le le la jbotur. ckafyzda ku jbofitpla

[cbmvax!uunet!mullian.ee.mu.oz.au!nsn]

>Date:         Thu, 20 Aug 1992 00:57:56 -0400
>From: Logical Language Group <lojbab@GREBYN.COM>

>You ask for several changes, all of which remove detail from the persons
>and scenery details.  To write a good story, the details MUST be present.

Agreed. But not inappropriate details, which will lead us to embarrassment.
Your Hindi-speaking co-owner will either be: US (or Australian) assimilated,
to some extent or other (just like all the Hindi-speakers I know), or a
caricature. We need some character and colouring in the owners. But talking
about cultures we don't know enough about (I mean, gee, what do I come up
with as a character trait for a Hispanic?) is plain too risky. Seek
diversity elsewhere, in that which *we* are familiar with, and that which
everyone is familiar with. Having them come out Americans is not the
ultimate problem (besides, there are enough of us outside the States to
avoid that); you don't need to hunt down the exotic. There is little more
mundane and more Anglo-cultural than la tuerp.'s or la .andruc.'s writing;
and yet their work has the immediate charm of being comfortably Lojbanic
that we seek.

>That is the purpose of having detailed decor with potential
>heavy symbolism - it allows people hooks to hang a story on, either a new
>story or one from their native culture.

A great idea, in general. But a ladder will not make one think of an imposing
metaphorical staircase. And I don't know if Smirnenski's tale is the kind
you'd tell over coffee.

Ivan's response seems well put. What we need to do is invent a Lojbanistan,
not guess at Pakistan. And Lojbanistan need not be that different from
the world we know. It needn't be identifiably American; it needn't not.

Date:         Thu, 20 Aug 1992 08:11:29 -0500
From: VILVA@VIIKKI21.HELSINKI.FI

>  I don't think it would be *absolutely* necessary to be restricted to
>  a single coffeeshop -- just to have the general settings defined.

And with what you say about characterisation, too, the solution is a
broad-brush sketch that allows us room to maneuver in; not too detailed,
not too vague. Well, that can certainly be handled.

>  It will also be quite necessary to transform the plan into a Lojban
>  plan to help the less experienced Lojbanists to handle the basic
>  premises. I used the word 'transform' quite intentionally instead of
>  the word 'translate' as I feel that a translation isn't sufficient,
>  it is quite necessary to try to remove the 'alien' imagery.

Yes, as long as we have something there to transform first (I just know
someone's gonna cut the Gordian knot soon and yell: "These are the charac-
ters, this is the setting, now get to it!") I think a Lojbanisation of
the brushstroke plan will not be limiting at all; people do really need
that help in simply keeping a narrative going.

>  It might be
>  useful to have a kind of workshop (on the List) where the novice
>  lojbo would be taught to navigate in this verbal VR (virtual
>  reality). There might be teams of two or more people working on a
>  person or even a table to get it just so.

Because I have only vague suspicions about how this might work, I propose
that we, as an example, navigate on list around, oh, the leftmost bench
nearest the kitchen. I'm not being facetious; I want to see how one would
go about this. The tables are made of old soft oak, on which many symbols and
inscriptions have been carved.

>  We could tackle this storywriting also from another angle
>  starting from the fact that most of us aren't very advanced in
>  Lojban. []

A very figurative (but eloquent) description which I'll attempt to para-
phrase. As the mass of writers becomes more familiar with Lojban, the
Cafe will be sketched out in greater detail in the story, and more
successfully, with the end result possibly quite distant from what we'd
anticipated at the start. The more expert of us reinforce those less
expert in the describing.

Uhuh. Sounds good.

Date:         Thu, 20 Aug 1992 09:45:35 -0400
From: "Mark E. Shoulson" <shoulson@CTR.COLUMBIA.EDU>

>>Subject: le la kalevalas. jbofitpla
>                      ^^
>Tell me, Nick, you do this just to see if I'm still reading? :-)

Why, yes :)

Btw, is there any good reason why a {la} in a cmene like {la'adan.} is
illegal? There's no ambiguity there.

>I understood the words but not the meaning of that last bit.  "and [it's]
>near the cards which I was mailed by Ivan from London on something (humor)
>which is (no humor) something-to-do-with my shelf."  What's the deal with
>the "fizo'ezo'ono'uzo'onai"?

I meant to say: "Oh, it's next to Ivan's card... somewhere :) ... only
joking, it's on my shelf."

OK, so the joke bombed. Sue me with a {la} inside a cmene :)

Nick.