From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Wed May 10 13:37:18 2006 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Wed, 10 May 2006 13:37:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1FdvQY-000118-FJ for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Wed, 10 May 2006 13:36:58 -0700 Received: from eastrmmtao01.cox.net ([68.230.240.38]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1FdvQV-00010x-IB for lojban-list@lojban.org; Wed, 10 May 2006 13:36:58 -0700 Received: from [127.0.0.1] (really [24.250.99.39]) by eastrmmtao01.cox.net (InterMail vM.6.01.06.01 201-2131-130-101-20060113) with ESMTP id <20060510203654.SJXW17255.eastrmmtao01.cox.net@[127.0.0.1]> for ; Wed, 10 May 2006 16:36:54 -0400 Message-ID: <44624EEA.4000606@lojban.org> Date: Wed, 10 May 2006 16:36:58 -0400 From: Bob LeChevalier User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.7 (Windows/20050923) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: lojban-list@lojban.org Subject: [lojban] Re: Lojban Scholasticism References: <20060508152918.17862.qmail@web81305.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <366115241.20060509075751@mail.ru> <446039DA.40909@gmail.com> <4460B11A.6000300@lojban.org> <4461AE88.8080205@gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <4461AE88.8080205@gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Spam-Score: -2.6 (--) X-archive-position: 11464 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: lojbab@lojban.org Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list Paul Vigo wrote: > I understand where you are getting to with this and I agree in > principle. However. Many years ago, frustrated with trying to learn > french, I decided to read 20,000 leagues under the sea. I'd picked it up > at a second hand shop for a dollar. When I started I had no idea, but by > the time I'd read it I could read passable french. The advantage of > reading a long text using a single voice (writer) in their own style is > like any repetative excercise, after a while it starts to become easier > and more fluid. Though the work of an individual translator or writer > may be idiomatic in form (ie englishy or obtuse when compared to a > refference text) it acts as a great facilitator for learning, as the > subject and narrative elements become increasingly well known and odd > uses and referents can be intuited. This is not unlike how we learn > natural languages, and I believe the benefit of reading of long texts > (over example texts and drills) is often underestimated. I agree, but ... The percentage of the small Lojban community that actually will read something longer than a pageful of Lojban is small in the first place. So the market for even one long translation is probably in the dozens at most, and probably longer. More importantly, the time spent in doing even a mediocre translation is several times as much as the time spent reading it and a) the number of people who are competent to translate a given text to any arbitrary degree of skill is significantly smaller than the number who are sufficiently competent to try to read the resulting level of text (assuming that the results are readable at all) b) the number of people who are both competent and willing to translate texts of book length in a timeframe shorter than many months or even years are vanishingly small c) probably by the time you finished a mediocre translation of a novel, your Lojban skills would be sufficiently improved that you want to throw it out and start over, realizing just how bad you were when you started. I think Nick Nicholas suffered from this effect, even with much shorter translations. d) the time that any potential translator spends on said long book takes time away from all other Lojbanic activities, including reading what others are writing, which reduces the market for the translations that are done and chokes the community by denying others the time spent on short term activities that are more interactive. And arguably, anyone competent enough to translate a novel into Lojban should be being co-opted into the byfy work (that is my own excuse - I cannot justify spending my too-limited Lojban time on even a short translation while the byfy work is stagnating and I haven't done anything on it in a long time) e) the byfy work, even if it results in only minor changes, will to some extent render all prior translations at best "quaint". Not that many people read Athelstan's Saki, and Nick's early translations, these days, even though they were the best thing that existed for a long time. They are probably not the best examples of Lojban these days, though they were at the time. This rapid aging detracts from the motivation people have in spending the necessary long time on a long translation. Put another way, while you were reading "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" in French, you probably weren't at the same time translating "Around the World in 80 Days" or any other similar length work into French (especially French that someone else would read), and probably you haven't tried to translate anything even a fraction as long into French since you finished. And you had no reason to believe that the French language would evolve enough to make your translation in need of revision within a short time. All this isn't to say that people who want to do translations shouldn't do them. But shorter ones are probably more likely to be finished if you start them, and more likely to be read once finished. And people shouldn't be complaining about the lack of reading material of any given length until they've produced something of that length so they know how much work goes into it. lojbab To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to lojban-list-request@lojban.org with the subject unsubscribe, or go to http://www.lojban.org/lsg2/, or if you're really stuck, send mail to secretary@lojban.org for help.