From ragnarok@pobox.com Fri Jun 08 13:30:22 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: raganok@intrex.net X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_1_3); 8 Jun 2001 20:30:22 -0000 Received: (qmail 42006 invoked from network); 8 Jun 2001 20:30:21 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by l7.egroups.com with QMQP; 8 Jun 2001 20:30:21 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO intrex.net) (209.42.192.246) by mta1 with SMTP; 8 Jun 2001 20:30:21 -0000 Received: from Craig [209.42.200.34] by intrex.net (SMTPD32-5.05) id A5D7172F039A; Fri, 08 Jun 2001 16:30:15 -0400 Reply-To: To: Subject: RE: [lojban] Poetry Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2001 16:30:13 -0400 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) In-Reply-To: <4.3.2.7.2.20010608145828.00ac6f00@127.0.0.1> Importance: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 X-eGroups-From: "Craig" From: "Craig" X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 7662 How would you translate my example? If I tried, I'd go with: Aha! Gain! Aha! Gain! Wow! Wow! Yay! Gain! Not-no! Aha! Yay! Gain! Which doesn't make any sense in English, whereas in lojban. it is a gramatically correct string of attitudinal indicators which precisely define a specific emotion - a sense of discovering something wonderful. Now as for your question about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, it would be a proof, but an attitudinal poem is meaningless in isolation in any language except lojban. - and as soon as you attach it to any statement it becomes no more a proof of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis than the mere existence of attitudinal indicators is. But the fact that lojban. can create a text which has no meaning in the mindsets of most languages but in lojban. is a precise description of an emotion - that is not proof but it is certainly some pretty good evidence. I have another poem, by the way. If anyone gets tired of these, let me know. I'm posting my early ones in the hope that I'll get better with practice, or if I don't modify the form to make there be more room to get better. These also make good lojban. tounge twisters - just try reading it aloud ten times fast... .u'e.u'i.u'i .o'a.o'u.u'i .a'u.i'o.u'i of course, attitudinals claim precisely nothing, which means that both my poems best translate as: That's the beauty of it - a non-lojbanist finds no meaning in not actually saying anything. To me, at least, it can be poetic. -----Original Message----- From: Bob LeChevalier (lojbab) [mailto:lojbab@lojban.org] Sent: Friday, June 08, 2001 3:02 PM To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] Poetry At 11:33 AM 06/08/2001 -0400, Craig wrote: >coi rodo > > I had an idea for a lojban poetic verseform which is unique among > poetic >styles I have seen so far, both in that it cannot be translated to English >and in that it uses no gismu. Now that is an interesting question: if we could find something like this in Lojban that is meaningful and indeed cannot be translated into other languages, would that be evidence for a strong form of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis? I suspect, however, that this poetry COULD be translated into English, but perhaps not retaining the verse-form. lojbab -- lojbab lojbab@lojban.org Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273 Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org Yahoo! Groups Sponsor To unsubscribe, send mail to lojban-unsubscribe@onelist.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.