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Lojban: Constructed language to eliminate ambiguity from communication

mw.lojban.org

111–120 of 145 posts

Re: Lojban: Constructed language to eliminate ambiguity from communication

#111
A long time ago I tried to learn Esperanto well enough to read in it. I quit, but I was still intrigued.

Given events in the last 18 months, instead of a constructed language like Lojban or Esperanto I would vote for a small subset of English with a limited grammar and vocabulary - with tools to enforce both vocabulary and simplified grammar.

Why the change in opinion? It turns out that English works better than many other languages for text embeddings and generally working with Large Language Models. A simplified version of English, perhaps called ‘glish’ would be easy for English speakers to pick up and use with good automatic writing and editing tools. Advantages: make it easier for AI and for casual English users around the world.

Re: Lojban: Constructed language to eliminate ambiguity from communication

#113
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh I'm happy to continue this conversation here, although it's late where I am and I'll be going to bed soon, and HN threads are ephemeral. Feel free to email me if you'd like to actually collaborate on this. > Looks interesting… where should I start reading? IIRC he did some graduate summer schools that were recorded online and have attached lecture notes. Those plus the referenced papers would be a good place to st…

> But unfortunately in natural language even when a language is correctly parsed in terms of syntax--which is all Lojban seeks to accomplish--there are still many different possible semantic implications. For example, the sentence "Spot didn't bark" could mean > 1. There is no event in which Spot has ever barked, or 2. In the case of a specific event, Spot did not bark. Or maybe even a third case: 3. There exists an…

My intended reading of (2) is the same as your (3), but that just goes to show how ill suited English is for making these sorts of exact inferences.

Re: Lojban: Constructed language to eliminate ambiguity from communication

#114
post #79

I'm one of the few conversation Lojban speakers, and after years extended study, I've found the language does not meet expectations. When you start deeply exploring the semantics, many constructs are only half defined or nonsensical. Further, the self appointed DFL tries to preserve the language in an unusable state and had alienated most of the proficient speakers. There are other logical languages out there. Most o…

I'd have to agree, it is grammatically logical but it is not semantically logical. Semantical logicalness is the really hard part.

Re: Lojban: Constructed language to eliminate ambiguity from communication

#115
post #42
post #9

I vaguely remember a TNG* episode in which humans encounter an alien race that found our language too ...inaccurate, and spent a lot of time going over each word and sentence, to precisely define its meaning. * Was it TNG or am I dreaming? *edit: Thank you everyone, but it wasn't "Darmok". The humans and the aliens were working, for a long time, on a treaty of sorts because the human language was so confusing and amb…

“Darmok” is Internet favorite, about a species which language is exclusively in analogy that the translator could not be set up, and they decide to kidnap Picard to establish vocabulary over a campfire. There were couple episodes in Voyager in which aliens deem humans interesting but lesser, and tries to experiment or study on crews. One that I remember ended up in a ship self destruction, in another the doctor leavi…

You are a great Trekkie, I must have been dreaming

Re: Lojban: Constructed language to eliminate ambiguity from communication

#116

A long time ago I tried to learn Esperanto well enough to read in it. I quit, but I was still intrigued. Given events in the last 18 months, instead of a constructed language like Lojban or Esperanto I would vote for a small subset of English with a limited grammar and vocabulary - with tools to enforce both vocabulary and simplified grammar. Why the change in opinion? It turns out that English works better than many…

Maybe start with the Simple English Wikipedia: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Re: Lojban: Constructed language to eliminate ambiguity from communication

#117
I've been making a post-apoc survival adventure game lately [1], and as part of the world-making I've spent some time on banging out little slang languages and cultural terms, for the characters in it to use. They deal in English, mostly. But so much time has past, and theres been so much loss of the traditional institutions which "anchor" languages over the decades and actively help to keep them consistent, that there cant help but be LOTS of drift, here and there. Linguistic mutation and evolution -- but survival of the "most popular." Of whatever gets most repeated, person to person.

Its also a comedy so I get to have fun playing around with the distinction between "Approved, Proper and Official" languages and words, and their nemeses: the hip, the veil-piercing, the casual, the quickly improvised or intentionally irreverant ones.

When I was a kid I could effortlessly switch back and forth between the two types. Though I felt more natural and at home in the latter. Then as a groan-up in the white-collar workforce, when I was forced to do the whole hours-long, two--way highway commute M-F to spend yet another 8 hours in a drab cubicle, and had to Watch Every Single Thing I Said and Did All Day Long lest some random person take it out-of-context or Find It Offensive, a certain joy for life was... slowly beaten out of me.

I've always been a fan of Lojban, on paper. But I dont see it having a bigger future. English is "good enough" however imperfect.

Less is more strikes again? :-)

----

(1. see my bio: Slartboz)

Re: Lojban: Constructed language to eliminate ambiguity from communication

#118
post #9

I vaguely remember a TNG* episode in which humans encounter an alien race that found our language too ...inaccurate, and spent a lot of time going over each word and sentence, to precisely define its meaning. * Was it TNG or am I dreaming? *edit: Thank you everyone, but it wasn't "Darmok". The humans and the aliens were working, for a long time, on a treaty of sorts because the human language was so confusing and amb…

The one with the Sheliak? https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/The_Ensigns_of_Command_... https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Sheliak

I'm not them, but this is it. Their government is called the Sheliak Corporate, and Picard finds in the overly long treaty a clause about resolving disputes needing a third party - and names a species currently in hibernation. So they give in and let him have the much shorter time he's being asking for, for an evacuation.

Re: Lojban: Constructed language to eliminate ambiguity from communication

#119
post #76

I tried to learn lojban back in the day. I liked the phonetics, vocabulary and system in general, but it seemed an impossible task to remember the placeholder order of every single predicate. Maybe not so much of a struggle for an AI though. I still believe there will be an awesome international auxiliary language that the world will embrace, or rather those who wish to communicate with everyone will embrace. It may…

The dream of an international auxiliary language is an old one, yet none — of many — have ever caught on outside of niche hobbyists. It’s unclear to me what further advantages a conlang could have that would overcome the incumbency advantage of the dominant lingua francas. I don’t think eliminating syntactic ambiguity is really that exciting for people in general.

Re: Lojban: Constructed language to eliminate ambiguity from communication

#120
post #93
post #79

I'm one of the few conversation Lojban speakers, and after years extended study, I've found the language does not meet expectations. When you start deeply exploring the semantics, many constructs are only half defined or nonsensical. Further, the self appointed DFL tries to preserve the language in an unusable state and had alienated most of the proficient speakers. There are other logical languages out there. Most o…

> I'm one of the few conversation Lojban speakers, and after years extended study Honest question...why?

Can you clarify your question ?
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