Hello all.

I'm trying to get my hands on page scans of an old booklet in German called "Die Liebe und die Bekehrung." Previous attempts at acquiring scans have failed. Poor quality incomplete scans exist on Wikimedia Commons (the book is in public domain) and I'm trying to rectify that. One of the few places on earth that has a copy is the "Berlin State Library – Prussian Cultural Heritage."

I don't speak German so, I have no way of asking this question (without untrustworthy Google translate) on the German language forum.

My Esperanto is rudimentary and I'm not sure I have it phrased 100% correct either.

Right now in Esperanto I have:

Mi klopodi al akiri cifereca bildon da germana lingvon libreto "Die Liebe und die Bekehrung" nur disponebla al la "Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin - Preussischer Kulturbesitz." La lebron cifereca por "Wikimedia Commons." La hodiaŭa cifereca havi manki paĝoj. Plaĉi asistado?

(I can't escape the feeling I've made some laughable mistake.)

Full Bibliographic Data:

Title / titoli: Die Liebe und die Bekehrung : ein sehr ernstes Wort zu sehr ernster Zeit

Author / verkinto: Isaac Lichtenstein

Publisher / eldonisto: Budapest : Hornyánszky, 1886.

Pages / paĝoj: 37?

OCLC: 251487340

In any event can someone help me? Especially someone who might be able to re-post the essence of my question on the German language board.

Dankon!

UPDATE: I should note that, the only place in the US (where I happen to live) that has a copy is Harvard. But there copy is non-circulating microfilm. I've made Inter-Library Loan (ILL) requests but they've been denied as a result of the non-circulating status of the work in their library.

Maybe you could find a Boston Esperantist willing to go to the Harvard library and print a copy of the microfilm, and either mail it to you or scan it for you.

I’ve just posted it to the German-language forum. Even though it is not very active, maybe somebody there knows something...

Some notes on your Esperanto, since the purpose of this site is learning; you're right, your Esperanto text is pretty mangled. But I can see that you put a lot of work into it. Just for the purpose of learning the language, you might want to fix up your message so that it's grammatically correct.

- Remember that the -i ending is the infinitive form of the verb, in other words "to ....". It's the dictionary form of the word but it doesn't show tense. Every text needs verb tenses for it to make sense; -as for present, -is for past, -os for future.

Try to translate a bit less word for word, and translate more meaning.

So if you write "Mi klopodi al akiri", that translates as "I to try to to acquire"

It should be "Mi klopodas akiri..." (I am trying to acquire..."

"da" is used only for quantities; a pound of flour, four pieces of pie, etc. You want "de" for a simple identity or possession, "a picture of something", etc.

Something has missing pages - "mankas al ĝi paĝoj", or "mankas en ĝi paĝoj", or simple "paĝoj mankas en ĝi"

manki = to be missing, not to be present

al = to (in the sense of direction of movement). If something, however is AT a place, we don't use "al" for that. That would be "ĉe".

A book in Esperanto is AT a library (ĉe biblioteko), not TO a library.

I've just asked on the German subforum of bookcrossing and will inform you in case they can help you or have any other ideas what you could try to get it.

May I ask out of curiosity why you want that book?

erinja:Something has missing pages - "mankas al ĝi paĝoj", or "mankas en ĝi paĝoj", or simple "paĝoj mankas en ĝi"

manki = to be missing, not to be present

Does it make sense to say "...havas mankon de paĝoj"? That is how I autocorrected that phrase in my head. Good style, bad style, or nonsense?

5KFunRun:Does it make sense to say "...havas mankon de paĝoj"? That is how I autocorrected that phrase in my head. Good style, bad style, or nonsense?

It's not wrong but people don't really say it as "havas mankon de ...". The standard expression is usually "Mankas ..."

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Long explanation of thought process that some people might want to skip:

Until writing this message, I never really thought of this issue in this way before. Some people have expressed opinions in this forum that by encouraging beginners to use a standard form, you are quashing their creativity. I always felt that when a relatively standard form exists, and you don't tell a beginner so, you are doing them a disservice, but I wasn't able to put my finger on an exact reason.

But I guess that my belief is that when you use an unusual form, and an experienced speaker reads the text, in some cases there can be uncertainty and doubt about the meaning. The reader wants to know, "Why isn't the writer using the standard, boilerplate expression?" There are two possible answers.

One - the writer is saying a very usual thing, simply in an unusual way (for whatever reason - there are many).

Two - the writer wishes to get across a very specific meaning or specific nuance that isn't conveyed by the boilerplate expression, therefore they are using an unusual construction to draw extra attention to this text and get this meaning or nuance across (even if this "nuance" is in fact intentional vagueness).

This duality comes into my mind for an expression like "havas mankon de paĝoj". For me, totally standard, if there are pages missing from a book, or cards missing from a dek I would absolutely say something as "Mankas kartoj" (understood that only some cards are missing, though technically this expression could mean that there are no cards whatsoever). "Havas mankon de paĝoj" implies to me that we are using an unusual construction to tell the reader something special - perhaps that there are no pages whatsoever in the scanned file.

Certainly it would be possible to add words to be clear either way. "Mankas kelkaj paĝoj" or even "Havas mankon de kelkaj paĝoj" would tell the reader, without question, that only some pages are missing, not all. "Mankas la paĝoj" or "Havas kompletan mankon de paĝoj" would tell the reader clearly that all of the pages are missing. It's in the more brief expression that we get some grey area and uncertainty.

This answer was far too long for your question, but no one ever accused me of being overly concise.

Well thank all of you for the help with my request and also for help correcting my rudimentary Esperanto. Even if I don't get the page scans I've learned how to better express myself in Esperanto.

Dankon!