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Kiu ĉi mi?

by jkph00, July 12, 2013

Messages: 8

Language: English

jkph00 (User's profile) July 12, 2013, 7:50:26 PM

The Internet bookstore for FEL sent me notice of a book just released. I can't figure out what the title means. How would one translate, "Kiu ĉi mi?" :-|

Thanks!

Tempodivalse (User's profile) July 12, 2013, 10:59:38 PM

jkph00:The Internet bookstore for FEL sent me notice of a book just released. I can't figure out what the title means. How would one translate, "Kiu ĉi mi?" :-|

Thanks!
Perhaps there was a typo? I've never seen ĉi used in this manner, it makes no obvious sense. Kiu ĉe mi, maybe?

noelekim (User's profile) July 13, 2013, 4:24:07 AM

Tempodivalse:
jkph00:The Internet bookstore for FEL sent me notice of a book just released. I can't figure out what the title means. How would one translate, "Kiu ĉi mi?" :-|

Thanks!
Perhaps there was a typo? I've never seen ĉi used in this manner, it makes no obvious sense. Kiu ĉe mi, maybe?
There's no mistake. That's exactly the title of Gerrit Berveling's latest autobiography: http://www.esperanto.be/fel/but/lib/kiucx.php

I supose you could translate it as Who is this "I"?, or in plain Esperanto, Kiu mi estas?

Tempodivalse (User's profile) July 13, 2013, 4:31:17 AM

noelekim:
Tempodivalse:
jkph00:The Internet bookstore for FEL sent me notice of a book just released. I can't figure out what the title means. How would one translate, "Kiu ĉi mi?" :-|

Thanks!
Perhaps there was a typo? I've never seen ĉi used in this manner, it makes no obvious sense. Kiu ĉe mi, maybe?
There's no mistake. That's exactly the title of Gerrit Berveling's latest autobiography: http://www.esperanto.be/fel/but/lib/kiucx.php

I supose you could translate it as Who is this "I"?, or in plain Esperanto, Kiu mi estas?
That's the only explanation I can think of. In any case this is highly non-standard usage. At best, it's ambiguous in the same way that Tie ĉi tiu viro lin renkontis is ambiguous. To which word does ĉi belong to?

Here it is doubly confusing, because neither pronouns nor interrogative correlatives like kiu usually permit of ĉi. And there is no verb, to make matters worse.

sandreus (User's profile) July 13, 2013, 5:42:58 AM

Mi opinias, ke la intenca nekorekta utileco de Esperanto por la reklamceloj estas malmalareco. Kaj tiun, kiu faras ĉi tion estas noculo.

sudanglo (User's profile) July 13, 2013, 10:01:45 AM

The title is impenetrable. Some punctuation might make it clearer, but I suspect not. Probably another case of Esperanto publishing without professional editing.

Rugxdoma (User's profile) July 13, 2013, 1:50:27 PM

Licentia poetica is generally tolerated in national languages, and is widely used in Esperanto poetry. Perhaps Esperanto poets should avoid it, in order not to discourage the potential readers. Or, is it the other way, that such a thing, as in a title here, makes the public more curious about the content?

tommjames (User's profile) July 13, 2013, 3:19:37 PM

Assuming the title means what noelekim suggests, I quite like it actually. Poetic license doesn't seem like such a problem in a book's title, and the fact of it being an autobiography may provide a hint as to the meaning.

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