Translation

["Mark E. Shoulson" <cbmvax!uunet!CTR.COLUMBIA.EDU!pucc.PRINCETON.EDU!shoulson>]

Oh, you all have been so nice, I might as well post the beginning of my
latest translation.  I actually have quite a bit more of it done (at
least in draft form), but I'd like to see what kinds of corrections I get
on this.

Last time I did a translation ("By the rivers of Babylon"), I billed it as
just a song, rather than pointing out that it is, in fact, a Psalm (#137, I
believe).  I'll not make that mistake this time.  This piece is also from
the Bible; just open to the very beginning:  Genesis 1:1 et seq.

ni'oni'o
ca lemu'e krasi ku le cevni cu finti lo tsani .e lo terdi
(newnew) during the-achievment-of: start, the god invent sky and earth

Until about 1min ago, I started this with {ca le pamoi}, which is pretty
silly.  I think this is slightly better.  Should I use {mu'e}?  All
throughout here, I refer to God as {le cevni}.  Because the tetragrammaton
is not used for the first chapter, I can avoid any {jegvo} problems.
The Heb word used is "Elohim" which is a much more easily-translated word,
meaning simply "god" (tho it is actually plural in form.  The same word is
used to refer to "other gods" in the Bible).  Perhaps it would be better to
use {la cevni}.  I think it likely is.  I'll leave it as it stands for now.
I use {finti} (rather than {zbasu}) to imply "creation" rather than
"construction", since {zbasu} implies raw materials which is not implied in
the original verb.

.i le terdi cu na'e seltarmi je kunti
the earth (other-than formed)-and-empty

There's no way I can make sense of the original description, "tohu vavohu",
and rather than try to wade through commentaryies to try to come up with a
tradition meaning, I copped out and used the standard KJV "formless and
void", more or less.

.ijebo ka manku vi ga'u le condi
and quality-of: darkness near above the deep-thing

I'm not sure about the {ka} here, a recurring problem throughout this
translation.  I use the observative form to indicate a sort of "there
was..." feeling, and I think it works.  I am less sure of my use of {le
condi} for the Heb "t'hom", another of those nigh-untranslatables which
abound in this chapter.  Again, I went with the conventional meaning, sort
of.  I think {vi ga'u} indicates presence immediately above, which is what
is said.

.ije le cevni pruxi cu fulta ga'u loi djacu
And the god-spirit float above the-mass-of water

Pretty straightforward.  I think {cevni pruxi} works for "spirit of god".
I could probably have used {le pruxi be le cevni}, but I think the tanru
suffices.  {fulta} might not be the best word.  The original verb appears
only twice in the Pentateuch, and means something like "hover".  I had
played with stuff like {volzvati} ("fly-be at") and the like.

.i le cevni cu bacru lu .e'o (ka?) gusni li'u
And the god utter "(command!) [quality-of:] illumination"

{bacru} doesn't imply a listener, which is what I want.  Here's an
interesting problem:  Lojbanic culture interfering!  See, I wanted a kind
of third-person imperative, which is semantically (not grammatically)
implied here.  Obvious solution: look to UI for a word for command.
Trouble is, the command cmavo, {.e'o}, has too long been used to *soften*
commands, rather than make them.  {.e'o} is command or request, depending
on rank of the speaker, but we get {e'osai ko sarji la lojban.} drilled
into us so much that we forget the command aspect.  Peopl don't use the
more requesting cmavo, {pe'u} where it belongs, with the result that {e'o}
gets weakened.  Should there be a {ka} before {gusni}, or not?

.ijebo (ka?) gusni
And [quality-of:] illumination

straight observative.  works.

.i le cevni cu jinvi fi le (ka?) gusni fe loza'i xamgu
The god opined about the [quality-of:] illumination that the-state-of:
good [was-true]

Heb has "saw", but we really want opinion here.  I think I'm using it more
or less right.  I'm unsure about {loza'i} there, though.

.i le cevni cu selfendri'a fi le (ka?) gusni ce le (ka?) manku
The god be-divide-cause [(something)] into the [quality-of:] illumination
unordered-set-with the [quality-of:] darkness

Using {selfendri'a} as discussed in my last post.  Hopefully it works.
Hopefully people can understand the place structure.  For dividing between
light and darkness, I have a division of something elliptical into the two.
I use {ce} for the conjunction.  Would {ce'o} have been better?  Or another
conjunction?

.i le cevni cu te cmene le gusni zo djedi
The god named the illumination "day"

straighforward.

.ijebo le manku cu se cmene zo nicte ru
And the dark was-named "night" by some-remote-sumti (i.e. {le cevni})

The various conversion shenanigans are to keep the word-order vaguely
reflective of the original.  Sorry, it's just my nature to try to translate
literally, especially something that's had its words pored over so
carefully.  I am improving though.

.i vanci .i cerni .i pamei djedi
Evening.  Morning.  One day.

I use "One day" instead of "the first day" because that's what it says.
Subsequent days are given ordinal numbers, day 1 isn't.  Go figure.  I just
changed it to {pamei} from {pa} because I think the latter isn't
grammatical.

There you have it.  Day One.  After you've kicked this around for a while
and I can apply your criticisms to the rest, I'll give you the second day.

Obquestion:  I need a good ljvo or gismu for "swarm".  I need the idea of a
large crowd, large numbers.  Otherwise I'll stay stuck on day 4.

~mark