Re: [lojban-beginners] About reading speed of lojban text. Compared with natlang's text.

[Ian Johnson <blindbravado@gmail.com>]

There is talk of "equivalent text" and "translated text" here. For clarity, are these being used interchangeably, or is a "translated text" not considered, in common discourse, to be written in the same way as an "equivalent text"? For example:
.i mi gasnu lo nu do nelci mi
I bring about an event of you liking me. <---translated text
I cause you to like me. <----equivalent text
is my interpretation of these terms. (Please ignore my laziness about the details of gasnu here; I was just looking for a case where standard English uses an infinitive while Lojban uses an abstractor). That is, a translated text, while it may not actually be literal, attempts to replicate the grammatical structure of the original sentence, while an equivalent text attempts to convey the same meaning within the idiom of the target language, without giving the grammar of the original sentence any particular weight on its own. There are probably formal linguistic terms or something for this that I don't actually know. Anyway, is this consistent with the usage here?

Also, for what it's worth, I find that conveying smaller amounts of meaning (like my example above) is somewhat "hard" (syllabically, perhaps otherwise) in Lojban relative to English. However, I find that conveying larger amounts of meaning quickly becomes easier in Lojban compared to English. This example is somewhat better than most, probably (because it can be done with an attitudinal alone), but it demonstrates the difference:
.i .ui mi gasnu lo nu do nelci mi
I am happy that I cause you to like me.
English takes 5 syllables to do what Lojban achieves in 1 syllable, and the result is a previously longer sentence in both characters and syllables is now shorter in characters and the same length in syllables.

mu'o mi'e latros.

On Tue, Sep 7, 2010 at 2:34 PM, Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu> wrote:

On Monday 06 September 2010 15:50:05 spermwhale.warrior wrote:
> Hi everyone !
> I'm not fluent in lojban at all, but I like study its linguistic
> properties.
> I wondered something ... With such an high syllables's rate (I ask the
> rather fluent speakers/writers among us), comparing two short text,
> with typical constructs we use every day, such as : comparatives,
> conditionnals, vocatives, citations from someone else, simples logical
> links between otherwise independent sentences.
> One in lojban ... and one in english, or any langage you are the most
> fluent in.
> The two text written with the same look towards semantic details,
> except when (whatever is considered as) evidents inferences from
> context can be made.
>
> My question is the following : are you able, to read the lojban piece
> of text speedier than or as speedily as the chosen natlang piece of
> text ?
>
> Or not ?
>
> Does lojban's preciseness and accuracy towards semantic content of its
> constructs make it inherently long-winded ?

I estimate that Lojban text is about 1.2 times as long as corresponding
English text, mainly because some extra phonemes, syllables, and words are
necessary for unambiguous parsing. I managed to translate "Il était un petit
navire" (http://www.lojban.org/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=le+cmalu+bloti)
without having to squeeze in another syllable. Lojban is pro-drop and even
tense-drop, which somewhat balances the need for extra sounds.

> ps: I am fluent only in French, and as you know French guys are the
> worst students in foreign languages of the EU. If you wince in reading
> me, please remember it !

You may be interested in the French Lojban list. Send an email to
lojban-fr-request@lojban.org to subscribe.

Pierre
--
Jews use a lunisolar calendar; Muslims use a solely lunar calendar.

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