C.S. Lewis and various ways of saying "I am your father" was Re: Martian conlangs?

On Thursday 06 March 2003 10:30 pm, Joseph Fatula wrote:
> I'd bet that C. S. Lewis would have fit in quite nicely
> here, not only was he interested in conlanging and conculturing, I think he
> was also a synaesthete.
        I also think he would have fit in nicely; I imagine that he would be
something like an Anglican John Cowan. :)
        ObDutch:  I was testing a translation engine
(http://www.tranexp.com:2000/InterTran) and noticed much to my delight that
in addition to Croatian, Danish, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Welsh, and many
more, it listed Dutch as one of the options. "Ah, ha!" said I. "Let's see how
it survives the Babelfish test." (English -> Dutch -> English)
        I rather like the results, myself. "Sombre silk" is definitely a new one. It
does seem to have problems with pronouns, however.

- Whenever you only knew the power with the sombre silk. Obi Winnow not ever
told you who taken place until your sire.
- He told my enough! He told my you killed him.
- Not. My have been your sire.

        The English -> Russian -> English version is a mish-mash; one line did catch
my eye: "Я быть ваш отец" (I guess it tried translating it word-for-word)
comes out as "I am your begetter." That, and "He narrate me adequate!"

        This all reminds me of the time I showed my wife "Monty Python and the Holy
Grail." She didn't really find it funny, until she watched the Japanese
translation on the DVD (the French taunter scene). I think she found the
Japanese funnier than the English subtitles. All very...surreal.
        :Peter

--
Oh what a tangled web they weave who try a new word to conceive!

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