skanunydji

version 2001 of skadji:

lu skanunydji li'u tcita di'e .itu'e

le rozgu .a le zgike pe sekai
lery. kamxunre ba lunra pe'a

xarnu le nundunra ri'a .ia
do .e ledo darno logji

.icu'u tu'a do pe puku
ko fimi ca cusku fele bi'unai
tolylau valsi noi mi ke'a
pujeca .iecai nake natfe

mu'inai rolei jitfyjarco

tu'u

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It is hard to see how a person can be the negation of a word (mi natfe le valsi). In spite of the English keyword, natfe does not mean "deny". The x1 and x2 of natfe are two contradictory propositions, like "it is raining" and "it is not raining". For "person x1 denies that x2 is true" I suggest tolxusra. --xorxes

• The gimste suggests nafxu'a or nalselxu'a for agentive denial.
  • nalselxu'a means 'x1 is a non-assertion by x2', that doesn't sound like agentive denial. nafxu'a, 'x1 asserts the negative of x2' works, but it sounds more roundabout than tolxu'a.
  • .i ie To me nafxu'a sounds like asserting something contradictory, while tolxu'a means to deny without necessarily offering an alternative. nalselxu'a doesn't sound like agentive denial to me either.

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This seemed to me interesting enough to deserve a verse translation. The following is not a literal translation, but a poetic interpretation.

This rose, or the music sharing its
rose-red, will like the moon resist
our winter, due (I so believe)
to you and your distant logic.

Together with the you of old,
say to me again the same
soft words which then as now,
yes now, I don't deny--

despite all evidence.

Nuances:

• line 1. "The rose" would be a mistranslation, because it suggests roses in general, while le is specific.
  • No it is not. There is no marking of specificity or indeed anything but veridiciality in lojban articles.
    • .i ienai The Book chapter 6 example 2.1 "le zarci/one-or-more-specific-things-each-of-which-I-describe-as being-a-market", and "it indicates that the speaker has one or more specific markets in mind".
• line 8. .iecai attaches to ca only. pujeca ku .iecai would attach it to the entire tense phrase.
• line 8. na ke natfe is odd; ke is redundant.
• line 8. I translate the intended meaning of natfe.
  • Emending ke to jai might fix both problems without disturbing things.
• line 9. Shouldn't ro lei be piro lei?
• line 10. jitfyjarco is a chunky word which "evidence" doesn't match.

mi'e jezrax