Lojban is a constructed language that first began development in 1987, and had a finished baseline by 1997. Lojban is designed to be completely structurally unambiguous and logical. The name itself means "logical language" in Lojban.
Lojban's
grammar is very different from essentially every other language. Instead of having nouns, particles, verbs, etc, Lojban in its simplest form has three categories of
words: "bridi," "selbri" and "sumti."
Every "bridi" is a statement, like "X is Y" or "X does Y." To make a bridi, you need one selbri and at least one sumti. "selbri" are similar to verbs, as they describe actions or states. If we look at the word "tavla," the
definition is "x1 talks/speaks to x2 about subject x3 in language x4." Those x are filled by sumti, and once at least one x has been filled, a bridi is formed.
Lojban has a lot of particles. The simplest one, ".i" marks that this is where the statement begins. In
standard Lojban, ".i" is to be placed before every statement or utterance. A less simple one and one that is more unique to Lojban is "
lo" and its companion, "ku." By placing a selbri between "
lo" and "ku," you can turn selbri into sumti and use them as such. You'
re not restricted to
words like "me" or "you" and can instead say "the speaker" or "the gift" and describe them in a bridi.
Lojban is not very widely spoken, with speakers in the low thousands. It's mostly contained to
online forums and
Discord servers, with some meetups in real life.
