Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by NEBULA.SYSTEMSZ.CS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Mon, 6 Sep 1993 11:30:24 -0400 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by eli.CS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Mon, 6 Sep 1993 11:30:20 -0400 Message-Id: <199309061530.AA05827@eli.CS.YALE.EDU> Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 7299; Mon, 06 Sep 93 11:28:46 EDT Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 6742; Mon, 06 Sep 93 11:31:33 EDT Date: Mon, 6 Sep 1993 16:26:36 +0100 Reply-To: Colin Fine Sender: Lojban list From: Colin Fine Subject: Re: TEXT: Haiku To: Erik Rauch Status: RO X-Status: X-From-Space-Date: Mon Sep 6 17:26:36 1993 X-From-Space-Address: @YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Matthew proposes this as a lojban haiku le solji flecu cu kuspe le lalxu ca le nunsolcanci for original The sun cedes the sky to dusk; a golden river runs across the lake. It works, and it's not bad. But I think you can improve it. 1) Why not use rirxe? In fact 'rirxe le lalxu' is anomalous and may do exactly what you want with 'river across the lake' 2) One of the differences between the two versions is that English has a lot of monosyllables, so it can get a lot into 17 syllables. This is harder in Lojban because content words are polysyllabic, but also because you need cmavo around them. But do you? English renderings of haiku are often much more concrete than Japanese, because English requires articles, personal verbs etc. To me, a better approach for a lojban haiku is lots of observatives. I suggest: co'u solgu'i i zi murse i solji rirxe le lalxu Ceasingly sunlight. Soon comes twilight. See the gold river on the lake. It doesn't have the 'cede the sky' (no more does your final version), but that's hard to do anyway - 'te lebna' to me does not have the sense of complicity of 'cede'. I would prefer something including 'randa' or 'dunda'. Colin