History: Elvish rosetta stone

Source of version: 4 (current)

Why is this on the lojban wiki? -Robin, The Management ''Because a Lojban translation is included - IMHO demonstrating the particularity of Lojban, which I thought would be quite obvious to anybody here, sorry :('' ''The headline is misleading. Maybe, I should express my thoughts a bit: Almost all these various - and pretty different - languages express that silly little sentence about the same way. In almost each language the text's contents is ambiguous: except for Lojban - and (maybe) Irish and Welsh. Does anybody know other languages solving the problem in a way comparable to that of Lojban?'' !Elvish Rosetta Stone (Sindarin) __I edhel vrand b�d i lam in ngiliath__ (Quenya) __i arelda quet� i lambe elenion__ (Old Sindarin) __i edelo artha pet i lambe elenio__ (Telerin) __i ella ar�ta pet i lambe elnio__ (N�men�rian) __Nimirun ubith Nimriy� �nGimil__ (Japanese) __kedakai erufu wa hoshi no kokugo o hanasu.__ (Hebrew) __Ha-Elf ha'atzil medab�r eth l'shon/s'fat hakochavim__ (plz correct!) (Romanian) __Elful nobil vorbeste limba stelelor.__ (Italian) __L'elfo nobile parla la lingua delle stelle.__ (French) __L'elf noble parle la langue des �toiles.__ (Yiddish) __Der adldiker elb redt di loshn fun di shtern.__ [http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de/temp/elbyid.gif] (Lojban) __lo'e la .elv. nobli cu tarbau se bangu__ *__lo'e nobli cridrxelfa cu se bangu le tarbau__ (see below) *__tarci bangu lo cridrxelfa nobli__ (Hungarian) __A nemes Elf besz�li a csillagok nyelv�t.__ (German) __Der edle Elb spricht die Sprache der Sterne.__ (Mandarin/Putonghua) __gui4zu2 jing1ling2 shuo1 xing1xing de yu3.__ (Gaeilge) __T� teanga na r�altarna� ag an s�oga� uasal__ (Cymraeg) __Mae iaith y s�r gyda/ganddo 'r ellyl bonheddig.__ (Kiswahili) __Kijini kisharifu kisema msemo ya manyota.__ (Spanish) __El noble elfo habla la lengua de las estrellas.__ (Merentr�l) __Atar�nalot elom sedanet laivenin sededirt.__ (po-russki) __Blagorodnij elf govorit na jazyke zvjozd.__ (ukrajinskoju movoju) __Blagorodnij elf rozmovliae movoju zirok__ (plz correct) (po polsku) __Elf szlachetny mówi językiem gwiazd.__ (Talinor) __Talinor cerd leir talinor elond�l.__ ''to be continued...'' (corrections welcome!) ---- (''la elv'' is someone named Elf, not 'an elf'.) - ''Yes, but its'' lo'e la .elv. nobli '';-) Can we talk about real existing elves?'' *''lo'e la elv nobli'' is "Elf's noble ones", "the noble ones of Elf" *IMHO it's something along the lines of ''lo'e la mertsedes. karce'' which is nothing else than "the typical car named Mercedes" and lit. can mean any car called by this name and not necessarily the "one" - yet, with the _lo'e_ added, there doesn't remain any doubt what is pointed to. **''lo'e la mertsedes karce'' is by definition equivalent to ''lo'e karce pe la mertsedes''. "mertsedes" here is not the name of the cars but the name of the thing/person that the cars are associated with, in this case it could be the company that makes the cars. --mi'e ((xorxes)) **You're right: the cars are actually related to somebody called Mercedes, namely the daughter of Mr. Benz :), so the car's full name is Mercedes Benz. So ''la .elv. nobli'' is a noble/are nobles related to somebody/something called Elf. (What I wanted to point out: discussions like these "only make sense" with Lojban renderings and hardly with any of the other language examples.) What with dropping the _la_ -> lo'e .elv. nobli cu tarbau se bangu? ***The other languages don't use "Elf" as a proper name either, they all use it as a common name. ''lo'e elv nobli'' is not grammatical, because cmene can't be mixed with brivla to form tanru. We need a predicate for "x1 is an elf", which could be ''cridrxelfa'' or even plain ''elfa''. ****Oh yes, of course! Also, _cridrxelfa_ is exactly the correct fu'ivla - and in my ears sounding horrible :( My idea of the above phrase is: the typical noble related to smth/smb (i.e. the people invented by JRRT) tagged with the name of "elves". Although from Lojban's logical point of view not necessary, I also want to handle the fictionality of these creatures by using a construction with cmene instead of fu'ivla; the gismu _crida_, on the other side, seems to unspecific (cf. the difference elfes/elves!). There are many, many ways to express the idea in Lojban, so anybody is invited to give it a try :) BTW, most of the other languages are using simple borrowings - which, due to the specific creation, is totally correct (cf. German "Elb(en)" in contrast to the German word _Elf(en)_). The Chinese term "jing1ling2" doesn't really designate Tolkien's creatures rather than something covered by lb _crida_.