Non-Esperanto names in a text where it potentially matters (in a news report, not in a novel) usually contain a gloss.

"Prezidento Chirac [ŝirak] vizitis Alĝerion ĉi-semajne..."

People... This is a non-issue.

We deal with a very similar 'problem' in Norwegian and I don't see anyone proposing new words to help us understand or argue on for hours on end about this.

In Norwegian the definite grammatical article or the English word: 'the' is placed after nouns.

Norwegian obviously imports some irregular words from other languages and also have proper names that don't follow these rules. Almost all words that face this 'problem' when given the definite grammatical article ends with the letter N. Does this letter seem familiar?

So how do we do it? Do we argue on our language forums for hours and hours every day, weakening our position among other languages because we confuse potential new learners with hundreds of different people saying different things? Do we propose new words to solve this?

No. We do it the simple way and play along within the rules we have.

Let's say I wanted to say "The Iphone is nice".

That would be the following: Iphonen er fin.

Now that wasn't so hard was it?

What if the word doesn't end in a vowel? Argue about it in forums?

No, we add the vowel e and the n.

The Mercedes is pretty = Mercedesen er fin.

Well, you say, what if the resulting word is somewhat ambiguous?

Well, Norwegians say, we throw in a hyphen and we're done with it.

The Coca Cola is good = Coca Cola-en er god.

Now, let's head over to the grand finale.

Proper names and what this has got to say for Esperanto.

Let us say I wanted to say: "You are the best Peter in the world".

Strange sentence, but it will serve the purpose. That would be:

Du er den beste Peter-en i verden-.

Then why is this so hard to do in Esperanto as well, I ask?

Mi ŝatas Peter-on

Peter-on ŝatas Amanda

Jim ŝatas Sofia-n

Hopefully everyone will quit this silly discussion.

Want to help Esperanto? Go do something more productive, which does not scare newcomers away, like creating original content in the language or translating VLC Media Player.

vikungen:So how do we do it? Do we argue on our language forums for hours and hours every day, weakening our position among other languages because we confuse potential new learners with hundreds of different people saying different things? Do we propose new words to solve this?

No. We do it the simple way and play along within the rules we have.

To be fair -- sometimes a language has a fixed way of dealing with something, and sometimes there are more than one ways of dealing with something in the language and people do not always agree.

I wouldn't be surprised to see discussions of English grammatical topics in an online forum, and it wouldn't bother me to see something about the best way to express something dealing with a foreign word or name, in English.

...I'm fine with it so long as the ways of dealing with it that are being discussed all involve forms already existing in English. Certainly not fine with it if someone is suggesting reforming English as a so-called solution.

And a definite +1 to -- this is a non-issue, go off and speak some Esperanto or do something productive in Esperanto rather than having this debate. On a related note, if anyone would like to help me and my friend translate a Jewish Friday night prayer service into Esperanto, please announce yourself via PM. My friend is trying to have it done in time for NASK, the North American summer residential Esperanto course.

vikungen:People... This is a non-issue.

We deal with a very similar 'problem' in Norwegian and I don't see anyone proposing new words to help us understand or argue on for hours on end about this.

In Norwegian the definite grammatical article or the English word: 'the' is placed after nouns.

Norwegian obviously imports some irregular words from other languages and also have proper names that don't follow these rules. Almost all words that face this 'problem' when given the definite grammatical article ends with the letter N. Does this letter seem familiar?

So how do we do it? Do we argue on our language forums for hours and hours every day, weakening our position among other languages because we confuse potential new learners with hundreds of different people saying different things? Do we propose new words to solve this?

No. We do it the simple way and play along within the rules we have.

Let's say I wanted to say "The Iphone is nice".

That would be the following: Iphonen er fin.

Now that wasn't so hard was it?

What if the word doesn't end in a vowel? Argue about it in forums?

No, we add the vowel e and the n.

The Mercedes is pretty = Mercedesen er fin.

Well, you say, what if the resulting word is somewhat ambiguous?

Well, Norwegians say, we throw in a hyphen and we're done with it.

The Coca Cola is good = Coca Cola-en er god.

Now, let's head over to the grand finale.

Proper names and what this has got to say for Esperanto.

Let us say I wanted to say: "You are the best Peter in the world".

Strange sentence, but it will serve the purpose. That would be:

Du er den beste Peter-en i verden-.

Then why is this so hard to do in Esperanto as well, I ask?

Mi ŝatas Peter-on

Peter-on ŝatas Amanda

Jim ŝatas Sofia-n

Hopefully everyone will quit this silly discussion.

Want to help Esperanto? Go do something more productive, which does not scare newcomers away, like creating original content in the language or translating VLC Media Player.

+1

Finally someone said this.