Re: may the wind be

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>]

>>Now this is the most promising. I can see that  pe'a can be used for lojban
>>metaphors. We still have the difficulty of creating metaphors that are
>>non-culture-specific, or at least lojban-specific, but that seems a likely
>>source of real lojban metaphors. (We'll probably still have arguments about
>>where the metaphors originate, mind...!)
>>
>>>"May circumstances always assist you like a tailwind assists a ship".
>>
>>Yes!!
>>A compromise with the best of both worlds. A metaphor and a clear
>>description of the meaning. The best yet, anyway, in my opinion.
>
>
>No! This is a simile not a metaphor. Similes are easy to translate between
>languages, as a simile explicitly links the essentially unlike things which
>are to be compared. Metaphors are implicit. I would look askance at
>translating metaphor as simile. They are different. Metaphor draws on the
>shared culture, knowledge, or language of the speaker and listener more
>than simile does.

But Lojban assumes that there is NO shared culture or language shared between
 speaker and listener other than Lojban (I will not make statements about shared
knowledge, except that the speaker has the obligation to cater to the listener's
knowledge according to our language "ethic".)

Simile, and metaphor , and other such terms are words used to describe
features of certain natural languages.  Generically,  a simile IS a kind of
metaphor - it just happens to be a kind which is more highly marked than
others.  "Brain fart", vs. "as if his brain farted it" mean essentially the
same thing.  Thus it is only stylistics that determine whether simile is
acceptable as a translation for metaphor.  As I say in another post, I
think it is preferred to almost any other method of translating metaphor.

lojbab
----
lojbab                                                lojbab@access.digex.net
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA                        703-385-0273
For the artificial language Loglan/Lojban, see powered.cs.yale.edu  /pub/lojban
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