Ralph poem, tr. la kolen.

[cbmvax!uunet!cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu!nsn]

Aside to Mark: OK, so it's not eLALAmein. (ela'ala'amein?) As we say in
Greek, something's up in the gypsy district (there's a problem). My apologies
for stuffing up for the umpteenth time in something that might not be
enforcable.

My comment's on Colin's latest.

By the way, I thought very little of the original poem (it did not, indeed,
seem to have enough coherence or spontaneity to be a poem); and I find it
irritating when translations are better than the original (after all, Lojban
is still too young to sound trivial).

>do jundi je'upei mi

As distinct from Mark, I approve of the {je'upei}

>mi cpedu da'i lenu ko tinju'i mi

Mark knows well my position on {kau} within {du'u}, but in this case, I must
agree with him: {do} should replace {ko}

>.inaja do na'e gasnu .uu lemi selcpe

I loath and despise connectives like {.inaja}. Just as the lojban {.e} has
nothing to do with NL "and" (as you have pointed out), so too {.inaja} has
little to do with NL "if". Besides, such connectives always make me pause
and draw up truth tables, which is silly. I'd use {.iseni'ibo}

>.i mi cpedu da'i lenu ko tinju'i mi
>.ijebo do jivyci'o leza'i do bilga co rinka lemu'e lemi nabmi co'i raktu
>.inaja do fliselfu .uepeinai mi

{co'u}. Damn, if this is how spelling will trip us up, will we always have
to speak the language in parallel translation? The fact is that cmavo are
packed too dense - and that nothing can be done to relieve that. Unless,
namely, some of the rarer ones start getting pushed out into CV'V'V space.
This doesn't help here though; I doubt the triple {co'a/co'i'co'u} will be
zapped. Though the {co'u/mo'u} distinction seems unnecessary (to say nothing
of the new upstarts, de'a and di'a. I don't care how much authority pc has,
this is degenerating into lunacy.

Back to text.

I don't think {fliselfu} the most communicative way of putting it. {slefli}
would help (you serve-fail: you fail [main claim] in that you serve [2ndary
claim])

>.i ko tinju'i .e'ori'e
>.i piroleimi selcpe cu nu ko tinju'i gi'enai tavla gi'enai gasnu gi'e tirna
>        .e'ocai

I'd say just {rolemi}. And despite Mark's favouring of the use of {nu} here,
I still think this is English-tainted and antipredicationist. Even if it is
John's ingenious solution to the "only" problem. Even if the alternatives
(like .enai lo drata) are not much better.

>.i mi ka'e kurji .iari'e mi .i mi na'e ckaji loka nalkakne
>.i ja'a go'i la'a loka no'e pacna .i'a .a loka no'e ranji .i'a
>.iku'i no lo romei ka nalkakne

{ja'a} contradicts {na}, but does it contradict {na'e}? {je'a} is safer.
I don't know where Mark finds the style complex; the embedding is trivial
(unlike below). The third jufra is a nasty asyndeton. I may be guilty of
them myself, but I am a hypocrite :) Why not continue the 2nd jufra with
{.enaiku'i lo romei ka nalkakne}?

>.i lenu do gasnu da'i sesi'umi dapoi mi kakne je nitcu lenu ba'emi
>gasnu ke'a cu zenba leni mi terpa je nalbanzu

I'd qualify the nalbanzu with {cinmo}. I'm not sure everyone would.

>.i ku'i ca'olemu'e do selbanzu lenu fatci faleza'i mi cinmo lemi
>se cinmo kei .u lonu ri to'e logji keikei .ua mi co'i troci lenu
>do tugni kei gi'e co'a troci lenu mi jimpe lei rinka belo nalrlogji selci'o
>.i fila'edi'u ge frili falenu zo'e co'u nabmi gi na nitcu fami lo selstidi

Hm. Mark is right in saying this is complex. Yet lately I've been guilty
of worse. {broda levo'a se broda} is in lojban an unhelpful truism. The
nalrlogji is either a typo or a le'avla. {.u} does not quite correspond to
the NL either; I thus recast the phrase as:

.iku'i mi ca'o le.au mu'e do selbanzu lenu fatci fa leza'i mi cinmo dapemi
va'onai lenu da to'e logji cu.ua co'u troci lenu mi'o tugni kei gi'e co'a
troci lenu mi jimpe lei rinka be le nalylogji selci'o .i fau lenu go'i cu
ge frili falenu zo'e co'u nabmi ginai nitcu fa mi lo selti'i

which is still not maximally simple.

>the non-logical feelings become the understood-thing
>in-condition-the-achievement is understood the cause for x1

x1 of the current, embedded phrase; x1 of the main phrased referred from an
embedded is that favourite of Jimc's, {leno'a}

>.i pe'udoido ko tinju'i gi'e tirne mi .i do djica ba'a lenu tavla
>.inaja ko denpa ca'o so'u mentu .ije .ai mi tinju'i do

{.ije}? Rather {.ibabo}. {pe'udoido}? No, that's clumsy. {pe'udo} or {pe'udo'u}

I'm sorry if you thought the original good poetry (the translation is certainly
[thankfully & inevitably] devoid of the facileness of the original, but it's
just prose - no'e pemci, as opposed to to'e pemci). It's not McGonnagall (sp?),
but it sure left me cold.

As for Colin's style, (not that I consider myself a stylist anymore, after
wallops of the Wallops), it's competent, and the VSO's were (again) not
offensive. But like I like to say: the sparks flew only with one Lojban work
I've read: Derzhanski's translation of the Tale of the Staircase. Ivan,
feel like doing another? (Gee, does flattery work or what? :)

And hey, if either of you have something to say about the Greek stuff I keep
doing, don't hesitate. The urbanity of Germanos has little to do with the
slanginess and "syntax unbound" of Tsiforos. I wonder which you find more
amusing. (I'll just have to do Tsiforo's version of the death of Barbarossa
eventually. And I'm taking requests for translations of his versions of
any myths you prefer).


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Nick Nicholas, Melbourne Uni, Australia.  nsn@{munagin.ee|mullauna.cs}.mu.oz.au
"Despite millions of dollars of research, death continues to be this nation's
number one killer"      - Henry Gibson, Kentucky Fried Movie
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