Date: Mon, 23 May 2005 13:10:36 -0400
Message-Id: <200505231710.j4NHAaTd010909@mole.e-mol.com>
To: lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org
From: Matt Arnold <mattarn@123.net>
Subject: [lojban-beginners] Michigan Lojban Class
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coi rodo
   The first and second twice-monthly meetings of Michigan Lojban Class at my house have been a lot of fun. We are Matt Arnold (AKA epkat) Bruce Webber, Shaun Klein and Joe Bender. We had a laptop with TV-out, a whiteboard, our copies of The Complete Lojban Language and What Is Lojban?, and pizza. We've decided to translate The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. http://www.columbia.edu/~gm84/gibtable.html This sastisfies our criteria:
   #1 It reads as if it was optimized to be translated (which is probably true, as it's been translated into 20 to 40 languages already), as if it were a simplistic translation into English from Arabic (although it was written originally in English). It contains no jargon, very little idiom, nothing that needs a cultural context to be understood, and no highly stylized uses of language for humor or language-dependent effect. Gibran's metaphors tend to be straightforwardly symbolic.
   #2 It's famed and prestigious so that the Lojban community will be able to tell people we have this in our language.
   #3 It's divided up conveniently into bite-sized verses.
   #4 It's in the public domain.
   #5 It's short!
   #6 The worst that can be said about the content is that it is mostly inoffensive hallmark-card platitudes. The important thing is it has a lot of simplistic activity in the physical world such as ships, hills, cities, walking, conversation etc.
   Look for our first questions that arose through this translation to appear on this list soon.
-Matt

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