(A page from the Loglan web site.)
(From Lognet 95/2. Used with the permission of The Loglan Institute, Inc.)
What follows is a translation by Alex Leith of a selection from Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World, 1991, English translation from the Norwegian: Phoenix, London. 1995:
Ina ai mi stutaa tu.
Nao nepazu, ba mrenu, ice da no krido rapo lo gudspi ga dzabi. I, na ne denli na nepo da dzoru vi le trigru guo, da nu vizgoi ne gudspi.
I hu he? hue le hirtei.
Le stutaa ga pracue li:
Da ze gei kinci dzoru na ne corta ckemo. Ipa le mrenu pa fresea le gudspi, ice hue da:
Ua oa mi na tratoi supo be gudspi, ibuo lo gudspi no ga fizdi dzabi lia lo humnu.
Hu modvi toa? hue le gudspi. Inumoi hue le mrenu ja dapli:
Na lepo mu pa godzi leva groda troku guo, lepo mi kovgoi tei ga nerbi lepo mi pragoi, ibuo mi viadri lepo tu smugoi tcegoi tei. I, na lepo mu pa canspe leva grogro tristaga ji sticko le fitrua guo, lepo mi tovgoi teo ga nerbi, ibuo tu liacli tcedzo teo.
Le gudspi ga mutce stari, ice hue gei:
Ue tu no viadri lepo mu pa dzoru veu ne fitrua ji kasgoi ne cetlai. I ke tu ki mi pa liacli tcedzo lo fragu. I tao nu ckozu lepo ke tu ki mi salmou lo fragu, lu.
Ua! hue le hirtei.
Hue le stutaa:
Ro pernu ga falji krido lepo lo spicu ga kercli lo vapro, ibuo le bufpo je toa tradu. I lo spicu ga salmou lo bisli.
In what follows, the line in boldface is a portion of Alex's L translation. The second line, in italics, is a literal back-translation of the first line into E. The third line, in plainface, is a rewriting of the second line in more idiomatic E. This was always done without reference to the E source. We would have shown you the E source, itself a translation from the Norwegian--uu niba vi lentaa lo norga--but permission to do so did not arrive in time. Perhaps next time.
Ina ai mi stutaa tu.
And-now I intend that I story-talk-to you.
And now I am going to tell you a story.
The Ina suggests a continuation of something that had gone before, which is how the excerpt taken from the E text commenced. To express the E future tense, Alex had a choice between fa or fazi, both signs of a prediction, and ai, an expression of a strong intention to make the associated claim come true. Quite properly, we think, A chose ai, an attitudinal with prediction strongly implied.
Nao nepazu, ba mrenu, ice da no krido rapo lo gudspi ga dzabi.
(New-para) one-long-ago, something x was a man, and X (that man) disbelieved in all events of (the mass of) angels existing.
Once upon a time there was a man who did not believe that angels existed.
Notice that da replaces the last argument back, in this case ba. A (Alex) had to replace the non-designating variable ba with some permanent, local designator because the narrator will be talking about "that someone" for some time. Using da seems the best way to set this up in L. The editors of this column agree that using mei would also work here by anticipating the descriptive designator le mrenu; but we're not sure we want to recommend this "forward-looking" usage yet. So for the moment we're suggesting making the "da replaces ba" usage conventional in such contexts.
Moving on, the paragraph sign Nao introduces the story itself. One could rely on a long pause to indicate that this I-less continuation is a new para, or one can mark it as A has done. We agree that marking is preferable here. Also, notice that A has used rapo rather than lepo, the latter being too intentional in this context (Da no krido lepo lo gudspi ga dzabi??? = X did not believe in the particular case of the mass of angels existing that I, the speaker, have in mind???). We are still a bit hesitant in Loglandia about using the full logical power of our language, and so we tend to use either the lepo or the lopo allolex of LEPO on nearly all occasions. But sometimes it makes no sense to do so, and this is one of them. Also, oddly enough, ra- and not su- is the right quantifier here. If we want to know exactly what the second clause is claiming with rapo, we can "reverse" it by using a straightforward extension of the rule given on L1:375. Da no krido rapo lo gudspi ga dzabi then becomes No, da krido supo lo gudspi ga dzabi = It is not the case that X believes in (even) one case of (the mass of) angels existing If we had used supo as the allolex of LEPO, reversal would have yielded No, da krido rapo lo gudspi ga dzabi = It is not the case that X believes in all cases of angels existing. But this equally negative claim is too easily satisfied. If there is only one case in which X disbelieves--while believing in all others--the supo claim is true. That's why rapo is the correct choice here. It expresses what A believes the author of this story truly intends, namely that the character in the story be a total disbeliever in angels.
I, na ne denli na nepo da dzoru vi le trigru guo,
And during one day (and) while an event of X (the man) walking in the woods (tree-group) occurs (end-LEPO-clause),
One day while he was walking in the woods,
Notice that we must start this sentence with an I-word if it is to be part of the para initiated with Nao. Notice that A (with the help of the editors, soi crano) has used nepo rather than lepo in this LEPO-clause. We're making a conscious effort to tighten up the logic of our LEPO-usage in this column, encouraging our writers/translators to choose the most suitable allolex each time.
da nu vizgoi ne gudspi.
X is-visited-by one angel.
he was visited by an angel.
I hu he? hue le hirtei.
And who did what? said the listener.
Then what happened? asked the listener.
I hu he? is an interesting new usage, a neat loglaform version of Go on! or What happened next? The I makes it look like a continuation of the preceding paragraph, but since it is a speech by a new speaker, it starts a new paragraph. But it does interrupt the story, so ...
Le stutaa ga pracue li:
The story-teller continues (continue-says) (open-quote):
The story-teller continues:
We need this to restart the story. Hue le stutaa: won't do here because there are several paragraphs in the rest of the story, some of which are Hue-initiated speeches by the characters. (We do not have good rules for nesting Hue's yet. This piece would make an excellent text for studying the interactions within and between li...lu and hue quotations. Such a study might lead to better usages. Any ideas, Logli?)
Da ze gei kinci dzoru na ne corta ckemo.
X and jointly g (the angel) companionly walk during one short interval.
They walked together for a while.
Since this is I-less, it starts a new para. Notice that we are obliged, in L, to use a "joint anaphora" here, namely da ze gei. There isn't any shorter way of translating this set-designating instance of E They into L. A could have used the description Le tora (the pair) but would then have been obliged to use ga to protect it; so it wouldn't have been shorter after all! Also, Le tora would have introduced intentionality where we don't need it, and would therefore have been needlessly vague. Da ze gei is a precise and therefore loglaform way of designating this jointly-acting pair.
Ipa le mrenu pa fresea le gudspi, ice hue da:
And-later the man faced (front-put) the angel, and said X:
Then the man turned to the angel and said:
Ipa means that the events of the preceding sentence are earlier than the events of the current one. This takes some getting used to. For example, Ipa does not mean And-before-that as it did before 1994. It now means exactly the converse: And-after-that. To see why this change in interpretation was made, look at it this way. Ipa implies E1 pasko E2 (E1 is before E2), where E1 is the event claimed in the preceding sentence and E2 is the event to be claimed in the current one. This strangely counterintuitive meaning is true for both A+PA and I+PA words. For example, X, emou Y preda--the usage introduced in LN 93/4 that got all this started--means X, more than Y, predas; in strictly parallel fashion, X, epa Y preda means X, before Y, predas; and E1. Ipa E2 carries out this same pattern. [The mnemonic I use for Ipa is And-that-was-earlier-than.--JCB] As A says, "MacTeach ought to teach these new constructions!"
Moving on, A used le mrenu and le gudspi instead of da and gei, but he knows that's not good L. In composing or speaking L, we should anaphorize whenever we can; and we can, of course, continue using any anaphora we have begun. So Ipa da pa fresea gei would be better as L composition. But in translating from X to L, we want to capture the spirit of the X original...even if it means being longer-winded than we would have to be in L. So the editors feel that using the two descriptions here is good translation. Finally, I hue da: introduces a speech within the story.
Ua oa mi na tratoi supo be gudspi,
I'm satisfied that I ought now to admit that at least one event/state of something y being an angel (happens/holds),
I'm satisfied that I ought to admit now that some angels exist,
Two of the three editors liked A's use of Ua oa here (the third was not so sure). We could even make the compound UI-word Uaoa from of this phrase, and use it whenever a speaker wished to express satisfaction with an obligation, s's or someone else's. At the moment, LIP will not accept such UI+UI compounds, uu. This defect will eventually be repaired, but probably only as part of the general morphological upgrade of LIP's Preparser that our Takrultua, Bob McIvor, is now undertaking. What this will mean is that the new Preparser will be a better listener than the current one is, basing its "listening rules", not on the scanty phonetic information we provide it now, but on a much richer account of how we brana logli, soi crano, actually talk.
ibuo lo gudspi no ga fizdi dzabi lia lo humnu.
but the-mass-of angels doesn't physically exist in-the- manner-of the mass of humans.
but angels are not physically real like humans.
Another possibility would be to translate the original (which involved the man's directly addressing the angel) with a vocative: Hoi Tun, ja Gudspi, tu no ga fizdi dzabi... O You, who are an Angel, (you) are not physically real. But we decided against this as it doesn't capture the plurality of the mass of angels that the original hints at...not very clearly, it must be admitted, but the original E does hint that there is more than one angel!
Hu modvi toa? hue le gudspi.
What motivates that (utterance)? said the angel.
What do you mean by that? asked the angel.
The L translation doesn't literally say that the angel asked; the back-translation is simply said the angel. But this utterance was a question; and to "say a question" is to ask one. The L is more spartan than the E here, and gives this information indirectly. Also, by recent agreement among the purmao, toa (that) now refers to the preceding utterance; toi (this) to the one about to come. So toa is correct here.
Inumoi hue le mrenu ja dapli:
So-with-that-motive said the man, who-is replying:
So the man answered:
Na lepo mu pa godzi leva groda troku guo,
During the-event-of our in-the-past going-to that large rock (close clause),
When we went to that big rock,
Again, a new speaker deserves a new para. In the E original, the word we translated with pa godzi was came. This illustrates the "false friendship"--as one is warned so frequently in learning French--of some E words with foreign words to be learned, in this case of E come with L kamla. Kamla is frequently better translated with L godzi, and is in this case. The only difference between the L kamla/godzi pair is the order of their last two places: kamla means to come or go from X to Y; godzi, to come or go to X from Y. The difference between E come and go is more complex than that. Also, Inumoi is better here than Inusoa, as it was a motivational cause that led to X's answering, not a "logical one", i.e., not an entailment. Finally, we are taking the scope of hue le mrenu ja dapli to be the ensuing paragraph; but the conventions governing the scope of hue have not been nailed down yet.
lepo mi kovgoi tei ga nerbi lepo mi pragoi, ibuo mi viadri lepo tu smugoi tcegoi tei.
the-event-of my going-around (curve-going) it was necessary for the-event-of my proceeding, but I notice the-event-of you glidingly (smooth-goingly) pass-through (through-go) t (the rock).
I had to go around it in order to proceed, but I noticed that you glided right through it.
E had/have to has at least 3 senses that L keeps utterly distinct. One is the sense of the factually necessary condition; that is what's going on here, so A has used nerbi. Another is the sentiment of a speaker that someone, perhaps s, is morally obliged to do something; in L, we convey that sentiment with the attitudinal Oa. A third sense is actually knowing that someone is obliged to do something by some moral rule or principle; that objective claim is conveyed with the predicate funrui in L. So in the interests of "saying what they mean and meaning what they say", logli make distinctions that speakers of other languages do not make...at least not very often. Tei, of course, anaphorises le troku.
I, na lepo mu pa canspe leva grogro tristaga ji sticko le fitrua guo,
And, during the-event-of our chancing-on (chancing-to-experience) that huge (big-big) tree-trunk that obstructs (stop-causes) the footpath (close-clause),
And when we chanced upon that huge tree-trunk obstructing the path,
We made a new word, canspe = chance-experience for having a chance encounter with something.
lepo mi tovgoi teo ga nerbi, ibuo tu liacli tcedzo teo.
the-event-of my climbing-over (over-going) tau (the log) was necessary, but you straightly (line-like-ly) walk-through (through-walked) tau.
I needed to climb over it, but you walked straight through it.
We made tovgoi and tcedzo for the occasion. The metaphor liacli tcedzo ("line-like-ly through-walk") is interestingly Loglandian. (I wonder how it would sound if literally translated into Chinese? Would one of the brana jungi, or even the academic sinologists, reading this care to tell us? If so, please write this column with the answer.) Teo, Greek lowercase tau, is used to replace le tristaga since Latin tei is already assigned to le troku.
Le gudspi ga mutce stari, ice hue gei:
The angel is very startled, and says g (the angel):
The angel was very startled, and said:
That this sentence is I-less means that it is the start of a new paragraph and the end of the scope of the last hue. We used Le gudspi in the first clause because we're translating from the E, but we used gei in the next one to translate he.
Ue tu no viadri lepo mu pa dzoru veu ne fitrua ji kasgoi ne cetlai.
I'm-surprised-that you not notice (see-remember) the event of we walked via one footpath that crosses (across-goes) one marsh (wet-land).
I'm surprised you didn't notice that we walked along a footpath that crossed a marsh.
The original had Didn't you notice ... ? But A thought the question rhetorical, that is, not a question at all but an expression of surprise...almost a reproof. Ue plus the negative conveys all that. This insight led A to translate an interrogative sentence in E with a declarative one in L ...which is, of course, quite a legitimate thing to do if the translator believes that the writer's question is rhetorical. (Rhetorical questioning has never been very popular in Loglandia...possibly because we try not to say what we don't mean, soi crano.)
I ke tu ki mi pa liacli tcedzo lo fragu.
And both you and I straightly (line-like-ly) walked through (through-walked) the fog.
Both of us walked straight through the fog.
A subtle feature of this translation is that we did not use mu to translate E we/us. The reason is that mu "unwinds"--that is, must be interpreted--as mi ze tu, not mi, e tu; see L1:177. So mu treats the pair of walkers as a set whose members are acting jointly, not as a "multiple"of separate actors being "distributively" designated. So mu would be an incorrect choice of designators here. The angel's point is that each of the two walked independently through the fog. There was apparently no hand-holding, nothing by which the angel could be accused of having dragged the human through, thus sharing his magic. It is this independence of the two actors' actions, and therefore of the two claims the angel makes about them, that E Both so strongly suggests. So what is required of the L here is a designation of a "multiple" of individuals over which the claim can be distributed, not of a set about which a single claim could be made. Ke tu, ki mi captures this distributive sense of E both. Mi, e tu would also work, of course; but it doesn't emphasize the independence of the two performances...as the angel evidently wishes to. (See JCB's essay on "Sets and Multiples" in this issue for further discussion of this point.)
I tao nu ckozu lepo ke tu ki mi salmou lo fragu, lu.
(And) that (preceding) situation is caused by the state of both you and I being solid-more-than fog (close-quote).
That was caused by both of us being more solid than fog."
This lu harks back to the restart after the listener's first interruption and closes things off for his second. (This is awkward, imposing larger mnemonic loads on both speaker and auditor than good usage should. The Keugru would welcome proposals for better usages.) Again tao is the demonstrative of choice. Also, notice how the use of the suffix -mou turns the "absolute" adjective saldi/solid into a comparative.
Ua! hue le hirtei.
Ah!/I see!/Voila!/Done!/Finally!/I'm satisfied! said the listener.
Ah! said the listener.
The Ah! evidently comes from the listener. It is therefore an intrusion into the fabric of the story that again must be suitably marked. Hue le hirtei marks it.
Hue le stutaa:
Said the story-teller:
The story-teller resumed:
Hue le stutaa: makes it clear that the story is being resumed by the story-teller. The scope of this Hue-phrase will now carry on to the end of the selection.
Ro pernu ga falji krido lepo lo spicu ga kercli lo vapro,
Many people falsely believe that the-mass-of spirits is more air-like than vapor,
Many people falsely believe that spirits are more airy than vapor,
Notice that we don't need -mou here; -cli complexes are "naturally" comparative.
ibuo le bufpo je toa tradu.
but the opposite of that is true.
but the opposite is true.
The original E had On the contrary; this is a fairly elaborate way of rendering it. One could get by with the one-word translation Ibuo, but A evidently wants this angel to think like a brana logli, soi crano.
I lo spicu ga salmou lo bisli.
And the-mass-of spirit is more-solid-than (solid-more-than) the-mass-of ice.
Spirit is more solid than ice.
And with this we leave Alex's elegantly loglaform rendering of this modern Norwegian fairy-tale.
--APL/RAM/JJ/JCB
Copyright © 1995 by The Loglan Institute, Inc. All rights reserved.
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