Subject: Re: [lojban] Glossers, translators, and other tools ...

From: Cyril Slobin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 21:32:38 +0400 (MSD)

On Sun, 17 Sep 2000 [email-masked] wrote:

> "a translator that doesn't necessarily get
> everything right, and may not produce
> fully correct, idiomatic output."

I agree that my next statement is somewhat overgeneralization, but:

If output of existing glosser is readable English text,
then original Lojban input is malglico.

In fact I mean something not so strong. Let me start from my native
language - Russian. From Russian point of view, most main Western
languages are very similar - not only by grammar (almost no flection,
highly analitical), but by, er, style. In fact Average European Language
(or, rather, AE Usage of Language) exist. And when people write Russian
texts that are to be translated to eg. English, or just often switched
from Russian to English and back, they fall into, er, Average European
Usage of Russian. Such texts are easily translatable to any western
language, and, if I can say so, keep European style even while written
in Russian.

So I believe, when (and if) Lojban become spread wide enough, there will
appear (at least) two styles: Average European Lojban, which will be
easily translated (glossed) from and to eg. English, and, er, Native
Lojban, glosses from which will be very weird-looking. And from Native
Lojban point of view, first will be, er, [mabla stici bo kulno]. Why
even bother to invention of a Logical Language if we want to mimic
English in there?

[co'o mi'e kir. noi rusko]
-- 
Cyril Slobin <[email-masked]>