From lojbab@lojban.org Sun Aug 04 22:56:03 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: lojbab@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_7_4); 5 Aug 2002 05:56:03 -0000 Received: (qmail 79457 invoked from network); 5 Aug 2002 05:56:03 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.218) by m4.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 5 Aug 2002 05:56:03 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO lakemtao01.cox.net) (68.1.17.244) by mta3.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 5 Aug 2002 05:56:02 -0000 Received: from lojban.lojban.org ([68.100.206.153]) by lakemtao01.cox.net (InterMail vM.5.01.04.05 201-253-122-122-105-20011231) with ESMTP id <20020805055601.ROBF29627.lakemtao01.cox.net@lojban.lojban.org> for ; Mon, 5 Aug 2002 01:56:01 -0400 Message-Id: <5.1.0.14.0.20020805013928.00ac28f0@pop.east.cox.net> X-Sender: rlechevalier@pop.east.cox.net X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.1 Date: Mon, 05 Aug 2002 01:55:50 -0400 To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: non-core translations In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed From: Robert LeChevalier X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=1120595 X-Yahoo-Profile: lojbab At 06:14 PM 8/4/02 -0400, pycyn@aol.com wrote: I suspect (and hope) that the current gi'uste translations will the first steps of a bootstrapping operation (to use one of JCB's favorite words). They will attract a few people to learn Lojban and who will eventually say (in the appropriate languages) "But that isn't what the translation means!" or "Ohoh, so this word really means ..." and who will correct the translations. I think something like this should have happened -- and be happening -- with the English list over the year, but, alas, has not generally, although we have glosses enough to allow some rewriting, even (especially) of the key words. The reason it hasn't is of course the fact that the English gismu list constitutes the baseline, and any substantive change could cause problems with people respecting the baseline. Now that I am again working on the dictionary file, I should note again that I HAVE made very minor changes to the text of my "working copy" of the English gismu list, but nothing substantive like a change in keyword - usually adding in a word or two to the definition or explanatory text to clarify things that arise in the process of writing dictionary entries. If there is an English word that is NOT in the long-text gismu definition, that would be a better definition than the keyword, then by all means let me know. The gismu portion of the dictionary will so de-emphasize keywords that they will no longer be a serious issue. The bulk of the work I am doing is on the English-to-Lojban entries of the sort found in ENGDICT.GIS on the web site. The Lojban-to-English definitions of the gismu are frozen, and that is the form that should appear in the dictionary, except for the minor wording changes I've mentioned (which will be posted when I have a new ENGDICT.GIS to go with it). If people would like to see added explanatory text for a few words, we can consider these on a case by case basis. I would suggest that the wiki discussion of gismu definition gripes is probably the best place to collect these, but in order to be used, people need to write what they would like to appear in the definition, and not merely complaints about what IS there. But no baseline change proposals, please. I would have to dismiss them out of hand, because opening the door to such changes would likely lead to more proposals than we could tolerate under the baseline freeze. lojbab -- lojbab lojbab@lojban.org Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273 Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org