[lojban] Re: Ocean continents

[John E Clifford <lojban-out@lojban.org>]

--- Sanghyeon Seo <sanxiyn@gmail.com> wrote:

> Apparently, I missed some mails regarding my
> Lojban composition, "lo
> tumla ne'i lo xamsi". (Or weren't they intended
> for the list?)
> 
> Is it GMail's fault? GMail seems to set(force)
> Reply-To to the author,
> not to the list -- it seems John replied to
> Jorge only, thinking he
> was replying to the list. Is this the case?

No; we were talking about something else and your
piece came up to make a point, so we looked at it
some more.  This was all intentionally on private
line.
 
> Anyway, here's the original from which I
> translated:
> 
> "Ocean continents
> 
> That far country is lost in time, its streets
> paved with gold, its
> palaces roofed with gold. You could conquer it
> in a month, and rule
> over all its immensity, and bring back all the
> treasure that it has,
> endless forest and furs, turquoise and gold,
> more gold than there is
> yet now in the world; and yet still the
> greatest treasure in that land
> is already lost."
> 
> Still, the context of the last sentence isn't
> clear, I fear. It is
> referring to the story element previously
> presented, not translated
> here.

Thanks. It is a different story than what I read
into the Lojban, but related to it in interesting
ways.  
I suspect there is a better word for the more
specific "contintent" than {tumla}.  And, indeed,
 an old lujvo list offers {braplu}, "big island".
  {tumla} is OK but vague.
"That far country" cries out for {le tu},
although again {lo tu} is OK (I think there is
some doubt about whether {tu} can apply to
something out of sight, as this place surely is,
but I think that need not actually apply here).
"lost in time" may be poetic for "far in the
past." though it suggests more -- that record of
it is lost, say.  And this general-precise split
occurs elsewhere as well: "palace" in the next
line rather than "edifice."  Catching the force
of the English, which are just fragments, might
be hard in Lojban.  Your version gets the point
across and, with the floating {tu} perhaps some
of the loose structure as well (though a
different structure).
I am not sure that "can but didn't" is quite
right for "could," which has more hypothetical
force.  But that is a matter of taste, perhaps. 
The point is made.  the "battle-gain" for
"conquer" is not clear; we get the right sort of
idea but not quite the target (a constant problem
with lujvo -- and even more, tanru).  the old
list offers no suggestions and this works pretty
well once you know what it means.
I missed badly on some vocabulary (a not at all
uncommon event that).  I am less clear about the
structure of that whole last long bit, from
"bring back."  I got the gist, but how it was to
emerge from the pieces is not at all clear.
And, if I now understand the original (well, the
source for the Lojban trat anyhow), that greatest
treasure is something very specific (I don't know
what) and so a {le} again would be useful for
directing our atrtention from the general to the
specific.
A very nice job; keep up the good work.


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