Subject: RE: [lojban] Poetry

From: Edward Cherlin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 09 Jun 2001 20:28:04 -0700

At 4:30 PM -0400 6/8/01, Craig wrote:
>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!

Sounds a lot like the Dwarvish poetry on Terry Pratchett's Diskworld. 
For example,

Aha! Gold! Aha! Gold!
Wow! Wow! Yay! Gold!
Not-no! Aha! Yay! Gold!

would go down very well in The Golden Hammer. It does seem to make 
one claim, but in Dwarvish "Gold!" is really more of an attitudinal 
anyway. {:-}}}}}

>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.

Same in dwarvish.

>Now as for
>your question about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis,

Of course, there are plenty of ideas which cannot be expressed in 
Dwarvish, such as "too much gold".
-- 

Edward Cherlin
Generalist
"A knot!" exclaimed Alice. "Oh, do let me help to undo it."
Alice in Wonderland