Subject: RE: [lojban] Poetry

From: "Craig" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2001 16:30:13 -0400

How would you translate my example? If I tried, I'd go with:
Aha! Gain! Aha! Gain!
Wow! Wow! Yay! Gain!
Not-no! Aha! Yay! Gain!
Which doesn't make any sense in English, whereas in lojban. it is a
gramatically correct string of attitudinal indicators which precisely define
a specific emotion - a sense of discovering something wonderful. Now as for
your question about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, it would be a proof, but an
attitudinal poem is meaningless in isolation in any language except
lojban. - and as soon as you attach it to any statement it becomes no more a
proof of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis than the mere existence of attitudinal
indicators is. But the fact that lojban. can create a text which has no
meaning in the mindsets of most languages but in lojban. is a precise
description of an emotion - that is not proof but it is certainly some
pretty good evidence.
I have another poem, by the way. If anyone gets tired of these, let me know.
I'm posting my early ones in the hope that I'll get better with practice, or
if I don't modify the form to make there be more room to get better. These
also make good lojban. tounge twisters - just try reading it aloud ten times
fast...

.u'e.u'i.u'i
.o'a.o'u.u'i
.a'u.i'o.u'i

of course, attitudinals claim precisely nothing, which means that both my
poems best translate as:

That's the beauty of it - a non-lojbanist finds no meaning in not actually
saying anything. To me, at least, it can be poetic.

-----Original Message-----
From: Bob LeChevalier (lojbab) [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Friday, June 08, 2001 3:02 PM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [lojban] Poetry

At 11:33 AM 06/08/2001 -0400, Craig wrote:
>coi rodo
>
> I had an idea for a lojban poetic verseform which is unique among
> poetic
>styles I have seen so far, both in that it cannot be translated to English
>and in that it uses no gismu.

Now that is an interesting question: if we could find something like this
in Lojban that is meaningful and indeed cannot be translated into other
languages, would that be evidence for a strong form of the Sapir-Whorf
hypothesis?

I suspect, however, that this poetry COULD be translated into English, but
perhaps not retaining the verse-form.

lojbab
--
lojbab [email-masked]
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

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