From LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Sat Mar 6 22:46:09 2010 Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list Date: Thu Dec 7 14:31:33 1995 From: Logical Language Group Subject: unusual style - response to And X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan Status: OR X-From-Space-Date: Thu Dec 7 14:31:33 1995 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU Message-ID: >> > > > coo, mie noi friko ninmu tordu marksista kuo and >> > > ??? And the African-womanly short Marxist ??? ki'acai? >> > fi la pou lojbab ralju fe lei jai fau skicu be fo lo jbovla bei fe >> > maa bei fai ro da poi kea me maa bei fi da fa diu tinbe >> Rule made by the Chief the lojbab >> (rule) which is the event of describing >> with description: lojbanic words >> about us >> everybody of us >> to somebody >> that this describes >> =The rule made by Chief lojbab about all of us describing us to others in >> lojban with these words is obeyed. >> I spent 5 to 10 minutes translating this jufra! What an obfuscation! > >Well done, then. Why did you find it difficult? It's in an unfamiliar >style, but there isn't lots of deep subordination and tons of terminators >and stuff. Note too that I couldn't write and English or Serbocroat >sentence of that length that would take you so long to puzzle out. 31 words is a lot of room to obfuscate. Note that his colloquial English translation, which is only 21 words, would probably baffle a few Ebglish speakers on first sight (my kids wouldn't follow it for sure!). There may not be a lot of deep subordination, BUT there is a lot of non-deep subordination la pou lojbab ralju lei jai fau skicu ro da poi kea me maa Each of the three subordinations involves a new or unusual construct, you have jumbled the sumti order in each level of nesting, and compounded it with your non-standard orthography. ?pOsSiBlE tHaTe mEaSuReSe oFe iNtElLiGeNcE oFe rAdIcAle aNdSe cHaLlEnGiNgSe oFe lOjBaNe nOrMsE AsE PrOmUgAtEdE ByE LoJbAnE CeNtRaLe tHeE rAvInGsE oFe lAtTeRe fOlKsE rEsPoNdInGe tOe tHeE fOrMeRe SeEmSe ToE BeE StRoNgLye InDiCaTeDe! 31 words (whew)! (and if I had written it using one of the endless varieties of conlang phonetic spelling it would have been even worse. Do you perceive that if you perceived things differently than you do that you would perceive things differently than you do? (Hopefully I got that right %^) > [fi la pou lojbab ralju] > [fe lei jai fau skicu > [be fo lo jbovla] > [bei fe maa] > [bei fai ro da poi kea me maa] > [bei fi da]] > [fa diu] >tinbe > > [Sophy] >described > [the purchase > [of flowers] > [from us] > [for everyone in her class] > [last year]] > [to us] > >Now is that so tough? That is not even in the same category. You used the abnormal-to-Lojban predicate final - or more exactly - you mixed heavy and light grammatical structures in such a way as to make it less than obviosu what their boundaries were. And you rearranged the terms for no apparent reason except to be obfuscatory. [to us] [the purchase [for everyone in her class] [last year] [of flowers] [from us] [Sophy] described And even this doesn't capture the use of di'u, fai, ke'a. Or turn your English into Lojban of similar structure. [Sophy] la sophis described skicu [the purchase lenu tervecnu [of flowers] loi xrula [from us] mi'o [for everyone in her class] seva'u ro cmima br levo'a tadnygri [last year]] ca le prulamnanca kei [to us] mi'o And the result takes the same number of "words" depending on how you count them, and is MUCH easier to understand. >I am trying to test what the language can do, rather than restrict >myself to a pidginized user-friendly subset of the language. Poets do that, and poetry of that sort is usually equally obfuscatory and difficult to understand. I can't understand Michael Helsem's English poetry much better than his Lojban, though I can at least recognize it as grammatical with some difficulty. >> I agree with Goran. Fi-fa-fu-Lojban is very obfuscating, especially in >> combination with jaifau-Lojban. > >Is there a clear reason for that, apart from its unfamiliarity? Is there a clear reason why English written other than SVO order is obfuscatory? Why do style guides tell people to avoid unnecessary use of the passive voice? And when is it NOT considered obfuscatory to say something in more words than necessary (which Fi-fa-fu-Lojban does, unless motivated by some kind of term weight or focus consideration). lojbab