[lojban-beginners] Re: "I understand Lojban"

[Matt Arnold <mattarn@123.net>]

After thinking about this whole discussion, I almost want to say just use {fanva}, translate.
Although, if we're doing the same thing to our native language, what are we translating it into?
-la epcat


lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org wrote:
>Robert Griffin wrote:
>
>> Approaching this from an English-speaker's viewpoint, when I say that 
>> I understand English, I don't mean to say that I understand ANYTHING 
>> which is discussed in English.  Thus, most English speakers don't 
>> understand discussions of quantum mechanics.
>> Many people who are fluent in a language have little technical 
>> knowledge of the grammatical principles. On the other hand, they 
>> understand varying amounts of what is said or written.
>> Let's take 'Jabberwocky' as an example of where understanding a 
>> language is clearly differentiated from lack of understanding.
>> "`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
>>  Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
>> All mimsy were the borogoves,
>>  And the mome raths outgrabe."
>> English speakers understand that the action takes place in the past, 
>> and that some things referred to as slithy toves gyred and gimbled in 
>> some place/time/manner/fashion.
>> We recognize nonsense verbs, nouns, and adjectives.
>> There have been attempts to 'translate' Jabberwocky into other 
>> languages. Someone unfamiliar with the target language would be unable 
>> to 'understand' any of the poem, nor recognize which words are 
>> nonsense and which are actual parts of the language.
>>
>> We can understand a language when we read it, but not when we hear it, 
>> or vice versa.
>> We can understand a language without being able to speak it.
>>
>> When my math teacher in secondary school required us to use Spanish to 
>> express our need to sharpen our pencils, I understood that 'Puedo 
>> sacarle punto al lapis' meant 'May I sharpen my pencil', but I 
>> understood little beyond that, not even being taught that 'Puedo' 
>> meant 'I can' (or 'Can I').
>>
>> As far as I can tell, there is a certain type of neurological activity 
>> when a person understands what is being read or heard, but does not 
>> occur otherwise.  This understanding is at two levels.  The first 
>> level is a general comprehension of the overall language/symbol system 
>> being used. The second level is a more specific understanding of the 
>> topic of the communication.  The second level is what is apparently 
>> addressed by Lojban.  The first level is apparently unaddressed.
>>
>> When I watched 'The Passion' I understood about a quarter of the 
>> Aramaic, as I can read Syriac Aramaic with a little fluency, and have 
>> a little familiarity with Biblical and Rabbinic Aramaic. As the topics 
>> were simple, I easily understood them, in a way that I wouldn't had 
>> the actors been discussing obscure technical points of Rabbinic law 
>> ('prosbul' for instance).
>>
>> In the 1980s I listened to a talk by Mar Babai Soro in Assyrian 
>> Aramaic, of which I understood perhaps 1 word in ten, if that.  
>> However, I was able to follow well enough to understand (2nd sense) 
>> something of what he was talking about. On the other hand, a 
>> discussion with a friend about string theory was barely comprehensible 
>> in the 2nd sense while fully comprehensible in the 1st sense (all the 
>> terms were common English).
>>
>> It appears we need a term to handle the first sense of 
>> understanding--do I understand the words.  The same term would be used 
>> for understanding someone's handwriting, or someone's accent.
>>
>>
>"I understand Lojban words" - mi jimpe fi lo jbovla
>(Quantifiers can be added here to indicate how many words you understand 
>- the previous sentence would be true if you knew only one word of Lojban.)
>
>If you want to refer to understanding the sense of something that is 
>expressed in Lojban, you probably need to use "la'e".
>
>robin.tr
>
>-- 
>"I think perhaps the most important problem is that we are trying to understand the fundamental workings of the universe via a language devised for telling one another where the best fruit is." -- Terry Pratchett
>
>
>Robin Turner
>IDMYO
>Bilkent Universitesi
>Ankara 06533
>Turkey
>
>www.bilkent.edu.tr/~robin

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