[lojban-beginners] Re: Yoda quote

[Robin Lee Powell <rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org>]

On Sat, Oct 17, 2009 at 10:51:04PM -0700, Ryan Leach wrote:
> So I was thinking about Yoda's famous quote "Do or Do not, there is no
> try", and thinking about how it would work in lojban. I tried a bunch
> of long and awkward versions, but eventually settled on this
> 
> do gasnu onai do troci
> 
> if my translation works, 

'fraid not.  ".o nai" is for picking between sumti (read: nouns,
sort of), like "That's either a book or a bug".

do gasnu jo nai troci

however, works just fine, and is quite a slick translation.  :) (I'd
use ko, though; also snada, but that's stylistic).

If I wanted to translate it literalistically (hint: don't ever do
that), I'd do "ko snada .i jo nai ko na snada .i lo nu troci cu na
cumki". Or perhaps "zasti" at the end.

For an idiomatic translation, yours is better; well done.

-Robin

-- 
They say:  "The first AIs will be built by the military as weapons."
And I'm  thinking:  "Does it even occur to you to try for something
other  than  the default  outcome?"  See http://shrunklink.com/cdiz
http://www.digitalkingdom.org/~rlpowell/ *** http://www.lojban.org/