Lojban • Hacker News Board

Re: Lojban

#91

Post by xq » Thu, Jun 04, 2015, 1:41 PM UTC

trio wrote: post #87

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…

Saluton, I study Spanish because i live in the USA and Spanish is the de facto second language (almost all of the time). But Spanish wasn't useful in Turkey, Japan, Cairo, etc. where i did use Esperanto. I wish i could learn all the languages of the world, but i'm just not that good at it. Esperanto is easy. But, more than that... In the USA a native Spanish speaker is (too) often discriminated against. As a non-nati…

Hey. Forgive the stunted speech, but I must practice! :)

Mi komencas lerni Esperanton ĵus antaŭ unu semajno -- tra Duolingo, ke eble vi atendas -- sed nun mi provas iri al pli realaj verkoj, plejparte tradukitaj facilaj verkoj, tiuj mi leĝis en la anglan iam en mi vivo.

Kiam mi rigardis la Esperantajn grupojn en Meetup.com por la Bay Area, mi memoras vidinta la nomon "trio" ien. Tiu estas vi, ĉu ne?

Re: Lojban

#92

Post by rpglover64 » Sat, Jun 06, 2015, 4:30 AM UTC

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...

This comes up often, but it turns out to be pretty crappy, in practice, for a few reasons.

First, although it's not ambiguous, it's vague. It's considered good practice to leave empty places that are not immediately relevant to the conversation. The way this works is kinda like if every every sentence is a function call with arguments, and every argument has a default value; according to the language spec, though, the default value for each argument is to be inferred from context.

Second, it's often referentially ambiguous (e.g. "the bear" doesn't necessarily uniquely identify an entity), and its system of anaphora (think pronouns), although different than English's is insufficiently precise for computer communication.

Third, there are other languages which are designed with that goal in mind, and which are more natural. I'm thinking specifically of Attempto Controlled English.

Re: Lojban

#93

Post by pareidolia » Sun, Jun 07, 2015, 3:45 PM UTC

trenchant wrote: post #28

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?

Lojban is logical but very difficult; it is so logical that the mental discipline required to use it correctly far exceeds that of natural languages. (Which may be an insight into why natural languages are not logical). Quoting Akira Okrent: > To all the language curmudgeons out there who insist that people ought to speak more logically, I say, be careful what you wish for. You go on about the "logical" mismatch betw…

Please don't trivialise Esperanto by referring to the century-old "sixteen rules myth," this is harmful to people with a starting interest in the language.

The PMEG has many chapters: http://bertilow.com/pmeg/detala_enhavo.html