Item — HN Reader

For reference, I became reasonably fluent at reading and writing lojban. I think it's fantastic, but in the end there were few people to communicate with, no decent reading material, and too many other calls on my time.

I have a couple of ideas for web apps to help bootstrap lojban, but again, no time.

Shame, really. I like it.

3 comments

"I think it's fantastic, but in the end there were few people to communicate with, no decent reading material"

These only really matter if communicating with others and consuming content were your primary goals. If so, obviously a more mainstream language would be preferable.

But there are other things that you could do, such as create Lojban content yourself (ie. write articles, books, poems, etc..), or help others to learn Lojban (increasing the number of people to communicate with), or figure out ways to use Lojban to communicate with computers, or help improve and shape the language.

For several years I tried all those things. I couldn't get anyone interested in learning with me, there wasn't enough material at the right sort of level to get really fluent without years of rewardless work, and when I tried writing anything it tool literally months to write a few paragraphs to a standard that was regarded at the time as acceptable.

Maybe things have changed, but my ideas for generating large amounts of interesting entry-level material were ignored, so I finally gave up. When you work hard to produce material that no one reads, it becomes hard to care.

I have a lot more to say, but despite trying to be helpful, it will probably just come out as complaining, so rather than potentially damage the movement, I'm better leaving the enthusiasts to just get on with it without me.

Have you read Ben Goertzel's Loglish idea to combine the Lojban grammar with the English vocabulary? This could address the issue of adoption. http://www.goertzel.org/new_research/Loglish.htm http://www.goertzel.org/papers/lojbanplusplus.pdf

this is good idea. i wonder if there is such adapted texts for other languages. it sure would make learning experience better.

When did these "several years" take place, ColinWright? Was the Web already around? Was it before social media came of age? It's only been a few years since social networking really came on the scene. Maybe nowadays it'd be easier to find or form a community that would support the dreams and meet the desires you had when learning Lojban.

YouTube is particularly significant. Being able to hear and see speakers of a foreign language has got to be a tremendous boon for those interested in learning that language. (Yes, such resources were likely available before YouTube, but only professionally-produced resources, only for popular languages, and not free.)

I started learning Esperanto in 1998, but stopped studying after a few months, since college kept me very busy at the time. (I still remember many words, surprisingly.) Were I to pick up nowadays, though, I'm sure I'd be able find an astounding wealth of resources and people who'd spur me on. I'd expect a similar situation with Lojban (though on a smaller scale, since it's less popular.)

I started in 1988 and only finally gave up in 2006.

Maybe the new social media would help, but in truth, I doubt it. The IRC channels, wiki, email lists and occasional Skype call have existed for ages and still nothing has really changed.

If I had a meter square sheet of paper, divided it into centimeter squares and crossed off one per day, I probably wouldn't get to finish. I'm now not going to spend any of them trying to re-acquire lojban.

Did you notice any impact on your clarity of thought?

I did notice a specific change in the complexity of my usage of tenses. My ability to reason didn't seem to change much, but I am a mathematician.

ui .i mi batci le mlatu

Same here. If I ever get around to making The Computer Game Of My Dreams, I'm going to have one faction, race or species' dialogue entirely in lojban, with no translations or subtitles.