Introduction to Lojban

Lojban is a constructed language. One of its features that really attracted me was its unambiguous parsing when written or spoken. This means that it could be used as a natural human/machine interlingua.
All obvious mistakes in the video were obvious after the fact (like ne'i vs ni'e, renma vs remna). I wish I had pair-programmed this thing. Ah well.
The Complete Lojban Language (1997): lojban.github.io/cll/
Online dictionary: vlasisku.lojban.org/
Online parser: lojban.github.io/ilmentufa/cam...
Latest version of Lojban reference: mw.lojban.org/papri/Category:...
And for an entirely different take on Lojban: • Conlang Critic Episode...
Graphics used are CC-BY-SA:
Telescope graphic by Icon Lauk from the Noun Project
Die graphic by ladhina from the Noun Project
Dead graphic by Igé Maulana from the Noun Project
Cellar graphic by Andrejs Kirma from the Noun Project
Seller graphic by Grégory Montigny from the Noun Project
Weight graphic by Universal Icons from the Noun Project
Management graphic by IconPai from the Noun Project
Cat graphic by dDara from the Noun Project

[@redemptusrenatus5336]

Boy, something must be going on with my brain. Your example with "I saw a man with a telescope." made me think of the ambiguity in terms of seeing a man through a telescope versus sawing a man with a telescope, which would be very difficult and painful, but that's a separate issue, right? Very interesting this Lojban. I'd never heard of it before nor it's predecessor Loglan.

[@MrGoatflakes]

Lol same

[@GraafBerengeur]

That's not really a "separate" issue; both problems stem from some words being homonyms

[@chickenstrangler3826]

I saw a man through a telescope. I saw a man holding a telescope.

[@kcgd3707]

I never thought a computer science degree would be helpful in linguistics but here we are

[@LuizBGomide]

I'm been following lojban for something like 20 years, and although I already knew all that was said in this video, this is the best and more clearly introduction to lojban I have seen. Keep it up :D

[@hunterkudo9832]

I only recently got into lojban, is there a lojban based on geometric patterns and shapes?

[@Sumirevins]

I'm learning lojban because I want to construct a LLM AI and This seems easier for NeuralNetworks to interpret.

[@karlramberg]

So continuing the LOTR theme. The Wraith king says: No man can kill me. And the girl says: I am no man. Would the Wraith king be saved by Lojban ?

[@RobertBaruch]

:) Pretty much, yeah. Neil Armstrong also wouldn't have made his mistake :)

[@Oguz286]

Happy to see a non-technical video, since you are so good explaining!

[@why-cooking]

I'm a language learner and a student of math who had some interest in logic. Lojban seems like a really cool language, though I don't know if I'll be able to talk to anyone if I were to learn it. I'm reminded of a certain XKCD.

[@ericafleming5197]

Lojban would be a great language for a constitution. We wouldn't be dependant on a supreme court to interpret it however they feel like it.

[@rylaczero3740]

I came upon Lojban just because I was searching for an unambigous way to write constituions.

[@an.drew_]

That's also a likely reason why it's not been done lol

[@Ken.-]

That would make for an extremely long constitution. It also would need to be able to predict the future since it would need to apply for all time.

[@vara202]

@@Ken.- most constitutions are made to be updated over time precisely because no one can predict the future.

[@Ken.-]

@@vara202 copypasta?

[@clehaxze]

I thought Esperanto is regular enough. This is awesome!

[@federicoalvarez5469]

I just discovered this language a couple of minutes ago and it is super interesting. Sound like it would be super difficult to learn though. Regardless of that, you made a really interesting video and your explanation is very didactic, keep it up man!

[@tomekk503]

Imagine in 1 language: (don't shoot) & the other language meaning (shoot me).

[@Liggliluff]

I find it interesting that, when you describe Lojban terms in English, you pronounce the Lojban O as if it was English, so pa'o becomes /pahoʊ/ while reading a Lojban sentence, it's all Lojban, so pa'o remains /paho/.

[@devonoknabo2582]

I do that do when speaking another language or whatever

[@teitoklien]

its always a great day , when i get to see your video , thanks a lot Robert !

[@luyombojonathan7715]

Why do lojban tutors put out a few videos and varnish never to post again ?

[@larsk6348]

Ah, this brought back many fond memories. Mostly of how no lojban speaker I spoke to figured out how to lojbanize my oh so illegal name. :)

[@RobertBaruch]

You're in luck! Lojban 2.0 does away with the restriction, you can now have LA! See: mw.lojban.org/papri/BPFK_Section:_cmevla

[@larsk6348]

.ui That's great news! No longer an illegal citizen!

[@PhriekshoTV]

I love the fact you referenced the Culture series. Amazing scifi

[@JLMoriart]

I like that, ship it!! xD Thanks for the video, it's well thought out and covers a lot. If you don't mind one piece of feedback: you define things early on, and then use the lojban words for the rest of the video. It would be super valuable if every time you said the lojban word (say, sumti), you reminded us what that means ("which is the loose lojban equivalent of "), either out loud, or even as a quick bit of text on the screen. Cheers!

[@belle_pomme]

Aààaà1½qq¹

[@keldwikchaldain9545]

So your example of using pu with your sentence was a little incorrect. Tenses are modals, which means they absorb the next sumti, and make the tense relative to that sumti, which means pu and puki need to be placed just before the selbri, not at the beginning of the bridi. Alternatively, you can use puku to not worry about where in the bridi it sits.

[@RobertBaruch]

Thank you for the correction! We learn by failing :)

[@godfather00cz]

this is like a new continent for me, thanks! love the W-Y tshirt!!!

[@luyombojonathan7715]

Great video by the way

[@artforhaunting]

so cool how mathmatical it looks! Even showing the sentance and parts of it looks like a piecewise function!

[@holgerwill7531]

Wow, I read about lojban a long time ago. Never really gotten in to it. This introduction is perfect! Do you plan follow up videos?

[@RobertBaruch]

I'm definitely thinking about it. Syncing the animation to the narration was brutal -- it took me THREE DAYS to do it -- but I have ideas on how to improve that.

[@ADR69]

This is so interesting. I read about a language someone created that was so information dense that you needed less than half of most words from other languages to get the same or more information relayed

[@RobertBaruch]

Ithkuil, maybe?

[@ADR69]

@@RobertBaruch that's it! I love language I dunno why it's so interesting. Thanks very much

[@esotericbabble877]

Thanks for such a great video! My knowledge of lojban is quite spotty, and I have trouble using combing forms of gismu. Is combining preferable or is it a stylistic choice?

[@sweno4265]

Yeah I think I’m a bit stupid, got lost at the x1, x2 and x3 just couldn’t get my head around it and just didn’t really take in any other information because I was to busy trying to work out what it meant

[@nw2kr8bc3t]

love the glasses!

[@cmyk8964]

My favorite fact about Lojban is that the word for “x₁ is a/the name of x₂ used by x₃” has M before N-“cmene”-only because someone mistyped Spanish “nombre” as “monbre” and Hindi “nām” as “man”. I wonder if the word would’ve still been “cmene” instead of “cneme” if it weren’t for Russian. (Instead of имя, “imen”, the word root for “to name” именовать was used as a source word)

[@MaricaAmbrosius]

I think the apostrophy thing is from volapük.

[@aptennap]

The last example was quite verbose compared to the English. Is there a way to write it more concisely?

[@seilaessecanalnvaitervideo6414]

just me that notice that the pronunce of a e i o u in lojban is the same pronunce of purtuguese

[@killianobrien2007]

Bo reminds me of pi in toki pona.

[@MatthewHolevinski]

Dewd you like Lojban too! Can you get any cooler! I've been interested in that language since the 90's.

[@eebaker699]

Absolutely agree there.....😁

[@OranCollins]

cool!, I like how structured the language is! If only english was this ordly. also would make NLP much easier to do...

[@MrGoatflakes]

Most every classic in most every language broke the accepted rules of literature at the time.

[@BlueChrome]

Guess it's redundant to ask why this language never took off and replaced all this crappy english we keep having to parse. Also, what's happening with the TTL RiscV project?, I was enjoying them and the interesting side discussions you were having while soldering the boards.

[@zmitrokz]

Cat!

[@luyombojonathan7715]

Ithkuil Vs Lojban ?? Am learning both

[@soweli3033]

nah you gave up

[@Petra44YT]

I just found another word with two meanings. I'm reading "Roots", and in that violent and nightmarish world of slavery, I found one word that reminded me of my own world. That word is "cockpit". And no, it did not have anything to do with flying. The nightmare is not yet over ...

[@nexovec]

2:05 hmm... but what about the saw? :O Does that not count?

[@nexovec]

Does that thing have like an emotional or evidence particles?

[@jeremoisde9928]

you prounounce a e i o u like in the german language

[@andor888]

Okay, so, what exactly is there to indicate that "mi mlatu la .perjan." doesn't mean "I am the cat known as the Persian"? Alternatively, how would you translate the latter into Lojban? Hard mode: inserting the "known as" doesn't count. The cat is a secret agent, codenamed "Persian". The listener just figured it out, the cat is just confirming.

[@element1192]

Has any family actually taught their child lojban as a native language, seeing as the language was created around the idea of language influencing thought?

[@masamiiliffe]

cat.

[@Falstad88]

I don't get it. If Lojban has no homonyms/phones/graphs how can it be semantically ambiguous?

[@MISTERGODOT12]

The pronunciation you give in this video is maybe useful for English Spoken People, but for the others ... Do u have an IPA for Lojban (International Pronunciation Alphabet not Indian Pale Ale !-)

[@elias7819]

Maybe the apostrophe pronounced as H derives from Greek

[@thisisachannelwhy42069]

42

[@lagerku.3137]

Yes, you're very funny.

[@obytwo8924]

учите олбанский язык

[@shin-ishikiri-no]

I believe I've developed a superior writing system that could be adopted by Lojban.

[@diomauia4295]

post it

[@nauka7565]

We (all) should speak lojban lol

[@petroglyph888mcgregor2]

When I read Lojban phrases aloud with my Anglo/Hispanic accent, I end up sounding Russian. 😄

[@Keepcalmandcupcakes]

1:36 "The features of Lojban include phonetic spelling..." I know this is a very common mistake, but no, it very obviously doesn't include phonetic spelling. Phonetic spelling in any language would be extremely difficult and cumbersome or downright impossible for a vast majority of speakers, as well as ensuring ambiguous communication. To explain briefly, a phonetic realization, or the actual waveform a human produces when speaking, is what's being referred to with the word phonetic. Representations of these are not actually what are being written down in Lojban's, or literally any language's writing systems. If that was the case, you would need an infinite number of symbols, as speech sounds, or phones, are realized differently between every person and even between every utterance spoken by the same person, even if those utterances contain the same words each time. Instead, what are written down are phonemes, which are abstractions of the underlying schemas of the smallest meaningful distinctions sounds make in their particular language. Lojban has phonemic spelling, and the reason this is notable is because even though most languages with alphabets start out with very roughly phonemic spellings, without spelling reforms and because the phonetic realizations, and even the phonemes themselves change over time, and so when you write for example English words, of Germanic descent anyways, what you're doing is writing down phonemic representations of how someone who spoke the prestige dialect of English in the 15th century perceived the sounds of their language. It's very hard for spelling reforms to catch on, but for Lojban this isn't a problem, because as a constructed language no one has to worry about isolated speaker groups whose dialects spring into new mutually incomprehensible languages. It's not surprising you made this mistake, however, as the reference grammar itself doesn't seem to fully understand the difference between phonemic and phonetic either. 3.2. doesn't mention that there are two forms of IPA transcription, broad and narrow, where broad refers to phonemic transcription and is placed between two / , and narrow refers to more phonetic transcription and is placed between [ ] . Even then, narrow transcription is still an abstraction since it usually only goes as far as is necessary to distinguish allophones and the different dialectal phonetic realizations of a language, as well since there are practical limits of the IPA itself. It places broad transcriptions in [ ] such as when it says the GA pronunciation of "cat" is [kæt] which is missing the aspiration of the voiceless velar stop, as well the possible no audible release of the voiceless alveolar stop. It should be either [kʰæt] or [kʰæt̚] Also in 3.10. When listing the allophones of the different phoneme letters, they are all placed in (again wrong) narrow IPA transcription brackets [ ] . The reason this is such a major problem is because for example, the entry for [k], says "As in English “kill”, “token”, or “flak”." In most English dialects, the "k" in each of these different words represent completely different phonetic realizations, which in my case would be [kʰʲɪl], [toʊkʰɛn], and [flæk]. It's telling me trough its use of narrow transcription that only [k] should be allowed for all positions, but it would be extremely difficult or even impossible for me to pronounce exactly [k] every time a Lojban word has the letter k in it. However, since earlier [kæt] is used a GA realization (the dialect of which I speak a variation of) for the word "cat", now I'm not even sure if the author knows that aspiration is going to be there for a majority of native English speakers. Are the variations permitted or not? I'm not sure, and that's the problem. Lojban does a much better job of describing its phonology than almost every other constructed language, but for a language that touts lack of ambiguity as a primary feature, I wish the definitive reference grammar's author would have done a better job explaining it. I love this language, by the way, this part is really the only thing wrong about it. Jeeze how did this comment turn into an essay...

[@Love.Mina-]

“I’ll explain briefly” *writes an entire essay*

[@jadoaesra3011]

Horrible to listen to, but very interesting concept. Might have been better if they worked more on stylizing it.

[@66LordLoss66]

It depends on how you speak. He gave his examples very slow and clear pronunciation. He wasn't really speaking naturally.

[@anandsuralkar582]

So u r a cat

[@torinmorris6648]

I made a language better than this

[@soweli3033]

nah

[@bixomaligno]

Nah