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Date:         Wed, 13 Dec 1995 14:10:14 GMT
Reply-To: Don Wiggins <dwiggins@BFSEC.BT.CO.UK>
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From: Don Wiggins <dwiggins@BFSEC.BT.CO.UK>
Subject:      PLI: Re: metaphor translation
To: Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
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> "Road to Babylon" is a literary reference type metaphor, which assumes that
> the speaker and listener have a common biblical referent. Babylon was an
> actual city, and actual roads led to it. <litru> is more general than
> <dargu> and <tadji> is more general than <litru>. <Dargu> seems like the
> best fit when translating the idea of a "road"; <klaji> for example would
> not be right, because it does not carry the sense of "road-route". Using
> <tadji> as you propose obscures the metaphor.

There appears to be curious miscommunication here.  I took your lojban to mean
"the road to Bable".  "Bable" not being a place, but the state of a
multiplicity of languages.  To reach a state does not require a "road", but
a method.  I think that the metaphor would be better served by "pluta" which is
a bare route, "dargu" has the connotation of being an improved-surface which is
travelled upon.

    .i ti pluta pa'e la bebl.

.i co'omi'e dn.