Subject: [lojban] Re: [Announcement] The Alice Translation Has Moved And Changed

From: Jordan DeLong <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2002 10:16:22 -0500

On Wed, Oct 09, 2002 at 02:07:32PM +0000, Jorge Llambias wrote:
> la nitcion cusku di'e
[...]
> >You can't both be one of the team
> >and appropriating the end product, even if you did do 90% of the work.
> >Conversely, if there is no notion of ownership of the text, then there
> >is *nothing* preventing me restoring sane punctuation to the entire
> >text tomorrow.
> 
> That's the least of the problems, it's just a matter of
> presentation. The work would be the same with or without dots.
> (If someone does want to put the dots in though, they should put
> them everywhere, not just in front of initial vowels and after
> final consonants but also in the tricky places.) On the other
> hand, using {ji'i} or {bi'i} (just as an example) makes a
> significant difference. I don't think the idea can be that
> we just keep changing them back and forth until someone gets
> tired.

While I don't advocate CVS-wars, I've got to say that this is an
situation where it *is* simply correcting an error. "re ji'i ci"
means twenty-three, where the digit "3" has been rounded. This is
part of the language definition. It's not like we are talking about
something which is legitimate to dispute: CLL *clearly* says what
PA+ ji'i PA+ means in chapter 18.

That said; you could always just fork Alice and have the "xorxes
version" of the translation. There's nothing wrong with that course
of action, in my opinion, and since you translated so much of it
it is certainly justifiable. (Though I, for one, would still think
it quite unfortunate should you choose to continue to deliberately
misuse ji'i). I believe the current translation text is public
domain; so anyone who wants to can fork it. If you continue to
work on it as a group project though you can't expect complete
control over the xe fanva.

> >Not that I'd want nothing to do with a text that refuses to put dots
> >before the i's anyway.

The language definition allows removal of dots. I imagine a program
could easily be written to add missing dots if it makes it easier
for one to read. I use dots because otherwise I'd not remember to
pause, and because they look nice. This isn't like ji'i where we're
talking about deliberate misuse of a language feature. (The dots are
excessively minor in comparison).

> i ko catlu le se vasru enai le vasru

.ie

-- 
Jordan DeLong - [email-masked]
lu zo'o loi censa bakni cu terzba le zaltapla poi xagrai li'u
sei la mark. tuen. cusku