This page includes only news items through March 2014. For more recent news, see What's New?.

5 March 2014

selpa'i releases his second original song, «lo mi jufra»

24 December 2013

selpa'i publishes a translation of L. Frank Baum's "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz".

10 December 2013

Slate's" Lexicon Alley" podcast features an interview with Arika Okrent about lojban.

4 October 2013

guskant releases a recording of «la tcungatcangas pe mu sofybakni zi'e noi xorlo je xorla», a translation of the Russian song «Tcungatcangas», including original artwork

7 June 2013

guskant releases «ro roi za'u re'u ji'a»

3 June 2013

selpa'i releases an original song, «ca pa djedi»

29 April 2013

Masato Hagiwara releases camxes.js, a javascript port of the camxes PEG parser.

19 April 2013

lojbab and Nora are invited to speak to the "Artificial Languages" class at the College of William and Mary.

4-6 January 2013

25th anniversary LogFest is celebrated in Fairfax, VA.

2 January 2013

Zoltan Istvan's "Transhumanist Wager", a science fiction novel which references lojban, is published.

29 December 2012

timo presents a lightning talk about lojban at the 29th Chaos Communication Congress, Hamburg, Germany.

10 December 2012

"Ihmisen tila - The Human Condition", an original play by Jyrki Pylväs is premiered in Helsinki, Finland. It includes a monologue in lojban translated by selpa'i.

24 September 2012

gleki announces the launch of the Lojbanic Mediawiki.

26 August 2012

guskant releases la crisa ditcu on YouTube.

12 June 2012

Robin Lee Powell, the full member of BPFK committee suggested the idea of a Lojban hackathon; that is, a time period strictly devoted to that sort of thing, ideally in
person, but at least with real-time communication throughout. Currently Lojban comunity has a very long list of programming and programming-like (CLLv1.1) things that need to happen around here. Interested may write here.

7 June 2012

jbonunsla, the sometimes-annual social gathering for members of the
Lojban community, will be held this year in the San Francisco Bay
Area, in which many Lojbanists reside.
It will be held primarily on Saturday, 7 July 2012 and Sunday, 8
July 2012.
The gathering will take place in a shared hotel room in San Mateo:
Read details.

24 February 2012

If you still like the feel of a book, you'll love this. An illustrated hard copy of the xorxes translation of 'Alice in Wonderland' is finally available. The book, 'lo selfri be la .alis. bei bu'u la selmacygu'e', can be found in the bookstore on the Blurb website.

Blurb is one of the leading print-on-demand service providers in the USA.

22 August 2011

The Lojban community's annual convention, jbonunsla, happened over 4th of July weekend in San Mateo, California, USA. Lojbanists from all around the country convened to a single point to participate in conversation in Lojban, gaming in Lojban, and open floor activities. Pictures have been taken of the event and can be seen on the 2011 jbonunsla page.

23 June 2011

The Lojban community's annual convention, Logfest (known in Lojban as jbonunsla), will be held on Saturday July 2 and Sunday July 3 at the Holiday Inn in San Mateo, California, USA. Experienced lojbanists who want to talk in Lojban, newbies who want to meet some of the key people in the community, and anybody who is just interested are all invited to attend what promises to be a mind-blowing experience.

Attendees can travel easily from the following airports, in order of convenience: San Francisco International Airport, San Jose Airport, and Oakland International Airport. Locals with cars are available for pickup if necessary.

For more information contact Robin Powell.

3 June 2011

Here is a well-presented update on how language shapes "the most fundamental dimensions of human experiences: space, time, causality and relationships to others."

Loglan, from which Lojban evolved, was originally designed to test this very idea. Although this has received diminished attention since that time, there appears to be a resurgence of interest in the scientific community.

18 April 2011

"Introductory Lojban" is a student-run one-credit course that will be offered at Rice University in Houston, USA, starting August 23, 2011.

The course length is 14 weeks, with each lesson lasting 1 hour. Registration is required for full participation. However, anyone is welcome to "sit in", but should contact the course presenter, Joe Anderson, beforehand. Each Rice-registered student will be provided with a copy of the Lojban Reference Manual. By the end of the course, students should know the basic structure of Lojban and be able to converse in it readily.

For more information, contact the course presenter, Joe Anderson.

12 April 2011

An Arabic version of the home page has been added to this web site.

This is the last of the world's major languages (the six used for creating "gismu" - Lojban's root words) in which the home page of this site has been translated. In addition, the translation has been done for another eleven languages.

5 March 2011

March marks the first anniversary of the setting up of the Japanese-language Google Group "lojban-soudan". The group currently has about fifteen members.

A lojban study group at Tokyo University is in the process of creating a partial translation of the Lojban Reference Manual (CLL). There is also a Lojban Club at Osaka University, one of whose members is enhancing and updating the Japanese pages of this wiki.

12 February 2011

A Finnish version of the home page has been added to this web site.

5 February 2011

A French-language home page has been added to this website. Hopefully, this will draw more francophones across the world to Lojban. The home page is now available in 16 languages. More will be added in an effort to futher "internationalize" the lojban community.

20 January 2011

In an effort to broaden the appeal of Lojban in India, home pages in the Hindi and Kannada languages have been added to this website.

Hindi is one of two official languages of India and is spoken by close to 200M people worldwide. Kannada is the official language of the state of Karnataka which is the location of Bangalore and the centre of India's burgeoning IT industry.

6 January 2011

All four Lojban Wave lessons have been translated into Polish and are available on GoogleDocs. Hopefully, this will spread the Word in Poland where there is already a small but vibrant Lojban community!

18 December 2010

Are you a newbie and ready for your first read? Are you more experienced and would like to take on the challenge of introducing your children to a story in Lojban? Either way, you'll want to take a look at a new translation by Remo Dentato of If I had a Pet Dinasaur by Gil Robles.

It's in full colour, nicely illustrated and a wonderful quick read!

25 November 2010

Today, Jan Szejko (ianek) gave a short presentation on Lojban to students at the renowned Faculty of Mathematics, Informatics and Mechanics of the University of Warsaw in Poland. Students from this faculty have twice won first place at the world finals of the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest.

18 November 2010

A mind map of Lojban word types has been made available on the cheat sheet page of this website. This should be a particularly useful learning aid for beginners with strong visual memory.

Check out the Learning page for more information on how to start learning Lojban.

12 October 2010

The 2010 Annual Meeting of the Logical Language Group Inc. has closed. Bob LeChevalier (USA), Arnt Johansen (Norway) and Robin Powell (USA) were re-elected to the Board. They are joined by two new members: Timo Paulssen (Germany) and Veijo Vilva (Finland).

6 October 2010

Yesterday Willem Larsen, one of the creators of the language fluency game "Where are your Keys?, published a blog entry called "The Playful World of Conlangs" to the "Where are your Keys? blog.

Lojban is given special mention as one of the constructed languages which has a "Where are your Keys?" community.

5 October 2010

Alan Post has announced that "lo do ckiku ma zvati("Where are your Keys?") can now be played by e-mail.

"Where are your Keys?" is a language fluency game that is quickly gaining in popularity among Lojban neophytes. In it's initial version, it was played interactively - requiring students to be available at the same time.

The e-mail version will make it easier for students in different time zones to participate.

If you are interested in playing, please join the group.

1 October 2010

Starting today, Polish lojbanists have their own mailing list lojban-pl. The Polish group is currently deciding which Lojban resources to translate into Polish first. Marek Rogalski is the contact.

Poland is expected to be fertile ground for Lojban, having a great tradition in the field of constructed languages. Ludwik (Leyzer) Zamenhoff, the creator of Esperanto, was born in Bialystok in 1859.

9 September 2010

A new children's book le lunra jo'u le mapku is available. This is a translation by Remo Dentato of The Moon and the Cap, written in India.

This full colour PDF-format book looks just like the original, and will be a great way to introduce your children to the joys of Lojban.

12 August 2010

Leo Molas will give a presentation on Lojban at the upcoming "Jornadas del Sur" convention on Monday, August 16, in Bahia Blanca, Argentina.

The subject of the convention, which lasts from Saturday, August 14 to Monday, August 16, is free software and free culture.

Leo's presentation will cover:

-What is Lojban?

-History

-Sapir-Whorf Hyphothesis

-Why learn Lojban?

-Basic grammar

For more information, contact Leo.

9 August 2010

The 2010 Annual Meeting of the Logical Language Group Inc, will commence on 21 August 2010 at approximately 1PM EDT, on the llg-members list. The meeting will be conducted by email. Members should be checking their members list email at least daily.

Non-members who may be interested in becoming formal members of LLG should also attend. Please read the bylaws of the LLG in advance of the meeting, and perhaps a few of the minutes of prior meetings, so that you have some idea what membership is all about; the LLG typically accepts anyone who shows evidence of sufficient interest and awareness of what they are signing up for.

To get access privileges to the llg-members list, non-members should contact LLG Secretary Robin Powell, preferably on IRC Chat.

25 July 2010

Starting July 27, 2010, Lojban enthusiasts in the San Francisco area of the USA will meet together at regular intervals each month to communicate in and about Lojban. The venue is the home of Stephen Weeks in Mountainview.

The format and content of these meetings will be set during the first meetings. The seriously curious as well as experienced lojbanists are welcome. Contact Stephen if you are interested in particpating.

19 July 2010

A new milestone has been reached with the implementation of over 600 Lojban's structure words ('cmavo') on Smart.fm. Now, the whole of Lojban's basic vocabulary of root words, their conversions and structure words can be studied using one of the most effective learning tools currently available.

Smart.fm is an adaptive flashcard system that includes audio, advanced tracking features based on a unique learning algorithm, and provides an applet for the iPhone.

To take a look, go to the site, type 'Lojban' in the Search box, sign-up and start learing!

4 July 2010

Lojbanists Jorge Llambias and Leo Molas have proposed complete sets of Lojban words for all countries, languages and currencies, basing them on ISO codes. A systematic approach to the use of these codes has enabled a virtually automatic process for producing such words - one likely to work for future, as yet unspecified
codes.

The sets can be found at http://bit.ly/bgB7PV, http://bit.ly/9Ma7Qq, http://bit.ly/clUVtb and http://bit.ly/c43ua5.

Lojban words derived from foreign words or external
sources are known as 'fu'ivla'. The proposal is a
solution to a problem that all constructed languages
share. How do you go about efficiently translating tens
of thousands of words that have evolved in natural
languages over thousands of years within the
constraints imposed by your own language rule?'.

22 June 2010

All of Lojban's approximately 1300 'gismu' (root-words), along with their 'rafsi' (short versions of the root-words) are now implemented in the Quizlet flashcard memorization website. Grouped alphabetically in 28 sets, they bring the total of Lojban word sets to 169. This huge selection of sets, grouped in so many different ways, significantly facilitates vocabulary learning.

By comparison, Esperanto has 274 sets, Interlingua 22, Toki Pona 22, Ido 18, Klingon 10.

7 May 2010

{DIV(float=>right)}{IMG(attId="707",thumb="browse" height=100)}{DIV}Logfest 2010 took place from April 30 - May 2 at PenguiCon 2010 in Troy, Michigan, and was a great success. Nine serious Lojbanists attended, and we attracted 3 or 4 newbies. Courtesy of Axis, here is a picture of most of the attendees, and a couple of newbies, attending a lesson.

3 May 2010

The popular children's story book The Berenstain Bears Get in a Fight has been translated into Lojban by Andrew Piekarski and reviewed by Michael Turiansky. It can be listened to (download totus reads The Berenstain Bears Get in a Fight) as well as read.

For devotees of exotic scripts, a Tengwar version is available (download 'lo la BERenstain. cribe co'a simda'a' written in Tengwar).

Michael Turiansky did the first translation of one of the Berenstain Bears series - The Berenstain Bears and the Prize Pumpkin.

4 Apr 2010

The Lojban community's annual convention, Logfest (known in Lojban as jbonunsla), will be held during April 30 - May 2 this year at Penguicon 2010 in Troy, Michigan in the USA. Experienced lojbanists who want to talk in Lojban, newbies who want to meet some of the key people in the community, and anybody who is just interested are all invited to attend what promises to be a mind-blowing experience. For more information contact Matt Arnold.

23 Mar 2010

The first stage of implementing Lojban vocabulary on Smart.fm has been completed. All 1300 of Lojban's root words ('gismu') can now be studied along with some 3,500 derived words ('gismu sumti'). These are organized into 'lessons', three of which are now ready. Additional lessons for learning over 600 structure words ('cmavo') are now in development.

Smart.fm is an adaptive flashcard learning tool that includes audio, advanced tracking features based on a unique learning algorithm, and provides an applet for the iPhone.

To take a look, go to the site, type 'Lojban' in the Search box, sign-up and start learing!

10 Mar 2010

Students at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland have started a Lojban Society. Hosting weekly meetings in a local pub, the group has 12 members after its first month. The group is to provide a social environment for people sharing an interest in Lojban and, in the future, act as a resource for Lojban-related projects at the University. Certainly repeatable at any university (or anywhere for that matter!). To find out more, contact lojban@st-andrews.ac.uk.

2 Mar 2010

"Where are your Keys?" is a language fluency game that rapidly builds fluency in a language by making the techniques used to teach language transparent to the student so they can be used for self-directed learning. A "Where are your Keys?" website focused specifically toward learning Lojban is now online: "lo do ckiku ma zvati". Come and play "lo do ckiku ma zvati!" Contact Alan Post for more information.

19 Feb 2010

An invitation has been made by an author on The Sporum, the official Spore forum, for a discussion about Lojban. If you have an opinion to share with others, go for it! Spore is a popular multi-genre single-player metaverse god game published by Electronic Arts. The forum has a Science and Spore section for participants who are science buffs.

3 Feb 2010

Work has started on making Smart.fm available to students of Lojban vocabulary. At its core, Smart.fm is an adaptive flashcard learning tool but with audio and advanced tracking features. A review can be found here. Beginners will find learning lojban vocabulary using Smart.fm fun and fast! If you already have a basic knowledge of lojban pronunciation and know how gismu work, and would like to contribute to this project, contact Jon "Top Hat" Jones.

5 Jan 2010

Today, BBC Radio 4 aired another episode of its Word of Mouth program. Lojban was discussed along with Esperanto, Láadan and Klingon. To listen to it, download BBC program on constructed languages.

30 Nov 2009

The Complete Lojban Language by John Woldemar Cowan is now available to buy from Amazon.com, and just in time for the holiday season. Treat yourself or someone special!

1 Aug 2009

jbotcan, the lojbanic channel, is back up. It features anonymous imageboards, an rss feed that collects news from all over and more goodies! Be sure to check it out!

14 May 2007

Today, Timo and Cizra released their animation short lai citno melbi pinpedi. You can watch it on Google Video now! If that title sounds familiar, you may have seen this comic strip before.

In other news, the same Timo has been busy creating Jbobac, a Lojbanic audio board that anyone can post to. Just point your browser to http://jbobac.lojban.org/, and join the action!

1 December 2006

Welcome, xkcd readers! Join some Lojbanic Forums. The Lojban-speaking community loves xkcd, so getting xkcd'ed is as good as getting Slashdotted, Dugg or Farked. The author of xkcd is expressing a sentiment similar to Groucho Marx's statement, "I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members." We can definitely laugh at ourselves, and exposure to xkcd's target audience (math, linguistics, and sarcasm) will probably result in at least one more participant in our hobby.

27 October 2006

Today I'm going to send in the Lojban group registration for Philcon. Email me your name and address and PayPal your registration now. I mean right now!

20 October 2006

Only one week left to get in on the Lojban group's discount rate to register for Philcon in Philadelphia, the science fiction convention where the annual Lojban Festival will be held on November 17 through 19. See jbonunsla 2006 for details, including our stellar Lojbanic guest list and schedule of events. We now have two rooms to put you up in if your expenses are tight. You can still register after we send in the group registration, but it will cost more. It might be the most fun Lojbanic meeting ever. I'm serious, now is the time to get in on this! -Eppcott

03 October 2006

The Lojban community blog on Livejournal is now embedded on the Lojban homepage, as part of the plan discussed in Friday's entry. Prepare for a digest of all the Lojbanic goodness the web has to offer! You don't have to have a Livejournal account to subscribe to the web feed. You do need an LJ account to post, but if you don't want to get an LJ account you can just send your contribution to Matt Arnold who will post it to the blog for you.

12 September 2006

Lojban was mentioned in an article in the Wall Street Journal, "How Hartmut Pilch, Avid Computer Geek, Bested Microsoft",
by Mary Jacoby. The free sample text made available online reads as follows:

28 August 2006

The next Lojban Fest for 2006 will be held at Philcon in Philadelphia, November 17 through 19, 2006. Check out the page jbonunsla 2006 for the schedule and attendees so far, as well as registration details. Newcomers are especially welcome to join us! Keep checking the schedule as we continue to work with the Klingon Language Institute about the possibility of collaborative content between Lojban and Klingon at Philcon!

20 July 2006

Have you visited the land where Lojban is spoken? It's called samxarmuj, meaning "computerized imaginary universe". It's a text-based world on the internet, where you can operate a character using commands in either English or Lojban: the online software is bilingual. Lojban is like the language of magic in samxarmuj--speaking it can bring objects into existence and give them form and function.

You don't even need a plane ticket. Just click here and use the password "moo" to log in as a guest until you have your own account. Commands are typed in the bottom-most part of the window. Guest accounts are limited to using English, so type the "register" command to get your own account. It's totally free.

More information, including other ways to access samxarmuj, is available at the wiki page about The Lojban MOO.

Intense labor on the part of many skilled programmers in our community has brought forth one of the most exciting venues in which to use Lojban that this language has ever had. Today, the software leaves Beta. It is with bated breath that we launch this massively multiplayer system and declare it ready for the public. But now we need to massively populate it.

We are currently summoning new mages of every skill level. Come build your own part of the land. Although you do not have to speak Lojban to adventure in the land as it forms out of the nothingness around us,
all spells must be cast in correct Lojban. Whatever power hears our descriptions of samxarmuj, and turns them into reality, will respond to no other language.

This land also welcome tourists with no skill in Lojban at all. Feel free to ask us any question about how to use the system. With enough interest, we may even be able to establish the Lojbanic equivalent of
a Hogwarts academy for novice Lojban magicians! Who knows? Welcome to samxarmuj! Go native!

4 May 2006

jbonunsla 2006 was held at Penguicon in Michigan, April 21-23 2006. Next up for jbonunsla 2006 will be Philcon 2006 in November!

24 Mar 2006

jbonunsla 2006, a celebration of the Logical Language, will be held at the science fiction convention and open source software expo Penguicon in Michigan, April 21-23 2006. This does not exclude others hosting LogFests of their own in 2006.

4 Jan 2006

Logfest was held at PhilCon in Philadelphia from December 9th to December 11th. It was a quite successful event, despite a turnout that was a bit lower than expected. More details in the page about Logfest 2005.

13 Nov 2005

As the Secretary, I apologize for the lateness of this announcement,
but I only got full confirmation 10 days ago myself.

Philcon - The Philadelphia Conference of Science Fiction and Fantasy has agreed to have a room set aside
for LogFest 2005!

Philcon 2005 is being held at the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown
on December 9th-11th, 2005. That's IN 26 DAYS!

I know that's really, really short notice, but if we can get enough
people to show up, they'll do it for us next year too, and hopefully
that relationship will continue far into the future.

People showing up for LogFest will have to buy PhilCon
memberships. Please let me know if that, or any other aspect of
these arrangements, provides an unacceptable financial burden to
you. I, and others, are willing to help put up some money for
active Lojbanists who want to come.

We don't know how big the room is going to be yet, but I've told
them we expect about 10 people.

5 Sep 2005

Complete site overhaul! Most of the lojban.org content has been
moved from a set of static HTML pages to a
TikiWiki content management system. The
number of changes caused by this are too long to list. In addition,
the LLG 2004 Annual Meeting Minutes have been posted.

2 May 2004

A variety of minor bug fixes were done on the site, as well as some
more major items. The front page was returned to CSS, XHTML and
Bobby Level 3 compliance. The problem with clicking on one of the
maps causing the maps to stop functioning was fixed. A couple of
one-sheet brochures were added to the
brochures page. The 25 November 2002 Board Meeting minutes were
added. The 2003 annual meeting minutes were added.

10 September 2003

What is Lojban? is now available for purchase! The lojban.org site is now available, at least partially, in a
variety of different languages. The vast majority of the site has
been marked up in a way to make easy translation possible, but not
all of the actual translation has been done. If you want to help,
please contact the webmaster. Also, there is now a web-based IRC
client available on the Forums page. The French and Spanish Lojban
lists are now available. A Lojbanic translation program has been
installed.

11 May 2003

Some bylaw changes from 1992 were incorporated. Split off
of Old Projects into a seperate page, many changes (mostly minor) to
the projects and committees pages. Markup changes all over the
place.

The full changes list can be found at the
Aegis change page for change number 144.

7 April 2003

This is the first site update in a long time, and as such it's a big
one. The site now has Request Tracker set up,
and that is being used to manage necessary changes. The Level 0
book was added to the main site, a Helping Lojban page, a Help page,
and a Feedback page were all added, and jbovlaste and Request
Tracker were both linked in.

30 December 2002

An IRC logging system has been set up. See the Lojbanic Forums page. Also, many
pages have been edited to point to wiki.lojban.org as the official wiki
site, which will continue to be the right place even if someone else
takes it over.

28 November 2002

The new Official Baseline Statement,
from the LLG has been posted.

14 November 2002

Addition to the Official Projects Page,
minor fixes and updates.

24 October 2002

A Promotional Materials page
has been created. Also, I've made a Community Files
Area, which is a TWiki (a web-based colloborative space).

21 October 2002

The Lojban FAQ has been updated and
moved and revamped and such. .uisai Thanks go to Dalton Graham for doing
most of the work.

23 September 2002

There has been a major revamp of the Resources section. It has a lot
more information in it now.

18 September 2002

The old minutes of the LLG have been posted, thanks to Jay Kominek. He also html
formatted the bylaws. See the LLG
publications page.

The official LLG Projects page has been
constructed. Please submit anything you are working on!

An official LLG Committees page has
also been added.

An interactive
story has been added; see the original
lojbanic texts page.

9 August 2002

As may be obvious, I just made some drastic changes to the layout of
the site. Please let me
(webmaster@lojban.org)
know what you think!

23 July 2002

LogFest, the annual gathering of lojbanists, is this coming weekend.
Also, the 2002 Annual Meeting of the Members of the LLG will be held
on Sunday, July 28th (during LogFest).

The 2002 Annual Meeting of the Members of the LLG will be held at
1030AM EDT on Sunday July 28, 2002 at lojbab's house, 2904 Beau
Lane, Fairfax VA 22031 USA. There being insufficient notice as
required, no bylaw changes can be considered.

LogFest mostly consists of a bunch of people hanging out at lojbab's
house, talking in and about lojban. The annual meeting always
occurs during LogFest.

1 July 2002

There was a major (several day) downtime of this site, due to bad
RAM, which in turn caused file system corruption. The problem has
been solved, and this machine now has a new, larger hard drive, as
well as a completely new operating system (NetBSD 1.5.2).

In addition, since the last update this machine has gotten a much
faster processor and been moved into a co-location facility with a
connection to the internet that is close to 300Mb/s.

2 May 2002

Minor website updates have been made. In particular, the contents
of the Learning Lojban sections have been slightly improved, and
many relative links have been fixed.

18 April 2002

Amazing news! The first draft of the Alice In Wonderland
translation appears to be complete. The only things missing are a
couple of the chapter titles and one stanza of a poem, as of this
writing. Please go take a look in the Translations section!

Old News

• 26 May 2000