I've been translating a favorite videogame of mine into Esperanto just for fun (and practice, I suppose), but since I haven't had much chance to use Esperanto among Esperantists, there's something that I'm not clear on which keeps coming up.

The game involves attorneys in the courtroom, and thus many people are referred to quite formally, with "titles" (for lack of a better term) in front of their names. In English, we have three such titles: Mr. for men, Mrs. for married women, and Miss/Ms. for unmarried women. However, I know other languages do not make the distinction between married and unmarried women - if I remember correctly, modern Germans use "Frau" for both.

I know the words that correspond with these titles: sinjor(in)o and fraŭl(in)o. I have seen the abbreviations s-ro, s-ino, and f-ino used. However, distinguishing between unmarried and married women and not unmarried and married men troubles me. It's common usage in English of course, but is it in Esperanto? Would s-ro Smith's wife be s-ino Smith, his unmarried daughter f-ino Smith, but his unmarried son also s-ro Smith? Or would both women be s-ino Smith? I have seen the abbreviation f-lo for fraŭlo floating around - is it used as the man's version of "miss"?

I would assume that the reason some (most?) cultures don't distinguish between married and unmarried men is because they usually don't change their names after marriage. It's really not that unusual when you think about it.

As for Esperanto, I'd say it's probably uncommon to distinguish between married and unmarried men, just going off the fact that I have never seen F-lo as an accepted abbreviation. It just doesn't appear to be used as often.

But anyway, I don't see an issue with you going the route of titling everyone as S-ro and S-ino or distinguishing between married and unmarried men and women. It's your translation, so it's really up to you.

Sinjoro and Sinjorino are the usual titles for addressing men and women, regardless of their marital status. Fraŭlino, as a title, is pretty much just used for translating the analogous title in other languages (“a title of politeness, given in some countries to unmarried women” in the PIV); the absence of a male equivalent in most languages is why Fraŭlo never gets used.

Apart from titles, both fraŭlino and fraŭlo are used to mean simply “bachelorette/bachelor”.

Assuming the game was written in English, it’s up to you whether “Miss” is important enough or adds flavor enough in the game to translate it literally; as Rejsi said, it’s your translation.

sparksbet:I've been translating a favorite videogame of mine into Esperanto just for fun (and practice, I suppose), but since I haven't had much chance to use Esperanto among Esperantists, there's something that I'm not clear on which keeps coming up.

The game involves attorneys in the courtroom, and thus many people are referred to quite formally, with "titles" (for lack of a better term) in front of their names. In English, we have three such titles: Mr. for men, Mrs. for married women, and Miss/Ms. for unmarried women. However, I know other languages do not make the distinction between married and unmarried women - if I remember correctly, modern Germans use "Frau" for both.

I know the words that correspond with these titles: sinjor(in)o and fraŭl(in)o. I have seen the abbreviations s-ro, s-ino, and f-ino used. However, distinguishing between unmarried and married women and not unmarried and married men troubles me. It's common usage in English of course, but is it in Esperanto? Would s-ro Smith's wife be s-ino Smith, his unmarried daughter f-ino Smith, but his unmarried son also s-ro Smith? Or would both women be s-ino Smith? I have seen the abbreviation f-lo for fraŭlo floating around - is it used as the man's version of "miss"?

"Ido: Sioro (Sro.) is used to refer to any adult person, male or female, married or not. If it is necessary to indicate that the person in question is an adult male, then Siorulo (Srlo.) is used."

Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr.

Question. Is the s-ro from Esperanto or perhaps from Ido?

"Ido: Sioro (Sro.) is used to refer to any adult person, male or female, married or not. If it is necessary to indicate that the person in question is an adult male, then Siorulo (Srlo.) is used."

Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr.

Question. Is the s-ro from Esperanto or perhaps from Ido?

What?? Esperanto came before Ido.

Thanks, guys! Morfran, that was exactly what I needed to know - the game in question was originally in Japanese, but I'm using the English localization for my translation since that's the version I'm familiar with (and the language I speak). I assume that version just uses -san, and I was leaning towards using s-ro and s-ino for everyone, but I wanted to make sure I wasn't accidentally implying that everyone was married!

And yeah, Bemused, s-ro and s-ino are Esperanto abbreviations for sinjoro and sinjorino. I don't know a lick of Ido.