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Friendly Lojban

Friendly Lojban
Friendly Lojban

Chapter 1. The Language at a Glance

What is Lojban?

Lojban (pronounced LOZH-bahn) is a constructed language — an artificial language deliberately designed rather than evolved naturally over centuries. It has been in development since 1955 and has been used for translation, original prose, and poetry.

What makes Lojban unusual among constructed languages:

  • Unambiguous grammar: every sentence parses in exactly one way. There is no vagueness about sentence structure.
  • Phonetic spelling: every letter has exactly one sound range. You read what you hear, and you hear what you read.
  • Predicate-based: all words, whether they translate as nouns, verbs, or adjectives in English, work the same grammatical way. There are no special noun or verb forms.
  • Culturally neutral: the root vocabulary was derived from the world's most widely-spoken languages (Chinese, English, Hindi, Spanish, Russian, Arabic) according to speaker population, with sounds and forms adjusted to be unambiguous.
  • Expressive: some 1,300 root words combine to produce millions of derived words, and the grammar handles tense, mood, evidentiality, logic, and emotion systematically.

You don't need to know logic or linguistics to learn Lojban — but if you enjoy precision, you'll be in good company.

The Alphabet

Lojban uses the standard Latin alphabet minus three letters (h, q, w), plus three punctuation-as-letters: the apostrophe ('), the period (.), and the comma (,).

The full Lojban alphabet in order:

' . , a b c d e f g i j k l m n o p r s t u v x y z

Alphabetical order follows ASCII order, which makes computerized sorting straightforward.

Vowels

Lojban has six vowels. Five are common in content words; y appears mainly in compound words and names.

a

as in father — an open vowel, never as in face

e

as in get — a front mid vowel

i

as in machine — a front close vowel, never the short i of hit

o

as in note — a back mid vowel, should be a "pure" sound without the English off-glide

u

as in cool — a back close vowel, never the short u of but

y

as in comma — the unstressed "schwa" sound [ə]; never as in misty

All Lojban vowels should be pronounced clearly and distinctly. There are no silent vowels and no vowels that "reduce" when unstressed — except y, which is always the schwa sound.

Consonants

Most Lojban consonants are pronounced as in English, but several need special attention.

c

always like sh in shop or c in ocean — never like k or s

g

always like g in go — never like g in gem

j

like s in pleasure or French j in bonjour — the voiced counterpart of c

s

always like s in sell — never like z as in rose

x

like ch in Scottish loch, German Bach, or Spanish José — a raspy sound at the back of the throat

r

any rhotic sound is acceptable: English r, Spanish trilled r, Russian р, etc.

Two English consonant combinations become two-letter sequences in Lojban:

  • The ch sound of church is written tc (IPA [tʃ])
  • The j sound of judge is written dj (IPA [dʒ])

Doubled consonants never appear in Lojban. All consonants must be clearly distinct from their neighbors.

The Three Special Characters

The apostrophe (') represents a short h sound (IPA [h]). It appears only between vowels, where it separates them into two distinct syllables while keeping them in the same word. Think of it as a "soft h" — a gentle breath between vowels.

ta'e

habitually — the a and e are two separate syllables: tah-heh

u'i

an interjection of amusement (pronounced oo-hee, not wee)

The period (.) marks a mandatory pause or glottal stop (IPA [ʔ]). Every word beginning with a vowel must be preceded by a pause, and every word ending in a consonant must be followed by one. Periods are technically optional to write (the rules already require the pauses), but writers include them as a guide for readers.

.i

[sentence separator] (the period forces a clear break before the i)

.alis.

the name Alice (pauses before and after mark it as a name)

The comma (,) marks a syllable break within a word without any pause — the opposite of the period. It is used mainly in names that have adjacent vowels that should not merge into a diphthong, or to mark syllabic consonants (l, m, n, r). Commas are never required and never change a word's identity.

Diphthongs

A diphthong is two vowel sounds pronounced as a single syllable. Lojban has four diphthongs freely used in ordinary words:

ai

as in high — IPA [aj]

ei

as in weigh — IPA [ɛj]

oi

as in boy — IPA [oj]

au

as in cow — IPA [aw]

Ten more diphthongs exist but appear only in names and borrowed words:

On-glide with i (like English y)On-glide with u (like English w)
ia (ya), ie (yeh), io (yo), iu (you), ii (yee)ua (wa), ue (weh), uo (wo), uu (woo), ui (wee)

When two vowels appear together without an apostrophe, they form a diphthong. With an apostrophe between them, they are two separate syllables. Compare:

ui

one syllable: wee (an interjection of happiness)

u'i

two syllables: oo-hee (an interjection of amusement)

Stress

Lojban stress is regular and predictable:

  1. Stress falls on the second-to-last vowel (not syllable — vowel) in every word, with one exception: if that vowel is y, skip back to the third-to-last vowel.
  2. Single-syllable words carry no stress.

Examples:

ta·vla

to talk → stress on first syllable: TAV-la (the a of ta is second-to-last)

clu·pra

to produce literature → CLU-pra

blo·ti

boat → BLO-ti

ci·dj·ba·u

four syllables → stress on second-to-last vowel ba: ci-DJI-ba-u… actually cib·ja·u — stress the second-to-last vowel ja: cib-JA-u

In practice, stress in common short words becomes natural quickly. The key rule to remember: stress the second-to-last vowel, never the last.

Capitalization is only used in names to indicate non-standard stress (stress that does not follow the default rule). For example, the Lojbanized form of Josephine is written DJOsefin. to show that the first syllable is stressed, not the second-to-last.

Reading Lojban Aloud

Lojban is a phonetic language: every word is pronounced exactly as written, and every spoken sound maps to exactly one written form. There are no silent letters, no irregular spellings, and no exceptions.

A few practical tips for beginners:

  • Vowels are long and clear. Don't reduce unstressed vowels (except y).
  • Each letter is one sound. The letters c, g, j, x each represent a single fixed sound — resist any English spelling intuitions.
  • Consonant clusters at word beginnings are normal in Lojban. Words like klama (go), broda (some-relation), and spuda (respond) are typical. If you struggle with a cluster, a very short, quiet y-like schwa between the consonants is accepted colloquially.
  • The period is a real pause. Don't swallow it.

Here are a few words to practice reading aloud:

coi

hello (pronounced SHOY, one syllable)

co'o

goodbye (pronounced SHO-ho, two syllables)

mi

I / me

do

you

klama

goes to (pronounced KLA-ma)

tavla

talks to (pronounced TAV-la)

.a'o

I hope (interjection; the period is a real pause before the a)

About This Book

This book is a reader-friendly version of The Complete Lojban Language (CLL), the authoritative reference grammar written by John Cowan and published by the Logical Language Group. The original CLL is complete and precise — but it was designed as a reference, not a tutorial. Material there is organized by grammatical category rather than by what a learner needs first.

In this book:

  • Material is ordered for progressive learning: you can start speaking simple sentences after Chapter 2 and reading basic texts after Chapter 8.
  • Examples come from authentic translated Lojban texts wherever possible.
  • Technical terminology is introduced gradually, with plain-English explanations first.
  • All of the CLL's content is covered — specialist topics like the full tense system, mathematical expressions, and formal grammar appear in later chapters and appendices.
  • Word definitions include simplified type annotations: (object), (event), (property), (proposition), (text), (number), (sound) — just enough to understand what each place expects.

Cross-references to the original CLL are noted where relevant for readers who want the authoritative technical detail.

How examples and cross-references work

  • Lojban in examples is usually in bold; glosses (rough English) are in italics on the following line or after an em dash.
  • Blockquoted lines (>) are teaching examples unless labeled as corpus quotes or dialogue.
  • Internal links use the form Chapter n. All cross-references in this book point to other friendly-cll chapters; the book is designed to be self-sufficient.
  • Elision: terminators (ku, vau, kei, …) are often dropped when the parse is obvious; later chapters say when you must keep them.
  • Terms: bridi (claim), sumti (argument), selbri (predicate) are defined in Chapter 2.
  • Example integrity: Every Lojban example in this book is sourced from or adapted from the canonical CLL, the Learn Lojban course, or the corpora. When an example is adapted (e.g. a character name changed from la .alis. to la .teris.), the underlying grammar and place structure are kept identical. Examples are never invented from scratch.

Enjoy the language.

coi .lojban.
Hello, Lojban!

Summary

  • Examples: bold Lojban, italic gloss; cross-links via /en/books/friendly-cll/; elision is normal in learner text; examples are sourced from CLL/corpus, never invented
  • Lojban uses 26 Latin letters minus h/q/w, plus ', ., ,
  • All pronunciation is regular: read what you see, hear what you read
  • Vowels a e i o u are pure sounds; y is the schwa
  • c = sh, j = zh, x = ch (Scottish loch), g always hard
  • ' = breathy h between vowels; . = pause/glottal stop; , = syllable break without pause
  • Stress the second-to-last vowel
  • Four diphthongs in common words: ai ei oi au