Message-Id: <m0jxEE5-00012KC@snark.thyrsus.com>
Date: Tue, 9 Jul 91 05:19 EDT
From: lojbab (Bob LeChevalier)
To: lojban-list
Subject: response to nick on word for word translation
Status: RO


Nick writes:
>Subject: Why I didn't give a word-for-word
>Date: Wed, 03 Jul 91 14:32:01 +1000
>
>Let the following word-for-word be my defence:
>
>]Subject: MEX: a trial text, and some ballyhooing.
>]Date: Mon, 01 Jul 91 13:30:52 +1000
>]From: nsn@ee.mu.OZ.AU
>
>]>From p.91, ALGEBRA AND GEOMETRY, Holton & Lloyd
>]Theorem 3.
>]di'e cimoi le'i cmaci se smadi
>
>The following is the third in the set of the mathematical guesses

...

>Can *you* understand the above drivel?  Now *this* is why I didn't post
>a word- for-word translation:  it's more harm than good.
>
>Of course, if the above *did* help you, then I apologise; but writing
>the above was highly unpleasant to me:  I can formulate lojbanically in
>lojban, but in English I'm left with a bleeding mess.

Nick, you missed what is being sought when people ask for word-for-word.
Of course word-for-word is drivel, hard to understand, etc.  But.

1. Your English is more help than you might suspect to those unfamiliar
with the MEX grammar - it helps them learn by providing a check on their
own efforts to translate.  It helps even those more experienced with the
language because we can determine more easily if an apparent error is
yours or ours.  Translations will be useful until people have more
confidence that they can understand your Lojban than your stilted English.
Suffice it to say that that is a long way off.

2. More important, you are forgetting the basic nature of how people
using this list seem to read its postings (as I did too - perhaps from
not wanting to face reality).  I much rather would have people sit with
their word lists and puzzle out a Lojbanic writing and see of they can
figure out what the author intended without English aid.  But most won't,
especially when the example is longer than a single sentence.

3. Related to 2. Most people reading the list either do not have on-line
word lists, or cannot conveniently use them when reading mail (like me),
or simply are not willing to spend the time to look up each word and
maybe eventually master the vocabulary.  What Bob C. is saying (and he IS
making a serious effort to learn the language unlike most) is that to make
reading Lojban text time-effective at this point, the poster needs to make
it unnecessary to use a word list to read it.  Thus what he wanted was more
like:

di'e                         cimoi
The-following-utterances are 3-rd  in

     le'i                 cmaci        se smadi
     the-set-described-as mathematical things-guessed


Now, needless to say, no one really expects you to do this for as long a
text as you wrote.  Indeed, I think postings on this list should be at a
variety of levels.  Word-for-word like this, stilted English like the
above, colloquial or original English as in your original posting of
this translation, and with no English translation given at all.

However, note the short length of my JL writings of the latter sort, and
yet YOU are the only one (besides Nora who proofreads) who has evidenced
any sign of actually stumbling through the whole thing.  (I still plan
to continue - after all; only in this way can I give people something
such that they will know they are missing out if they don;t learn the
language.)

The audience ain't yet at the confidence level of some Esperantists, and
want easier texts and much more hand-holding.  It will be a while before
people bite the bullet, and say, seriously converse in Lojban on the
list.  It is a goal still, not a reality.  (Though I encourage people to
try writing letters to each other - just send a separate translation of
some level of detail if you really expect a response.)

lojbab