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RE: [lojban] Poetry



At 4:30 PM -0400 6/8/01, Craig wrote:
How would you translate my example? If I tried, I'd go with:
Aha! Gain! Aha! Gain!
Wow! Wow! Yay! Gain!
Not-no! Aha! Yay! Gain!

Sounds a lot like the Dwarvish poetry on Terry Pratchett's Diskworld. For example,

Aha! Gold! Aha! Gold!
Wow! Wow! Yay! Gold!
Not-no! Aha! Yay! Gold!

would go down very well in The Golden Hammer. It does seem to make one claim, but in Dwarvish "Gold!" is really more of an attitudinal anyway. {:-}}}}}

Which doesn't make any sense in English, whereas in lojban. it is a
gramatically correct string of attitudinal indicators which precisely define
a specific emotion - a sense of discovering something wonderful.

Same in dwarvish.

Now as for
your question about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis,

Of course, there are plenty of ideas which cannot be expressed in Dwarvish, such as "too much gold".
--

Edward Cherlin
Generalist
"A knot!" exclaimed Alice. "Oh, do let me help to undo it."
Alice in Wonderland