Autzoo.1506 net.general utcsrgv!utzoo!henry Thu Mar 25 14:35:54 1982 Loglan Loglan most certainly exists. Heinlein was referring to a real language, not making it up. The name is indeed a contraction of "logical language", as the language's constructs bear some resemblance to the predicate calculus. It was invented by Dr. J.C. Brown. The intent behind Loglan was to do a real experimental test of the Whorfian hypothesis: language dictates thought patterns. The specific idea was to design a language -- a real one, not a toy -- in which it would be much easier to express complicated logical statements, and then see if this really did help one think about complex logic problems. JCB's original idea was that he could get Loglan settled down in a short time and then get on with the hypothesis test. Not so; the design of a real language turned out to be much harder than he thought, and the result promptly took on a life of its own. Loglan started about 1960; the design is still under revision, although the basics have been stable for a long time. A substantial community of interest has grown up around it, with most of the people involved being interested in the LANGUAGE much more than in the hypothesis test (which has not, to date, been attempted). The Loglan Institute (which is basically JCB plus a lot of volunteer help) publishes a several-times-yearly journal The Loglanist, in which current Loglan work is reported. Current work includes, in particular, the development of a YACC grammar for Loglan. Anyone who wants more details, send mail to me (NOT the network). If there is sufficient interest, I will broadcast more details. Henry Spencer decvax!utzoo!henry ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.