>>Ahx! "Korpingoj" impresas tre strange.
>Why? Kial?

My first thought seeing 'korpingo' was those things in the movie The Matrix the machines kept humans in. Also a korpingo could be a coffin.

Mia unua impreso, kiam mi legis korpingon, estis tiuj aferoj en la filmo "The Matrix", en kiuj la maŝinuloj bredis homojn. Ankaŭ "korpingo" povus signifi ĉerkon.

>>Mi preferus pluhavi miajn vestojn.
>"I'd prefer to keep my clothes."
>What do you mean? I really suck at decrypting those English idioms.

A small joke...very small...

Estis eta ŝerco...tre eta...

>>Mi preferus pluhavi la nunan sistemon de komenco, fino, lasta, unua, ktp. Mi timas, ke "ekfari"
>>kaj aliaj tiaj povus esti ne tute klaraj.
>In what aspect are they unclear?
>Kiel estas ili malklaraj?

Esperanto currently distinguishes between fina ("final, really the last") and lasta ("most recent, the last but maybe not THE last"). If both of these are replaced with malekfara, some precision is lost. Also, not everything with a beginning or end is an action.

Esperanto nun distingas inter fina kaj lasta. Se ambaŭ tiuj anstatauiĝas per la vorto "malekfara", iom da precizo perdiĝus. Ankaŭ ne ĉio kun komenco aŭ fino estas faro.

>>Bone, sed la vorto "sudo" jam ekzistas Esperante dum pli ol cent jaroj. (Kaj ankau "nordo"). Mi
>>preferus pluhavi ambau tiujn tial.
>As long as malnordo is a valid Esperanto word, I think the desire to keep a burdenous form is
>unneccesary conservativism. But you have a right of opinion.
>Malnordo estas vera Esperanta vorto, do mi opinias ke pluhavemi pezan formon estas malenda
>konservemo. Sed ci havas pravo rajton de opinio.

Yes, malnorde is a perfectly fine word (ueste and malueste however are not). Also I believe I may have seen "maloriente" used by someone else on the internet somewhere.

Jes, "malnorde" estas tute akceptebla vorto ("ueste" kaj "malueste" ne estas tiel, tamen). Ankaŭ mi pensas, ke mi vidis la vorton "maloriente" uzitan de iu alia en la interreto ie.

>>"Persono" eble estas malrekomendinda. Sed ne cxiu ulo estas persono aux ecx homo. Ulo povas
>>ankaux signifi ian beston, kiel ekzemple "mamulo" ("mammal"), aux ecx ian sxipon, kiel ekzemple
>>"komerculo" ("merchantman") aux "trimastulo" ("three-master"). Ankaux mi ne scias, kion anstatauu
>>vortojn kiel "persona" kaj "persone".
>What's a "three-master"?

Something or someone characterized by three masts, in this case a kind of ship.

>>Gravas la distingo inter vereco kaj realeco.
>And what's it? I fail to discover it.

I see reala as relating to physical existance and vera to philosophical truth. In casual speech they are used somewhat interchangeably (same as in English). But sometimes the distinction is important -- a lie can be real (in the sense that it really occured), but is by definition untrue.

Mi rigardas la vorton "reala" kiel rilatan al fizika ekzisto kaj la vorton "vera" kiel rilatan al filozofia vero. En senĝeneca parolo ili uziĝas iom interanstataŭeble (same kiel Angle). Sed iafoje la distingo estas grava -- mensogo povas esti reala (laŭ la senco, ke ĝi efektive okazis), sed estas laŭsignife malvera.

>>Eble. Sed mi mem preferus pluhavi "preni" malgrauxe.
>If you don't give a reason for that, I think the more reasonable solution is to use maldoni. Otherwise
>it's "blind action", for lack of a better phrase.

Esperanto distinguishes between preni ("to take") which is more active and ricevi ("to receive") which is more passive. I consider this a useful distinction, though maldoni, which could mean either, is probably fine.

Esperanto distingas inter la vortojn "preni", kiu estas pli aktiva, kaj "ricevi", kiu estas pli malaktiva. Mi rigardas tion kiel uzindan distingon, kvankam la vorto "maldoni", kiu povus signifi unu aŭ la alian, verŝajne estas bone.

>>Parto kaj ero estas iomete malsamaj. Sed, eble.
>Could you please describe the difference?

Ligno-parto - wood part (of something); lignero - wood-shaving, wood particle

>>miokardia - kormuskola
>Miokardia is not in the dictionary so I guess it doesn't exist anyway.

It's in CEED.

>>diktatoro, auxtokrato - suverenulo
>Sovereign guy == dictator? Strikes me as inprecise. Somebody give opinion on this?

Perhaps solregisto would be even better.

"Demandludo" seems right to me.

Thanks for clarifying the distinction between "fina" and "lasta". The novel by Olaf Stapledon would be "Finaj kaj Unuaj Homoj", (the last 18th human species being destroyed by the Mad Star.)  Malunua is not acceptable for last. One could say "Kapitano Skoto estis malunua esploristo de la Sudo Polo," but if Merkurio is "la unua planedo", then all the other planets are "malunua". Ksena (aux kiu ajn nomo) may be "la lasta planedo."

I think we should avoid turning Esperanto into a kind of Franglais, or into a kind of Newspeak. 

legi  malskribi

This is much preferable to legi / mallegi, but nevertheless my first impression of malskribi is "to erase".

Tio estas multe pli bona ol "legi / mallegi", sed tamen mia unua impreso de "malskridi" estis "viŝi".

lasta  malunua

Saying "malunuan dimanĉon" instead of "lastan dimanĉon" just feels weird I guess; the implied reference to some sort of First Sunday seems almost religious.

Diri "malunuan dimanĉon" anstataŭ "lastan dimanĉon" simple sentas strange laŭ mi. La implica referenco al ia Unua Dimanĉo ŝajnas preskaŭ religia.

signifo  senco

I guess this is okay. Personally I see senco as more of a connotation and signifo as more of a literal meaning, but I can't find a dictionary that backs me up on this.

Laŭ mi, tio eble estas bona. Mi mem rigardas sencon kiel "kunsignifon" kaj signifon kiel "laŭvortan signifon", sed mi ne povas trovi iun vortaron, kiu konfirmas mian opinion.

distingo  malsameco
diferenco  malsameco

Diferenco is almost certainly unnecessary and I can't think of an instance where it would be more clear than malsama or malsimila (in fact malsama and malsimila are more precise). Distingi is a bit different from malsami though -- distingi is to see or know or consider that two things are different, while malsami on the other hand is merely to be different. Distingo is an evaluation that two things are different from each other.

La vorto "diferenco" preskaŭ certe ne necesas, kaj mi ne povas elpensi ian kazon, en kiu ĝi povus esti pli klara ol "malsama" aŭ "malsimila". (Fakte, "malsama" kaj "malsimila" estas pli precizaj). La vorto "distingi" estas iomete malsama ol "malsami", tamen. Distingi signifas vidi aŭ scii aŭ rigardi, ke du aferoj malsamas, dum malsami aliflanke signifas nur "esti malsama(j)". Distingo estas takso, ke du aferoj malsamas unu ol la alia.

pres-konferenco ĵurnalisto-konferenco

After thinking about it some more I decided anonco-konferenco might be better.

Post plu pripensado, mi juĝis ke anonco-konferenco eble povus taŭgi pli bone.

provi - peni

No argument here, although I would prefer to keep provi and lose peni. The dictionary defines peni as "forte provi". Gah!

Mi ne malakordas, kvankam mi preferus pluhavi "provi" kaj forlasi "peni". Laŭ la vortaro, la vorto "peni" signifas "forte provi". Aĥ!

problemo - ficaso

I've never seen the likes of ficaso before.

Mi antaŭe neniam vidis ion kiel la vorton "ficaso".

amuza - ridinda
komika - ridinda
drola - ridinda

These are all good. I see drola as more of a ridetinda though. I've also heard "ridiga" used to mean funny (in fact the Jen Nia Mondo lessons use both ridiga and komika in the same lesson).

Ĉiuj tiuj estas bonaj. Sed mi rigardas la vorton "drola" kiel pli bone signifante "ridetinda". Mi ankaŭ aŭdis la vorton "ridiga" por signifi "funny". (Fakte, la "Jen Nia Mondo" kurso uzas kaj "ridiga" kaj "komika" en la sama leciono).

mosto - deveco

Mosto is "must" in the sense of "new wine" (not "obligation"). Why that was considered important enough to make it into the Fundamento, the world may never know.

Mosto signifas "must" en la senco de "nova vino" (ne "devo"). Kial tio estis rigardita kiel sufiĉe grava por meriti enmeton en la Fundamenton, la mondo eble neniam scios.

prezidento - prezidanto (literally "one who presides"...this type of parallel construction seems like a good compromise)
agrokulturisto - farmisto ("farmer"), bienisto ("rancher")
agrokulturo, agrikulturo - farmoscienco, bienoscienco (or -iko instead of -scienco, though -iko isn't official) 

Oh yeah that reminds me...all of the -logio "science" words need to go. Logi literally means to draw, entice, induce, lure, persudade, or tempt according to Butler (logio apparently doesn't exist as a seperate root). While this sense of logi and logo is ironically appropriate for such things as astrologisto and Sciencologisto, real sciences should end in -scienco, with a true Esperanto root in front of it instead of Greek or Latin.

biologio - vivoscienco
hematologio - sangoscienco
entomologio - insektoscienco
etiologio - kaŭzoscienco

...ktp

I registered a small wiki because building the list in a forum seems slow and ineffective. It's temporary and just to work easier together. Please don't point it as a reference to anyone, it's not presentable (obviously), just contribute there for a faster improvement. Thanks.

http://www.bluwiki.org/go/Joyo_Vortaro_Projekto

>A small joke...very small...
>Estis eta serco...tre eta...

One of the thing I dislike about talking in a foreign language is that I often miss jokes which I would have truly enjoyed if they were in my native language...

Unu de la ajxoj ke mi malsxatas pri paroli en malauxtoktona lingvo estas ke mi ofte maltrafi ridigajxoj tioj, kioj gxojigus mi vere se ili estus en mian auxtoktonan lingvon...

>I think we should avoid turning Esperanto into a kind of Franglais, or into a kind of Newspeak.
I don't think this thread has anything to do with Franglais (at least according to what I just read in Wikipedia about it). Newspeak was designed with the political purpose of limiting people's thoughts to "rightthink" (IIRC). When the word in one's native language for freedom means just "freedom of chains" but not "political freedom", one would never reach the idea of being politically free, though this is arguable (the Sapir/Whorf hypothesis still hasn't been proven). This thread's purpose is to limit the vocabulary load, but not through making expression of certain ideas difficult/impossible. If you find an instance of such action in the lists we formulate, please say so.

> I think of provi as to test something to see if it does what you want correctly. I see peni as try to do something, like try to do better in school or try to sleep, etc.
provi=try, attempt, test
peni=try, aim, attempt, endeavour

So I think you're wrong.

@trojo

"Animalo" and "besto" are not the same thing. Animalo means "besto aŭ homo".

 

"Animalo" and "besto" are not the same thing. Animalo means "besto aŭ homo". 

True. I just don't consider a word that means "beast or human" to be particularly useful though. I can't really say why I don't consider the besto/animalo distinction important when I do consider the distinctions between vero/realo, skribi/verki, lasta/fina to be very important. Perhaps it's just subjective opinion.

I wanna go back to this thing you mentioned earlier...

Actually I'm in the process of creation of a conlang being maximally easy to _learn_ (all other factors don't matter in its design). [...] Consider the English word "table". If we translate it into neoen (that's the code name) and then back to English, we get roughly the following neoenized version: thing which's purpose is the action of modifying the aspect of location of objects (which do not have the ability to think) with destination itself performed by objects (which have the ability to think). I think you see very little people would agree to use this in their everyday life.

Sounds like an interesting experiment, but is this really easier to learn? I guess it depends on which you consider harder to learn: vocabulary or elaborate correlative acrobatics.

Does your conlang not differentiate "modify" and "maintain"? I don't think of a table as modifying the location of an object so much as maintaining its relative spatial location (above the floor).

Oh yeah don't forget to translate the Tower of Babel story (Genesis 11:1-9) and send it to this guy: http://www.langmaker.com/babelintro.htm

I have just a couple of comments on this thread.  It's important to remember that you can't take the English dictionary definition of an Esperanto word to be the be-all and end-all of the Esperanto word.  Though "provi" and "peni" have very similar dictionary definitions in English, it's just because English words tend to have many meanings, so one Esperanto word tends to have many possible English meanings.  I think that instead of looking at an English dictionary, it can be more instructive to look at an Esperanto dictionary.  For example, the Pilger dictionary here at lernu! defines "peni" as "multe provi, forte labori por fari ion", and "provi" as "fari por vidi, ĉu oni povas fari".  One could argue that "peni" is unnecessary since it basically means "provegi", but even that argument doesn't take into account that the part of the definition "forte labori por fari ion" does not mean the same as "fari por vidi ĉu oni povas fari".

Pilger defines "studento" as "studanto en alta lernejo" - the word "studento" is *not* a synonym for "lernanto" and "studanto".  Rather, it means a high-level student, in most cases, a university student.  I personally use "lernanto" to describe students below the university level, and "studento" to describe university students.  In any case, "student/o" is a root from the Fundamento, so it can't be just eliminated from Esperanto dictionaries, though you can certainly make a personal choice not to use it.

The word "olda" does technically mean "old" but it is never used to mean "malnova" or "maljuna".  It is sometimes used by  young Esperantists to describe older Esperantists ("olduloj") who are very set in their ways and resistant to change.  It has acquired a different meaning than simply "old".

The other thing is that just because a root has an English root, doesn't automatically make it bad.  Obviously I am not advocating just taking an English word and adding an -o for every single meaning, but just because a word has an evidently English root doesn't mean it should automatically be avoided.  "Birdo" comes from English, and it's from the Fundamento.  There are neologisms from other languages as well, so it's also important to remember that you can't necessarily tell if somethign is a neologism based on its resemblance or non-resemblance to an English word.  The example that springs immediately to mind is the word "haŝioj" (chopsticks - from Japanese.  the more standard word is "mangxbastonetoj").

so it's also important to remember that you can't necessarily tell if somethign is a neologism based on its resemblance or non-resemblance to an English word

Well, it would be nice if you could tell if something is a neologism based on the vortaro. Unfortunately, the vortaro not only includes many unofficial and obviously completely pointless neologisms (e.g. "uesto") alongside the official word that means exactly the same thing (without even indicating which of these words should be used) it also excludes several Fundamento roots altogether (e.g. abituriento, burlesko) in both the Angla and Pilger versions.

Perhaps more Lernu-users would take the Fundamento more seriously if Lernu itself took it a bit more seriously.

Nu, estus bone, se oni povus distingi, ĉu io estas "neologismo", surbaze de la vortaro. Malfeliĉe, la vortaro ne nur enhavas multajn neoficialajn kaj evidente tute senutilajn neologismojn (kiel ekzemple ueston) kune kun tiu oficiala vorto, kiu signifas precize la saman (eĉ sen montri tiun el tiuj vortoj, kiun oni devus uzi), sed ankaŭ tute mankas kelkajn Fundamentaĵojn (kiel ekzemple abiturienton, burleskon) en kaj la Angla kaj la de Pilger versioj.

Eble pli da "Lernu" uzantoj rigardus la Fundamenton kiel pli gravan, se "Lernu" mem rigardus ĝin kiel iomete pli gravan.

The word "olda" does technically mean "old" but it is never used to mean "malnova" or "maljuna".  It is sometimes used by  young Esperantists to describe older Esperantists ("olduloj") who are very set in their ways and resistant to change.

So "olda" is not just an unofficial neologism, it is slang -- and pretty much incorrectly defined in the vortaro at that.At any rate, it still sounds tre evitinde to me.

Do la vorto "olda" estas ne nur neoficiala neologismo, sed ankaŭ juneca ĵargonaĵo -- kaj pli malpli malkorekte difinita de la vortaro krome. Ĉiukaze, ankoraŭ ŝajnas al mi tre evitinde.

I thought this was a thought provoking, but in some ways, ultimately pointless thread.

Someone said "vera" and "reala" (or some such pair of words) are synonyms. Well, for some people, truth and reality are the same idea. Perhaps, even, for every day use, they could indeed be considered to be sufficiently the same. However, for a philosopher, truth, reality and, indeed, actuality are completely different.

This is, however, a problem faced by any language. Words which work for every day use, are often totally inadequate once they start to get used in any kind of specialised or technical way. For example, in English we have about 3 words for frozen water = ice, snow and frost. The Inuit have loads and loads of words for these things, all with slight shades of meaning. To anyone not living in the Inuit environment, they are all a bunch of synonyms. To the Inuit, these words can be the difference between life and death - quite literally.

Nevertheless, I agree with the idea - some words (roots) seem to be completely unneeded. I came across one today (or at least I think I did). I looked up difference. It said "diferenco" and "malsameco". Maybe there is a difference of meaning between these two - I don't know - I don't have a esperanto dictionary in esperanto and it is perhaps a little early in my use of this language for me to need one. They seem to be the same to me and "diferenco" would seem to be an unneeded addition.

The use of affixes can only take a language so far. Take my surname for example, "warren" = a place where wild rabbits live, (the name in fact being a shortened form of warrener = a type of game keeper, someone who looked after the kings rabbits in times gone by). One dictionary lists this as "kuniklejo". However another lists that Esperanto word as being a "rabbit hutch" - something quite different. One might also interpret kuniklejo as a "rabbit farm" and a "rabbitry", which are two more yet different interpretations. So affixes are good, but they are not the whole story about how to make a language.

Some languages choose to leave words such a "kuniklejo" vague. Others need more precision. Common usage seems to be what ultimately drives dictionary writers to write.

Nick