History: Lojban Tutorial: Introduction

Source of version: 2 (current)

!Introduction

This course in Lojban is designed to give you
the minimum you need in order to communicate in Lojban and to understand
most of what you read with the help of a dictionary. It is not a
complete explanation of the Lojban language; for that you need to buy a
copy of John Cowan's [http://www.lojban.org/publications/cll.html|The Complete
Lojban Language], or download the [http://www.lojban.org/publications/reference_grammar.html|reference
grammar] (which is almost the same). Unlike many constructed
languages, Lojban is not designed to be as simple as possible but as
complete as possible. Fortunately this does not mean that Lojban is
difficult to learn; the language is designed in modular way and you can
use as much or as little of the grammar as you like. So you will not
find any "power-Lojban" in this course, like termsets or
bridi-tails.


!!A few Lojban concepts

All the terms
used in the course are explained as they arise (I hope~--~if there's
anything you don't understand, please [http://www.lojban.org/publications/tutorial/Mailto:robin@bilkent.edu.tr|mail me]). However, you may want
to take note of the following terms, since they are essential to Lojban
and will come up frequently in the lessons.


The simplest Lojban
sentence is called a ''bridi''. This consists of a
''selbri'', which describes one or more ''sumti''. In other languages a ''selbri'' would normally be a verb, and a ''sumti'' would be a noun, but this is not
__always__ true. In logic a ''selbri'' is a "function" and a ''sumti'' is an
"argument", but you don't need to know that.

Lojban
words come in two basic types. ''brivla'' are
content-words, like ''bajra'' (run), ''blanu'' (blue), ''robin.'' (Robin), ''bavlamdei'' (tomorrow) and so on. ''cmavo'' are structure-words like ''.e'' (and), ''do'' (you) or ''ta'o'' (by the way).


''brivla'' come in a few varieties. The most important
are ''gismu'', or root-words. These contain the most
basic and commonly-used concepts. For more specific or unusual concepts,
''gismu'' can be merged to form ''lujvo'', or compound words. ''fu'ivla'' are Lojban words adapted from other
languages; they are rarer, but can be useful when it is hard to make a
suitable ''lujvo'' (the same thing happens in
natural languages, of course; no one translates words like
"yoga", "kangaroo" or "spaghetti").
Finally there are ''cmene'' or names, which will be
the subject of Lesson 1. ''cmene'' can name people,
places or just about anything you want.


If any of the above seems confusing, don't worry~--~it's all explained
fully later. I've tried to keep technical terms~--~both Lojban and
English~--~to a minimum, so you won't have to wrestle with words like
"adverbial" or ''temci seltcita sumti'' ("tense-labelled sumti"~--~forget it!).


!!Before you start

This course is designed to stand on
it's own; you don't need any extra books, software or gadgets. However,
you might want to do a few things before you start:


# Download the [http://www.lojban.org/publications/wordlists/gismu|gismu], [http://www.lojban.org/publications/wordlists/cmavo|cmavo] and [http://www.lojban.org/files/draft-dictionary/NORQLUJV.txt|lujvo] lists (you can then combine these into one file and use a "find" command to use them like a simple dictionary).
# If you're running DOS/Windows, you can download [http://www.lojban.org/files/software/logflash.zip|Logflash], a flashcard-type program for learning ''gismu''. 
# If you are one of those impatient types who want to see all the grammar at once, look at [http://www.lojban.org/publications/brochures/lojex.txt|Diagrammed Summary of Lojban Grammar Forms]
# If you're still not sure of what Lojban is all about, read my [http://www.lojban.org/publications/brochures/lojintro.html|introductory essay].
# [http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lojban|Subscribe to the Lojban list]. This is a forum in both English and Lojban for discussing the language and presenting Lojban texts (translations, poems, stories, anything). The people there are also very helpful when it comes to newbie questions.
# Download the [http://www.lojban.org/files/software/gloss3-2.ZIP|Lojban glosser]. This is a really nice program which will translate all the words in any Lojban text into English.

Alternatively, forget all that and just go on to [http://www.lojban.org/publications/tutorial/lesson1.html|Lesson 1].
History: Lojban Tutorial: Introduction

Source of version: 2 (current)

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