Some comparative translations 'n' stuff

[cbmvax!uunet!mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU!nsn]

The following is an edited transcript of a thread between me (la banresperanto.
nik) and lojbab (la bob. lecevalier.). Basically, I translated a sonnet in
Esp I had written in April '88 into English, then into Interglossa (a
language with restricted syntax and vocab), and sent it off to lojbab to
see what he made of it. Whys and wherefores follow. Hope you find this
instructive. Btw, I look forward to a bright future when it won't be just
la bob. lecevalier. je la djan. ko'an je ju'ocu'i la noras. lecevalier.
who can answer these queries. Of course, I should be ultimately able to
answer this stuff myself, but lojban-learning seems to me (after three
hours of it) a very long-term project.


>Message-Id: <m0jGo5a-00013ZC@snark.thyrsus.com>
>Date: Thu, 14 Mar 91 03:55 EST
>From: lojbab@snark.thyrsus.com (Bob LeChevalier)
>Subject: Re: AARGH! Urgent change to Vega in Ido
>
>I didn't look closely at your sonnets, but if they are indeed true
>sonnets with iambic or whatever feet and specific rhyming schemes, 
>i'll almost certainly be out of my depth to translate it quickly.
>The reason is that the Lojban vocabulary AS MADE is mostly the
>gismu - all five letters long with specific consonant patterns and 
>forbidden by our word-making rule from being so similar that they
>can be easily confised in a noisy environment.  Hence few perfect
>rhymes, and I have no idea how loose you can be and still call it a
>rhyme.  (We've done various rhyming dictionary lists, but there are
>few gismu roots with more than 1 or 2 rhymes.)  lujvo won't be much easier, 
>either, since they are composed of affixes, which will be the same for
>similar meaning words, etc.  This makes (I presume) for boring poetry.
>If you don't insist on sentence or phrase breaks at line breaks, you might be
>able to play games with cmavo, especially by adding in non-required
>but permitted ones to make rhythm and rhyme match - but again this seems
>aesthetically displeasing.  Finally, with no idiom, Lojban is usually
>more in syllable count for the same semantics, though I was surprised to
>find my Vega trans. comparable in syllable counts with the other ILs, though
>more than English - sughgesting that a sonnet originally in Espo may be
>easier than one in English.
>
>Almost all of Helsem's stuff is free verse only slightly more regular than
>Vega.  He does pay attention to sounds, but not to get rhyme etc (and of
>course is totally of the wall in grammar still - you'll see an
>example when the stuff gets there).  The best that has been done so far
>in regular poetry ois limericks.
>
>Both Helsem and Athelstan think Skaldic poetry is a promising idea for 
>Lojban, since it uses alliteration and half-rhymes and elaborate
>metaphor.  THAT is more within the reach of Lojban.
>
>-lojbab

>To: lojbab@snark.thyrsus.com (Bob LeChevalier)
>Subject: A sonnet in time saves rhyme (?!)
>In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 14 Mar 91 03:55:00 -0500.
>             <m0jGo5a-00013ZC@snark.thyrsus.com> 
>Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 10:51:57 +1000
>
>>I didn't look closely at your sonnets, but if they are indeed true
>>sonnets with iambic or whatever feet and specific rhyming schemes, 
>>i'll almost certainly be out of my depth to translate it quickly.
>
>No, no. All I wanted was a prose translation (well, free verse), to check
>out whether the decisions that have to be made in translating into Interglossa
>are in any way analogous to those for translation into lojban. Though if
>you want to go skaldic or Welsh or otherwise alliterative, go ahead. Thanks
>for the info, anyway. Lujvo might not be that bad (not that I know what
>they look like); they might have an effect similar to biblical parallelism.
>You can add in more cmavos than you might think: in formal translation,
>meaning is usually, shall we say, extended. The syllable count doesn't
>really matter, either - Esp suffers similarly, and when an Espist translates
>English iambic pentameter into the Esp kvinjambo (11 syllables), what was
>leisurely sounds tense and selfconscious, precisely because we play
>shrinking games with our cmavos. So in translating, if you're going to be
>metrical (and it sounds like lojban won't end up this way), by all means
>pick a more expansive metre, like an alexandrine. But lojban and Esp may
>well be in the same boat. The conciseness of English is by no means a
>universal trait of NLs. I'm not as familiar with Greek translations from
>English as I should be, but I do know some stretching has to take place.

I meant gismu, btw. Or maybe rafsi.

>But all I want is free verse, to check out how the semantics gets mapped
>in more detail. The only reason I chose verse is because it is, believe
>it or not, the easiest form of writing for an AL. Esp *still* hasn't produced
>convincing drama, which relies on the development on colloquialism. And
>compared to technical writing, poetry does not demand much lexical experiment-
>ation or coinage. Evocation is another matter, but still... I found myself
>being struck by some cmavos I was looking at as sensual, before I realised
>I was reading in Anglo connotations. But klaku is sure to be used in ways
>different than plori or weep.

>Message-Id: <m0jHjpW-0002raC@snark.thyrsus.com>
>Date: Sat, 16 Mar 91 17:34 EST
>From: lojbab@snark.thyrsus.com (Bob LeChevalier)
>Subject: Re:  A sonnet in time saves rhyme (?!)
>
>Following is your desired translation; I got into it the next day to do
>a prose version.  I did the jerusalem of new jerusalem as a le'avla borrowing
>rather than a name, so you can see what one of them looks like - it has an
>affix indicating that it is in some way related to 'city' concept, followed
>by a Lojbanization of the word 'Jerusalem' and forced to end with a vowel.
>This is only an approximation of the rules, though, which are not that 
>clearly understood (we know what >doesn't work< but not what does very well.
>
>Now on rereading your sonnet, I noticed that you did not have either
>rhyme or meter obvious in the Interglossa, and of course the English
>translation of each is different.  This suggests that Interglossa is
>less expressive than English if it is not able to come close enough
>to the Esperanto to have a reasonably common English translation for the
>duo.  Lojban on the other hand, is sufficiently flexible.  Thus, ignoring
>rhyme and meter myself, and being literal where you used figurative metaphor
>(we can go figurative with explicit marking but this is uncool in poetry -
>if you have to mark it, it ain't fair, I am matching your English almost
>exactly in style, content, and expression order (except when it was obvious
>that the English din't quite track the Esperanto word order, so I matched
>the Esperanto - I much prefer translating these things if you give
>more explicit word-for-words of the Esperanto as well as the more colloquial
>English).

Sorry about that. I don't know about 'expressibility', but IG syntax is
restrictive. I'm still somewhat intimidated by the games people can 
apparently play with the ordering of sumti...

>gleki fa ko'a poi puca'a jegvo viska
>.i gleki fa ri noi na selkai leka senpi
>ku'o ki'u lenu ko'a noi puze'uku mi selzdi
>ca jdasanga co gleki vi la cnino ta'urjerusalemo
>.i na vajni fa lenu mi skuji'i lenu ko'a ci'orselkavbu
>sepi'o le nu sfanu'e lenu seldapma seldimna loi fagri
>.iki'ubo lenu ko'a noi prenu pu viska ce'o krici ce'o jdice
>.i ja'e ri fe ko'a fa loi cmoni loi cortu ca lifri darno
>
>ca lenu mi ku'i sisku loi nibli cajebaze'uci'iroi
>.i mi tesauku na ka'e na'e viska krici
>seki'u .iacai lenu pajni lenu mi na'e jizyjerna
>kei fa la cimni pamei semu'i ri cirko mi le seldapmystu
>
>.i .o'a maldimna semu'inai lenu fe lei manku
>fa mi proda'a mu'inai lei temci pe caze'u je baze'u
>
>45 minutes, then another 45 doing the translation, when I caught a couple
>errors, then another 45 doing the Interglossa, and doing some more back-
>fitting as I realized some better phrasings, and of course 45 for the
>English of the Interglossa.
>
>>Felicxas, kiuj jam la Dion vidis;
>>felicxas, netrafite de dubemo;
>>cxar tiuj (kiujn longe mi priridis)
>>gxojhimnas nun en Nov-Jerusalemo.
>>Negravos, se mi diros, ke insidis
>>ilin minaco per brul-anatemo:
>>cxi homoj vidis, fidis, kaj decidis;
>>por ili foras cxia dolorgxemo,
>>
>>dum mi premisojn sercxas poreterne.
>>Mi ne kapablus je kredado blinda,
>>do certe, jam jugxinte min neinda,
>>la Eternulo lasos min infere.
>>
>>Damnote, tamen kontraux la mallum'
>>mi luktos, malgrauxtempe, dum kaj dum.
>
>> (Happy are those who have already seen God;
>Happy, they-unspecified, which in-the-past-actually-did Jehovah-see
>> Happy are they, untouched [not struck] by [the tendency to] doubt;
>Happy, these (the previous unspecified), which-incidentally is-false-that
>  are-characterized-by doubter-ness
>> for they (whom I had laughed about for a long time)
>because-of-reason the-event of they, which in-the-past-for-a-long-time
>  I was-amused-by,
>> are now hymning in joy in the New Jerusalem.
>  now-are religious-singers of-type happy at that called new-(city-Jerusalem)
>> It won't matter, if I say, that they were ensnared
>False-that is-important, the event of I expressingly-opine the-event-of they
>  emotionally-are-captured-by
>> by the threat of anathema by fire:
>using-tool the-event-of punisher-promising the-event-of accursedly-being-doomed
>  to Fire.
>> these people saw, had faith, and decided;
>(the non-importance) because-of-reason they, who incidentally are people,
>  saw and-then believed and-then decided (in that order).
>> for them all moans of pain are distant,
>With-result (of them doing all these things), from them, Moans of Pained-ones
>  are-now experientially-far
>>
>> while I, in contrast, seek premises forever.
>simultaneous with the-event-of me seeking Premises now-and-later-for-a-long-
>  time-infinitely  (I padded the syllables with that LONG tense)
>> I wouldn't be capable of blind faith,
>I, necessarily-under-conditions-unspecified, am-not (logically-false)
>  innately-capably a non-seeing-believer.  (Tough to say this literal
>  English in a way that makes sense.  Note that in doing the Lojban
>  it struck me immediately that, after saying that these others >saw<
>  and believed, that not being capable of >blind< faith is irrelevant.
>  In short, your turn of phrase is self-damning.)
>> so certainly, having judged me unworthy,
>by-reason-therefore (I certainly believe!) [will occur] the-event-of judging me
>  other-than innately-earning
>> the Lord [Eternal One] will leave me in hell.
>by that called Infinite One-some thereby motivating Him losing me at-or-near
>  the accursed-place.
>>
>> [To-be-]Damned, nevertheless against the dark
>(Pride!) Derogative-doomed, motivationally-nevertheless the-event-of against
>  the dark
>> will I fight, despite time, during and during.)
>I opposingly-fight despite time interval which pertains to now-for-a-long-time
>  and future-for-a-long-time  (padded for parallel structure with yours).
>
>Now for the Interglossa version:
>
>prenu .i vo'a pe di'u pu viska lai jegvo .i cinmo leka gleki
>.i prenu .i vo'a pe di'u na'e frati lenu na'e krici .i cinmo leka gleki
>.i mu'i loinu prenu vi ti kei mi gasnu co cmila ze'uku zo'e
>noi gasnu co sanga co nunsalci vi la cnino ta'urjerusalemo
>.i mi ka'e skuji'i loinu le nunsfa be fu loinu jelri'a pu gasnu co sfaselnu'e
>.i la'edi'u na'e ckaji leka vajni
>.i lei vi prenu pu viska .i ri ckaji leka krici .i ra gasnu lenu cuxna
>.i roda poi crovo'a cu darno ru
>
>ca lenu mi troci co ganse loi purci tcini piroroi.
>.i mi na ka'e cinmo loi kavykri secau loi selga'e
>.i ki'u la'edi'u lai jegvo pu gasnu co pajni be mi bei lo nalselva'i
>jenai muvdu mi fo loi pacystu
>
>.i mu'inaigi lenu mi ba se sfasa gi gasnu co jamna loi nalselgu'i
>ra'anai loi tcika mokca poi cabna loi tcima
>
>>Plu Anthropi; Su pre vise u Theo; esthe hedo.
>>Plu Anthropi; Su no reacte no-credo; esthe hedo.
>>Causo plu Para-pe; Mi acte riso mega tem de;
>>nu acte canto celebro in u neo Ierusalem.
>>Mi poto dicte u posso Peno per Pyro acte severo.
>>U pre para Dicte no habe gravo.
>>Plu para Anthropi pre vise. Mu pre habe credo. Mu pre acte electio.
>>Singulo algo Voco habe apo de Mu;
>>
>>tem Mi tentato detecte plu pre Conditio pan tem.
>>Mi no poto esthe credo minus Sympto.
>>Causo Re u Theo; Su pre acte judico Mi de No-valo;
>>no mote Mi e Malo-lo.
>>
>>Anti Re, Mi, post ge peno, acte milito anti No-photo
>>no-harmono u Chron, tem u Tem.
>
>> (People; They saw God; feel happiness.
>People.  The-first-place of-the-last-sentence saw of That-Named-God.  Feelers-
>  of-emotion happiness.
>> People; They not react to not-belief; feel happiness.
>People.  The-first-place of-the-last-sentence other-than-reacts to the-event-of
>  other-than-believing.  Feelers-of-emotion happiness.
>> Cause people-here; I act laughter long time about;
>Because-of events-of people at-this-here-place, I am-a-do-er of-type laugher,
>  unspecified-long-durationally, at things-unspecified,
>> now act singing celebration in New Jerusalem.
>which incidentally are-do-ers of-type [singers of type events-of-celebrating]
>  at-location that called new-(city-Jerusalem).
>> Mi can [potentially] say the possible punishment by fire acted threat.
>I am-innately-capable-of expressingly-opining-that Events of
>  events-of-punishing by-doing Events-of Burn-causing, were-do-ers of-type
>  punisher-promised-things [The Interglossa sounds like it is saying
>  that the punishment actively-acts as a threat; as the Lojban shows, we
>  don't usually think of events as actors]
>> The previous-here saying not has importance.
>The-referent-of the-previous-sentence [my capability to opine, I presume?
>  Were you referring to the sentence not being important, or the state
>  referred to by the sentence (the capability of expressingly-opining)]
>  is-non-characterized by importance (you used a root suggesting
>  'gravity' in both the Esperanto and Interglossa - if you meant
>  seriousness instead of importance, replace vajni with judri in both
>  versions).
>> People-here saw. They had belief. They acted choice.
>The-mass-of here-people saw.  The-last (the-mass) is-characterized-by belief.
>  The earlier (the mass, not the belief) is-actor-in the-event-of-choosing.
>  (Your English of the latter is truly strange; at least in the U.S., I can
>  see several interpretation other than what I presume the AL word says,
>  based on the Esperanto version, most of which involve the people being
>  selected, rather than selecting.)
>> Each pain voice has distance from them,
>Every-something which-is-a feeling_pain-voice is-far-from the-much-earlier
>  (the mass-of-people, not the belief, nor the choosing, nor the voices
>  themselves)
>>
>> while [time] I try to [tentatively] detect prior conditions all the time.
>during the-events-of my trying of-type sensing of Past-Conditions,
>  all-of-the-time.
>> I can not feel belief without indication.
>I (it is false) am-innately-capable-of feeling-emotion Believer-ness, without
>  Sensed-Things.  [I would have presumed you to want the-event-of-sensing-
>  things, but this doesn't in any way fit your English.]
>> Cause this God; He acted judgement on me of not-worth;
>Because-of-the-referent-of-the-lat-sentence, Jehovah was-a-do-er of-type
>  (judger-of-me to-be not-of-valued
>> not move me out of Evil-place.
>and-not mover of-me from of Evil-Place.
>>
>> Despite that I to be punished act war against not-light
>Despite the-event-of I will be-punished, do-er of-type make-war-on
>   of Non-illuminated-ones (It isn't clear from your English what 'that' refers
>   to.  Without knowing Interglossa, by parallel with an earlier sentence
>   I would have guessed the literal to be equivalent to "Despite this
>   (the last sentence) I, who am to be punished, act-war ...".  This
>   would be much different in unambiguous Lojban:  .i mu'inai la'edi'u mi
>   noi ba se sfasa cu gasnu co jamna le nalselgu'i)
>> not-according-to Time-point, during the duration.)
>non-pertained-to-by Time-of-Day-Point, which are-during of Time-Interval.
>
>
>Wheee!!!  That was FUUUUUUUUUN; boy what a truly weird language.  No,
>Lojban is NOT much like Interglossa.  When we say there is no
>distinction between nouns, verbs, and adjectives, we MEAN it.  We don't
>mark each usage of a word to say what kind it is.  Pardon some humorous
>touches in the translation; you presumably see them in my English
>phrasing.  (Of course, I realize some of this may be your non-fluency
>with Interglossa, but the humor to me transcended such a possibility.
>In any case, you can clearly see that I captured the two distinct styles
>of the language, probably better than the English can.  Note that I
>translated the capitalized words, where possible, as masses, to
>distinguish them from other places where Lojban constructs are noun-like
>but the Interglossa was NOT capitalized.  This convention actually
>seemed to fit the meaning quite well, but further strangifies the
>English.  Note that I have no real idea of the significance of
>capitalization except as conveyed through your English.
>
>Consider reposting this to lojban-list with any commentary you wish to
>add before (quotes from your previous to me, and my initial response?)
>or after (commentary on the travesty I made of your poem).
>
>To: lojbab@snark.thyrsus.com (Bob LeChevalier)
>Subject: Re: Textbook distribution 
>In-Reply-To: Your message of Sat, 16 Mar 91 17:45:00 -0500.
>             <m0jHk0S-0002rrC@snark.thyrsus.com> 
>Date: Mon, 18 Mar 91 10:31:23 +1000
>
>
>Thank you very much for the translations. I'll shove 'em on the list after a 
>coupla days. Glad to know you had that much fun %^)
>
>>Now on rereading your sonnet, I noticed that you did not have either
>>rhyme or meter obvious in the Interglossa, and of course the English
>>translation of each is different.  This suggests that Interglossa is
>>less expressive than English if it is not able to come close enough
>>to the Esperanto to have a reasonably common English translation for the
>>duo.  
>
>Interglossa has a very limited vocabulary, and should cut down on the syntactic
>templates available. Parsing it is hard, and in Hogben's original book, the
>Biblical translations with their simple syntax are fine; but English prose
>and legalese, even though the latter was significantly simplified syntactically,
>were incomprehensible in translation.
>
>>Lojban on the other hand, is sufficiently flexible.  Thus, ignoring
>>rhyme and meter myself, and being literal where you used figurative metaphor
>
>Actually, I was hoping you could come up with something nice for metaphors
>such as 'blind faith'. I'm not sure whether this anglo metaphor is pan-european
>enough to be tolerated in Espo; I suspect it is.
>
>>> (Happy are those who have already seen God;
>>Happy, they-unspecified, which in-the-past-actually-did Jehovah-see
>
>Hm. No parsing problem in linking the disjunct 'Happy' to the 'they-unspec'?

In fact, to bring in a parethesis, there is a massive history to the verb
to be used corresponding to Happy. It alludes, of course, to the Sermon
On The Mount. Now here are some distinct types of happiness:

English		Esperanto		Greek (Modern)
------------------------------------------------------
Fortunate	Felicxa			Eutuxhs, Eutuxismenos
Pleased		(Kontenta)		Euxaristhmenos
Happy		Gaja			Xaroumenos	
Joyful		Gxoja			(can't think of one)
Blissful	(Sengxena)		Makarios (cf. Latin Beatus)

The Esp has 'Fortunate' because this makes the link between cause of
happiness and the happiness explicit: Gxojas tiuj, kiuj... would sound
like their joy was incidental to their seeing God. It would be even
worse with Gajas tiuj, kiuj... which reads somewhat like "Those who
have seen God are running around smiling".

But the original Greek had Makarioi, and the Latin translation has
Beati. Admittedly some semantics would have been influenced by the
Church's use of the term; but Oi Makarioi Nhsoi, the Isles of Bliss,
the late-pagan-Greek equivalent of heaven, predates Christian theology
(I think). What this implies to me is that Christ meant something along
the lines of 'They will have no worries, no disquiet', not 'they will
run around smiling' (Happy) or 'they will run around hurrahing' (Joyful)
or 'they will say "ain't we lucky"' (Fortunate, Pleased).

Does le lojban distinguish between these happinesses (it doesn't have to,
and I've heard SapirWhorfish mumbles against such distinctions), and
which would it have picked here? Oh well. Back to translations.
>
>>> for they (whom I had laughed about for a long time)
>>because-of-reason the-event of they, which in-the-past-for-a-long-time
>>  I was-amused-by,
>
>So you have fully-fledged relatives in lojban. I see from the Interglossa
>translation that you can do without them. Is it too early to tell which
>is stylistically preferable?
>
>>> are now hymning in joy in the New Jerusalem.
>>  now-are religious-singers of-type happy at that called new-(city-Jerusalem)
>
>Actually, the original has joy-hymn, which is closer to: "(they) now hymn
>joyfully in..." How does this change things?
>
>>> It won't matter, if I say, that they were ensnared
>>False-that is-important, the event of I expressingly-opine the-event-of they
>>  emotionally-are-captured-by
>
>I like the qualification 'emotionally'. I suspect this is an acceptable way
>of handling such metaphor.
>
>>> by the threat of anathema by fire:
>>using-tool the-event-of punisher-promising the-event-of accursedly-being-doomed
>>  to Fire.
>
>Next time, I will translate word-for-word; the original really has: "if I say,
>that trapped them threat [subject] by burn-anathema [anathema by burning;]"
>
>>> I wouldn't be capable of blind faith,
>>I, necessarily-under-conditions-unspecified, am-not (logically-false)
>>  innately-capably a non-seeing-believer.  (Tough to say this literal
>>  English in a way that makes sense.  Note that in doing the Lojban
>>  it struck me immediately that, after saying that these others >saw<
>>  and believed, that not being capable of >blind< faith is irrelevant.
>>  In short, your turn of phrase is self-damning.)
>
>Eek. I let that metaphor get the better of me. All the more reason to translate
>'blind' by something more literal (unquestioning?)
>
>>> so certainly, having judged me unworthy,
>>by-reason-therefore (I certainly believe!) [will occur] the-event-of judging me
>>  other-than innately-earning
>>> the Lord [Eternal One] will leave me in hell.
>>by that called Infinite One-some thereby motivating Him losing me at-or-near
>>  the accursed-place.
>
>The whole syntactic structure you've given in the last two sentences is nice.
>'Lose'? I know 'leave' wouldn't work (there's no word for 'leave' in Iglossa,
>and translating it I came up with something else); but does 'lose' have a 
>definition more general than in English? (I'm reminded of that verse in the
>latin Dies Irae: ne me perdas ille die, may you (God) not lose me on that 
>day.
>
>>> [To-be-]Damned, nevertheless against the dark
>>(Pride!) Derogative-doomed, motivationally-nevertheless the-event-of against
>>  the dark
>>> will I fight, despite time, during and during.)
>>I opposingly-fight despite time interval which pertains to now-for-a-long-time
>>  and future-for-a-long-time  (padded for parallel structure with yours).
>
>So "motiv-nevertheless [will occur] the-event-of (against the dark I fight),
>despite..." Is the word order in the expression in parens really permissible?
>You don't have an object marker...
>
>>Now for the Interglossa version:
>
>> (People; They saw God; feel happiness.
>People.  The-first-place of-the-last-sentence saw of That-Named-God.  Feelers-
>  of-emotion happiness.
>
>No problem linking the subject of the third sentence to that of the first?
>In IG, an expression between semicolons is a relative clause, with Su
>explicitly corresponding to 'The immediately preceding word is the subject
>of this sentence'.
>
>> Cause people-here; I act laughter long time about;
>Because-of events-of people at-this-here-place, I am-a-do-er of-type laugher,
>  unspecified-long-durationally, at things-unspecified,
>
>when you have an unspecified object in a relative clause, it is taken as
>the word immediately preceding the clause. Thus IG does no more than to
>emulate English: 'Because people-here [no explicit demonstratives in IG]
>I laughed about are...' . Thus the at-things is specified.
>
>There are only seventeen verbs in IG: thus act laughter, not laugh.
>
>> now act singing celebration in New Jerusalem.
>which incidentally are-do-ers of-type [singers of type events-of-celebrating]
>  at-location that called new-(city-Jerusalem).
>
>Because that was a realtive before, I don't know if 'which' is right here.
>
>> Mi can [potentially] say the possible punishment by fire acted threat.
>I am-innately-capable-of expressingly-opining-that Events of
>  events-of-punishing by-doing Events-of Burn-causing, were-do-ers of-type
>  punisher-promised-things [The Interglossa sounds like it is saying
>  that the punishment actively-acts as a threat; as the Lojban shows, we
>  don't usually think of events as actors]
>
>I'll admit the expression 'doers of type punisher-promised-things' looks
>muddled. 
>
>> The previous-here saying not has importance.
>The-referent-of the-previous-sentence [my capability to opine, I presume?
>  Were you referring to the sentence not being important, or the state
>  referred to by the sentence (the capability of expressingly-opining)]
>  is-non-characterized by importance (you used a root suggesting
>  'gravity' in both the Esperanto and Interglossa - if you meant
>  seriousness instead of importance, replace vajni with judri in both
>  versions).
>
>No, grava and gravo mean important, with serious being serioza in Esp.,
>and God knows for IG. The effect that Re (it) has in referring to the
>previous sentence has been left vague; but from the original, it is what
>is opined which is irrelevant (so two levels of abstraction down). But the
>way I phrased the IG, the whole sentence may be referred to. "I can say
>that.." - is not important.
>
>> People-here saw. They had belief. They acted choice.
>The-mass-of here-people saw.  The-last (the-mass) is-characterized-by belief.
>  The earlier (the mass, not the belief) is-actor-in the-event-of-choosing.
>  (Your English of the latter is truly strange; at least in the U.S., I can
>  see several interpretation other than what I presume the AL word says,
>  based on the Esperanto version, most of which involve the people being
>  selected, rather than selecting.)
>
>The IG is a word-for-word, whereas the Esp wasn't. acte electio means just
>'they elected', whereas became selected would be 'gene electio'.
>
>> Each pain voice has distance from them,
>Every-something which-is-a feeling_pain-voice is-far-from the-much-earlier
>  (the mass-of-people, not the belief, nor the choosing, nor the voices
>  themselves)
>
>Earlier and much-earlier mean one and two subjects further back, right?
>
>> I can not feel belief without indication.
>I (it is false) am-innately-capable-of feeling-emotion Believer-ness, without
>  Sensed-Things.  [I would have presumed you to want the-event-of-sensing-
>  things, but this doesn't in any way fit your English.]
>
>I don't understand. Blind faith is faith not based on the event of sensing
>things. The IG has minus Sympto, which is close enough.
>
>>Wheee!!!  That was FUUUUUUUUUN; boy what a truly weird language.  
>
>Oh? I've heard the same said about lojban %^)
>
>>No, Lojban is NOT much like Interglossa.  When we say there is no
>>distinction between nouns, verbs, and adjectives, we MEAN it.  We don't
>>mark each usage of a word to say what kind it is.  
>
>IG only marks these distinctions by word order and capitalisation; like I
>said, if the sentence structure becomes clumsy, this is hard to do.
>
>>In any case, you can clearly see that I captured the two distinct styles
>>of the language, probably better than the English can.  
>
>Which one is more elephantine in lojban then?
>
>>Note that I have no real idea of the significance of
>>capitalization except as conveyed through your English.
>
>Hate to tell you this, but capitalisation in IG indicates nothing more than
>a noun or personal pronoun.
>
>>Consider reposting this to lojban-list with any commentary you wish to
>>add before (quotes from your previous to me, and my initial response?)
>>or after (commentary on the travesty I made of your poem).
>
>Maybe a touch-up of the IG version, in light of what I've just said? The
>IG structure is: Noun Phrase: article[U/Plu, singular/plural 'the', by
>default; also some prepositions, numerals, etc.]+adverb+adj+noun; the Verb 
>Phrase: time-participle+modal+verb+qualifier. So:
>
>Mi poto dicte u posso Peno per Pyro acte severo plu para Anthropi:
>Subject. Modal. Verb. Nounphrase:. adjective. noun. preposition. noun.
>verb. qualifier. Nounphrase:. adjective. noun.
>
>Other than by such parsing, there is no way of telling what function something
>like 'posso' (I may) has in a sentence. I assume lojban is similar in this
>respect, no?

>Message-Id: <m0jIwab-0002pzC@snark.thyrsus.com>
>Date: Wed, 20 Mar 91 01:24 EST
>From: lojbab@snark.thyrsus.com (Bob LeChevalier)
>Subject: Re: Textbook distribution

>Actually, I didn't see a lot in your comments about the Interglossa that
>cause me to make changes.  I may have overdone it a bit to match the
>lack-of-verbs, but I did match them.  I don't have my text in front of
>me , but here are brief answers to your points:
>
>> happy, they unspeciifed
>
>Predicate, first argument  - this is a perfectly acceptable, if marked order
>in Lojban (the fa I think I used marks 1st argument).  Indeed, Lojban allows
>most any order.
>
>> relatives
>
>These are vital to Lojban, and where exactness and clarity are important
>are preferable to simple binary metaphors.  But each is allowed, and has
>its place.  Binary metaphors, on the other hand, have great danger of
>semantic ambiguity.  In a muti-cultural readership, you cannot always
>assume the reader will interpret the metaphor the way you intend.
>
>> joyfully
>
>I was just having trouble coming up with a word for this separate from 
>just 'happy'.  One of your translations suggested celebratory, but I wasn't
>sure enough to go back and change it.  Given you clairification, you may
>want 'singers of happy/celebratory songs'.  If you want me to correct it
>repost thw Lojban text for that line, but it's probably going to be
>somethging like lijda sanga be loi gleki/salci selsanga
>
>>threat of anathema
>I'm not hot on religious terminolkogy, but I thought I had gotten this right,
>and think I'm not far from your intent here.  But if I'm wrong as to what
>you mean by anathema...
>
>>lose
>my intent here sounds like the Latin usage.  Lojban cirko is
>x loses y at-or-near z, conveying some type of site-associated leaving-behind.
>
>>against the dark I fight
>
>any order is permissiblein Lojban.  Again, without the original, this looks
>like a pseudo-passive.  Lojban has two ways of doing these.  One modifies
>the predicate, telling you the order of the arguments is switched, thus
>being more like a true passive.  The other, which my translation suggests
>that I used, is done by simply marking the arguments, and then putting
>them it what ever order you wish.  This is a very peoetic one, but I was
>trying to match.
>
>>IG  Third sentence subject
>This subject is left unspecified in the sentence, and is hence elliptical.
>It's value must be detemrined by contextual plausibility.  Lojban has more
>kinds of explicit ellipsis than most languages, and evry sentence inherently
>has some ellipsis, else it would be infinitely long.
>
>In relative clauses, the first ellipsis is usually the relativeized argument
>but there could be exceptions.  Usually if there is any plausible reason
>for doubt, the speaker/writer will use an explicit relative pronoun in the
>argument place to relate.  (You could even put it in twice as in the lojban
>for:  mary liked John, who (he) had introduced her to (his) wife)
>You can be as specific as necessary for clarity.
>
>You can nest relative clauses ad nauseum, and some Lojban sentences 
>translating relatively simple English sentences with hidden logical
>structure, seem to have a lot of nesting.  Abstractors are even more
>ofte nested (lenu event clauses being the kind you see most because they
>are the most common that are equivalnet to an English structure)
>
>>earlier/much earlier
>these are ambiguous pronoun references - again plausibility takes a role.
>ra is something BEFORE the last argument, and ru is something before that.
>However, the joke of this passage is that since I didn't assign the 
>referent (the people) to a pronoun, each successive reference is a bit further
>back relative to the current sentence.  It thus was a tutorial in the 
>Lojban back-referencing anaphora, (probably instructive in what NOT to do
>though most people who know the rules will figure it out right away - you
>certainly wouldn;t do this in speech, though.  People just can't count
>back in their heads.)  There are several different ways to back-reference
>more clearly, and in something written originally in Lojban, I would have
>used another means, but again I was going for a match with the original
>which used highly ambiguous 'it's.  So I did too, though not quite as ambiguous.
>
>Which is more elphantine?
>
>Don't understand this question.  If you mean length, you can see for yourself.
>A good deal of length was added by my modelling the IG compound verbs, but
>its still rathe rtrivial.  I just see both language as QUITE different from
>each other andf from Lojban.
>
>Parsing
>
>Parsing determines the exact syntactic role of everything in L:ojban, but most
>sentence are simple enough to parse in your head.  The grammar is LALR1 for the
>most part (we have to fool YACC in a couple of places), and real people look
>far more than one token ahead to detemrine syntactical structures, so Lojban
>is only difficult when things nest recursively to a degree that it upset the
>mental stack (I've heard most people can keep no more than 7 things on the
>mental stack, and 'creative Lojban' can exceed this easily).
>
>I'm posting a treat for you to lojban-list. MY own first poem in Lojbna,
>wioth rhyme, rhythm and everything.  Consider yourself an inspriation.

la banresperanto. nik. (should that be ban,repseranto? I keep wondering how
to distinguish le'avla from lujvo.) is turning out to be making more
trouble in Lojbanland (jbonat) than he first suspected. Vicious me. I'll
say something about the translations of La Espero and le se vaiciska be
le lojbab ku (is that anything *near* "Bob's masterpiece"?) later.

Yrs, etc,

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Nick S. Nicholas,			"Rode like foam on the river of pity
Depts. of CompSci & ElecEng,  		 Turned its tide to strength
University of Melbourne, Australia.	 Healed the hole that ripped in living"
nsn@{mullian.ee|mullauna.cs|ecr}.mu.oz.au     -	S. Vega, Book Of Dreams
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