Dao De Jing [was Re: Promoting Lojban]

[Robin Turner <robin@bilkent.edu.tr>]

la xod. cusku di'e

>
> On Fri, 19 Feb 1999, Robin Turner wrote:

> > Yes, but first we need a Lojban Laozi! {zo'o} and remember what the old boy said:
> >

Anybody get the pun there?

>
> > {le cusku na'e djuno .i le djuno na'e cusku}
> >
>
> But he also said "na kakne le nu cusku le fatci dadjo"!
>

{.u'i} If you're translating the first line of the Dao De Jing, I'm not sure {fatci} is
the best translation of "chang" which is usually rendered as "eternal" (though that
doesn't really give the idea either!).  I would hazard:

na lo selskuka'e dadjo du lo cimni dadjo

or

na lo selskuka'e dadjo ze'eve'e dadjo

NOTE: I've followed the use of {dadjo} because I don't know how to render "dao" into
Lojban.  However, {dadjo} is Taoist/Taoistic, not Tao.

If I understand "dao ke dao fei chang dao" correctly (and who can say that they do?) it is
that one can speak of particular manifestations of the Tao, but not the whole thing.  On
the other hand, as Alan Watts humorously points out, you can run "feichang" together and
get "extremely Tao", giving the translation "The route which can be taken is the emergency
exit"!  Classical Chinese makes such English ambiguities as "Time flies like an arrow"
look amazingly precise!

co'o mi'e robin.