Lojban

Lojban is a constructed human language designed to minimize ambiguity and to facilitate precise, culturally neutral communication. It originated from Loglan, a project initiated in the 1950s by Dr. James Cooke Brown, and was developed and renamed Lojban in 1987 by the Logical Language Group. The language aims to support clear discourse in linguistics research, cognitive science, and human–computer interaction, and it has a community of learners and developers who maintain dictionaries, grammars, and learning materials.

Phonology and writing: Lojban uses a Latin-based alphabet and orthography that strives for one-to-one pronunciation of letters. The vocabulary is built from gismu (root words), lujvo (compound words formed from gismu), and tanru (multi-word modifiers). A large class of function words, cmavo, provides grammatical markers and connects phrases. Words are separated by spaces, and punctuation helps mark sentence structure, but the overall parsing is designed to be unambiguous regardless of word order.

Grammar and semantics: The core of Lojban is a predicate-argument system designed to map closely onto formal logic. Predicates (selbri) take one or more sumti (arguments); cmavo indicate case, tense, scope, and other grammatical relations. The language emphasizes transparent syntax over natural-language ambiguity, making it possible to analyze sentences mechanically and to discuss semantic scope explicitly. Lojban also includes derivational rules to form new gismu and lujvo.

Use and community: Lojban has an active online community and ongoing projects in language learning, text processing, and artificial intelligence research. Educational materials include textbooks, dictionaries, and online courses. While not widely spoken as a native language, Lojban is used in experiments on parsing, machine translation, and cross-cultural communication.