[lojban-beginners] Re: ***SPAM*** "This land is your land..."

["Marjorie Scherf" <skaryzgik@gmail.com>]

On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 1:41 AM, David Cortesi <davecortesi@gmail.com> wrote:

In translation, the simplest things turn into deep philosophical puzzles...

Having spent a whole 40 minutes on it and not got past the first phrase, I would like to present the Woodie Guthrie song

(c.f.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Land_Is_Your_Land  )

as a cooperative translation project for this beginner's list. (I did a search and don't see it at lojban.org)

Me, I got stuck on the first two words...

Literal: {lo vi tergugde} (and not sure about whether it should be {lo vi...} or {vi lo...} or ...

Sloppy poetic: {le vi cesde'u}

Let's go with the literal. Obeying the stricture to avoid {du} for "is",

{ lo vi tergugde cu mintu ...} now, what is "your land"?

"land" can be repeated in English because it's one syllable; one wouldn't want to repeat so many Lojban syllables in the same line. This calls for a pro-sumti, maybe {ri pe do}. Or would {ri pe ko} be grammatical? It gives an interesting emphasis that English couldn't say...

{ri} couldn't be used for "land" again in line 4 -- but maybe the sumti be repeated in full there.

Well, you get the idea. There are seven, 4-line verses given at the above link.  No rush. I'd like to see people do just a line or two, and explain the thought process as they go.

Sometimes letterals can be used as pro-sumti. CLL chapter 7 Section 5, preceding example 5.8: "As explained in Chapter 17, the words for Lojban letters, belonging to selma'o BY and certain related selma'o, are also usable as assignable pro-sumti. The main difference between letter pro-sumti and ko'a-series pro-sumti is that, in the absence of an explicit assignment, letters are taken to refer to the most recent name or description sumti beginning with the same letter". This might help with meter, since you won't have to repeat things as much, and, depending on what other words are around and what letters they start with, you might not need to use assignment words.

.imu'omi'e .skaryzgik.

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