From slobin@ice.ru Thu Sep 21 10:32:40 2000 Return-Path: X-Sender: slobin@ice.ru X-Apparently-To: lojban@egroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-6_0_2); 21 Sep 2000 17:32:40 -0000 Received: (qmail 4571 invoked from network); 21 Sep 2000 17:32:40 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.27) by m4.onelist.org with QMQP; 21 Sep 2000 17:32:40 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO feast.ice.ru) (213.128.193.52) by mta2 with SMTP; 21 Sep 2000 17:32:39 -0000 Received: from localhost (slobin@localhost) by feast.ice.ru (8.9.3/8.9.3/Debian/GNU) with ESMTP id VAA09233 for ; Thu, 21 Sep 2000 21:32:38 +0400 Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 21:32:38 +0400 (MSD) To: lojban@egroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] Glossers, translators, and other tools ... In-Reply-To: <200009171312.OAA26378@nickel.cix.co.uk> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII From: Cyril Slobin On Sun, 17 Sep 2000 C.D.Wright@SOLIPSYS.COMPULINK.CO.UK 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