Subject: RE: [lojban] What are you doing now??

From: "Craig" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2002 00:17:16 -0500

>> -Realize with horror that Tolkein's Black Speech is easier to translate
>> into lojban than English (since it doesn't mark nouns for definiteness
>> either)

>ki'a? .i la xekri bangu cu terfilmau le glibau fo le nu fanva fi la lojban
>ce'u, .ije'i la lojban cu terfilmau le glibau fo le nu fanva fi ce'u la
xekri
>bangu?

Both. Because articles mark for definiteness in English and not Lojban, one
cannot capture some of the subtleties of 'the' when writing in lojban, nor
can one translate lojban to English perfectly because English requires this
marking. Since the Black Speech, like Russian, has no article, it is more
like lojban in this respect. A lojban translation of the Ring inscription
would be easier from the BS than from English (and more accurate, as
BS-Westron-English-Lojban will lose more information than BS-Lojban). Now,
because the info added in rendering {burzum-ishi} as 'in the darkness' in
terms of using a definite article is the same as that which is removed when
going into lojban, it won't have much affect - except for any effect that
the malglico assumption of lo=a/le=the will have. Thus, while in most
specific cases it won't matter, it is theoretically easier to go directly
from BS to Lojban.
It is easier to go from Black Speech to Lojban than Black Speech to English
because you do not have to add information.
It is easier to go from Black Speech to Lojban than English to Lojban
because you do not have to remove information.

--la kreig.daniyl.

'ro temci lo menli cu nibli'

xy.sy. gubmau ckiku nacycme: 0x5C3A1E74