Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Lojban

en.wikipedia.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 93 posts

Re: Lojban

#71

Post by yiyus »

runn1ng wrote: post #62

I always wondered. Why do people learn languages like Lojban or Esperanto when you can learn some actual languages that actual people use? Why not learn Spanish, or Hindi, or Mandarin, or Arabic, or Russian... and learn a language nobody really speaks? I don't mean it in a derogatory sense, I am merely personally interested; if I had the time and capacity to learn a new language, I would gather it's both more useful…

I have interest in these languages because, in general, I have high appreciation for simple solutions to complex problems. I find very interesting how they solve different challenges.

I just learn a bit about them, but do not learn to speak, at least not enough to have the simplest conversation. But I understand how you could get more hooked into it and learn it and spend many hours with your toy language.

From all the unuseful hobbies people have, I do not think learning artificial languages is one of the worse.

Re: Lojban

#72

Post by deckiedan »

JesperRavn wrote: post #60

The problem with inventing languages is that we don't fully understand natural languages. For example, there is no satisfactory formal semantics for natural languages. Categorical grammar and Montague grammar are some inroads into formal semantics, but they don't get very far. The work of Roger Schank got further in terms of expressiveness, but then fizzled out, probably because it was ad hoc and lacked an underlying…

So inventing languages is a good thing, as a research topic into how natural languages work (with plenty of provisos, of course).

And, as a human nature hack, marketing them as tools for world-peace, etc. makes them much more likely to be adopted by idealistic humans who may have the motivation to actually test them for a few decades...

Re: Lojban

#73

Post by doublec »

lifeformed wrote: post #67

If everyone used Lojban, I wonder how it'd evolve? Surely people would develop slang and shortcuts, until new dialects formed.

IIRC, one of the ideas of lojban was to develop a group of speakers of the languge during a frozen baseline period where the language couldn't change. Then changes could be made by the speakers of the language in lojban itself and see how it evolved.

Re: Lojban

#74

Post by sampo »

ColinWright wrote: post #69
lkesteloot wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell us more about your anecdata! What specifically do you mean by "provoke"?

The polyglots I know all agree with a moderate form of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which says that the language(s) you use affect what and how you think. In fact, when I say that some linguists find it controversial they look at me as if I'm demented. They just take it for granted that it's true. BTW, this is often confused/conflated with "linguistic relativity"[0] and I'm not going to get into where one ends and the…

Just to define some terms, for the benefit of other readers:

a) Coordinate Bilingualism: In this type, the person learns the languages in separate environments, and words of the two languages are kept separate with each word having its own specific meaning. An instance of this is seen in a Cameroonian child learning English at school. This may also be referred to as subtractive bilingualism.

b) Compound Bilingualism: Here, the person learns the two languages in the same context where they are used concurrently, so that there is a fused representation of the languages in the brain. This is the case when a child is brought up by bilingual parents, or those from two different linguistic backgrounds. This is additive in nature.

http://www.translationdirectory.com/article419.htm

Re: Lojban

#75

Post by gerold »

david-given wrote: post #15
eemax wrote: post #2

Learning a conlang seems like fun. But should I start with Lojban or Esperanto? My impression is that Lojban is meant to be as logically unambiguous (in terms of grammar) as possible, while Esperanto seeks to be more of an international/universal language. I think Esperanto is more widely spoken? Both are apparently somewhat easier to learn than other languages. So which one?

My impression is that Lojban is more of a research language than something people actually speak, but I'd be delighted to be wrong. It's beautifully elegant. Did You Know... Lojban's regular enough that there's a yacc grammar for it? http://www.lojban.org/publications/formal-grammars/grammar.3...

I agree that Lojban is a "research language", but that is certainly a good thing! Seen in relation to its size/popularity, quite a large amount of research in linguistics and computer science sprouted from it. I myself have comitted a master's thesis to the language [1] (on p. 29 I attempt to summarize where it was picked up in academia)

[1] https://goo.gl/hkr38R

Re: Lojban

#76

Post by sampo »

david-given wrote: post #49
dalke wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe my response wasn't clear enough. I don't believe that the statement "By learning a different language, you also learn how to think and reason differently." is useful. I do not think it's useful for most people to learn Linear B. Instead, I think there are more effective ways to 'learn how to think and reason differently' in the same amount of time, if that's one's goal. In addition, the comment about gender…

Actually, I was thinking of Finnish. With regard to the books, while I haven't read The Selfish Gene, I have read GEB, and while it's a superb introduction to the philosophy and formal logic, that's not really what I mean about modes of thought. Example: Scottish Gaelic has two words for red. dearg is the kind of red you get in paint or dye. ruadh is the kind of red you get in hair or deer. They're not considered any…

> Finnish only has a single pronoun, hän.

Actually Finnish has two: hän for she/he, and se for it. But for example Turkish has only one: o for she/he/it.

Re: Lojban

#77

Post by JesperRavn »

deckiedan wrote: post #72
JesperRavn wrote: post #60

The problem with inventing languages is that we don't fully understand natural languages. For example, there is no satisfactory formal semantics for natural languages. Categorical grammar and Montague grammar are some inroads into formal semantics, but they don't get very far. The work of Roger Schank got further in terms of expressiveness, but then fizzled out, probably because it was ad hoc and lacked an underlying…

So inventing languages is a good thing, as a research topic into how natural languages work (with plenty of provisos, of course). And, as a human nature hack, marketing them as tools for world-peace, etc. makes them much more likely to be adopted by idealistic humans who may have the motivation to actually test them for a few decades...

>So inventing languages is a good thing, as a research topic into how natural languages work (with plenty of provisos, of course).

That might be your opinion, I don't think it's a useful research project. Are you aware of any insights into natural language that have been arrived at via artificial languages?

And, as a human nature hack, marketing them as tools for world-peace, etc. makes them much more likely to be adopted by idealistic humans who may have the motivation to actually test them for a few decades...

That seems very cynical. Why do you think artificial languages are so important that misleading marketing is justified?

Re: Lojban

#78

Post by undertow »

Ugh. How awful. Apostrophes and (full stop) dots repurposed as letters within words. But at least there aren't any accented characters or other diacritics.

Phonemes aside, why would anyone design that, and imagine it as a feature and not a bug?

Re: Lojban

#79

Post by alxndr »

falcolas wrote: post #35
eemax wrote: post #2

Learning a conlang seems like fun. But should I start with Lojban or Esperanto? My impression is that Lojban is meant to be as logically unambiguous (in terms of grammar) as possible, while Esperanto seeks to be more of an international/universal language. I think Esperanto is more widely spoken? Both are apparently somewhat easier to learn than other languages. So which one?

One more thing to consider: given its logically unambiguous nature, Lojban would make a great language for communicating with a computer...

I agree, and wonder about what kinds of communication it would facilitate. Writing computer programs in Lojban?

Re: Lojban

#80

Post by qbrass »

jqgatsby wrote: post #41
noonespecial wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its worse. Its approaching "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" territory amongst the nerdy set. (1) (1) It's turtles all the way down. (1)

"Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" aliens are using a prototype language like Javascript, instead of a class based language like Java. I think we need a programming language that takes this to its natural conclusion, where everything is expressed as weighted directed associations between objects (or weights on ordered lists of objects).

The Vulcans do that through a mind meld.
Post reply on HN