Portal:Constructed languages/Language of the month/May 2006

Lojban logo

Lojban (IPA [ˈloʒban], official full name Lojban: a realization of Loglan) is a constructed language which was created by the Logical Language Group in 1987 based on the earlier Loglan, with the intent to make the language more complete, usable, and freely available. It has the ISO 639 language code jbo.

The language itself shares many of the features and goals of Loglan; in particular, Lojban:

• Has a grammar that is based on predicate logic, and is capable of expressing complex logical constructs precisely.
• Has no irregularities or ambiguities in spelling or grammar, so it can be easily parsed by computer.
• Is designed to be as culturally neutral as possible.
• Is simple to learn and use compared to many natural languages.
• Possesses an intricate system for effectively communicating contextual emotion.

While the initial goal of the Loglan project was to investigate the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, the active Lojban community has additional goals for the language. Find out more...