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Using "culture-specific" words in Esperanto.

de rajomishoro, 2012-februaro-01

Mesaĝoj: 10

Lingvo: English

rajomishoro (Montri la profilon) 2012-februaro-01 02:11:13

Saluton "Lernu"!
I am proud to be a "Lerntano"!

Saluton Amikoj!
Respected friends,
Although Esperanto is a "culture-neutral" language; It was created to give everybody a similar advantage or disadvantage for that matter.
My question is how to express those ideas that are culture-specific.
Let me elaborate it;
*English has adopted the transliterated version of Sanskrit words 'Nirvana', 'Mantra', 'Avtar', 'Brahman','Karma' e.t.c.
*'Harakiri','Zen'........from Japanies.
*Mandarian and ksatrap from Persian

The list is endless; English is a distilary of many language-English welcomes those "culture-specific" foreign words for which there is no exact English expression owing to the fact that language is the vehicle of culture.

Does Esperanto/Esperantist have such a freedom?

Regards,
Raj.

sudanglo (Montri la profilon) 2012-februaro-01 11:00:29

The short answer is that Esperanto either creates a compound from existing elements, or where that is not possible, simply creates a new root by borrowing from the source language - for example, 'harakiri', kamikaza.

Unfortunately the adoption of 'harakiri' has led to a number of spectacular suicides among bald Esperantists, who got confused in the parsing of the word.

darkweasel (Montri la profilon) 2012-februaro-01 13:26:59

sudanglo:
Unfortunately the adoption of 'harakiri' has lead to a number of spectacular suicides among bald Esperantists, who got confused in the parsing of the word.
rido.gif rido.gif rido.gif

EldanarLambetur (Montri la profilon) 2012-februaro-01 14:16:14

sudanglo:Unfortunately the adoption of 'harakiri' has lead to a number of spectacular suicides among bald Esperantists, who got confused in the parsing of the word.
Brilliant ridulo.gif

sudanglo (Montri la profilon) 2012-februaro-01 16:26:34

Thank you fans, but please, the past participle of 'lead' (konduki) is 'led'

Tut! Tut!

robbkvasnak (Montri la profilon) 2012-februaro-01 20:18:50

Esperantists generally try to describe the cultural phenomena using the Esperanto vocabulary that exists already. But sometimes, we use the words from the other language as a root.
The coolest thing about Esperanto is that you as an Esperantist are free to use whatever words you want. If the other speakers accept your word, then it is in. If not, it is out.
I have a whole list of words that I (and my local group) can't find in dictionaries - mostly concerning things here in South Florida. That is one of our subjects when we meet. We look for solutions. For example, we often eat tacos here but this word is not in any dictionary - so we just say "tako".

erinja (Montri la profilon) 2012-februaro-01 20:34:35

There are definitely loan words, particular for very specific items like food and clothing. No problem.

There's usually both a loanword and a descriptive version, so you can explain the loanword using the description, then after that, just use the loanword.

TatuLe (Montri la profilon) 2012-februaro-01 22:39:00

There was a thread in the Finnish language forum about sauna terminology, where the proposed loan word lojlo (from Finnish "löyly") was discussed. I think it's a good example of a word that might be too culture-specific to be quickly understood outside of Finland. I myself would probably use "saŭnovaporo" or a similar compound instead.

I just realised that, even though I've lived in Sweden almost my entire life, I've never gotten into a situation where I needed to discuss saunas in detail in another language than Finnish.

erinja (Montri la profilon) 2012-februaro-01 22:48:35

What's the difference between this "sauna vapour" and plain old steam?

Because if it were me, I'd call it vaporo.

TatuLe (Montri la profilon) 2012-februaro-02 13:17:27

Löyly is specifically the steam that heats the sauna ( → varmiga vaporo?), which comes from water that you throw on heated rocks (but the word can also denote the sauna heat itself, the water that is thrown on rocks, or the action of throwing water on heated rocks).

I guess the distinction between this and all other kinds of vapour is less important in other languages, so I agree that simply "vaporo" would be fine, in the right context.

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