From robin@bilkent.edu.tr Sat Aug 21 13:32:50 1999 X-Digest-Num: 216 Message-ID: <44114.216.1159.959273825@eGroups.com> Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 13:32:50 -0700 From: Robin Turner Subject: Re: literal translation for starters X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 1159 mark@kli.org wrote: > From: mark@kli.org > > >From: BestATN@aol.com > >Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 17:27:35 EDT > > > >From: BestATN@aol.com > > > >A word-for-word translation of "This is the future" could be "ti du le balvi" > >which means something like "this thing is the same as the future (thing)" > >How about just "ti balvi"? > > Keep in mind also that "balvi" doesn't mean "future"; it means more like > "in the future." So you would use it in a sentence like > > le nu mi viska do cu balvi le nu do klama lemi zdani > > the event of my seeing you is-in-the-future of the event of your coming to > my house. > > "This is the future" is a very colorful poetic and idiomatic phrase. It's > trying to say that the current time is somehow futuristic, perhaps that > it's the future of the past. Something like > > le ca temci cu balvi le pu temci > (the now time is in the future of the past time) > > which sounds tautological. I think you're after a more racy meaning than > you can get without, well, saying it. But then maybe I've been out of > Lojban circulation too long. I think you've hit the nail on the head here. Perhaps le ca temci cu balvi pe'a co'o mi'e robin.