[lojban-beginners] Re: Dictionary

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

On Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 02:33:33PM -0600, Jon Top Hat Jones wrote:
> So, I got this giant dictionary/thesaurus with entries for most of
> English, including major pronouns. It is my intention to use this
> to make an explicit Lojban-English dic., i.e. "zo'e klama zo'e ti"
> for "come", 

I don't consider that a reasonable translation, for the record.
That means "something goes somewhere else from here".

> and to include the Lojban word for all English words, so problems
> like my recent use of "klama" because I could not find a word for
> "enter/arrive"(, see the zo'o thread for what I mean). 

We have a general lack of vocab problem; this is known.  jbovlaste
is supposed to help correct it, but it's slow going.

> However, I would need help in two areas: 1- people to help in the
> translating, 2- experienced Lojbanists to check for correctness.

I'm willing, but can't commit any serious time.

> Also, for non-gismu I want to use tanru, with lujvo and fu'ivla
> suggestions listed afterward. For example, the ly. def. of T-Rex
> would be (tyrant type-of lizard t-o king (t-o dinosaur)).

That's a really bad idea.  T-Rex is a particular species, and should
be uniquely identified.  Translating the scientific name is just
going to end up with a confusing tanru that could have many meanings
and won't help your listener at all.

Well, maybe it will in this case, but only because the translation
of t-rex is so famous, but if you call
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velociraptor "la sutra ke zekri lebna",
I doubt it's going to help anyone figure out what you're talking
about.

-Robin

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