Logical languages

Logical languages are a special kind of artificial languages, namely of speakable languages created from scratch rather than developed spontaneously within a culture. The typical feature of logical languages is that their structure and grammar are intended to express the logical relations within sentences in clear and effective ways.

One classification of artificial languages ("conlangs": constructed languages) divides them into three kinds: international auxiliary languages ("auxlangs" or IALs), fantastic-artistic languages ("artlangs") and logical languages ("loglangs") -- as this story illustrates:

Three conlangers were visiting Scotland. From the window of the train they saw a black sheep.
Then the auxlanger began to say: "Well, as in Scotland sheep are black, we could call them, hmm... melanomuto...".
But the artlanger stopped him: "Hey, you can only say that in Scotland some sheep are black! Instead, in the realm of Blancania, sheep..."
So they began to discuss, and asked the third what did he think.
He closed his eyes, and gravely affirmed: "In Scotland, it exists at least one sheep, one side of which is surely black".
He was a loglanger.

A directory of logical languages

AllNoun / Tom Breton (198_-)
<http://world.std.com/~tob/allnoun.faq>
A sketch of a language based only on nouns and relations between them.

"binary" (2001- ^USA)
<http://home.earthlink.net/~thinkyad/bl.txt>
A project of a predicative language coded into binary strings to be interpreted by computers, without the constraints of the human vocal apparatus.

Ceqli / Rex F' May (199_- ^ USA)
<http://users.blackhole.com/users/alexbrowne/>
As a "logical auxiliary language" it has aims similar to Lojban, while being inspired to the grammatical simplicity of English and Mandarin.

Danovën / Joshua Shinavien (199_- ^ Switzerland)
<http://www.oocities.org/Athens/Crete/5555/ven.htm>
A well developed personal language, allowing both strictly logical and everyday speech.

E-prime / David Bourland
<http://www.sys.uea.ac.uk/~jrk/conlang.html#EPrime>
The English language with all forms and uses of the verb "to be" omitted.

-gua!spi / Jim Carter (198_- ^ USA)
<http://www.math.ucla.edu/~jimc/guaspi/short.msg>
An original language, especially in using tones to express grammatical relations.

Liva / Claudio Gnoli (1995- ^ Italy)
<http://www.oocities.org/Athens/Agora/7070/liva.htm>
A project based on predicate logic, with distinction between predication, relation and quantification; vocabulary is a-priori and partly randomly generated.

Livagian / And Rosta (198_- ^ United Kingdom)

The language spoken in the imaginary land of Livagia, with a very uncommon phonology and highly sophisticated logical grammar devices.

Loglan / James Cooke Brown (1955- ^ USA)
<http://www.loglan.org/>
A pioneer project based on predicative logic and a vocabulary derived algorithmically from the most widespread natural languages.

Lojban / "Logical language group" (198_- ^ international, based in USA)
<http://www.lojban.org/>
A revised version of Loglan, with mainly lexical changes, began by a group of loglanists disagreeing with Cooke Brown's way of managing it. A fixed grammar, written by John Cowan, has been published in 1997. LLG has several active members, who are in contact via a mailing list, some of which, like Jorge Llambias and Nick Nicholas, are able to speak current Lojban. All this makes Lojban to be the main reference language for today's loglangers.

Malat / Garrett Jones "Alkaline"
<http://www.metro.net/3jones/malat/>

Mua / Valentin Koulikov
<http://www.oocities.org/Area51/Crater/4823/MuaLessons.htm>

Plan B / Jeff Prothero (198_-1990 ^ USA)
<http://www.invisiblelighthouse.com/langlab/plan_b.html>
A radical approach to the mapping of morphologic and syntactical functions onto optimally concise and self-segregating sequences of characters. Information science style makes it looking very exotic as a language, but it includes important solutions to deep problems.

Plan C / Jacques Guy (1992 ^ Australia)
<http://www.oocities.org/Tokyo/Garden/7676/l-humor.html>
A satire of Plan B.

Rikchik / Dennis M' Moskowitz (199_- ^ USA)
<http://www.suberic.net/~dmm/rikchik/rikchik.html>
The language spoken by certain imaginary tentacled beings, with an unusual syntax.

Tilya / Herman Miller (1999- ^ USA)
<http://www.io.com/~hmiller/lang/Tilya.html>
A "verbal" language based on predicate logic, with both mandatory and optional arguments.

UTL : Universal Translation Language / Marcos Franco
<http://members.xoom.com/utlpro/utl.htm>
A language derived from Esperanto, with unambiguous syntax to be used for machine translation

Voksigid / Bruce R' Gilson (198_- ^ USA)
<http://www.oocities.org/CapitolHill/3141/voksigid.html>
An attempt of reforming Lojban, stating fixed case markers for direct object, indirect objects and even subject.

Xapqt / Nick Summers (199_- ^ Australia)
A radical project of both a logical grammar and a logical vocabulary.

Ystheron / Patrick Littell
<http://www.oocities.org/Athens/Atlantis/2938/> [?]
"A logical language based upon the Polish notation of predicate logic" / Kennaway

Bibliography

Everything that linguists have always wanted to know about logic* : *but were ashamed to ask # 2' ed' / James D' McCawley -- The University of Chicago press (1993 ^ Chicago, London)

Logik för lingvister / Jens Allwood, Lars-Gunnar Andersson, Östen Dahl -- Student literatur (1971 ^ Lund)
>> Logic in linguistics -- Cambridge university press (1977 ^ Cambridge)
+ Logica e linguistica -- Il mulino (1981 ^ Bologna)

The complete Lojban language / John Woldemar Cowan -- "Logical language group" (1997 ^ Fairfax)

On the unsuitability of "logical languages" for use as interlinguas in machine translation / Rick Morneau || Journal of planned languages. 14 (1992). / Rick Harrison : ed'
>> & || The artificial language lab. / Rick Harrison : ed' -- <_>

Can language reflect reality? / Max Black || The labyrinth of language. -- _
>> & || The artificial language lab. / Rick Harrison : ed' -- <_>

Suggestions for improving this page are most welcome: please write to Claudio Gnoli . Thanks to Rick Morneau for providing information on Plan B, John Cowan for Plan C, Rex May for Ceqli; to And Rosta for bibliographic advice.

Logical languages / [Claudio Gnoli] || Claudio Gnoli's personal web site. -- Yahoo!-GeoCities (2000.09.11 - 2002.01 - )