This page gives a two-minute tour of the main features of Relojban and of its parent language Lojban, for those readers that are not familiar with either. If the descriptions sound like a marketing pitch without a lot of substance, do not worry: all the topics below (and much more) are explained in excruciating detail in the official material available here.
The Relojban alphabet is composed of 5 vowels (a e i o u), 17 consonants (b c d f g j k l m n p r s t v x z), 2 special letters (h y) and one additional symbol (.). Each letter always corresponds to a specific sound (or range of sounds). In other words, Relojban has a fully phonemic ortography (perfectly regular spelling).
The standard pronunciation of the Relojban letters is shown in the table below. Vowels are pronounced as in Italian or Spanish. Pay special attention to the consonants c, j and x, as their sound might be unexpected or unfamiliar to an English speaker.
| Letter | Pronunciation |
|---|---|
| a | [a], as in father |
| b | [b], same as English |
| c | [ʃ], “sh” as in ship |
| d | [d], same as English |
| e | [ɛ], as in get |
| f | [f], same as English |
| g | [ɡ], as in gum (not as in gem) |
| h (or ‘) | [h], as in hat |
| i | [i], as in machine |
| j | [ʒ], as in measure or French bonjour |
| k | [k], same as English |
| l | [l], same as English |
| m | [m], same as English |
| n | [n], same as English |
| o | [o], as in bold |
| p | [p], same as English |
| r | any rhotic sound |
| s | [s], same as English |
| t | [t], same as English |
| u | [u], as in rude |
| v | [v], same as English |
| x | [x], as in “Ach!” or German Bach |
| y | [ə], an “uh” sound, as in about |
| z | [z], same as English |
| . | [ʔ], a pause or glottal stop |
There is also a strict correspondence between the spoken language and the written text: the information that is usually conveyed in speech by emphasis, intonation or rhythm, is conveyed by specific words in Relojban.
In English as in most languages, there are categories such as “subject”, “verb”, “object”, “adjective”. In the sentence “I give an apple to you”, there is a subject (“I”), a verb (“give”), a direct object (“an apple”), and an indirect object (“you”).
In Relojban, there is nothing like that. Instead there is the concept of bridi, which in its basic form states that a certain relationship (called selbri) applies to some arguments (called sumti). The verb “to give” is expressed in Relojban by the selbri dunda, which is defined as
dunda: x1 gives x2 to x3“I give an apple to you” in Relojban is mi dunda lo plise ku do, a bridi where the relationship/selbri dunda is applied to three arguments/sumti: mi as x1 (meaning “I”), lo plise ku as x2 (meaning “an apple”/”some apples”), and do as x3 (meaning “you”).
The Relojban bridi reminds very much of predicate logic, and also of mathematical or programming concepts, which indubitably helps give the language its “nerd” flavor.
Is a “big dog catcher” someone that catches big dogs, or a big person that catches dogs? What about a “pretty little girls’ school”?
These syntactical ambiguities, which are very common in natural languages, do not exist in Relojban. Every sentence has a unique parsing, so only one of the alternatives for a “big dog catcher” is the the correct one in the Relojban version.
In general, concepts in Relojban tend to be clearly defined, each word has only one meaning. While semantic ambiguities are always possible (how wouldn’t they?), the speaker is usually in control of the degree of ambiguity: in Relojban you can be as precise or as vague as you want to be.
The grammar is also completely regular, with no conjugations or declensions for tense, case, number or gender. In fact, words never inflect.
Despite being a “logical” language, Relojban has a powerful system to express emotions in writing or in speech.
This is achieved by the use of small words, called “attitudinals”, which are a sort of “spoken emoticons” that can enrich a sentence with emotional content. Compare the following variations on the Relojban phrase la .mark. klama (meaning “Mark is coming”).
ui la .mark. klama: [Whee!] Mark is coming!uu la .mark. klama: [Alas!] Mark is coming.aho la .mark. klama: [Hopefully] Mark is coming.ue la .mark. klama: [Wow!] Mark is coming!ianai la .mark. klama: [Nonsense!] Mark is coming.In addition, Relojban has other small words, similar to attitudinals, that are very practical to add meta-information to a sentence. For instance, “evidentials” are words indicating whether what you state is something that you heard, you perceived, you expect, or other similar aspects. “Discoursives” are words equivalent to expressions such as “however”, “in other words”, “moreover”, “obviously”.
Tenses are optional in Relojban. There is no need to add information in a sentence about whether it is in the past, in the present or in the future, if context is sufficient to get the message across. That said, if you take the time to learn the extensive tense system of Relojban, you will be able to express very efficiently subtle nuances on how events take place in space-time. The compact sentence mi puza dihi zaho gunka, for instance, means “Some time ago, I regularly kept on working too long”.
At its origin, the language was designed with the objective to be as culturally neutral as possible. In fact, the ~1350 root words or Lojban/Relojban (that is, the terms such as dunda or klama) were originally defined by mixing together sounds from the six most common languages at the time (Chinese, Hindi, English, Russian, Spanish, and Arabic).
The root words can be combined together to make new words, allowing for an ever-expanding vocabulary. The process to generate new words from a small set of roots, together with the regular grammar, make the language and its vocabulary relatively easy to learn, despite bearing little similarities with natural languages.
Then take a look at the documentation available here.