Lojban facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Lojban
la .lojban.
Created by	Logical Language Group
Date	1987
Setting and usage	a logically engineered language for various usages
Purpose	constructed languages engineered languages logical languages Lojban
Writing system	Latin and others
Sources	Loglan, Láadan

Lojban is a constructed language that some people speak. A constructed language is one that was made up by people, not one that grew naturally over time. Lojban is special because it is based on predicate logic, which is a way of thinking about rules and facts. It was also made so that everything you say in Lojban has only one clear meaning. These features make many people call Lojban a "logical language."

People from all over the world can learn and speak Lojban. Someone who speaks Lojban is sometimes called a lojbanist.

Lojban was created between 1987 and 1997 by a group called the "Logical Language Group." The rules, or grammar, of Lojban are written in a book called The Complete Lojban Language. This book was published in 1997 and was written by John Woldemar Cowen.

Lojban is based on an older language called Loglan. Loglan was the first "logical language." It was made by a man named James Cooke Brown. He wanted to test an idea called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. This idea suggests that the language we speak can affect how we think and see the world.

Why Lojban Was Created

Testing How Language Shapes Thought

Just like Loglan, one main reason Lojban was created was to test the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. This idea says that the language you speak might change how you think. Lojban is very different from natural languages, like English or Spanish. Because of its unique structure, Lojban makes its speakers focus on the exact logic of what they are saying.

Simple and Easy to Learn

Another goal for Lojban was to make it simple and easy to learn. Lojban has about 1300 main "root words." Anyone can combine these root words to create many more complex words. This makes it easier to build a large vocabulary from a smaller base.

Clear Communication

If you speak Lojban correctly, it is very hard for someone else to misunderstand you. This is because a big goal of Lojban was to get rid of ambiguity in language. Ambiguity means that a sentence or phrase could have more than one meaning.

For example, natural languages like English often have a lot of ambiguity. Think about the English phrase "pretty little girls school." This phrase could mean:

• A school for girls who are pretty and little.
• A school for little girls that is pretty (the building itself).
• A school for girls that is little, and the girls are pretty.

The connections between "pretty," "little," "girls," and "school" are not always clear in English. There isn't enough information in the sentence to know the exact meaning. In Lojban, the relationships between words are always very clear. This means such confusion cannot happen in the language.

Examples of Lojban Words

Here are some examples of words and sentences in Lojban:

The word mi'e is used when you are telling someone your name. No country uses Lojban as its main language, so no one is born with a Lojban name. However, some Lojban speakers create Lojban names for themselves. They usually keep their real name too, and only use their Lojban name when talking to other Lojbanists. If someone is telling you their real name, they often say mi'e la'oi (sounds like miheh lahoy) followed by the name.

The word go'i means "yes, I agree with you." In English, the word 'yes' can be used in many ways. For example, you might say "Yes" (or "OK" or "uh-huh") just to show you heard someone. In Lojban, you would not use go'i for this. Instead, you would say je'e (sounds like zhehheh). This is part of Lojban's goal: to make words easier to understand by making sure each word has only one clear meaning.

See also

In Spanish: Lojban para niños