At the heart of Brown’s quest, which began in 1955, was a famous linguistic puzzle: the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. In its strongest form, this hypothesis suggests that the language you speak doesn’t just describe your reality—it actively shapes and constrains your thoughts. An English speaker might see several shades of blue, but a language with only one word for “blue” might lead its speakers to perceive them as fundamentally the same. Brown wanted to put this to the test. To do so, he needed a linguistic laboratory, a language so different from any natural language that, if the hypothesis were true, it would demonstrably alter the thinking patterns of its speakers. Thus, Loglan (a portmanteau of “logical language”) was born.
The Dream of a Perfectly Logical Language
The goal of Loglan was threefold: to be perfectly logical, culturally neutral, and completely unambiguous. Achieving this required a radical rethinking of grammar, phonetics, and vocabulary.
Building Blocks of Logic: Predicate Grammar
Unlike the Subject-Verb-Object structure of English, Loglan is built on predicate logic. Every core concept is a “predicate”—a verb-like word with a predefined structure of argument “slots” or places.
Let’s take a simple example. The Lojban (Loglan’s successor, which we’ll get to) predicate for “give” is dunda. Its structure is:
[giver] dunda [gift] [recipient]
So, the sentence “I give you the book” becomes:
mi dunda le cukta do
The order is fixed, eliminating any confusion about who is giving what to whom. There’s no need for prepositions like “to” because the role of each noun is determined by its position. This rigid structure allows for the precise expression of complex relationships.
Unambiguous in Sound and Structure
Have you ever misheard a sentence because you couldn’t tell where one word ended and the next began? Loglan was designed to make this impossible. Its phonological rules ensure that words are always distinct. For example, root words always follow specific consonant-vowel patterns, and a short pause word, i, can be inserted to prevent any confusion.
This principle extends to grammar. Consider the English phrase “the pretty little girls’ school.” Is it a school for pretty little girls? A little school for pretty girls? A pretty school for little girls? English is ambiguous. Loglan and Lojban solve this with logical grouping words. The Lojban sentence:
le melbi cmalu nixli ckule
…is also ambiguous. But by using grouping markers, you can specify the exact meaning:
le [melbi cmalu] nixli ckule– The [(beautiful and small) girl] school. (A school for pretty little girls)le melbi [cmalu nixli] ckule– The beautiful [(small girl)] school. (A beautiful school for little girls)
This precision is a hallmark of the language.
Expressing Emotion Logically
One of the most fascinating features of these logical languages is how they handle emotion. Instead of letting tone of voice or context hint at our feelings, Loglan introduced “attitudinals”—short words that explicitly state the speaker’s emotional state without altering the logical content of the sentence.
- .ui – happiness/joy
- .oi – pain/regret
- .ie – agreement
- .ei – obligation
You can say, “.ui mi citka” which translates to “Happily, I am eating.” The statement of fact (“I am eating”) is separate from the stated emotion (“happiness”). This allows a speaker to be both logically precise and emotionally expressive, separating what is true from how they feel about it.
A Fork in the Road: The Birth of Lojban
For decades, Dr. Brown tightly controlled Loglan’s development. While this ensured its integrity, it also stifled community growth. In 1987, a group of his followers, wanting a more open and collaborative environment, formed The Logical Language Group (LLG). They took the core principles of Loglan and created a new, updated version: Lojban (from lojji for logic and bangu for language).
Lojban maintained the logical grammar and unambiguity of Loglan but made several key changes:
- Culturally Neutral Vocabulary: While Loglan’s vocabulary was heavily based on European languages, Lojban’s 1300+ root words were algorithmically generated from a weighted analysis of the six most spoken languages: Mandarin, English, Hindi, Spanish, Russian, and Arabic. This made it a truly international language.
- Open Source: Lojban’s vocabulary, grammar, and learning materials are all in the public domain, fostering a vibrant and active global community that continues to create dictionaries, software, and even music in the language.
Does Speaking Lojban Change How You Think?
So, we return to the grand question: Did the project succeed in testing the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis? The answer is complex. The project has never produced a large, isolated community of native speakers, which would be necessary for a conclusive scientific study. The experiment, in its purest form, remains incomplete.
However, anecdotally, learners of Lojban consistently report that it does change their thinking—just perhaps not in the profound, reality-warping way Brown first imagined. Learning Lojban forces you to be hyper-aware of ambiguity in your native language. It trains your mind to dissect arguments, clarify relationships, and express ideas with methodical precision. It’s less of a brain-rewiring tool and more of an intellectual Swiss Army knife for deconstructing and building thoughts with extreme clarity.
The Legacy of a Grand Experiment
While the Loglan Project may not have delivered a definitive verdict on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, its legacy is undeniable. It pushed the boundaries of what a language could be and gave birth to Lojban, one of the most well-developed and fascinating constructed languages in existence.
Lojban stands as a testament to the human drive to find order in chaos. It’s a playground for logicians, a tool for poets seeking new forms of expression, and a fascinating lens through which to examine the structure of our own thoughts. It reminds us that the way we speak is just one of infinite possibilities, and that by exploring new grammars, we might just discover new ways to understand our world.