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Malhundo?

by Bruso, June 21, 2012

Messages: 9

Language: English

Bruso (User's profile) June 21, 2012, 4:50:07 PM

I've seen "malhundo" used as a humorous translation for "cat" in Esperanto.

But is there a legitimate use for "malhundo"?

What if I tell somebody I'm getting a pet, he asks what kind of pet, and I answer "anything but a dog". Could that be "malhundo"? Would it be weird? Would it be understood?

EldanarLambetur (User's profile) June 21, 2012, 5:17:45 PM

To me "malhundo" implies the opposite of a dog, it's a stronger, more certain notion than simply anything but a dog, which is perhaps more like "nehundo" = "non-dog"?

Hyperboreus (User's profile) June 21, 2012, 5:56:06 PM

Forigite

xdzt (User's profile) June 21, 2012, 6:28:14 PM

Hyperboreus:Why not use "iu ajn besto krom hundo" for "anything but a dog"?
I don't understand why it's "iu ajn" instead of "ia ajn". Anyone care to explain? I often get confused about -u vs -a correlatives, and I think it must be that their English 'equivalents' aren't exact.

36lima (User's profile) June 21, 2012, 6:51:56 PM

xdzt:
Hyperboreus:Why not use "iu ajn besto krom hundo" for "anything but a dog"?
I don't understand why it's "iu ajn" instead of "ia ajn". Anyone care to explain? I often get confused about -u vs -a correlatives, and I think it must be that their English 'equivalents' aren't exact.
"Iu ajn" actually seems more fitting to me "any kind of animal at all except for a dog". Basically because that's what the sentence actually concerns - kinds of animals that are not dogs.

The "iu ajn" version would seem to be more along the lines of "any of the animals except for a dog".

I'm a not an expert but that is my understanding. I'm sure someone more experienced will have a better (more accurate?) clarification.

Looking forward to reading it.

Kelly

sudanglo (User's profile) June 21, 2012, 8:51:41 PM

ia - some sort of.
iu - some individual.

In this situation either might be used depending what the speaker had in mind. If he was thinking about the kind of pet then ia, if he was thinking about his choice as selection from certain possibilities (to which he might be indifferent), then iu.

If the question was Kian dorlotbeston vi intencas havi? (which focuses on the the kind of pet) then Ian ajn, escepte de hundo might be a natural answer.

But just talking about what he was going to do he could well say Mi decidis aĉeti dorlotbeston. Iun ajn, sed ne hundon.

If you go to Tekstaro.com and type in the search field \bi\AF ajn or \biuj?n? ajn, this will return examples of ia ajn or iu ajn respectively, in all the variants.

xdzt (User's profile) June 21, 2012, 10:08:52 PM

sudanglo:If you go to Tekstaro.com and type in the search field biAF ajn or biuj?n? ajn, this will return examples of ia ajn or iu ajn respectively, in all the variants.
Ooh, thanks for this tip. I suspect this to be a useful tool.

sudanglo (User's profile) June 22, 2012, 10:00:01 AM

Another tip, I can give you, xdzt, is that to if you want \ to appear in your posts you have to type double back slash.

sudanglo (User's profile) June 23, 2012, 9:37:03 AM

I forgot to mention 2 points;

1. It is quite popular nowadays to use 'ajna', which sidesteps the issue of whether to use ia ajn or iu ajn.

2. When searching in the Tekstaro corpus, normally one would uncheck 'atenti usklecon' (make search sensitive to case).

(However if you are looking for the use of ajna, it is advisable to leave this checked (entering the search field in lower case) as one of the early texts has Ajna as the name of a character). To aearch for ajna and its variants type \bajn\AF)

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