Welcome to Loglan.org

• 
• What's New
• Beginners
• Materials
• Texts
• Articles
• Columns
• Lognet
• Miscellaneous
• Contact

Loi, Logli!

Loglan is an artificial human language originally designed/invented by James Cooke Brown in the late 1950's. He worked on it for many years with the help and input of many volunteers.

James Cooke Brown in Beijing, April 1994

What's New

• Some people are meeting roughly once a week to practice "speaking" (typing, actually, so far) in the online environment Second Life. If you would like to participate, you can join the "Loglan Conversation Group" (within Second Life) and send a message to Leslie Beaumont (aka Randall Holmes). Meetings have generally been on Saturday or Sunday at 9:00 am PDT. Each week's meeting is announced on the mailing list.
• "Where are they now?" department. In the 1970s, Sheldon Linker created the first machine grammar for Loglan. More recently, he's written software which he says, "I can talk to, and get well-reasoned answers back from." It's not Loglan, but a special form of English which Sheldon calls "JCB-English", named after our founder. You may either read his paper, or try out his software.
• There is now a listing of all the articles that have appeared in Lognet, with links to those articles which are available here. (More links will be added as time permits.)

For Beginners

1. What is Loglan? A short description of Loglan and its origins. This is the flyer that The Loglan Institute mails to people who inquire.
2. Vizka La Spat A short bit of text with a detailed explaination for those who have never seen Loglan before.
3. Loglan 3 by Steve Rice, our basic Loglan primer, is now available in Adobe Acrobat format as shareware. This is a revised edition that replaces the partial HTML version that was previously available here.

Available Study Materials

1. The basic textbook, Loglan 1, is now online. This is the revised 4th edition, just like the paper 1989 edition but with all known errors corrected.
2. Appendix A of Loglan 1 is a list of Loglan little words. Bill Gober has created an updated version. It is available either sorted by word or sorted by lexeme.
3. Robert McIvor has compiled the notes written by James Cooke Brown and Alex Leith while preparing the novel First Visit to Loglandia, the first part of which appeared in La Logli.
4. Loglan 3 by Steve Rice, our basic Loglan primer, is available in Adobe Acrobat format as shareware.
5. A Loglan-English dictionary is available as software.
6. Study materials you can buy. (and price list)

Sample Texts

1. Vizka La Spat
   For those who have never seen Loglan before.
2. A Cartoon in Loglan by Rex May.
3. Lo Logla Plipursei
   A simple original Loglan composition about the pain of memorization.
4. Ne Clina Fora
   A four line poem from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, 1st Ed.. Translation by Robert McIvor and friends.
5. Na Lepo Mi Pa Hirti Le Cirflo Tarsenmao
   A Walt Whitman poem, translated by James Cooke Brown.
6. Ne Dristu Je La Helas
   A humorous, true story about traveling in Greece, by Robert McIvor.
7. Ne Rorlensia
   A humorous, true story about languages, with a collegiate setting.
8. Ne Logle Po Lerbatmi
   Some correspondence about Loglan in Loglan, between the Two Jameses.
9. Le Fidsesmao Kamkystu
   A funny story about Physicists as told by Dr. Leon Lederman. Translation by JCB.
10. Le Fidsesmao Kamkystu Lerci
    A letter, in Loglan, which comments on the funny story about Physicists.
11. Ne Tradu Stuci
    A true story about U.S.-Korean relations, by Kirk Sattley.
12. A Selection From Sophie's World
    An excerpt from the philosophical novel Sophie's World, by Jostein Gaarder. Translation by Alex Leith.
13. Nepo Neri Vizgoi La Loglandias (A First Visit to Loglandia)
    A story about someone traveling to a Loglan-speaking country, by Alex Leith.
14. First Visit to Loglandia
    Robert McIvor has compiled the notes generated by James Cooke Brown and Alex Leith while preparing the novel First Visit to Loglandia, the first part of which appeared in La Logli. Notes for each chapter are posted, along with the original Loglan and English texts.

Articles

1. The Many Faces of Gu
   An explanation of gu and its kin, by Robert McIvor.
2. How to use Abstractions
   Advice on how to use po, pu, and zo.
3. Complex-Making in Loglan
   Some rules of thumb used for making many Loglan compound words, by Robert McIvor.
4. Logic and Economy
   An essay on the nature of language.
5. Lo Cejnoa (Trends)
   An enthusiastic essay on the future of Loglan. Has lots of example text.
6. Towards a Theory of Case Tags
   A speculative essay on Loglan's optional case-tag system and how it relates to language in general.
7. Subjunctive Junction: Articles that relate to the counterfactual/subjunctive debate.
   • I Would if I Could
     A proposal for adding something similar to (but different from) a subjunctive to Loglan.
   • Counterfactuals in Perspective
     A comparison of the I Would if I Could proposal to several other counterfactual/subjunctive proposals.
   • The Mia System of Subjunctive by James Cooke Brown.
     Another counterfactual/subjunctive proposal. A version of this was adopted by the Keugru in early 1997, although another version is also under consideration.
8. Sets and Multiples and Sets and Masses
   Two essays on collectives such as sets, multiples, and masses, by JCB.
9. Abstract for Loglan and the Option of Clarity: A Genuinely User-friendly Language For Humans and Their Machines, by Reed Riner. Alas, we cannot post the full article here for copyright reasons, but you can easily request it from the author by e-mail. It's about 35K.
10. Identity Predicates and MEX, by Emerson Mitchell.
    A gritty discussion of the requirements of a Mathematical Expression grammar, with extensive comments by JCB.

Regular Columns from Lognet

• Hu Logla Sanpa Toi? (What's the Loglan for This?) by Bill Gober
  1. Hu Logla Sanpa Toi? from Lognet 91/3
     The columnist introduces himself, explains the column's title, and recommends The Loglan Institute's learning materials.
  2. Body Parts from Lognet 91/4
     How Loglan describes parts of your body, and part-whole relationships in general.
  3. Confessions of a PA Abuser from Lognet 92/2
     The right and wrong ways to use words in the PA lexeme. (The words that are in the same grammatical family as pa.)
  4. Nepo Canjmi Ji Vi Ne Logle Barcu from Lognet 92/3
     The start of a mystery story which takes place in a sleazy bar in Loglandia. Followed by a discussion of logical connectives.
  5. Numbers and How to Use Them from Lognet 93/2
     Lots of inventive examples of how numbers might be used in various contexts.
  6. Lopo Duible Le Meliu PA Leksemi (Exploring the PA Lexeme) from Lognet 96/3
     A discussion of some under used and sometimes provocative constructions. Although this wasn't published as one of the excellent Sanpa columns, it is much the same spirit.
• Sau La Lodtua (From the Logician) by M. Randall Holmes
  1. Sau La Lodtua from Lognet 92/2
     A lesson in the basic concepts of first-order predicate logic, the mathematical theory on which Loglan is partially based.
  2. Sau La Lodtua from Lognet 92/3
     This column can be vaguely summarized as the problem of "sets".
  3. Sau La Lodtua from Lognet 93/2
     Some brief remarks on the significance of Loglan and its present condition from the position of a mathematical logician.
  4. Sau La Lodtua from Lognet 93/4
     An argument that the first-order logic features of natural language are largely implicit rather than explicit, potential rather than actual..
  5. Sau La Lodtua from Lognet 94/1
     An outline of what La Lodtua is up to, rather than a formal column.
  6. Sau La Lodtua from Lognet 94/3
     The Logic of "Respectively"

A List of Lognet Aritcles

Many of the articles at Loglan.org were originally published in The Loglan Institute's newsletter Lognet. This list of the contents of each issue of Lognet has links to the main articles available here, as well as to additional articles of more historical interest. (More links will be added as time permits.)

Miscellaneous

1. For Programmers: The Loglan Institute is making the source code for its various software products available for download.
2. Vyatcheslav Ivanov has written a Loglan web page with sections in both Russian and Esperanto. You'll need a Cyrillic font to read the Russian parts.
3. For Macintosh users: Your Mac can actually speak Loglan for you with our highly experimental Loglan Text To Speech page.
4. The Machine Grammar
   This is the yacc source for the Loglan parser. If you don't know what "yacc" is, you probably don't need this. ('yacc' stands for "yet another compiler compiler". It's a tool that programmers use for writing software that parses text files.) This is "Trial 80" of the grammar from 1994 -- not the most recent but it's a good starting point.
5. "Where are they now?" department. In the 1970s, Sheldon Linker created the first machine grammar for Loglan. More recently, he's written software which he says, "I can talk to, and get well-reasoned answers back from." It's not Loglan, but a special form of English which Sheldon calls "JCB-English", named after our founder. You may either read his paper, or try out his software.
6. Information on Other Constructed Languages

Loglan Sightings

• Loglan is mentioned briefly in the novel "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" by Robert A. Heinlein
• A character in the web comic "Spare Parts" is majoring in artificial languages.

Contact Information

More official information on Loglan is available from:

THE LOGLAN INSTITUTE, INC.
A Non-Profit Research Corporation
c/o Jennifer Brown
1701 N.E. 75 St.
Gainesville, FL 32641
U.S.A.
Phone: (352) 378-5655

Informal questions and comments about Loglan or about the content of these pages can be directed to the author of this page at:

Mailing List

There is also an electronic mailing list for general discussion and answering the questions of beginning Loglanists.
You can subscribe at the mailing list's web page.

This list is often rather quiet, but people are listening. So if you have a question, speak up.