming fluent in Lojban will probably take hundreds of hours over several months, you can feel some sense of accomplishment in the language after just a few hours of study. You can use Lojban immediately for fun, while gaining skill with greater experience.

Content extracted from http://www.lojban.org/

Really, there is way too much to sum up here, in one blog post, but i promise you, if you are the creative type or the logical type (hopefully you fall into at least one of these), lojban will appeal to you more and more as you learn more about it and start to learn it yourself.

Even better, learn to write it with tengwar. Why?