On Mon, 10 Sep 2007 01:43:20 -0400, Bob LeChevalier
<lojbab@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>Padraic Brown <elemtilas@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>>I rarely participate in those exercises even on the conlang lists
>>
>>You should try it. Practice your language a little.
>
>I do, but generally with people who might understand what I am
>writing,
It might be that I would _like_ to understand how Lojban works. Even
if I don't understand the actual L words, I _can_ understand your
explanation of how they work together.
>and generally NOT in response to a hostile discussion (which
>this subthread is, since it started with this little gem:
No hostility involved here. This has been a very civil conversation.
It hasn't really gotten us any closer to the goal, but there has been
no hostility.
><They don't have a word for "s****ts" -- reflecting the geekiness of
><people who are attracted to lojban -- look at your local TV newscast
><or newspaper to verify that "s****ts" is a prime concept -- what other
><gaps exist in their semantic web due to their _extreme_ nerdiness?
><
><Never forget the cartoon at http://xkcd.com/191/
-- lojbanists are so
><geeky that even most geeks won't have anything to do with them. Drink
><their kool-aid at your own risk.
And you think _that_ is hostile?
>A lot of other people practice the language much more than I do, but
>they tend not to habituate conlang groups because they are too busy
>working with other Lojbanists, or on their own works in Lojban (in my
>own case, I have been putting more work into Russian of late, than
>Lojban, but I do keep my eyes open for when Lojban is mentioned on
>this group).
>
>When I do work on Lojban, I tend to want to work on my translation of
>part of Burton's Arabian Nights,
A noble project indeed!
>not on ad hoc "how do you say it"
>problems that start with the fallacious premise that a speaker of
>another language would want to say exactly what an English speaker
>says.
Well, then, please excuse us for wasting your ever so precious time!
By all means, please return to your great work and don't even bother
with such requests!
It should be noted, if you'd acquiesed to the original request, rather
than waste time and bandwidth on false complaints of there being "no
context" and that speakers of another language would even want to say
"exactly what an English speaker says".
>>You won't find yourself flubbing around when asked for a simple piece of
Lojban!
>
>Perhaps some things aren't so "simple".
Kind of destroys one of Lojban's design goals, then. You should remove
"Lojban is simple compared to natural languages; it is easy to learn."
from the language's main page.
>One of my points in this
>discussion is that there is a LOT of hidden meaning in the "simple
>phrase" cultural baggage that other culture/languages would either
>have to ignore, or would have to make explicit.
Any baggage you feel en***bered by is what you've brought with you. I
don't really care about all the baggage or the cultural wossnames. I
am reasonably certain that we share some of the same cultural baggage
-- your group is based not too far from here, so the whole notion
about "hidden meanings" and "cultrual baggage" and the rest is really
quite ridiculous.
As the chief architect of the Lojban language, it really should not be
at all difficult to communicate a simple sentence in the language you
created (albeit with much help from others), which is designed to be
"simple...easy to learn" within a shared cultural milieu to someone
who is interested in your language.
If you don't want people asking, why promote your language at all?
>Serious Lojbanists
>tend to want to make it explicit, which in this case means not simple
>at all.
>
>>>a) they lack context
>>
>>They _do_ have context, so you're quite wrong there.
>
>They lack explicit *linguistic* context, which means that a
>translation must either ignore what has been omitted, leading to a
>poor translation, or it must make that context explicit, leading to a
>wordy, often confusing translation which still might not be correct
>because the assumptions made about the context might be incorrect.
Indeed, there are always issues that make for humorous translations.
Usually, this only happens during a translation relay where people try
to translate from one conlang into another. Generally, when
translating from one's mother language to one's own conlang, these
problems resolve themselves quite seamlessly. This is because the
translator/creator _knows_ the linguistic context of his mother
language and also of his own conlang.
You are a speaker of English (I assume a native speaker) and are also
as close to creator of Lojban as it's possible to be. There should be
no issue here.
>How many different answers did I get to the question of what "s****ts"
>means (in the phrase)?
You got several -- but mostly those answers involved miniscule details
such as whether or not "chess" should be counted. Few of the answers
really dealt with the actual nature of _s****ts_. Probably because it
is assumed that most of the respondents and readers of the group have
an understanding of what "s****ts" is. Yes, it is "cultural baggage",
but as such it can safely be ignored for the purposes of the
translation excercise, reason being, we all share in the same baggage!
You don't need to explain what s****ts are, you don't need to make
anything explicit. To go there is to make such a tall mountain out of
a very small anthill!
>I do not know what a radio announcer means by
>"s****ts" in that phrase,
Again, you're being a prat. He means "anything at all noteworthy about
the people and activities that fall under the umbrella term called
's****ts'". I'd suggest a good English dictionary and perhaps have a
shufty at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S****ts>
to round out this
deficit in your cultural attache case.
Honestly, I think you're doing this deliberately, just to agitate.
>and there are numerous Lojban words, all of
>which might be correct or incorrect depending on that hidden context
>of what the announcer really means.
There is no hidden context at all. Except in so far as you've pulled a
blanket over your own eyes.
>>>b) I don't see a lot of value in translating something into a language
>>>that the people reading it don't know, without explanation of all the
>>>nuances, and such explanation is seldom appreciated.
>>
>>Perhaps we would like to see your conlang in action.
>
>Go to our website.
>http://www.lojban.org/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=Texts+In+Lojban&bl
>The home page also has blog entries with rather more ad hoc bits of
>Lojban in them.
>http://www.lojban.org/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=Home%20Page&bl
I've been there, thank you, and I have the Book around somewhere. This
doesn't answer the actual question. Since the creator of the language
can't even provide an "ad hoc" translation -- how much help does he
think the website is going to be?
Padraic
>
>lojbab
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