Re: Lilipu: The Bonsai Language
| From: | Adam Walker <carrajena@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Thursday, January 1, 2004, 0:49 |
|---|
--- J Y S Czhang <czhang23@...> wrote:
> In a message dated 2003:12:31 01:37:13 AM,
> vmed@HOTMAIL.COM writes:
>
> >On Tue, 30 Dec 2003 08:48:02 -0800, Gary Shannon
> <fiziwig@...> wrote:
>
> > [. . . ] I was translating the
> >>Tao Te Ching into my newest conlang last night as
> test
> >>of some grammatical principles. :)
> >
> >Indeed. The _Tao Te Ching_ is a good testbed for
> conlang translations...
> >I have done it for my other conlangs, Vling and
> Trangzhik.
>
> Arguably it has more of a wider _contrastive_
> semantic range than the
> Babel Text. And nicer imagery to boot...
> AND It is also way easier to deal with on a
> cultural level for those of
> us not exactly (or entirely) fond of either
> highly-charged populistic,
> monotheistic religions or
> highly-loaded/over-freighted
> Eurocentric/Judeo-Christian
> symbolism/(Pop) cultural iconism ["Jah versus
> Baby-lon 'n' Mam-mon, mon..."]
> ;)
>
And less easy for those who aren't into Oriental
witchcraft. Any text can be looked at in a negative
light if one tries hard enough. Any text chosen will
be objectionable to someone. What's that quote from
Ben Franklin that someone has in their sig file?
I have waivered a bit on how I feel about having the
"Babel text" as the "standard" translation exercise
since it is a text I hold to be sacred and some of the
translations clearly do not accord it the reverence I
think it due. But as I said above EVERY text will be
objectionable to some one on some level so I leave it
be.
If someone offered an interesting, short and simple
text from the Dao De Jing I'd attempt the translation.
Likewise a text from other scriptues of other faiths.
After all my culture is set on earth. Eventually,
I'm sure the Dao De Jing would be translated into C-a
by someone. Likewise the Qur'an (though translations
of the Qur'an are not considered useful as scripture
only as aids) or Bhagavad Gita or the Communist
Manifesto or any number of texts espousing lifestyles
with which I have no truck.
The Bable text just happens to be about the origin and
multiplication of languages and seems uniquely
appropriate to what we do here. It certainly suits me
better than seeing The Lord's Prayer profaned.
Adam
PS I really should get around to translating The North
Wind and the Sun after Christmas.
> "For twenty-five centuries, Western knowledge
> has tried to look upon the
> world. It has failed to understand that the world is
> not for the beholding. It
> is for the hearing. It is not legible, but audible."
> - Jacques Attali,
> _Noise: The Political Economy of Music_
>
> --- º°`°º ø,¸¸,ø º°`°º ø,¸¸,ø º°`°º ø,¸¸,ø º°`°º
> º°`°º ø,¸~->
>
> Hanuman Zhang, Sloth-Style Gungfu Typist
> "the sloth is a chinese poet upsidedown" --- Jack
> Kerouac {1922-69}
>
> "Chance is the inner rhythm of the world, and the
> soul of poetry." - Miguel
> de Unamuno
>
> "X Natale ti regalo uno sguardo sul mondo... ti
> regalo..."
>
> "One thing foreigners, computers, and poets have
> in common
> is that they make unexpected linguistic
> associations." --- Jasia Reichardt
>
> "There is no reason for the poet to be limited
> to words, and in fact the
> poet is most poetic when inventing languages. Hence
> the concept of the poet as
> 'language designer'." --- O. B. Hardison, Jr.
>
> "La poésie date d' aujour d'hui." (Poetry dates
> from today)
> "La poésie est en jeu." (Poetry is in
> play)
> --- Blaise Cendrars
>
> = ¡gw'araa legooset caacaa!
> ¡reez'arvaa. saalvaa. reecue. scoopaa-goomee en
> reezijcloo! =
>
> [Fight Linguistic Waste!
> Save, Salvage, Recover, Scavenge and Recycle!]
>
>
>
>
> --- *DiDJiBuNgA!!* >Teenage Aboriginal Walkabout
> Turtles....---
>
> Hanuman "Stitch" Zhang, ManglaLanger (mangle + manga
> + lang)
>
http://www.boheme-magazine.net
>
> Language[s] change[s]: vowels shift,
> phonologies crash-&-burn, grammars
> leak, morpho-syntactics implode, lexico-semantics
> mutate, lexicons explode,
> orthographies reform, typographies blip-&-beep,
> slang flashes, stylistics
> warp... linguistic (R)evolutions mark each-&-every
> quantum leap...
> languages are "naturally evolved wild systems...
> So language does not impose order on a chaotic
> universe,
> but reflects its own wildness back." - Gary Snyder
>
> "Some Languages Are Crushed to Powder but Rise Again
> as New Ones" -
> title of a chapter on pidgins and creoles, John
> McWhorter,
> _The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language_
>
> = ¡gw'araa legooset caacaa!
> ¡reez'arvaa. saalvaa. reecue. scoopaa-goomee en
> reezijcloo! =
>
> [Fight Linguistic Waste!
> Save, Salvage, Recover, Scavenge and Recycle!]