Utopia and dystopia, on a strict etymological level, aren't complete opposites.

The former comes from "not place". In Utopia, Thomas More writes of an imagined island whose society is perfect in every way.

The latter springs from a John Stuart Mill speech, butchering "utopia" into "dystopia", to mean something that's too bad to be real. "Dystopia" is broken into "difficult (or bad, or hard) place".

So their origins are not exactly the antithesis of each other.

However, on a literary level, the two are commonly seen as opposites for what they represent; i.e. a society that's detrimental to its people against one that's beneficial. Huxley's Island is the ideal in contrast to the horror of Brave New World. Likewise for Wells' Men Like Gods (or A Modern Utopia) vs. Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Of course, what one calls perfect, ideal, difficult or hard is open to debate and depends on your point of view. For Ingsoc, the authorities in Nineteen Eighty-Four, A Modern Utopia would be a dystopia.

(There is a word that is the opposite of "dystopia" and means "good place", but it's "eutopia" and the pronunciation has become confused with "utopia".)

erinja:
I think that "distopio" would be understood *easily* by Germanic speakers; looking at the Wikipedia article on dystopia, Germanic languagies overwhelmingly use something like "dystopie" for the meaning of "dystopia".

With all due respect : I am a German speaker, I have a Master's Degree in Germanic Languages, and have I worked as a professional translator in German for many years. I can guarantee you that "Dystopie" is not a common German word that would be easily understood, particularly among older, non-humanities-educated Germans.

As for non-Indo-European languages that use a cognate of "dystopia", there are many.

Hungarian - disztópia
Finnish - dystopia
Estonian - düstoopia
[that puts us three for three of the major Finno-Ugric languages]
Arabic - ديستوبيا (distopia)
Hebrew - דיסטופיה (distopia)
Turkish - distopya
Bahasa Melayu - distopia
Bahasa Indonesia - distopia
Korean - 디스토피아 (diseutopia)
Thai - ดิสโทเปีย (dít-toh-bpia)
Japanese - ディストピア (deisutopia)

Source? I don't think it would make sense to comment on languages one doesn't actually speak and have extensive exposure to.

With regards to Japanese (another language I've worked as a translator in), neither Kenkyusha, Sanseido, nor the Kojien have the word ディストピア. Although they have multiple references to "utopia", only Sanseido has a single (Eng->Jpn) entry for the word "distopia" :

住みにくい社会,反理想郷

The first definition (住みにくい社会) means "a society that is difficult to live in", whereas the second (反理想郷) is "anti (反)-Utopia (理想郷) (i.e. mal-utopio)

So I can't really accept that the existance of ディストピア in (I presume) an Internet search means this word would be understood by even educated Japanese. (I'm not sure most Japanese would understand 理想郷 without seeing the kanji, maybe not even then).

Amike,

Paul

P.S. Not sure where you found your Japanese "translation" but the romanization is incorrect. The romaji for ディストピア is "DIsutopia", not "DEIsutopia" -- the "i" is subscripted in the katakana.

sudanglo:Excellent piece of research, Erinja, I was intuitively convinced that distopio was a truly international word, but couldn't be arsed to look up a lot of languages.

The next time I make an academic or professional presentation I'll simply tell the audience that I'm "intuitively convinced" I'm correct but couldn't be bothered to do any research (beyond maybe a simple Google/Wikipedia search).

pdenisowski:"Dystopie" is not a common German word that would be easily understood

Agreed. I think I once read that word on Wikipedia some years ago, but beyond that I’ve actually never heard it.

pdenisowski:next time I make an academic or professional presentation I'll simply tell the audience that I'm "intuitively convinced" I'm correct but couldn't be bothered to do any research

Then you would be following in a hallowed tradition. Academics have been doing that for hundreds of years - but without the public confession.

Politicians have been known to do the same.

Dystopia is not a common word in English either. But Esperantists are not common people. Maybe German Esperantists would understand distopio. Have you researched that?

Disclaimer: This is entirely theoretical for me because I'd personally prefer "malutopio" for this meaning.

pdenisowski:I don't think it would make sense to comment on languages one doesn't actually speak and have extensive exposure to.

Source = Wikipedia article on dystopia.

I know how people feel about "translation by Wikipedia" but to me there is a presumption that people writing Wikipedia entries are familiar with their own languages, and relatively serious about choosing the correct term for a given concept. I do tend to trust Wikipedia titles as a way to translate one concept into another, more so than I would trust something like a dictionary search, which is open to taking words out of context or choosing the wrong definition.

It seems to me that anyone who is familiar with the concept of a dystopia should recognize the word for dystopia, as found in that language's Wikipedia entry. If not, then the Wikipedists for that language didn't create the entry very carefully.

If a person is unfamiliar with the very concept of a dystopia, then of course they wouldn't be expected to know the word for it. I guess it depends greatly on how deeply you expect the idea of a dystopia to penetrate into society - would an everyday person be familiar with this concept, or only a well-educated person? You seem to believe that only a well-educated person would be familiar with this concept, even in English.

Dystopia is the one and only English word for this concept, and since you expressed earlier that you think most English speakers wouldn't understand it, then I guess it makes complete sense that you don't think speakers of any other language could understand it either.

In that case we may as well give up completely on trying to describe any complicated concepts in Esperanto, because someone who isn't highly educated might not understand. Right?

erinja:I know how people feel about "translation by Wikipedia" but to me there is a presumption that people writing Wikipedia entries are familiar with their own languages, and relatively serious about choosing the correct term for a given concept.

The big problem with Wikipedia is that you have no idea who the author is, what qualifications they have, or even if they are serious. I can point out factually incorrect entries in Wikipedia all day long.

Dystopia is the one and only English word for this concept

Webster's gives "anti-utopia" as a synonym.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anti-u...

Perhaps you think Wikipedia is more authoritative than Webster's?

Amike,

Paul

pdenisowski:

anarchtea:Interesting responses, thanks everyone.

I haven't come across anyone who doesn't know what a dystopia, or dystopian society, is.

That says a lot about the kind of people you hang out with.

I'm a native English speaker... and today was the first time I ever heard of dystopia. I'm also very well educated so I'd assume that this word isn't very "international"

erinja:If a person is unfamiliar with the very concept of a dystopia, then of course they wouldn't be expected to know the word for it. I guess it depends greatly on how deeply you expect the idea of a dystopia to penetrate into society - would an everyday person be familiar with this concept, or only a well-educated person? You seem to believe that only a well-educated person would be familiar with this concept, even in English.

Yes, I believe that dystopia is much (i.e. several orders of magnitude) less common in general English usage than utopia, even among highly-educated speakers. We can agree to disagree on that if you like (although I'd be happy to provide lots of empirical data to support my position).

Getting back to Esperanto : since "utopio" is in the Universala Vortaro, Butler, Wells, etc. I think it's fair to assume that it is a reasonably common word. Good luck finding it even in the PIV : among the dis- words in my PIV 2005 I even find such things as "diskomicetoj" but no "distopio". Wonder why that is ...

You expressed earlier that you think most English speakers wouldn't understand it, then I guess it makes complete sense that you don't think speakers of any other language could understand it either.

That's quite a leap of reasoning.

In that case we may as well give up completely on trying to describe any complicated concepts in Esperanto, because someone who isn't highly educated might not understand. Right?

Not at all. But Esperanto's system of roots and affixes can make it EASIER to explain complicated concepts than in many natural languages. A "malutopio" should be understandable by any Esperantist (of any native language) who has a small dictionary : "distopio" is not.

For example "spirmanko" is a lot easier to understand than *"dispneo"*. It also avoids issues with the fact that this word varies widely between languages.

(I would have used "malsanulejo" as an example, but I think I would probably regret it )

Amike,

Paul

Evildela:I'm a native English speaker... and today was the first time I ever heard of dystopia. I'm also very well educated so I'd assume that this word isn't very "international"

This surprises me.

A novel like 1984, what kind of world would you say it describes? I've seen it described pretty universally as dystopian.

For that matter, novels like Fahrenheit 451, or a movie like V for Vendetta or Minority Report (the Matrix, Blade Runner, A Clockwork Orange, etc). There are endless examples of novels and movies that show horrific versions of our future, with all kinds of totalitarian and dysfunctional societies. What adjective would you use to describe this genre of literature? Because "dystopian" works perfectly.

This is really interesting, that a word I consider relatively basic in describing a sort of literature is not known to an educated person.

If I described conditions of something as "dickensian", would you know what I meant?