The Rev. Charles L. Dodgson made important contributions to both Logic and Language. He died around a century before Lojban, a logical language, was developed–, so we’ll never know what he might have thought of (as the wikipedia defines it) “a constructed, syntactically unambiguous human language based on predicate logic.” Is language inherently logical, or can words mean what we choose them to mean? Does organic language have a sort of nonsense logic to it? How would Rev. Dodgson feel about a made-up language based on logic?
This website lojban.org describes its “effort to translate Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland into lojban” as “ongoing.” They’ve placed it in the public domain, and it is downloadable in a number of formats. We are told by Michael Everson of Evertype that it will be published in the near future. I would love to hear from one of the contributers how they approached the translation of the puns and wordplay.
It’s an elegant-looking language, if it does have that certain made-up look to it. Here’s the “Lobster Quadrille”:
e’o sutra doi cakcurnu i ko ti’a zgana ua paxajyfi’e noi jbitrixe gi’e me mi rebla stapai ui a’a ro le jukni e le respa ca se gansegi’e denpa mi le canre i pei do ba kansa dansui aipei naipei aipei naipei aipei do ba dansui aipei naipei aipei naipei naipei do ba dansui do ka’enai se xanri le nu pluka co mokauca le nu mi’o se renro fi le xamsi i’a aui dardukse i dardukse sei cy spuda tolselmansadoi merlanu ki’e ku’i i mi na ba kansa dansui ainai einai ainai einai ainai mi ba dansui ainai einai ainai einai einai mi ba dansui na selvai le ni darno sei le pendo ze’i fratii iasai lo drata korbi ca’a drata mlana zvatii le ni darno le glico cu ni jibni be la fransi ko carna doi cakcurnu i ei do ba kansa dansui aipei naipei aipei naipei aipei do ba dansui aipei naipei aipei naipei naipei do ba dansu
UPDATE: I just discovered a recording of the Lobster Quadrille in Esperanto, for comparison:
| Lewis Carroll – Esperanto – Lobster Quadrille .mp3 | ||
| Found at bee mp3 search engine |
