From lojban-out@lojban.org Wed Oct 20 18:37:33 2004 Return-Path: X-Sender: lojban-out@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (qmail 81904 invoked from network); 21 Oct 2004 01:37:33 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.216) by m21.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 21 Oct 2004 01:37:33 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO chain.digitalkingdom.org) (64.81.49.134) by mta1.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 21 Oct 2004 01:37:32 -0000 Received: from lojban-out by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.34) id 1CKRtS-0002KP-Mq for lojban@yahoogroups.com; Wed, 20 Oct 2004 18:37:30 -0700 Received: from chain.digitalkingdom.org ([64.81.49.134]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.34) id 1CKRsF-0002Jk-4y; Wed, 20 Oct 2004 18:36:15 -0700 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Wed, 20 Oct 2004 18:36:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [216.189.121.177] (helo=blackcat.ixazon.lan) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.34) id 1CKRs3-0002J7-By for lojban-list@lojban.org; Wed, 20 Oct 2004 18:36:03 -0700 Received: by blackcat.ixazon.lan (Postfix, from userid 1001) id 3A62F82DD; Thu, 21 Oct 2004 01:35:30 +0000 (UTC) Organization: dis Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2004 21:35:27 -0400 User-Agent: KMail/1.5 References: <20041021004841.85102.qmail@web51607.mail.yahoo.com> In-Reply-To: <20041021004841.85102.qmail@web51607.mail.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200410202135.27429.phma@phma.hn.org> X-archive-position: 8820 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: phma@phma.hn.org X-list: lojban-list To: lojban@yahoogroups.com X-eGroups-Remote-IP: 64.81.49.134 X-eGroups-From: Pierre Abbat From: Pierre Abbat Reply-To: phma@phma.hn.org Subject: [lojban] Re: jordis X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=116389790 X-Yahoo-Profile: lojban_out X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 23226 On Wednesday 20 October 2004 20:48, jordi mas wrote: > You see, as the typical translation-as-an-exercise > that newbies seem to be expected to do here, I've been > thinking about translating a few pages of a comic. > > The problem is, in comics sometimes sentences are > split into baloons in such a way that reordering the > word order into normal English order doesn't work. > > I mean, the original says something like > " luminous beings / we are " which in the original > language is an unmarked word order, split in two > different frames. The second frame has a drawing > of the "we". When translating into English I have to > choose between reordering the sentence (sounding > ridiculous) or losing sync with the drawings. When > translating into Spanish no problem, a "we are" > at the end is acceptable (well, barely). > > Can I use the {fa} {se} etc. just to > put the words in the order I want with > no special emphasis intended? Or would > that trigger the "snarl reflex"? My rule of thumb is at most one FA and one SE; any more is likely to contort the listener's mind. You could say {gusni jmive / fa mi}, which to me has the same feel as the English translation you gave. Or {gusni se jmive mi}, which reminds me of {se blanu le broda}, an order which is difficult to translate. Another difficult-to-translate order is {broda x2}, which is more natural (to my ear) than {x2 se broda}, but {broda x2} when translated into English results in bad grammar, whereas {x2 se broda} corresponds to the passive. Then there's {broda x2 x3}, which *definitely* sounds better than {x2 se broda fi x3}, though the latter order is much more natural in English. An example is {srebandu mi lo derdembi} "I am allergic to peanuts". How would you add an x1 (say, {lo nu tance tsubi'o}) to that, and translate it? (I'm not allergic to peanuts, so I don't know what reaction one would have. I just made that one up.) phma -- li ze te'a ci vu'u ci bi'e te'a mu du li ci su'i ze te'a mu bi'e vu'u ci