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Series on Language on BBC TV

de sudanglo, 2011-septembro-26

Mesaĝoj: 59

Lingvo: English

darkweasel (Montri la profilon) 2011-septembro-26 17:09:08

targanook:
razlem:How does one say "I am thirsty" in Esperanto?
Mi estas soifanta, mi havas soifon.
Or just mi soifas.

razlem (Montri la profilon) 2011-septembro-26 17:16:10

See, this is something I don't understand. One can revel in the amount of expression with so many forms in Esperanto, yet I constantly hear from learners of English that there are too many ways to express one concept. Does anyone know which term Zamenhof preferred, or which one came first?

darkweasel (Montri la profilon) 2011-septembro-26 17:38:03

razlem:Does anyone know which term Zamenhof preferred, or which one came first?
In the Fundamento, SOIF/ is translated as a verb at least to French and German (English-language "thirst" is ambiguous and I don’t know Polish or Russian).

razlem (Montri la profilon) 2011-septembro-26 18:47:03

The Russian is a verb. So it's safe to assume (because 3 of the 5 translated languages are verbs) that "soif" is an inherent verb, so "mi soifas" would be the most correct term. Am I mistaken?

erinja (Montri la profilon) 2011-septembro-26 19:16:01

I say "mi soifas". It works like the hunger verb, malsati ("to be hungry"; it's "sati", "to be full/satiated", with a mal- prefix). Mi satas = I'm full/satiated; Mi malsatas = I'm hungry.

The Esperanto definition for "soifi" is "senti bezonon trinki", so "Mi soifas" works perfectly.

However, Esperanto is a very flexible language. I see "Mi soifas" as the preferable form, but there's nothing stopping anyone from saying "Mi havas soifon". It's not wrong, it's just unusual. This is one of Esperanto's advantages. If you don't know the usual idiom for something, you just say a grammatical construction that makes sense, and that's fine too.

"Mi estas soifanta" is grammatically correct but unnecessarily long and wordy. Nothing technically wrong with it, though.

Chainy (Montri la profilon) 2011-septembro-26 19:49:54

razlem:The Russian is a verb. So it's safe to assume (because 3 of the 5 translated languages are verbs) that "soif" is an inherent verb
Four are certainly verbs, so it's safe to assume that 'thirst' is intended as such, too.

1. avoir soif
2. thirst
3. dursten
4. pragnąć, doznawać pragnienia
5. жаждать

- The Russian translation only really fits the figurative sense of 'soifi', as in 'to thirst for' in the sense of 'to long for, crave, yearn etc'.

Leke (Montri la profilon) 2011-septembro-26 20:57:52

sudanglo:Last night saw the screening of the first programme in a series on language, presented by one of our most articulate TV presenters, Mr. Stephen Fry.
What was it called? I'll have to run a torrent search okulumo.gif

razlem (Montri la profilon) 2011-septembro-26 22:03:37

erinja:I say "mi soifas". It works like the hunger verb, malsati ("to be hungry"; it's "sati", "to be full/satiated", with a mal- prefix). Mi satas = I'm full/satiated; Mi malsatas = I'm hungry.

The Esperanto definition for "soifi" is "senti bezonon trinki", so "Mi soifas" works perfectly.

However, Esperanto is a very flexible language. I see "Mi soifas" as the preferable form, but there's nothing stopping anyone from saying "Mi havas soifon". It's not wrong, it's just unusual. This is one of Esperanto's advantages. If you don't know the usual idiom for something, you just say a grammatical construction that makes sense, and that's fine too.

"Mi estas soifanta" is grammatically correct but unnecessarily long and wordy. Nothing technically wrong with it, though.
Interesting Zamenhof would use "satiated" for hunger and "thirst" for thirst rather than "hunger" or "hydrated" respectively.

It just seems like a lot to remember just to recognize one concept. :/

mjdh1957 (Montri la profilon) 2011-septembro-26 22:30:22

Leke:
sudanglo:Last night saw the screening of the first programme in a series on language, presented by one of our most articulate TV presenters, Mr. Stephen Fry.
What was it called? I'll have to run a torrent search okulumo.gif
The programme was called Planet Word.

sudanglo (Montri la profilon) 2011-septembro-27 10:58:01

Care to elaborate a bit on this? From what I've just read, it seems like you're saying any language that differs from English has no virtue.
Not at all Razlem.

I'm just saying that it may be quite charming that different languages have different ways (structural methods) of expressing certain ideas, as illustrated by my example with French and English - and we could add 'Mi soifas' from Esperanto. (Though as Erinja points out you are not necessarily tied to a set formula in Esperanto.)

But such differences between languages, which some of a linguistic bent find gushingly so wonderful, do not in themselves add expressive power.

It seems to me that what is really important about any language is not so much the specific 'how', but what you can say in that language - that perhaps you can't in some other language. Therein lies the value.

I may be wrong, but I get the impression that some language enthusiasts, who might argue for the preservation of the current Babel situation, are just in love with diversity for diversity's sake, rather than because of some significant consequence of that diversity.

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