History: Hokahe! - Le anpetu kin mat'e kin waste ktelo!

Source of version: 10 (current)

The Lakota term _hoka he_ is an interjection usually meaning "welcome!". In a historical context, it's been used as a battle cry - later(?) romantically paraphrased in English as "Today's a good day to die!" On demand, we have tried to render the English phrase in Lakota; one of our choices (close to a Native speaker's version) came out as: Le anpetu kin mat'e kin waste ktelo! this day - I die - it will be good - man's statement Here are at least some of the possibilities to render the phrase in Lojban: lenu mi cabdei mrobi'o cu xamgu le cabdei cu djedi co xamgu fi lenu mi mrobi'o le cabdei cu djedi co xamgu mi lenu mrobi'o le cabdei cu xamgu be mi bei lenu mrobi'o kei djedi le cabdei cu xamgu be lenu mi mrobi'o kei djedi le ca/vi djedi cu xamgu mi lenu mrobi'o ti xamgu befi lenu mi mrobi'o be'o djedi ti djedi co xamgu mi lenu mrobi'o ti djedi co xamgu fi lenu mi mrobi'o ti nu mi mrobi'o kei xamgu djedi Hopefully, the Lojban examples are grammatical. Do you have other versions in Lojban for my inspiration? -- ((.aulun.)) pc: You might want to add a marker for "man statement" -- not a category that Lojban recognizes, but probably something like "usually reliable source" (which is also not quite in Lojban) or a related evidential. Or this may be a kind of machismo boast, closer to {ei} or {e'u}. ((.aulun.)): No, this is not my task (in Lakota, male or female speech is quite natural and there's no need to give it in translation). It's the different ways to - maybe - express the idea of this battle cry's very meaning in Lojban (we actually do not know exactly how this could be done and understood in Dakota - which doesn't seem to be as elaborated/differentiated as Lojban with regard to its quality of being unambiguous). (The _hoka he!_ interjection (welcome!) is not given adequately with lojban fi'i COI hospitality vocative: hospitality; you are welcome/ make yourself at home, because, contextually, there could be added _a'a_, _a'i_, _ai_, _bu'o_, _e'o_, _e'unai_, _ei_, _i'e_, _i'i_, _ie_, _io_, _iunai_, _le'o_, _o'a_, _vu'e_, and maybe still more). Another approach was using a copula _and so_ (c*a) which - alas! - doesn't really differentiate causation, motivation etc. so the construction in Lakota is ambiguous: Le anpetu kin waste ca mat'in ktelo (this day - it is good - and so I'll die) Le anpetu kin mat'in kta ca waste (this day - I'll die - and so it is good) "It's a good day today, so I die/will die" -> the (day's) quality of goodness *causes* me to die (causation!) -> the (day's) quality of goodness gives me the idea of dying (motivation) etc. Any ideas (from the Lojban point of view)? ------ ((xorxes)): *For the battlecry, maybe __fi'i le'o nunmro__ "Welcome (aggressive) O death!" *For the English version, maybe something with zabna: __le cabdei cu zabna le ka ca ce'u mrobi'o__ "Today is favourable in the property of when to die". ((.aulun.)): Thanks, I like it! Yet, as for the __hoka he__, it should remain a pure interjection, so I'd prefer plain __fi'ile'o__ The translation of the English version seems ambiguous also in Lojban :( because of the __ce'u__, shouldn't it rather be _mi_ (for me/us)? - Of course, the somewhat complete notion seems to be: We gonna defeat you (and so it's a good day for you to die!), yet, if necessary, we're also prepared to accept death for us (and in this case, there will be no better day than this). So, maybe _ce'u_ is more appropriate. Maybe, the __ca__ can be dropped. ((xorxes)): Notice that {ce'u} is the argument tagged by {ca}, it is not the first argument of {mrobi'o}. I could have also written {le ka mrobi'o ca ce'u}. The property of being the time when dying occurs. "Today" has that property in favourable terms. I suppose {ca ce'u} can be dropped as understood: __le cabdei cu zabna le ka mrobi'o__. ((.aulun.)): Thanks, _ce'u_ is one of my weak points :( I agree that because of x1 being _cabdei_, the time-focus __ca ce'u__ in the property abstraction is not absolutely necessary.