From cbmvax!uunet!CUVMA.BITNET!LOJBAN Wed Jan 29 13:32:30 1992 Return-Path: Received: by snark.thyrsus.com (/\==/\ Smail3.1.21.1 #21.19) id ; Wed, 29 Jan 92 13:32 EST Received: by cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com (5.57/UUCP-Project/Commodore 2/8/91) id AA03245; Wed, 29 Jan 92 11:46:30 EST Received: from cunixf.cc.columbia.edu by relay1.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AA17680; Wed, 29 Jan 92 11:05:57 -0500 Received: from cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu by cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (5.59/FCB) id AA24555; Wed, 29 Jan 92 11:06:00 EST Message-Id: <9201291606.AA24555@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1) with BSMTP id 8608; Wed, 29 Jan 92 11:03:08 EST Received: by CUVMB (Mailer R2.07) id 1575; Wed, 29 Jan 92 11:02:50 EST Date: Wed, 29 Jan 1992 11:01:09 EST Reply-To: "Mark E. Shoulson" Sender: Lojban list From: "Mark E. Shoulson" Subject: Genesis 1:1 - 2:3 X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan , Eric Raymond , Eric Tiedemann In-Reply-To: CJ FINE's message of Tue, 28 Jan 1992 11:31:26 GMT Status: RO >Date: Tue, 28 Jan 1992 11:31:26 GMT >From: CJ FINE >> .i bacru fa la cevni lu .e'o ferti fa le terdi loi srasu je spati noi >Surely this is "srasu joi spati" (or perhaps "jo'u") - as it is, it is >the mass of things which are both grass and plants which incidentally >... Actually, the {je} was intentional. The Hebrew phrase is "tadshe ha'aretz deshe, `esev...", which goes something like "let the earth be grassed with grass, herb(sing, massified)...." "`esev" and "deshe" are near synonyms for grass, with the former having more an implication of the individual blades and the latter implying more of "lawn". The lack of a conjunction in the Hebrew could be viewd as asyndeton (leaving out a conjunction), and maybe it is, but I decided to go for more of a parallel view, things which are grass-and-plants. Hmmm. I'd still get something of that meaning with {joi}, since it'd be a tanru connector... I have to ponder this. >> .i finti fa la cevni lei barda xasydanlu .e piro loi jmive poi >> befydzu zi'epoi se ferti lei djacu (ku'o) zi'e ne ja'i lora jutsi ge'u >Do you mean "befydzu" here? The RSV just has "moves" - haven't checked >the Hebrew. Reading it cold, it says "all the living things that both crawl >and are brought forth from the waters", which seemed odd to me. The Hebrew has "all the living spirit(s) that creep..." (eep, forgot the "spirit". See what I mean? An experienced translator wouldn't worry about something like that, only a nutty greenhorn like me). Actually, I can't be authoritative on that verb. It's the same one that I translated as "befydzu" later on, where it's more obvious. As to the odd redundancy of the verse, that's not my fault: "God created the great sea-creatures, and all the creeping living spirit[s] that swarm the waters..." The last clause is difficult in the original. I translated the "swarming" verb as "ferti" because it implies the fertility of growth and stuff, more so than just "brought forth". >> .i go'i lu'a piro loi terdi jmive .e piro loi tsani cipni .e piro loi >> befydzu be le terdi lu'u noi ke'a ponse lo jmive pruxi ku'o mu'i lenu citka >> .e'a do'a li'u >It seems to me that if you are going to use lu'a, you should give it a >set to work on, or at least use alternation. I would read what you wrote >as individuals that are earth-living AND sky-birds AND creeping on the >earth. "ce" or "a". Hmmmm. This {lu'a} thingy is not something I'm very familiar with. But your reading implies that the {.e}s are getting interpreted like {je}s in a tanru or something. Is this what {lu'a} does? I don't like {.a}, but maybe {ce}. >> mulno fa le tsani .ebo le terdi .e piro loi jenmi girzu pe ri >I wondered about "ebo" - it looked as if you were trying to group, which >is significant syntactically but not, I think, semantically, since "e" >is associative. Having read your note about "ri" I see what you were >trying to do, but I'm dubious whether it works. >I'm very dubious about "jenmi girzu" - I only know the word "tz'va'ot" >in this context, so it could be that your translation is accurate, but I >would much prefer to translate it as "so'irmei" or "(so'ir)xabju". I'm also dubious, about both. "Tz'va`ot" means something like "hosts", but the fact is that {jenmi girzu} is almost certainly a very bad rendering. I assume you mean {so'imei} and not {so'irmei}, since the latter would be "many-measure", and not "multitude". {[so'ir]xabju} sounds really nice, though. >> . . . I am fond of using afterthought >> possessives (as oppoed to"le vo'a tarmi"), especially here where it's >> actually a place, and because in Hebrew the possessive is a declension >> affecting chiefly the end of the word also, or else another word >> afterwards. Besides, you can be so much more specific with "po/po'e/pe" if >> you use afterthought. Note also that I had to attach the "ta'i" to "loi >> remna" otherwise you get "'god' is-a-creator...with-form...", which again >> isn't what we want. Is there a better way to do this? >I agree about the afterthought possessive, particularly here. >Another way to do the "ta'i" is > .i tarmi be vo'a finti fa la cevni loi remna >I can't see a way to get the word order as the original though - "co" >won't do, because he is a "finti" not a "tarmi". Hmm. Using a tanru. That's pretty good, but I'm always a little nervous about complex tanru. Besides, it runs into the same problem: your tanru is prone to being interpreted as "God is a shape-of-God-creator of humanity", thus "God is-a-shape-of-God and a-creator...", by parallel lujvo. Then again, my next few verses (with {seri'a}, or maybe {tezu'e}) have a similar ambiguity (with the result that *who* has God's shape?), and actually even the original has it a bit (though nobody notices). >> .i seri'a loza'i se tarmi le tarmi be la cevni cu finti fo'a (???) >I would definitely prefer a "kei" before (or instead of) "cu" - this >was about the hardest line in the whole passage to make sense of - in >fact, first I thought the whole sentence was a tagged sumti, then I missed >the fact that everything up to the "cu" was governed by the tag, and >thought "le tarmi" was the x1. What you've written is grammatical, but >it confused me. Yeah, I can see where a {kei} would be nice there. But the {cu} still wouldn't be elidable; otherwise the nu/kei phrase would become part of a tanru with {finti}. >> Again remembered "vo'a". Is it okay to use it inside a "noi" clause to >> refer to the x1 outside, or does that have to be flagged? >Seems right to me. Maybe, but less so to me, now. Ditto the "neja'i lori jutsi" construction. I think we do need an "outer-utterance" pro-sumti. >> .i cesto'edapma (/?!/) fa la cevni le zemoi djedi gi'e cesri'a ri ki'u lenu >> ca ri cadysti piro lei se gunka poi la cevni cu finti je zbasu >> Holy-opposite-of-curses "god" the seventh day and holy-makes the-last >> justified-by the-event: during the-last idly-ceases all-of the-mass-of >> that-worked-on which-rest. "god" invents-and-makes. >> Again that "blesses" lujvo. Should that be "poi" or "noi"? Is it okay to >> use "ri'a" in "cesria", or do I need a different causative? >How about "cesygalfi" (don't know the rafsi offhand)? The only shorter form is {cesyga'i}, which is hardly better. The meaning, however, is very good. Better than {cesri'a}. Maybe I'll change it. > Kolin ~mark (shoulson@ctr.columbia.edu)