Artificial language?

[GIR]

Has anyone heard of Lojban? It’s a language constructed around logical principles. I’m wondering if any who have heard of it feel it’s biased against faith of any kind. Given that it was created by academics, that wouldn’t surprise me, even though it bills itself as culturally “neutral” in practice that usually means “hesperophobic” (hating the West).

Also, does anyone feel it would be of any benefit to translate the bible, or even the Summa into lojban, given that it is supposed to be clear and unambiguous?

 

[Just_Lurking]

See here for an Esperanto Bible.

 

[Dale_M]

Given the limited utility of learning an artificial language, I can’t see any succeeding. It would simply make more sense to learn a foreign language which has practical applications e.g. English or Mandarin to aid business, Latin to read older European texts, Spanish to help in daily conversation with neighbors, etc.

Esperanto made an attempt at a language freed of nationality, but it never broke out of its circle of true believers. Other than as a philosophical conviction, there is no reason to learn an artificial language. As it is, hundreds of natural languages around the world have gone extinct and more are in the process of dying because they don’t aid the young persons who would learn them.
nytimes.com/2007/09/18/world/18cnd-language.html

I suspect that more people know how to speak Klingon than know how to speak Lojban.

 

[GIR]

My question wasn’t about artificial language in general, but lojban specifically; whether the principles applied in lojban are an attempt, concious or not, to reject Christian philosoophy, and if not, whether it could be used to whitre precisely about philisophical issues. It bills itself as completely unambigououse. It also tries as much as possible to seperate the statement of a fact and the emotions the speaker may feel about that fact.

For example,

.i la obamas. turni
“Obama is president” or more exactly “Obama governs” says nothing about how I feel about the fact that he is president.

However, I would probably say

.i’enai. la obamas. turni

which means literaly [speaker feels unhappy about following fact] Obama is the president.

Whether this forceful division of fact and emotion is possible, lojban does have some interesting tidbits that make it useful in Christian apologetics.

I can’t remember the exact words, but lojban has different ways of saying why… because… statements.

One involves a physicla cause and effect, and another involves volition. So “Why is the water boiling? Because I want to makes some tea.” and “Why is the water boiling? Because the water has reached the heat of vaporization.” would use different words for “why” and “because”. This is why I think it might be interesting, and this is why I put this thread in the philosophy board.

 

[JohnDamian]

My question wasn’t about artificial language in general, but lojban specifically; whether the principles applied in lojban are an attempt, concious or not, to reject Christian philosoophy, and if not, whether it could be used to whitre precisely about philisophical issues. It bills itself as completely unambigououse. It also tries as much as possible to seperate the statement of a fact and the emotions the speaker may feel about that fact.

Why would an attempt to make a logical language challenge Catholic Philosophy, which is founded in the logical works of individuals such as Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, Francis Mayrone, William of Ockham, Henry of Ghent and so on and so forth.

Logic poses no problem to Catholic philosophy; which is in many ways built upon logic!

For a thousand years (500-1500) the only real logicians were either Catholic or Muslim (such as Averroes, Avicenna, Alhazen etc.).

 

[GIR]

I guess what I was getting at was, since the language was created by academics, and since academics, statistically, are more likely to be nonbelievers, I figured this might show up in some subtle but dangerous way in the language.

 

[Spirithound]

My question wasn’t about artificial language in general, but lojban specifically; whether the principles applied in lojban are an attempt, concious or not, to reject Christian philosoophy, and if not, whether it could be used to whitre precisely about philisophical issues. It bills itself as completely unambigououse. It also tries as much as possible to seperate the statement of a fact and the emotions the speaker may feel about that fact.

I would not worry. From the reading I have done (in the last 38 minutes) anti-Christian principles are not embedded in the morphology or syntax.

I can’t remember the exact words, but lojban has different ways of saying why… because… statements.

One involves a physicla cause and effect, and another involves volition. So “Why is the water boiling? Because I want to makes some tea.” and “Why is the water boiling? Because the water has reached the heat of vaporization.” would use different words for “why” and “because”. This is why I think it might be interesting, and this is why I put this thread in the philosophy board.

That would be very interesting. Kinda like St. Thomas’s 4 causes.

I guess what I was getting at was, since the language was created by academics, and since academics, statistically, are more likely to be nonbelievers, I figured this might show up in some subtle but dangerous way in the language.

There is a word for Christ, “xriso”, and there is a mechanism for adding new words as they are required (even the most arrogant of academic committees would not presume to be able to write out an entire lexicon ). I presume that any new words with overlapping definitions would be settled at the next general meeting…

 

[antroji]

GIR, do you think there is a correlations between academics and non-belief?

Hey, we could all re-learn Sanskrit, supposedly the most 1/1 with actuality of all languages.

David Bohm has some interesting things to say about that relative to English in his book Wholeness and the Implicate Order.

 

[GIR]

Yes, there is a statistical correlation between secularism and academics. That’s a terrible shame. I’ve had one teacher who was obviously (though not overtly) catholic, and a few who showed some defference to religion as such, but most have been practical agnostics. I’ve heard phrases like “I GREW UP catholic” which usually menas “I’m not catholic anymore”.

Back to lojban, I also wanted to see if anyone more skilled in philosophy might see any benefit in it. I’m more into linguistics, and that’s how I found out about it. I go nuts over things like evidentials, seperation of tense and aspect, derrevational morphology etc. Lojban has all this in spades and a whole lot more. The drawback, though, is that it has too much. It’s designed to be “understood” by computers, whatever that means, and as such one is required to be painfully specific. You can’t just form a compound from, say “back” and “stab” to make “backstabber”, and expect that it mean a betrayer. You have to add another affix indicating that the word isn’t literally someone who physically stabs you in the back, but something else. This pretty much defeats the purpose and fun of using metaphores.

 

[antroji]

Yes, these points of linguistics figure large in some of RA Heinlein’s novels, especially his concept of a “fair witness.” He is also the one who said, and I agree, that “In English, only the first person singular present of the verb ‘to be’ is true to fact.” As well, since some Middle Eastern and Eastern philosophies and some Western mystics have an entirely non-standard and different take on the word “I,” such a language as might be more 1/1 with actuality could be of immense use in theological thought.

 

[Spirithound]

You can’t just form a compound from, say “back” and “stab” to make “backstabber”, and expect that it mean a betrayer. You have to add another affix indicating that the word isn’t literally someone who physically stabs you in the back, but something else. This pretty much defeats the purpose and fun of using metaphores.

Would this language even support metaphor? If it really hopes to be 1:1, it probably wouldn’t, since a metaphor requires a secondary definition to already be in the receiver’s head.