I know that we are wandering away from the main theme of this tread (The Ismoj of Esperanto) but instilled by a "need to know" (the name of a weekly television program here in the US and now, therefore, a sort of 'bon mot' in daily usuage) I made a lists of all the words I know in English and German for ideas connect to "laugh". Indeed, the dictionary Esperanto versions leave me sometimes wanting. But this is not the occasion, necessarily, for neologisms. It is more of a challenge to the poets and authors in our language to create new forms of existing roots. The human face is so full of expressions, covert and invert, emotional and dramatic, that language is often at a loss to convey what our eyes see. The problem with ethnic language words, is that they often are "stand alone" radicals that must be acquired individually by new-language-learners. If no native speaker is around to explain the words, the basic meaning may be lost. Esperanto offers us the chance to be creative with what we have.

Bruso:Bonalingvismo (preference for agglutinative constructions vs adoption of international words; not sure what the opposite is called)

I'm not sure what the "offical" title is but it's not unknown for people who prefer that school of thought to refer to themselves as mavlingvanoj, so the root would be mavlingvismo. This title comes from the word mava, used to mean malbona, so it's really the self-deprecating term malbonalingvismo.

Bemused:

kaŝperanto:Interestingly, I just came across an article today on neologisms in Esperanto on Ipernity. I was having trouble finding a definition for "tabasami", which is used in a few of La Perdita Generacio's songs. ..... The "tabasamists" support the use of their word in place of "rideti", which has a totally different meaning than "ridi".

From the point of view of reducing inconsistencies in the language I would support replacing "rideti" with some other word.
One question, where is "tabasami" derived from?

It seems that tabasami is a fairly common word now (at least in music). According to the Ipernity source I linked to it is taken from Suahili.

I do think it would be impossible/unwise to try to totally replace rideti, but I believe it could eventually take on a dual role as "smile" and "chuckle/giggle" (i.e. the whole range of "less than laughing" actions).

@robbkvasnak
I agree that it is better to have root-based words than it is to create new ones in most circumstances (at least in Esperanto), but I feel it is a major problem to have derived words with too specific of meanings. When I see "rideti" I want to visualise all "less than laughing" actions as equally probable. When I read now I have a confidence issue in that I will often look up the definition of words I know both the roots and all affixes for, just in case it has a specific meaning beyond what is conveyed by its parts.
It is my opinion that the constructed words should only be defined in terms of the definitions of the root(s) and any affixes, with no actual specific definition. Any words like rideti should get their own new word, since it has been proven through use that a more descriptive word is needed.

kaŝperanto:It seems that tabasami is a fairly common word now (at least in music). According to the Ipernity source I linked to it is taken from Suahili.

Uh, a fairly common word among the listeners of the single music band that uses this word -- therefore probably less than 5% of the Esperanto community would know this word. I would hardly call it widespread or common, not even in music. I have heard music by the band in question and seen them perform, but this forum is the first time I've ever heard of their word. Admittedly, I don't particularly like their music, so I never made a special attempt to learn any of the lyrics, and I gave away their last CD soon after I received it, so any special usage was not likely to be noticed, particularly if it was in one of their recent songs.

kaŝperanto - Your last point is not bad at all. Z left us Esperanto as sort of a canvass to paint on. That is one of its beauties.

It is my opinion that the constructed words should only be defined in terms of the definitions of the root(s) and any affixes, with no actual specific definition.

But Esperanto doesn't work like that. A lernejo is not just any ejo in which lernado takes place and an arbaro is not any aro de arboj.

However rideti is somewhat problematic since the novice learner is likely to interpret it as to chuckle rather than to smile, just as ridegi is correctly interpreted as guffaw.

I think we are just stuck with the slightly opaque meaning of rideti (a restricted meaning not fully deducible from the elements).

I suppose that the principle that often applies in derivation of meaning in the compounding of elements is what commonplace thing, action, state, quality (something that most languages have a word for) is suggested by the elements in the compound. The compound word is often an aide-memoire.

When the idea is less commonplace though the meaning may be less restricted and more dependent on just the elements. However it may be possible if context makes it clear to force the meaning of a common compound word out of its conventional restricted meaning.

Most instances of manĝo will refer to a meal. But in per unu manĝo la giganto englutis la domon the meaning becomes the standard analysis of a noun derived from a verb.

Maybe you could force rideti to take on the meaning of chuckle/giggle by explicitly referring to the sound, but I am a bit doubtful about that.

sudanglo:I suppose that the principle that often applies in derivation of meaning in the compounding of elements is what commonplace thing, action, state, quality (something that most languages have a word for) is suggested by the elements in the compound. The compound word is often an aide-memoire.

When the idea is less commonplace though the meaning may be less restricted and more dependent on just the elements. However it may be possible if context makes it clear to force the meaning of a common compound word out of its conventional restricted meaning.

Most instances of manĝo will refer to a meal. But in per unu manĝo la giganto englutis la domon the meaning becomes the standard analysis of a noun derived from a verb.

Maybe you could force rideti to take on the meaning of chuckle/giggle by explicitly referring to the sound, but I am a bit doubtful about that.

I agree. And I do not even consider it a problem. For me "smile" is really a small "laughter". The distinction between them is the major one, which had to be dealt with first. So "ridi" and "rideti" were appointed to represent these basic concepts. Thereafter it is now up to everyone to find expressions for all the subtle combinations of muscular activities and sounds and emotions which take place in the gap between these two. Various languages make it with different words, covering different varieties. English seemingly make a main distinction between "giggle" and "chuckle", Swedish has similar onomatopoeia, "fnittra" and "fnissa" for varieties of giggle, and "skrocka" for chuckle. Swahili uzes the applicative form "chekelea" for something between "cheka" and " tabasamu". I am not good enough at Esperanto to present specific suggestions for how one could refer to various ridet-sounds, but I am convinced that it can be done, and be done nicely, and without introducing new roots.

kaŝperanto:

Bemused:

kaŝperanto:Interestingly, I just came across an article today on neologisms in Esperanto on Ipernity. I was having trouble finding a definition for "tabasami", which is used in a few of La Perdita Generacio's songs. ..... The "tabasamists" support the use of their word in place of "rideti", which has a totally different meaning than "ridi".

From the point of view of reducing inconsistencies in the language I would support replacing "rideti" with some other word.
One question, where is "tabasami" derived from?

It seems that tabasami is a fairly common word now (at least in music). According to the Ipernity source I linked to it is taken from Suahili.

I do think it would be impossible/unwise to try to totally replace rideti, but I believe it could eventually take on a dual role as "smile" and "chuckle/giggle" (i.e. the whole range of "less than laughing" actions).

@robbkvasnak
I agree that it is better to have root-based words than it is to create new ones in most circumstances (at least in Esperanto), but I feel it is a major problem to have derived words with too specific of meanings. When I see "rideti" I want to visualise all "less than laughing" actions as equally probable. When I read now I have a confidence issue in that I will often look up the definition of words I know both the roots and all affixes for, just in case it has a specific meaning beyond what is conveyed by its parts.
It is my opinion that the constructed words should only be defined in terms of the definitions of the root(s) and any affixes, with no actual specific definition. Any words like rideti should get their own new word, since it has been proven through use that a more descriptive word is needed.

I was not aware that Swahili was an international donor language for the purpose of adopting new words under rule 15.

However, if "tabasami" is being used for "rideti", then adopting "kuĉeki" for "ridi" could avoid potential confusion caused by trying to change a long accepted meaning for "rideti", while at the same time bypassing the confusion caused by the current meanings of "ridi" and "rideti".

Maybe in many other languages the word for smile is actually a diminutive or a derivative of the word for laugh. (A quick run through with Google Translate suggests this is the case.) And because of the apparent internationality of this, Esperanto ended up with rideti.

In English however we distinguish between those actions that make a sound like laugh, chuckle, guffaw and those like smile and grin that don't. So for English ears rideti for smile is wrong, an illogical calque.

Illogical because Ridegi, and Ridi are sounds and Rideti isn't.

Esperanto on the whole tries to avoid the accumulation of illogical expressions such as abound in the national languages, but it is not entirely free of them. Another example, perhaps, would be eldoni for to publish a book, which almost suggests given away. And an eldonejo (a publishing house) is not just a distributor.

If I came across the sentence la sono de la ridetado de la najboroj penetris la muron I wouldn't be sure how to react. You certainly can't have the sound of smiling. Is the explicit reference to sound enough to force the meaning of sniggering?

Of course if ridi can be silent in Esperanto then rideti can be too, but silenta rido seems at very least poetic licence, if not actually contradictory. You certainly can't have a silenta ridego.

erinja:

kaŝperanto:It seems that tabasami is a fairly common word now (at least in music). According to the Ipernity source I linked to it is taken from Suahili.

Uh, a fairly common word among the listeners of the single music band that uses this word -- therefore probably less than 5% of the Esperanto community would know this word. I would hardly call it widespread or common, not even in music. I have heard music by the band in question and seen them perform, but this forum is the first time I've ever heard of their word. Admittedly, I don't particularly like their music, so I never made a special attempt to learn any of the lyrics, and I gave away their last CD soon after I received it, so any special usage was not likely to be noticed, particularly if it was in one of their recent songs.

Interesting, I was assuming that if they made such regular usage of it that it was at least a semi-official word. It took me awhile to find that ipernity thread to figure out what tabasami meant, and I believe they even use it in their older albums. I figured it was like "ĵogi" = "to jog", which I only find in Paul's ESPDIC and in no other dictionary (not here, not vortaro.net, not reta vortaro, not google translate). ESPDIC also lists "ĝogi" for the same meaning. There is not as much trouble in using "kureti" for jogging as there is in using rideti for smiling, though.

@Rugxdoma
That makes the most sense to me. It never occurred to me that other languages might treat laughing and smiling in the same way as Esperanto.