Lojban class
coi rodo (hello all) The first and second twice-monthly meetings of Michigan Lojban Class at my house have been a lot of fun. The first time we had Bruce and , the second time Bruce and Shaun. We had a laptop with TV-out, a whiteboard, our copies of The Complete Lojban Language and What Is Lojban?, and pizza. We've decided to translate The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. This satisfies our criteria:
#1 It reads as if it was optimized to be translated, as if it were a simplistic translation into English from Arabic (although it was written originally in English). It contains no jargon, very little idiom, nothing that needs a cultural context to be understood, and no highly stylized uses of language for humor or language-dependent effect. Gibran's metaphors tend to be straightforwardly symbolic.
#2 It's famed and prestigious so that the Lojban community will be able to tell people we have this in our language.
#3 It's divided up conveniently into bite-sized verses.
#4 It's in the public domain.
#5 It's short!
#6 The worst that can be said about the content is that it is mostly inoffensive hallmark-card platitudes. The important thing is it has a lot of simplistic activity in the physical world such as ships, hills, cities, walking, conversation etc.
Comments
eternalmaiden on May. 23, 2005 7:42 PM
:: friends you ::
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