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Dystopia & dystopian in Esperanto

de anarchtea, 2012-februaro-10

Mesaĝoj: 43

Lingvo: English

anarchtea (Montri la profilon) 2012-februaro-10 13:18:19

Hello all,

I'm still on the basic courses, so hope this is the best place to ask my question without splashing my mistakes all over the Esperanto boards.

I was looking for a way to say 'dystopian', in answer to a question about my hobbies (I enjoy such literature), and the Lernu dictionary came up with nothing.

It did say that 'utopia' is 'utopio'; so, using what relatively little I know so far, would 'dystopia' be 'malutopio'? And therefore 'dystopian' be 'malutopisto'?

Many thanks!
A.

egidio (Montri la profilon) 2012-februaro-10 13:51:35

I guess I'll take a shot until someone more appropriate shows up.

A 'malutopio' is a dystopia. So dystopian would be 'malutopia'. 'Malutopisto' would be a person who is occupied with dystopias, either as a profession or a hobby.

pdenisowski (Montri la profilon) 2012-februaro-10 13:54:00

anarchtea:Hello all,

I'm still on the basic courses, so hope this is the best place to ask my question without splashing my mistakes all over the Esperanto boards.

I was looking for a way to say 'dystopian', in answer to a question about my hobbies (I enjoy such literature), and the Lernu dictionary came up with nothing.

It did say that 'utopia' is 'utopio'; so, using what relatively little I know so far, would 'dystopia' be 'malutopio'? And therefore 'dystopian' be 'malutopisto'?

Many thanks!
A.
I would go with "malutopio". In fact, Wikipedia has an article (not written by me) in Esperanto for "Malutopio"

http://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malutopio

That one wasn't in ESPDIC but it is now ridulo.gif

A person who is a dystopian would probably be a malutopiulo not an malutopiisto since -isto usually implies a profession. ESPDIC has :

utopia : utopian
Utopio : Utopia
utopiulo : Utopian

Hope that helps,

Paul

sudanglo (Montri la profilon) 2012-februaro-10 14:00:59

Under rule 15, international words can be imported into Esperanto.

Dystopia seems to have a similar form in most of the European languages.

The obvious Esperanto form would be distopio.

From that you can generate distopi-ano, distopi-ulo, and distopi-isto.

Just choose the one that best expresses the nuance you desire.

Is a distopio really the malo of an utopio? If so, you could use malutopio. I suspect that distopio would be understood quicker.

darkweasel (Montri la profilon) 2012-februaro-10 14:32:52

egidio:'Malutopisto' would be a person who is occupied with dystopias, either as a profession or a hobby.
malutopIIsto

pdenisowski (Montri la profilon) 2012-februaro-10 15:58:02

sudanglo:Under rule 15, international words can be imported into Esperanto.

Dystopia seems to have a similar form in most of the European languages.

The obvious Esperanto form would be distopio.

Is a distopio really the malo of an utopio? If so, you could use malutopio. I suspect that distopio would be understood quicker.
I doubt many English-speakers would know what a "dystopia" is, whereas most recognize the word "utopia".

I would be careful about using "distopio" for "dystopia" -- dystopia also is a medical term that means faulty or incorrect placement of an organ or structure.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/medical/dystopia

I also wouldn't say that this word is common across all or most European languages.

For example, the German cognate Dystopie is only used in this (medical) sense. The German for "dystopia" in the non-medical sense is "Schreckenswelt".

In Russian and Polish the word is Антиуто́пия and antyutopia, respectively, in which the concept is expressed with the prefix "anti-" and not "dis-" (they're not equivalent).

Malutopio is unambiguous (and also yields three times as many hits as "distopio" on Google). Note that I also have seen across "kontraŭutopio" -- pretty rare, but also unambiguous.

erinja (Montri la profilon) 2012-februaro-10 16:07:12

pdenisowski:I doubt many English-speakers would know what a "dystopia" is, whereas most recognize the word "utopia".
Seriously? I think most people who are educated enough to know what a utopia is would have heard of a dystopia. At least in my part of the country.

I'm not saying that I support "distopio" over "malutopio", but I disagree that "dystopia" is some kind of rare word that people wouldn't recognize.

pdenisowski (Montri la profilon) 2012-februaro-10 16:25:55

erinja:
pdenisowski:I doubt many English-speakers would know what a "dystopia" is, whereas most recognize the word "utopia".
Seriously? I think most people who are educated enough to know what a utopia is would have heard of a dystopia. At least in my part of the country.
That would be an interesting experiment : ask the next ten people you meet to define "utopia", "dystopia", and a half-dozen similar words (maybe "myopia" or even "cornucopia" and "Ethiopia"). rideto.gif

Maybe it's just that "utopia" is used more often than "dystopia" (Google gives the ratio at about 11:1).

Amike,

Paul

anarchtea (Montri la profilon) 2012-februaro-10 16:48:02

Interesting responses, thanks everyone.

I haven't come across anyone who doesn't know what a dystopia, or dystopian society, is. I suppose if "distopio" was used, rather than "malutopio", it would depend on the context as the two are unlikely to be confused. Though I'll try to not talk about it after any future operations I might have.

erinja (Montri la profilon) 2012-februaro-10 17:07:01

malutopio would doubtlessly be understood, so that would probably be my choice, if push came to shove. But I think that many people would correctly understand "distopio" as well.

I found both used online. Wikipedia has "malutopio" as its primary entry, whatever that counts for.

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