“What is a loglang?”
… I hear you ask (or maybe not, if you’re already familiar). A logical language (or loglang) is a type of constructed language (conlang), more specifically a type of engineered language (engelang), the objective of which is to avoid syntactic (grammatical) ambiguity. The term logical language has nothing to do with “rationality.” Consider the following English sentence: “I saw the man on the hill with the telescope.” That sentence is ambiguous; that is to say that there are multiple possible interpretations of that sentence:
- I, using the telescope, see the man who is on the hill.
- I see the man who stands on the hill and owns a telescope.
- I see the man who stands on the hill; there is a telescope on said hill.
Thus, <placeholder> translates to the 1st sentence, never the 2nd nor the 3rd. Another example is the first sentence of this section. It is unclear whether the author meant loglangs, conlangs, or engelangs avoid syntactic ambiguity. Of course, in this case, it is obvious to the reader, given the context, that it is the first, but that may not always be so clear.
Another goal is to ensure that when speaking one possible interpretation for the listener to hear. Consider the common phrase and songtitle “I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream.” Here, “I Scream” and “Ice Cream” are both pronounced the same way, leading to ambiguity. Such ambiguities are also to be avoided in Gejakh.
Why??
I’ve been interested in languages for a long time and I have yet to create a conlang that I like. I was fascinated by the thought of preventing grammatical ambiguity, no doubt caused by my learning Toaq back in 2022. Additionally, Ntsékees’s Nahaıwa as well as John Quijada’s Ithkuil inspired the agglutinative features of this language. Lojban’s attitudinal system also had an influence on the language; if I have a favourite feature of Lojban, this is certainly it, even if its attitudinal system is not perfect.