[lojban] Re: Lojban Vs. Esperanto

["Craig" <ragnarok@pobox.com>]

>My name is Myriam and have the pleasure to contact you in order to obtain
some information for a research about planned languages. I would
>like to know which are the advantages of Lojban as an international
language over other planned languages, especially Esperanto. Is it
>easier to learn? Is it more connected to modern technology? How many Lojban
speakers are by the moment?
>Thanks in advance for your kind reply,

Lojban and Esperanto are not in competition in any way. There are in fact a
reasonable number of people who are involved with both.

Esperanto seeks to be a second language for the world, so that everyone can
communicate with everyone else. While it is unlikely to succeed in this, it
is much more successful at it than any other interlanguage. Lojban has no
such ambitions.

Esperanto also seeks to decrease the barrier to entry by taking words and
grammar from a great number of other languages, all of them Indo-European.
This makes it somewhat simpler to learn if you are used to Indo-European
languages.

Lojban, on the other hand, attempts to be culturally neutral. Its grammar is
based on predicate logic rather than on the grammar of natural languages. It
derives its root words algorithmically from the six most widely-spoken
languages on Earth.

Goals of Lojban include machine parseability, which will hopefully lead to
one day automating the process of translating from Lojban to natural
languages, so that it will be possible for a student of Lojban to get a
message across to those with whom they do not share a language. Machine
parseability may also make Lojban the ideal language for artificial
intelligence applications.

Lojban also seeks to be useful in testing the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, which
states that "Facts are unlike to speakers whose language background provides
for unlike formation of them." There are a reasonable number of Lojbanists
who believe that learning to speak Lojban fluently will have beneficial
effects on their thought processes. It is hoped that the logic-based syntax
will be ideal for laboratory testing of the hypothesis.

Essentially, what this means for you is that you cannot do research about
planned languages by grouping Lojban and Esperanto in the same category. Of
course, your research will not require you to learn both, but there is no
particular reason to choose one over the other - and in fact, viewing
yourself as having to choose between supporting Lojban and supporting
Esperanto is unreasonable. "Should I learn Lojban?" and "Should I learn
Esperanto?" are two entirely seperate decisions.

 -- Craig Daniel

"Best case scenario: free ice cream for all. Worst case scenario: World War
3-27"
 -carbon

ragnarok@pobox.com
teucer@bnomic.org