Lojban The Logical Language

[rosends]

Ambiguity of meaning is only useful in deception.

Ambiguity allows for figurative language and verbal irony, neither of which is involved in deception. Ambiguity is what gives poetry (and anything with a poetic sense) its music. Ambiguity gives us humor. A language with only the denotative application would be sterile and uninteresting.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Does how we think affect our language, does our language affect how we think, or both? And how so?

How we think definitely affects language. The best (and most interesting, IMO) way is via "metaphor". Not literary metaphor, but the kind studied by cognitive scientists: abstract cognition builds upon embodied experience. So, for example, concepts relating to space, time, and other basic embodied experiences are extended to encapsulate abstract concepts. In classical Greek and in English, the word "see" is extended to mean "understand" ("I see what you mean", or in Greek oida, meaning "I know" yet it is the past perfect of "I see"; perceive in English also has this double meaning). Uplifting words are associated with "up" direction" (things are looking up) and vice versa ("I feel down"). An excellent, popular treatment of this phenomenon is Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things by a founder of cognitive linguistics George Lakoff.
As for the other way around (language affecting thought), this is more difficult. It seems it DOES in fact happen, such as when languages with absolute spatial referents rather than relative enable better spatial reasoning. See section 3.4 ("Spatial cognition") of this beautiful paper.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Rhetoric.

Interesting. This is my field, I've quoted actual research, and you've posted a youtube clip. Yet my view is reduced to rhetoric. Ok. I'm not that concerned with addressing ideology, and am content to be written off as presenting rhetoric. I can understand why you find the language interesting in the ways you do, and it certainly doesn't do any harm to study it as such (indeed, if nothing else the fact that such languages stimulate interest in both logic and language perhaps makes them worth it!).

 

[Taylor Seraphim]

Interesting. This is my field, I've quoted actual research, and you've posted a youtube clip. Yet my view is reduced to rhetoric. Ok. I'm not that concerned with addressing ideology, and am content to be written off as presenting rhetoric. I can understand why you find the language interesting in the ways you do, and it certainly doesn't do any harm to study it as such (indeed, if nothing else the fact that such languages stimulate interest in both logic and language perhaps makes them worth it!).

The youtube clip was just to give people a basic understanding of what it was and was not used as a support in an argument.

If the langauge is flawed give me a phrase that cannot be translated properly into Lojban.

 

[Taylor Seraphim]

Ambiguity allows for figurative language and verbal irony, neither of which is involved in deception. Ambiguity is what gives poetry (and anything with a poetic sense) its music. Ambiguity gives us humor. A language with only the denotative application would be sterile and uninteresting.

Both of those can be expressed in Lojban.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

If the lagnage is flawed give me a phrase that cannot be translated properly into Lojban.

"Birds of a feather flock together"
"Kith and kin"
"Once upon a time"
"What's a girl like you doing in a place like this?"
etc.
Of course, there is no bijective function that maps lexemes or constructions from one language to another:
"But one has only to consider the case of an individual word-maison, say- to see at once that there cannot possibly be a single ‘deverbalised’ concept that corresponds exactly to a single word (house? home? Haus? Heim?) in other languages. Even if one allows that in a contextualised utterance – an instance of parole, such as all real life translation is concerned with, as opposed to langue- – the reference or denotation of the word maison will usually be unambiguous, it is still not possible to say that a single concept underlies the two words maison and, as the case may be, house or home, Haus or Heim, since our knowledge of the language systems (langues) concerned tells us that the concepts of seemingly corresponding terms in different languages are never fully congruent (unless, like scientific terms, defined in advance to be so) and this must remain true even in instances of the actual use of the terms in context."
Weston, Martin (2003). “Meaning, Truth, and Morality in Translation.” In G. Anderman & M. Rogers (Eds.) Translation Today: Trends and Perspectives. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters LTD, pp. 140-151.

 

[rosends]

Both of those can be expressed in Lojban.

Ambiguity can be expressed in a language designed to eliminate ambiguity? Then what's the point?

 

[Revoltingest]

What are you thoughts on Lojban, and are there any speakers of it here?

It is a constructed language based on logic.

Is it conducive to limericks?
Is it punny?
Are there ambiguities to exploit for mischief & mirth?
Unless the answers are yes, yes & yes, it'll never catch on.
Besides, if it did, we'd soon corrupt it & balkanize it.

 

[Corthos]

Is it conducive to limericks?
Is it punny?
Are there ambiguities to exploit for mischief & mirth?
Unless the answers are yes, yes & yes, it'll never catch on.
Besides, if it did, we'd soon corrupt it & balkanize it.

Never underestimate humanity's capacity to exploit everything. =)

 

[Taylor Seraphim]

Is it conducive to limericks?
Is it punny?
Are there ambiguities to exploit for mischief & mirth?
Unless the answers are yes, yes & yes, it'll never catch on.
Besides, if it did, we'd soon corrupt it & balkanize it.

If this is the case perhaps it should simply be an academic language.

 

[Taylor Seraphim]

Ambiguity can be expressed in a language designed to eliminate ambiguity? Then what's the point?

I can be expressed but is not accidently so.

 

[Taylor Seraphim]

"Birds of a feather flock together"
"Kith and kin"
"Once upon a time"
"What's a girl like you doing in a place like this?"
etc.
Of course, there is no bijective function that maps lexemes or constructions from one language to another:
"But one has only to consider the case of an individual word-maison, say- to see at once that there cannot possibly be a single ‘deverbalised’ concept that corresponds exactly to a single word (house? home? Haus? Heim?) in other languages. Even if one allows that in a contextualised utterance – an instance of parole, such as all real life translation is concerned with, as opposed to langue- – the reference or denotation of the word maison will usually be unambiguous, it is still not possible to say that a single concept underlies the two words maison and, as the case may be, house or home, Haus or Heim, since our knowledge of the language systems (langues) concerned tells us that the concepts of seemingly corresponding terms in different languages are never fully congruent (unless, like scientific terms, defined in advance to be so) and this must remain true even in instances of the actual use of the terms in context."
Weston, Martin (2003). “Meaning, Truth, and Morality in Translation.” In G. Anderman & M. Rogers (Eds.) Translation Today: Trends and Perspectives. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters LTD, pp. 140-151.

Ill ask some people better at the language than me.

 

[Curious George]

Both and I really do not feel like explain it all right now.

Lol, "I have discovered a truly marvellous proof of this, which this [forum] is too narrow to contain."

Does it not have relevance to the thread?

 

[rosends]

I can be expressed but is not accidently so.

then there can be no discovery and no surprise. I prefer a language which encourages exploration and possibility.

 

[Valjean]

If it was developed in the '50s, why is it less known than other interlanguages like Esperanto, Interlingua or Ido? Does it have a literature? broadcasts? a body of speakers?
How's it constructed -- word order, case structure, &c?
The video said it was made purposefully simple, yet the few examples shown had articles. Why would a simple language need articles?

 

[Taylor Seraphim]

If it was developed in the '50s, why is it less known than other interlanguages like Esperanto, Interlingua or Ido? Does it have a literature? broadcasts? a body of speakers?
How's it constructed -- word order, case structure, &c?
The video said it was made purposefully simple, yet the few examples shown had articles. Why would a simple language need articles?

It has been in development SINCE the 50s and was finished in the late 90s.

 

[Papoon]

Ambiguity of meaning is only useful in deception.

I disagree.
Ambiguity is an essential element of human communication and psychological/emotional growth.

Poetry, song lyrics, and much human interaction rely on ambiguity to point to meanings and experiences outside the purview of logic and conventional speech and established norms.

I remember reading a remark somewhere that ambiguity, in various forms even extending to word games like puns and spoonerisms, momentarily unhinges the habitual cognitive processes which keep people locked in a false perception of an enduring ego/identity.

 

[Taylor Seraphim]

false perception of an enduring ego/identity.

This is where we disagree, you want people to not have individuality or survival instincts.

 

[Papoon]

This is where we disagree, you want people to not have individuality or survival instincts.

No. You are conflating recognition of the absence of inherent stable identity with some kind of anti life mysticism to which I do not subscribe. We can discuss that in an appropriate thread sometime.

 

[Taylor Seraphim]

No. You are conflating recognition of the absence of inherent stable identity with some kind of anti life mysticism to which I do not subscribe. We can discuss that in an appropriate thread sometime.

In English these mean:

Ego: a person's sense of self-esteem or self-importance.

Identity: the fact of being who or what a person or thing is.

If you wish to use your own definition for them please let me know in your post, because I generally assume that when someone is speaking English that they are going to use English definitions of words.