Colin's text, as it goes into JL18

[lojbab@grebyn.com (Logical Language Group)]

     Following is Colin Fine's translation of a familiar children's
fairy tale.  It is the first text to be vetted under the 'editor de
jour' concept described in JL17.  Nick Nicholas served as the
reviewing editor.  In this case Nick recommended publication, making
some comments.  Colin declined to make Nick's suggested changes, which
therefore appear as footnoted comments.  All lujvo have been updated
to the new rafsi list enclosed with this issue (manually by Lojbab, so
please forgive any errors).
 
               .lu le nolraixli1 ne ga'u le dembi li'u/
                        cmene di'e noi se finti
                      la xans. krIstian. Andrsn.
 
          =.itu'e tu'e
     lisri le nolrainanla goi ko'a   =.i ko'a djica lo nolraixli   =.i
ri mulno be loka nolraixli be'o gi'o se zanru ko'a   =.isemu'ibo ko'a
fe'eroroi litru gi'e sisku pa go'i   =.iku'i roroi nabmi   =.i sa'e ge
lo nolraixli cu raumei ju'o gi lo ni ri nolraixli ku ko'a na se birti
.!uu   =.i roroiku le no'e drani vau2   =.i ko'a ki'u se'irzdakla gi'e
badri lenu na'epu'i cpacu lo nolraixli mulno
          ni'o pa vanci cu ki jaica ke selte'a vilti'a   =.i lindi joi
savru joi carvi joi camcilce   =.i zo'e darxi le tcavro   =.i le
sorna'a nolraitru ki'u minde lenu le vorme cu karbi'o   =.i le bartu
cu nolraixli   =.i ri selkecmlu .!uuse'inai ri'a tu'a lo carvi .ebo lo
xlali vilti'a   =.i mo'ini'a flecu lo djacu vi le kerfa .e le taxfu
=.i flecu ji'a pa'o le cutci file cucti'e le cucyzbi [tosa'a pamoi
pinka toi]   =.i cusku fa ra ledu'u ra nolraixli mulno
          ni'o .lu .!ue   =.i cipra  =.ai li'u/ se seisku le sorna'a
truspe goi fo'e   =.ije ri bacru noda ku'i gi'e klama le sipku'a gi'e
vimcu ro le ckabu'u gi'e punji le pa dembi le ckazbe   =.ijebabo fo'e
cpacu reno vresraki'e gi'e cpana punji ri le dembi   =.i pa'aku reno
datkypi'u gairki'e co'a cpana le sraki'e   =.i ro go'i cu se vreta le
nolraixli goi fo'a ca'o le nicte
          ni'o co'i le cerni cu preti fo fo'a fe leli'i fo'a capu3
sipna ge'ekau4
     =.i .lu .!oicairo'o [seisa'a selsku be fo'a]   =.i mi su'eso'uroi
.!uu ga'orga'i le kanla ca'o piro le nicte   =.i ?ma za'anai ?pausai
nenri le ckana5   =.i mi puca'o vreta le raktu jdari   =.i piro lemi
xadni ri'a bunre joi blanu   =.i to'e zdile .!oisai li'u/
     =.i seni'ibo co'i djuno ledu'u fo'a nolraixli je'a mulno ki'u
lenu fo'a6 fi le reno sraki'e ku jo'u le reno gairki'e cu ganse fe le
dembi   =.i lo ckaji be loka ganse du'i la'edi'u cu nolraixli mulno
ju'o
          ni'o le nolrainanla goi ko'a co'a speni fo'a   =.i ko'a
seki'u djuno ledu'u vo'a kansa le mulno be loka nolraixli   =.i le
dembi ba se punji fi la larku'a [tosa'a remoi pinka toi]   =.i caji'a
go'i7   =.ijo noda capu vimcu .!iacu'i tu'u ni'o di'u jetnu lisri
.!uo.ui
 
tu'u
 
          ni'oni'o di'e pinka
     =.i pamai le lujvo po'u zo cucyzbi cu satci te fanva fe .zoi.dy.
Naesen paa Skoen .dy./   =.i mi nelci le di'u bangrdanska tanru
     =.i remai [tu'e la larku'a po'u .la'o .dy. Kunstkammeret .dy./
cu ga'orbi'o ca le nanca be li pabirepa gi'eseri'abo ca'a teke carmi
morji caze'u le lisri   =.i le'i ca'a jmaji noi selzda le tolci'o ke
nolraitru ckusro dinju cu selcmi so'i vrici ne mu'u lo prucedra lisri
ku ce lo naiske lisri ku ce lo rarske cizra  tu'u]   =.i di'u se krasi
le pinka ne bau la dansk. fo la xans. briks. jo'u la .anker. iensn.
 
My translation follows:
 
                       The Princess on the Pea
 
     There was once a prince, who wanted a princess for himself, but
she had to be a real princess.  So he went all round the world trying
to find one, but there was always some hindrance:  there were plenty
of princesses, but whether they were real princesses, he could never
be sure - there was always something that wasn't quite right.  So he
went home and was sad, because he so much wanted a genuine princess.
     One evening there was a frightful storm.  There was lightning and
thunder, the rain poured down, it was dreadful!  There was a knocking
on the town gate, and the old king ordered it opened.
     It was a princess standing outside.  But God how she looked in
the rain and the storm!  The water ran down her hair and her clothes,
and went in at the toes of her shoes and out at the heels.  And she
said she was a real princess.
     "We'll see about that!" thought the old queen, but she said
nothing.  She went to the bedroom, took off all the bedclothes, and
put a pea on the base of the bed.  Then she took twenty mattresses and
put them on top of the pea, and then twenty eiderdowns on top of the
mattresses.
     And that's where the princess was to lie that night.
     In the morning, they asked her how she had slept.
     "Oh, terribly!", said the princess.  "I hardly closed my eyes the
whole night!  God knows what there was in the bed!  I was lying on
something hard, and I'm black and blue everywhere!  It's quite
horrible!"
     So they could see that she was a real princess, since she had
felt the pea through twenty mattresses and twenty quilts.  Nobody but
a real princess could be that sensitive.
     The prince took her for his wife, for now he knew that he had a
real princess, and the pea was put into the Kunstkammer, where it is
still to be seen, if nobody has taken it away.
     You see, it's a true story!
 
     Note (from Blix & Jensen):  The Kunstkammer ("art chamber")
closed in 1821 and was therefore fresh in memory at the time of the
tale.  The collection was housed in the old Royal Library, and
contained many different things:  old sagas, ethnographic tales,
curiosities of natural history, and so on.
 
Sylvia Rutiser, of the DC-area Lojban group, attempted her own
independent translation, though she did not complete it.  Since Sylvia
is a moderately skilled Lojbanist, her effort is a reasonable standard
for a learning Lojbanist to strive for.  Significant differences
between the following and Colin's version of what he intended, are
areas where either Colin wasn't clear, or used a construct that even
Sylvia could not figure out (Sylvia admitted having some unanswered
questions when she completed the translation; in some cases, the
wording may be strange due to these questions).
 
     "The princess and the bean" names this that was invented by Hans
Christian Anderson.
     This is a story of the prince.  He desires a princess.  She is
complete in the quality of "princessness" if and only if she is
approved by him (I question this).  Therefore, he travels everywhere
and seeks such a princess.  However, there are always problems.  To be
precise, there were enough princesses, and he was not certain if they
were all princesses.  Always something was not correct.  Therefore, he
went home and was sad about not being able to get a complete princess.
     (Set time) One evening it was stormy.  Lightning and rain and
intense wildness.  Something hits the city gate.  The old king
therefore commands that the door be opened.  The outside thing is a
princess.  She was pitiful seeming because of the rain and storm.
Water flowed off her hair and clothing.
     "Surprise!  Test.  Intent" is said to herself by the old queen.
And she said nothing and goes to the sleeproom and removes all the
bed-cloth and puts one bean on the bed-frame.  She then takes twenty
mattresses and sets them on the bean.  Each respectively twenty duck-
feather cover cushions upon the mattresses.  All of this is reclined
on by the princess through the night
     In the morning she is questioned about the experience of her
sleeping (emotion unspecified)
     "Ouch! she said I my eyes all night.  Why?  I observe ( question
follows) in the bed.  I continuously reclined on the troubling hard
thing.  All of my body (therefore) is brown mixed with blue.  Not
funny.  Complaint!"
     Therefore it is known that she is a princess truly complete,
because (reason) the event that she (through 20 mattresses and 20
coverlets) felt the bean.
     ...
 
1Lojbab: Colin chose to base his words for "princess" and "prince" on
"nanla" and "nixli", which explicitly denote immaturity, even though
it seems from the story context that the prince, at least, is an adult
(he is taking the princess as a wife, and it appears to be his
volition rather than an arranged marriage in the royal youth.  Better
choices are "nanmu" and "ninmu", which explicitly do not imply
maturity.  "nakni" and "fetsi" might also do, though they do not
necessarily imply 'human'; however, "person-ness" is implied by the
"royal-" status - the story could easily be told about a non-human but
vaguely humanoid intelligent species.
2Nick: Hm.  Because I equate the referent of "lo nolraixli" with the
earlier one in the tale (He seeks a princess), this sounds like "the
princess is enough".  Bueading, it does seem that
lambda calculus is the best way to explain "kau".  For those
unfamiliar with it:  lambda calculus explains math at a deep level or "loi nolraixli cu raumei"?
I don't recall the place structure of "mei" right now.  And I'd have
said "roroiku da no'e drani" (note that, for quantification, the
"roroiku" has to go before the "da", else we assert that there is one
thing always awry, rather than one thing each time.  (We do need a
quantification paper badly).
3Lojbab: John Cowan has expressed the opinion that, under the rules as
interpreted by his tense paper, cmavo compounds based on "ca" no
longer have perfective intent.
4Nick: This remains a clever use of "kau", and should get mentioned in
any write-up about it.  By the way, from my reading, it does seem that
lambda calculus is the best way to explain "kau".  For those
unfamiliar with it:  lambda calculus explains math at a deep level.
'LAMBDA(x.x+x)' is the function taking x as an argument and returning
x+x.  Lambda(x.x+x) 1 is a function application to 1, and evaluates to
2.  The lambda expression itself is a function waiting for an
argument.  Lojban selbri aren't lambda function; their arguments are
filled with "zo'e", or explicit values.  In "I know who did it",
though, the predicate "did it" is crying out for an argument to fill
in x1:  (LAMBDA "zo'ekau"."zo'ekau gasnu ri").  For that matter, a lot
of the elliptical places, as John Cowan has mentioned, get explained
by it:  Being a parent is difficult - not being a parent of John, or
of Mary, but (LAMBDA "zo'ekau"."mi rirni zo'ekau").
5Nick: I don't like "ga'orga'i", but that's a matter of taste.  I
rather like the "za'anai ?pausai".
6Nick: I think you need a "kei" before "ki'u":  her feeling the pea
does not cause her to be a princess, but causes them to know it.
7Nick: I don't know about "go'i" - what is true now is that the pea
remains there, not that it is still being placed there.