Subject: Re: [lojban] Bible translation style question

From: And Rosta <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 14:53:16 +0000

pc:
#In a message dated 1/27/2002 7:57:03 PM Central Standard Time, 
[email-masked] writes:
#> any normative style is going to
#> be strongly SAE-influenced at this stage, which is to'e lojbo
#Not so, not so. Many SAE features are thoroughly lojbo: SVO and SOV, 

I don't think of SOV as very SAE. But SVO and SOV are anyway the
commonest orders across the world, aren't they?

#tense 
#and negation position, and so on. The fact that a feature occurs in SAE #does 
#not mean that it is inappropriate for Lojban (after all, formal logic is an 
#SAE invention and so likely to be somewhat that way, even though it is #VSO).  
#Of course, doing things SAE because that is what youare familiar with, #rather 
#than rethinking it in Lojban terms is objectionable -- but hard to prove.  

That was my point. My concern is that where Lojban offers multiple ways
to say the same thing, and some ways are more SAE-like than others,
we have a natural tendency to go for the more SAE-like way -- it certainly facilitates communication. I just think that this natural tendency should not be elevated to the status of normative good style.

#On the current issue, I would assume that the glossray order of arguments 
#is the natural Lojban order and rearrangements need a reason, aesthetic, 
#usually (get messy phrases to an end, copy another style, cadence, 
#emphasis,...).

That's a reasonable assumption, but objectionable. Lojban decided to adopt
both the English-style 'case-marking by word-order' and the Japanese-style
'case-marking by adposition/particle', which leaves it up to users to choose their preferred method. Us English-speakers with faltering Lojban naturally
prefer the English-like method, but this should not be at the cost of making the Japanse-like method stylistically/discoursally marked.

--And.