From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Fri Jan 19 06:26:53 2007 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-beginners); Fri, 19 Jan 2007 06:26:58 -0800 (PST) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1H7uhQ-0007Q5-Lf for lojban-beginners-real@lojban.org; Fri, 19 Jan 2007 06:26:39 -0800 Received: from wx-out-0506.google.com ([66.249.82.228]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1H7ugE-0007P5-Ap for lojban-beginners@lojban.org; Fri, 19 Jan 2007 06:26:14 -0800 Received: by wx-out-0506.google.com with SMTP id i30so839139wxd for ; Fri, 19 Jan 2007 06:25:21 -0800 (PST) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=beta; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=OFDGtTZJrDANNi48Viizt8lDeOlyH9fZKBs+4/A4X9DY6lTZM/mwIg+TvKvUQpcOWGL75d9Ti7XQTz5HWhQx+jjB33P2vNREvE2u6cSf+pawMILqw9G6v6wNOYsb6Zdl3FZ1RrTaqYJYW/eBb4sjgkRPAAeMVUfjkuB64LXQta0= Received: by 10.90.72.10 with SMTP id u10mr2839067aga.1169216720327; Fri, 19 Jan 2007 06:25:20 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.90.116.5 with HTTP; Fri, 19 Jan 2007 06:25:20 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 09:25:20 -0500 From: "Matt Arnold" To: lojban-beginners@lojban.org Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: Lojban as Barsoomian: Intro In-Reply-To: <8A2E2AB9-C4C8-470B-9B81-CA43F4515285@mindspring.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline References: <8A2E2AB9-C4C8-470B-9B81-CA43F4515285@mindspring.com> X-Spam-Score: -2.5 X-Spam-Score-Int: -24 X-Spam-Bar: -- X-archive-position: 3922 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: matt.mattarn@gmail.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-beginners@lojban.org X-list: lojban-beginners This is fantastic. I'm very excited! If enough of this is finished to form a story with a reasonable conclusion, what if I draw it as a webcomic? By the way, I haven't read Burroughs, but didn't he include any samples of Barsoomian or even any individual words? -Eppcott On 1/16/07, Cortesi wrote: > A year ago, I undertook to write a screenplay, purely as a personal > project, with no expectation the result produced; just a way to > stretch my writing skills and to learn about this very specialized > and demanding type of composition. > > Rather than composing an original story, I chose to dramatize the > famous fantasy novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, "A Princess of Mars". I > knew the book well, and all Burroughs's books are in the public > domain. At the time various studios were rumored to be producing a > film, but such speculation has since died (see the Wikipedia entry at > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Princess_of_Mars). > > Writing a screenplay proved challenging but I have nearly completed > it, and I am pleased that the result is of near-professional quality. > I will eventually "publish" it on my own website for the world to > read. (Any notion of it ever being produced is as unrealistic as > expecting to win the PowerBall lottery.) > > One phase of the screenplay is not complete. In the first 20 minutes > there are about 70 lines of dialog spoken by Barsoomians (Martian > natives) before our hero John Carter has learned to speak that > language. After we have seen him learning Barsoomian, all the > characters can speak English. Before that, it would be laughable for > characters to say, in English, things that Carter can't understand. > The Martians have to speak their native tongue. Subtitles (called > "supers" in the business, for "superimposed") will be shown to > translate their speech for the audience. (n.b. conventional advice to > would-be screenwriters is to avoid supers. However, LOTR and Mel > Gibson's recent movies have used them with great success, and most > reality-TV shows use supers when dialog recorded live is muffled. > Hence supers are more respectable today.) > > What language is Barsoomian? At first I was going to try to cobble up > some jargon based on the scanty nouns that Burroughs invented, with > syntax of my own. But this proved to be very difficult. It seems a > much better idea to use a real language that will sound "alien" to > almost all viewers: to use, in fact, Lojban. > > Using a real language for Barsoomian has several practical virtues. > If the director wants more or different lines, they can be prepared > easily by any Lojban student, and will sound consistent with other > dialog. And I think actors will find it much less stressful to speak > very strange and foreign words if they know that those words are not > arbitrary gibberish but "really mean" what they are supposed to mean. > > At the moment my screenplay contains only the supers, the English > translation. I have begun translating those supers into dialog in > Lojban. I'm sure I am making grammatical mistakes. More, I'm aiming > at spoken dialog: Lojban as excited people would speak it; and Lojban > that can be pronounced easily and confidently by an actor; as opposed > to writing an essay or poem. I'm sure my translations could be > livelier, more terse, and more expressive. > > I'm hoping to use this list to get help with the project. If nobody > objects, I will post passages of dialog here, with questions, and > hope for help from you-all. In order not to keep repeating this > explanation, I'm putting it, and the translated lines as they are > completed, on my personal website at http://www.tassos-oak.com/tempp/ > barsoomian.html > > I will try to keep track of who contributes, so that in the > {la'anaicai} event of it being produced, everyone can be properly > credited. > > Thanks to all in advance. Reply to the list with comments about the > above, or privately to dcortesi@mindspring.com if you prefer. > > Thanks again, > > Dave Cortesi > > Problem One: "Princess" > > Problem one is what to call the Princess in a vocative. At more than > one point someone addresses her formally, {coi [Princess]}... My best > shot so far is a simple tanru, > > noble type-of ruler type-of daughter > > nobli turni tixnu > > coi noltruti'u... > > I got all tangled up in whether she's a {nobli je turni} type of > daughter or possibly a daughter OF a ruler {nobli tixnu pe la turni}. > But any such complication makes the lujvo longer and less easy to > rattle off in dialog. > > I'm unhappy that the tanru doesn't carry any of the connotations of > the English word--the sense of unearned privilege; the high social > value; the expectation of future power, etc. But hey, that's the > translation game. > > Thanks, > Dave Cortesi > > > > >