Re: [lojban] Re: Pokemon translation

[djandus <jandew@gmail.com>]

On Tuesday, July 17, 2012 6:02:14 PM UTC-5, selpa'i wrote:

A skilled Lojbanist has to know that tsi = tsiju.

I completely agree. The issue is that I want unskilled lojbanists to enjoy the game. Again, think of Pokémon originally. A game for kids. Unskilled English speakers could follow it easily. I discussed this with Lindar last night, and he mentioned how the Japanese version had very little kanji. Same reason. Sure, a skilled Japanese reader should be able to read all kanji all the time quickly, but that's just not the point of making an enjoyable game.

It's very much like in English, where the name reminds you of an actual English word (Mankey > Monkey). 

That's what the fu'ivla are like, sure. But the lojban should be explicit.

e.g. {jirnyrespa} "Horn Reptile" for something like Nidoking (this is just an example)

I'm entirely okay with this. That means (gasp!) that playing a game helped you know a word in the real world. Sure, it may be amusing that every time you see that horned lizard you think of Nidoking (who isn't a reptile, is he?), but past that, you get to have an association that you can remember easily. (And also to clear something up: If I were to make a lujvo for Nidoking, it would probably involve looking at this and picking an interpretation. {jesnoltrunau} barely fits, but it uses {noltrunau}, which is an official lujvo, so I'd be more likely to go with it. Also, lujvo with parallels between six pokémon are going to need a lot of rafsi. My point being, I really doubt anypony would name a pokemon with a boring lujvo that could describe a normal creature. Maybe an exotic one, but not a boring, commonplace one. I'm going to post the six pokemon in the Nidoran family, translated in this way, in the wiki.)

I'd like to mention here that I hope these aren't all going to be entered in as official lujvo. So much jargon, when there are such better words to fill a dictionary with...

You never have this problem when using fu'ivla.

Instead, you get 150 completely new words that are only vaguely lojban-based. Yay.

Note, I have nothing against using fu'ivla for pokemon. I expect a lot of them to be fine and great. However, I think {tsijyrespa} is awesome for "Bulbasaur", and far better suited for what I want this to be: a game that Lojbanists enjoy and can use to help learn some terminology. So, whenever possible, I want long lujvo.

Oh, and just an update -- I'm going to try to ignore stuff on here for a bit and kick out a better intro text, as well as the other things you've mentioned. I'm almost ready to move forward to bigger things! Thanks for all the input so far, and keep it up!

mu'o mi'e djos

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