[lojban-beginners] Re: On Constructed Languages

[Matt Arnold <matt.mattarn@gmail.com>]

   Different languages excel at different purposes. Many
aesthetic languages exist only to evoke an exotic culture such as
Tolkein's Elvish languages. A lot of languages on Langmaker.com are
only a handful of words to flesh out a fantasy world in a novel. Many
of the authors of logical languages or international auxiliary
languages have planned and conceptualized their first principles of
design but only developed a fraction of the grammar and vocabulary they
need. There are few languages that can be called mature and complete,
with a sufficiently robust and flexible grammar or a sufficiently
thorough vocabulary to actually sustain the universe of human
discourse. For instance, there was one man who decided to raise his
infant child as a native Klingon speaker but gave up quickly because
there were no words for everyday household items. Here's a list of
conlang "test" sentences:
http://www.lojban.org/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=Conlang%20Test%20Sentences
   As for Esperanto, it's a worthy and respectable language,
and it's the language you should learn if your purpose is to speak a
conlang with as many people as possible. I personally dislike the fact
that it's an amalgamation of only European languages. Esperanto is
insufficiently alien, strange, or modernized for my tastes. I chose
Lojban for its thorough speakability, which Esperanto shares, but
mainly I chose Lojban for its systematic functional elegance. More than
any other complete language, Lojban can truly claim to be *engineered*.
   As far as I know, the IRC lojban channel is the only
Lojban forum in which it is appropriate to discuss things other than
Lojban in the English language. But you can discuss anything while
speaking Lojban on any Lojban forum.
-epkat

On 9/5/05, Naomi K <alien.juxtaposition@gmail.com> wrote:

Heyaz
Excuse me if I sound n00bish but only since my learning of Lojban have I taken notice of the wonderful world of contructed languages....Esperanto, Ido, Glosa, Novial etc........ I am frankly amazed at the amount of languages; it really is fascinating, although I am not what I would consider a 'hardcore' linguist or anything of the kind. What do you Lojbanists think of the other artificial languages? What made you get into Lojban, not the easier, more mainstream Esperanto? Do any of you speak in other constructed languages?

I was impressed by the description of Lojban on Conlangs....
Designed by others as a continuation of Loglan, Lojban (its name is a contraction for "Logical Language" in Lojban) is the most professional and thought-provoking of the modern logical languages, with a fascinating methodology for deriving its root words from Arabic, Chinese, English, Hindi, Russian and Spanish. Extensive information is available on-line. For the sheer joy of it, you should check out how Tolkien's Tengwar alphabet can provide "a romantic orthography for Lojban".

By the way, which mailing list (if any) is for miscellaneous, everyday-life kinda discussion? I would be interested in joining that too (although that would defeat the purpose of a Lojban mailing list in the first place, eh ;-) )

mi'e .nei,omis.