Counting in Lojban

Language overview

Forty-two in Lojban Lojban (from logji and bangu, or logic language) is a syntactically unambiguous constructed language based on predicate logic, created in 1987 by The Logical Language Group. Lojban is derivated from Loglan, a language invented in 1955 by James Cooke Brown who claimed copyright on it, so Lojban started afresh from its lexical basis to create a whole new vocabulary.

Lojban numbers list

  • 1 – pa
  • 2 – re
  • 3 – ci
  • 4 – vo
  • 5 – mu
  • 6 – xa
  • 7 – ze
  • 8 – bi
  • 9 – so
  • 10 – pano
  • 11 – papa
  • 12 – pare
  • 13 – paci
  • 14 – pavo
  • 15 – pamu
  • 16 – paxa
  • 17 – paze
  • 18 – pabi
  • 19 – paso
  • 20 – reno
  • 30 – cino
  • 40 – vono
  • 50 – muno
  • 60 – xano
  • 70 – zeno
  • 80 – bino
  • 90 – sono
  • 100 – panono
  • 1,000 – paki’o
  • one million – paki’oki’o

Lojban numbering rules

Now that you’ve had a gist of the most useful numbers, let’s move to the writing rules for the tens, the compound numbers, and why not the hundreds, the thousands and beyond (if possible).

  • Digits from zero to nine are specific words: no [0], pa [1], re [2], ci [3], vo [4], mu [5], xa [6], ze [7], bi [8], and so [9].
  • Compound numbers up to nine hundred and ninety-nine are formed by juxtaposing their composing digits names to each others. Thus, we can form pano [10] (one zero), vore [42] (four two), panono [100] (one zero zero), binoso [809] (eight zero nine)…
  • When three zeroes are following each other, the word for thousand (ki’o) is used instead of nonono (which is otherwise grammatically correct). Thousands are formed this way (e.g.: paki’o [1,000], ci paki’o [3,000], vo ki’o musore [4,592]).
  • Millions are formed the same way as thousands, i.e. by prefixing the million word (ki’oki’o) by its digit multiplier (e.g.: paki’oki’o [1 million], re paki’oki’o [2 million]). Higher scale numbers (billions, trillions…) are regularly formed the same way.

Write a number in full in Lojban

Let’s move now to the practice of the numbering rules in Lojban. Will you guess how to write a number in full? Enter a number and try to write it down in your head, or maybe on a piece of paper, before displaying the result.

Books

What Is Lojban? What Is Lojban?
by , editors Logical Language Group (2003)
[Amazon.com Amazon.com]

The Complete Lojban Language The Complete Lojban Language
by , editors Logical Language Group (1997)
[Amazon.com Amazon.com]

Logical languages

Loglan, and Lojban.

Other supported languages

As the other currently supported languages are too numerous to list extensively here, please select a language from the full list of supported languages.