[lojban-beginners] Re: xelfanva

["Jorge Llambías" <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 9:17 PM, Minimiscience <minimiscience@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> "All Lojban is divided into three parts [i.e., three types of words]."
>  - piro la lojban. selterfendi lo cimei
>  - I'm not clear on whether the x3 of "{fendi}" is a mass, a quantity of
>   individuals, or a set; should a "{se}" or "{te}" be inserted before
>   "{cimei}"?

I'm not sure "fendi" is the best choice here. Who divides it? What are
the partitions? (And in any case, Lojban is not just a collection of
words, so saying that all of it is divided into just three parts
sounds wrong.) Maybe:

ci da klesi lo lojbo valsi (lo ka tarmi)
There are exactly three kinds of Lojban words (by morphology)

lo lojbo valsi klesi cu ci mei
Lojban word classes are three.

although those might be too much of a distortion of your original.

> "The most essential right of man is the right to question."
>  - lo traji jicmu selzi'e be loi remna du lo selzi'e po'u lonu senpi

Needs {cu}. More concise:

    lo traji jicmu selzi'e be lo remna cu nu senpi


> "If gods do evil then they are not gods. -- Euripides"
>  - lo cevni ganai pacyzu'e gi na'e cevni vau cu'u sa'a la .iuripydeis.

I don't think you want to add a common argument with {cu'u} here. That
expands to:

lo cevni goi ko'a  la .iuripydeis. goi ko'e zo'u
ganai ko'a pacyzu'e cu'u sa'a ko'e gi ko'a na'e cevni cu'u sa'a ko'e

which is not right. I think you need {sei [sa'a] la .iuripides. cu cusku}.


> "What can happen once can happen again."
>  - lo paroi se kakne cu rere'u se kakne
>  OR
>  - lo ka'e fasnu cu ka'e selkrefu
>  - I'm more confident about the accuracy of the latter, but I'd prefer the
>   former, as it's closer to the English wording.

lo se kakne is something that can be done, not just something that can happen.

You could say:

  lo ka'e se krefu be fi li pa cu ka'e se krefu (be) fi li za'u


> "It's not that I'm lazy; it's that I just don't care."
>  - na'e du'u mi lazni .i du'u mi na'e selra'u sa'u

Not sure what those "du'u" do. Maybe:

  naku mi lazni .i ja'aku sa'u mi na'e selra'u

(or "mi na'e se vajni" to make it sound more catchy)


> "This must be Thursday.  I never could get the hang of Thursdays."
>  - li'a .e'i ca vondei .i mi na'e pu'i kufra loi vondei

I think this is an epistemic "must". Maybe "ju'o" or "ru'a". I don't
think ".e'i" works here.

Not sure what "na'e pu'i" means.

Maybe I'd say something like "mi no roi pu snada lo nu kufra lo vondei".


> "Reason #10DF1 to learn Lojban: No one speaks English anymore."
>  - lo panojauvaipa moi krinu be lonu cilre fi la lojban. zo'u
>   noda ca'o se bangu la gliban.
>  - I'm really not sure about my choice of "{ca'o}" to approximate "anymore."

I would use "za'o".


> "The rules don't change, just the inputs."
>  - genai loi pruce gi po'o loi se pruce cu cenba
>  - I don't suppose there's a way to approximate the English word order?

Not sure why you translate "rules" as "pruce". Maybe the idea is something like:

lo pruce cu cenba genai lo ka makau javni ke'a gi po'o lo ka makau se pruce ke'a

which ends up shortened to:

lo javni na .e po'o lo se pruce cu cenba

> "With Math, all things are possible."
>  - fi'o kansa la cmaci ro da cumki

"fi'o kansa" or "se pi'o"?

> "There's more than one way to do it."
> Naturally, there's more than one way to translate this:
>  - za'u tadji cu zasti
>  - za'u da tadji
>  - zmatadji
> Which do you think is best and/or most Perl-like?

za'u da tadji

mu'o mi'e xorxes