History: Emotions in Lojban

Dr. Elgin, creator of Laadan, wrote on this page:

They lacked ways to express emotional information conveniently, so that — especially in English — much of that information had to be carried by body language and was almost entirely missing from written language. This characteristic (which makes English so well suited for business) left women vulnerable to hostile language followed by the ancient "But all I said was...." excuse; and it restricted women to the largely useless "It wasn't what you said, it was the way you said it!" defense against such hostility. In constructing Ladan, I focused on giving it features intended to repair those two deficiencies.

Since we have attitudinals in Lojban, we should not color utterances without attudinals with emotional content, as we do in English and probably all natural languages. Since we have cmavo ui we have no need for subtlety and entendre, and in fact should do away with it, since perceived unintended slights are a major miscommunication threat. It should be possible for me to utter {do bebna} without offense. However, {le'o do bebna} is fighting words. --xod

Just because something is true doesn't mean that people won't get upset over it. You can't prescribe away humans' refusal to accept reality. Telling some women their weight (a simple physical attribute inherent in all objects!) could get you slapped. --jay

A guy can dream, can't he? One hopes that a jbofetsi is jbokai enough to be able to comprehend the spectrum of {do tilju .a'unai}, {do tilju ge'e}, and {do tilju .auro'u}. This is an experiment which can actually be performed.--xod

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(The difference between using an attitudinal & using the corresponding gismu is the difference between honking your horn & applying your brakes.)

huh? breaking and honking both seem near reflex responses to me.. In what way are these differences similar, and which is the horn and which the brakes? -LordBrain

• I don't get this one either, but the difference is between a scream brought on by a pain and the calm statement "I have a terrible pain." If you must mix them up, do as we do in English: use the predicative forms throughout — which, alas, destroys the point here, I think.

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Clarity on Emotions and Needs

Take a moment to observe: When at first you had an unpleasant emotion, and then come to have a pleasant one, there is something which you lacked before, and later, came to have.

I think this is a very important observation. Without it, we may not have invented words like freedom, and respect.

What is it that was lacked and gained? Can we name this type of thing? Yes, the word i'm familiar with in engilsh is need (which unfortunately has other uses as well such as for the lack itself).

Some of you might be thinking, but what was lacked and gained was itself the good feeling. It is true that feeling was gained, but it was not the feeling alone. While emotions and needs are intimately connected, roughly like our sensory perception of an object and the object sensed are connected they are not the same thing. Allow me to illustrate this with an examples:

.oi

The speaker's feeling is clear, but what is he lacking? if need and emotion were the same, should we not know this?

Further, two ppl can sense the lack of one need with two different emotions, and two ppl can sense different needs with the same emotion. You might be thinking "Then how does one ever know what one is needing?" Answer: The emotion does not happen in a vacuum, there are contextual clues; what were you observing when the emotion occurred?

Take care while identifying the need, it might be tempting to say that you needed some specific treatement from some particular person. This is not the need(as i am using the term), but rather the strategy for obtaining the need. Needs are universal and involve no particular person; often we can put one word names on them examples, freedom, equality, respect, acceptance, nurishment, self-sufficiency, ...

In summary, for every negative emotion there is a need lacked, for every positive emotion there is a need gained. There is also an observation that is an important clue, and in the case of negative emotions there is what amounts to a request that is the strategy.

Many tragic communication problems can be reduced to events where some of these four important peices of information are not successfully communicated.

Lojban is cool because it has markers such as za'a(i observe..) and e'o(request), as well as attitudinals for expressing feeling. You might notice that many of the UI are need words. Also, we have the cmavo be'u(lacking/needing) and be'unai(satiation).

NOTE: It would be cool if we could say stuff like:

.oi .iobe'u

(Pain becuase my need for respect is lacking)

Unfortunately, this is not the way be'u and be'unai are interpretted with UI. so you better use the gismu.

However, you probably could get away with:

.ui e'inai be'unai

(happiness because my need for challenge is being met)

Actually, I'm not sure UI can be used to express needs at all as it might be interpretted as intendend attitude. But supposing they could, i have sorted them into categories, which might be corresponding to needs,emotions felt while lacking a need, emotions felt while having the need.

Needs ( also see http://www.cnvc.org/needs.htm )

.e'inai

challenge

.o'ucu'i

composure

.einai

freedom

.e'icu'i

independence

.i'inai

privacy

.iinai

security

ba'ucu'i

accuracy

ki'anai

understanding

.i'a

acceptance

.u'i

amusement

.i'o

appreciation

.o'e

closeness

.e'e

competence

.u'o

courage

.a'o

hope

.iu

love

.e'a

permission

.o'u

relaxation

.io

respect

.i'i

togetherness

pa'e

justice

je'u

truth

ju'o

certainty

se'a

self-sufficiency

Emotions felt while a need is lacked (also see http://www.cnvc.org/feelings.htm )

.e'ucu'i

abandon suggestion

.o'onai

anger

.oiro'i

anxiety

.a'anai

avoiding

.i'anai

blame

.u'enai

commonplace

.uanai

confusion

.u'onai

cowardice

.uunai

cruelty

.a'onai

despair

.i'enai

disapproval

.a'ucu'i

disinterest

.ionai

disrespect

.oiro'a

embarrassment

.i'onai

envy

.a'enai

exhaustion

.uenai

expectation

.iunai

hatred

.a'acu'i

inattentive

.e'enai

incompetence

.uonai

incompleteness

.aicu'i

indecision

.aucu'i

indifference

.u'anai

loss

.o'ocu'i

mere tolerance

.i'ecu'i

non-approval

.oiro'o

physical pain

.oiro'e

puzzlement

.aunai

reluctance

.a'unai

repulsion

.oiro'u

sexual complaint

.o'anai

shame

.iacu'i

skepticism

.oire'e

spiritual complaint

.o'unai

stress

.u'ocu'i

timidity

.uinai

unhappiness

.e'unai

warning

.u'inai

weariness

pa'enai

prejudice

ro'anai

antisocial

le'onai

defensive

se'anai

dependency

fu'inai

difficult

ga'inai

meekness

se'inai

other-oriented

le'ocu'i

passive

ri'enai

restraint of emotion

vu'enai

sin

ju'ocu'i

uncertainty

.o'i

caution

.oi

complaint

.e'i

constraint

.a'i

effort

.ii

fear

.uu

pity

.u'u

repentance

ba'a

I anticipate

le'o

aggressive

ga'i

hauteur

se'i

self-oriented

se'a

self-sufficiency

ki'a

textual confusion

xu

true-false ?

Emotions felt while a need is satiated (also see http://www.cnvc.org/feelings.htm )

.einai

freedom

.u'unai

innocence

.u'ucu'i

lack of regret

.oinai

pleasure

.o'inai

rashness

ga'icu'i

equal rank

ju'ocai

quite certain

.ie

agreement

.a'e

alertness

.u'i

amusement

.i'e

approval

.a'a

attentive

.o'e

closeness

.uo

completion

.u'o

courage

.au

desire

.ua

discovery

.u'a

gain

.ui

happiness

.ai

intent

.a'u

interest

.iu

love

.o'o

patience

.o'a

pride

.o'u

relaxation

.ue

surprise

.u'e

wonder

do'a

generously

ro'u

sexual

vu'e

virtue

Unfortunately, be'u and be'unai do not simply modify the UI as nai and cu'i do. If you would like to use attitudinals for both and not create confusion with proper lojbanists, i propose you either insert a n-hyphen to achieve the desired effect. Like so:

WARNING: This is my own invention, and not valid lojban.
.oi .ionbe'u za'a do cusku zoi .gy Jerk! .gy .i e'o ko ba na go'i ouch-due-to-my-lacking-respect-need Observation: you expressed "Jerk!". Request: Please do not do that in the future.

or you can join me in #bebyban on irc.lojban.org and say it as if be'u simply modified the previous UI like so:
.oi .iobe'u za'a do cusku zoi .gy Jerk! .gy .i e'o ko ba na go'i ouch-due-to-my-lacking-respect-need Observation: you expressed "Jerk!". Request: Please do not do that in the future.

It would be nice to express the need so closely with the emotion. it seems it captures their intimate relationship while simultaneously the clarifying distinction. Plus it can be learned faster, as one can get good usage out of attitudinals before they have learned corresponding gismu. Also, one can easily remember a simple rule to always accompany an emotion with a be'u or be'unai applied to a need, which will encourage valuable self-exploration and greately aid in lojban's effort to develop language which is closer to being descriptive rather than merely ascriptive.

I anticipate one objection, that attitudinals are best reserved for expressions which are immediate and require no thought or exploration. However, it may be that with practice, identification of the need is much more imediate. Seems like an excellent oppurtunity for testing S-W, and if it is true, imagine the gift to humanity it would be.
--LordBrain