Dreams (messages copied from Loglanists list)

[John Cowan <cowan@SNARK.THYRSUS.COM>]

The following messages were recently posted on the Loglanists list.  I
have reproduced them here with the Institute Loglan transposed into
Lojban.  Note that "kae" and "fie" aren't in L1 4th ed.; they look like
the analogues of COI selma'o (conversational protocol).

4th-edition Institute Loglan is "Loglan" for brevity only, without prejudice
to its use as a generic term.

James Jennings <70740.1237@CompuServe.COM> wrote:

> Hoi Raban, kae,
| doi rodas. ???
>
> I have another one-line translation that baffles me.
>
>         I have a dream.
>                 Martin Luther King
>
> How do you say this in Loglan? The word for 'dream' is:
>   revri : X dreams that/about Y
|   senva : x1 dreams about/that x2 (fact/idea/event/state)
> When talking about the dream itself you say
>   po revri : X is a dream/an event of dreaming
|   nu senva : x1 is a dream/an event of dreaming
> but you wouldn't say
>   Mi speni lepo revri.  I experience a dream.
|   mi lifri lenu senva
> would you? That is not logically different from
>   Mi revri.  I dream.
|   mi senva
> But "Mi revri." is awfully bland.
|      mi senva
>
> Besides, he wasn't just dreaming-a-little-just-now. He was talking about a
> vision that shaped his entire life. Perhaps:
>   Mi gia revri.  I continuously dream (in a time-free sense).
|   mi ru'i senva
>
> Any other suggestions?
>
> hue Djeimz
| mi'e djeimyz. [note that "mz" is invalid in Lojban]


Robert A. McIvor <70764.1434@CompuServe.COM> replied:
> Hoi Raban, fie,
| doi rodas. ???
>         Possibly mi fadrevri, but perhaps more forcefully
|                     fa'orsenva [from fanmo senva]
>         Mi nu ponsu le nu revri, ji.....   I am possessed by the dream
|         mi se ponse le se senva po'u/poi....
>
> Hue Bab
| mi'e bab.

Comments:  The "mi nu ponsu le nu revri" above is odd; what it literally
says is that the topic of a dream possesses me.  Even granting that this is
a reasonable metaphor for the moment, surely "le nu revri" should be "lepo
revri" = Lojban "le nu senva"?  One might almost suspect a bit of Lojban
leaking in....  Lojban "le nu" is Loglan "lepo", where the absence of a space
is significant -- "le po" would be short scoped.

The Loglan cmavo "ji" has no exact equivalent in Lojban: it can be followed
by a sumti, in which case it is equivalent to "po'u"; or by a bridi-tail,
in which case it is equivalent to "poi" or perhaps "po'u lo".  (Loglan
does not have an exact equivalent of "lo" and must often kludge around the
lack.)

Of course, the whole notion that what MLK had was a {senva} is plain silly.
He had a {panca}, or maybe even a {terzukte}.  A reasonable, if essentialist,
translation might be:

        mi ckaji le nu panca

--
John Cowan      cowan@snark.thyrsus.com         ...!uunet!lock60!snark!cowan
                        e'osai ko sarji la lojban.