View source for what is This Lojban Thing


== What is This Lojban Thing?  (version 1.0.7 2008-12-31) ==

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An online version of the presentation ''What is This Lojban Thing?'' is now available at [http://lojban-thing.icebubble.org/].  Offers to mirror the presentation (approx. 60 MB) are welcome.

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This CD-ROM/ZIP archive/web page contains a slide show on the

constructed language known as Lojban ([http://www.lojban.org]).

The presentation consists of a brief overview of the language's

history, its grammar, its semantics, its relation to the predicate

calculus, and a glimpse of the current Lojban culture.  The

presentation includes various multimedia content, including the

official LLG parser, two Lojban speech synthesizers, Lojban music, a

radio show in the Lojban language, and links to other online

interactive content (such as an online Lojban-to-English translator,

a Lojban news site, and the #lojban IRC channel).  Presentation of

this slide show can be expected to take between two and three hours.

For those interested in learning to speak/read/write in Lojban, this

disk should contain all the information you need to get started

learning and become conversational in the Lojban language.

=== System Requirements ===

The presentation format is simply a web page (lojban-thing-*.html)

utilizing the S5 ([http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/s5/]) slide show

system and should work with any recent standards-compliant web

browser.  To navigate the slide show, just use the arrow keys on your

keyboard, or press the space bar to advance to the next slide.  A

connection to the Internet is suggested, but not required.

Some of the multimedia content (such as the speech synthesizers)

require free software to run (both synthesizers require festival).

All of these programs should be available to Windows users for free

online, and pre-packaged versions of these programs are available in

several popular GNU/Linux distributions.

For use of the computer-generated vocabulary tracks, a portable MP3

player, CD player, or similar device is recommended but not required.

Feedback on this presentation is always welcome.  Send your comments,

corrections, praise, complaints, or other e-love to the appropriate

address listed in the slide entitled "Contact Information".

Discover and Enjoy! <br />

David Montenegro

=== About Lojban ===

Lojban (ISO 639 language code "jbo") is a expressive,

culture-neutral constructed spoken language with an unambiguous

grammar, morphology, phonology, and orthography.  (This basically

means that, when spoken or written, it can only be interpereted in

one way.)  Lojban, a member of the Loglan family of languages

invented by Dr. James Cooke Brown in the latter half of the 1950's,

has been developed and maintained by the Logical Language Group

since its creation in 1987.

The sounds, grammar, and semantics of Lojban were chosen from among

languages all over the world.  Due to its culture-neutrality,

Lojban has the potential to become an international auxiliary

language.  Because its grammar is flexible and unambiguous, Lojban

permits the expression of ideas which are difficult to express

(clearly) in natural languages (such as English).  Thus, it is

speculated that Lojban may also help to free the human mind's

creative processes and promote undistorted communication between

individuals.  Because Lojban has a machine-parsable grammar, Lojban

is nearly ideal for computerized language processing.  And, for all

of these reasons, Lojban is a powerful tool for use in research

linguistics. (Perhaps the most notable of Lojban's potential

research applications is in testing of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.)

For more information about Lojban, e-mail lojban@lojban.org, visit

[http://www.lojban.org] or write to: The Logical Language Group, Inc.

2904 Beau Lane Fairfax, VA 22031 U.S.A.  (+1 703) 385-0273.