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I think this should mention Lojban. The spin off with a larger community. In my younger yearsi tried to learn some Lojban. But it was hard. The extreme regular

I think this should mention Lojban. The spin off with a larger community. In my younger yearsi tried to learn some Lojban. But it was hard. The extreme regularity and brevity of the vocabulary made it difficult to remember words. Also the grammar has a lot of features, special particles allow for flipping word order. Such stuff is actually very confusing. What i really liked about it is that it allows you to phrase things as precise or as vague as you intend.

PinkMilkshake 8y ago
It's like the APL of constructed languages.
- forgotpwd16 8y ago
  That will be Ithkuil with its weird complex rules and alien writing system made from a vast character set.
  - Jtsummers 8y ago
    APL has a very simple ruleset once you sit down and learn it. The character set is large, though (a positive in my opinion, but not for everyone).
- fusiongyro 8y ago
  It's more like Prolog with a maximum arity of 5 and about a thousand particles with complicated effects. The reference text says with some pride that it is "as simple as C++."
- garmaine 8y ago
  Or perl.
wingerlang 8y ago
What i really liked about it is that it allows you to phrase things as precise or as vague as you intend. Is it possible to get some examples of this?
- ColinWright 8y ago
  When I say "I talk to you" in English it's non-optional to have a temporal tense (the above is in the present) but optional to have a spatial tense (you don't know where it is happening). In lojban you can say "mi do tavla" (or "mi tavla do") and that doesn't specifically give the temporal or spatial tenses. But you can add both to any degree. So "mi pu tavla do" means I spoke to you in the past, "mi puzu tavla" means it was a long way in the past, and so on. More details: https://lojban.github.io/cll/10/1/ https://lojban.github.io/cll/10/1/
  - elisee 8y ago
    Would "Me talking to you" be an equivalent of "mi do tavla", without temporal tense? Or did I miss the point?
    - RytusOfVa 8y ago
      You missed the point, but it's a hard point. Suppose I utter {mi do tavla .i ba go'i}. {ba go'i} means "the previous utterance, logically, but with a future tense". English has no satisfactory translation for this entire phrase; the closest we might come is, for example, "I'm talking with you. In the future."
      - masukomi 8y ago
        yes, there are some things that you can convey more accurately or precisely in lojban but... i think this is a poor example. Also, I think you're forgetting that translation is about intent not literal word / phrase conversion. The intent of "i'm talking with you." followed by something that indicates that the prior sentence takes place in the future translates very clearly into "i will be talking with you in the future" You can get all picky about verb tenses and say "oh english doesn't have that tense" but a) it's not true ("I am talking with you in the future.") and b) it ignores the point of communication. To communicate concepts between entities. The concept as that in the future communication will happen between you and I. "In the future we are talking." or "We are talking in the future." "talking" isn't temporal it's active. It can be future "we will be talking" or past "we were talking" or present "we are talking". I'm sure there are some things which can't be translated nearly as clearly into English, but i don't think this is one of those things.
stronglikedan 8y ago
> this should mention Lojban It mentions it in the first paragraph's last sentence. > Loglan is the first among, and the main inspiration for, the languages known as logical languages, which also includes Lojban.

PinkMilkshake 8y ago

It's like the APL of constructed languages.

forgotpwd16 8y ago
That will be Ithkuil with its weird complex rules and alien writing system made from a vast character set.
- Jtsummers 8y ago
  APL has a very simple ruleset once you sit down and learn it. The character set is large, though (a positive in my opinion, but not for everyone).
fusiongyro 8y ago
It's more like Prolog with a maximum arity of 5 and about a thousand particles with complicated effects. The reference text says with some pride that it is "as simple as C++."
garmaine 8y ago
Or perl.

wingerlang 8y ago

What i really liked about it is that it allows you to phrase things as precise or as vague as you intend. Is it possible to get some examples of this?

ColinWright 8y ago
When I say "I talk to you" in English it's non-optional to have a temporal tense (the above is in the present) but optional to have a spatial tense (you don't know where it is happening). In lojban you can say "mi do tavla" (or "mi tavla do") and that doesn't specifically give the temporal or spatial tenses. But you can add both to any degree. So "mi pu tavla do" means I spoke to you in the past, "mi puzu tavla" means it was a long way in the past, and so on. More details: https://lojban.github.io/cll/10/1/ https://lojban.github.io/cll/10/1/
- elisee 8y ago
  Would "Me talking to you" be an equivalent of "mi do tavla", without temporal tense? Or did I miss the point?
  - RytusOfVa 8y ago
    You missed the point, but it's a hard point. Suppose I utter {mi do tavla .i ba go'i}. {ba go'i} means "the previous utterance, logically, but with a future tense". English has no satisfactory translation for this entire phrase; the closest we might come is, for example, "I'm talking with you. In the future."
    - masukomi 8y ago
      yes, there are some things that you can convey more accurately or precisely in lojban but... i think this is a poor example. Also, I think you're forgetting that translation is about intent not literal word / phrase conversion. The intent of "i'm talking with you." followed by something that indicates that the prior sentence takes place in the future translates very clearly into "i will be talking with you in the future" You can get all picky about verb tenses and say "oh english doesn't have that tense" but a) it's not true ("I am talking with you in the future.") and b) it ignores the point of communication. To communicate concepts between entities. The concept as that in the future communication will happen between you and I. "In the future we are talking." or "We are talking in the future." "talking" isn't temporal it's active. It can be future "we will be talking" or past "we were talking" or present "we are talking". I'm sure there are some things which can't be translated nearly as clearly into English, but i don't think this is one of those things.

stronglikedan 8y ago

> this should mention Lojban It mentions it in the first paragraph's last sentence. > Loglan is the first among, and the main inspiration for, the languages known as logical languages, which also includes Lojban.