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i do wonder.............

de ben701, 29 décembre 2014

Messages : 25

Langue: English

Bemused (Voir le profil) 1 janvier 2015 10:02:51

marbuljon:

For my thoughts, I think all nouns in -o should be any gender, and to make them specifically female we add -in and specifically male we add vir-. So I think "patro" should mean "parent", and "virpatro - father, partrino - mother". It just makes the language more regular. However it won't become this way if most people stick to using simply "patro" to only mean "father", etc.

Normally I don't like the idea of changing any "rules" in Esperanto. But I think little things like this, which are actually changed to be more logical and regular, can only help.
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Beautifully argued. I for one would be happy to jump aboard your wagon.
Just let me know when you have convinced everyone to disregard FUNDAMENTO DE ESPERANTO, GRAMMAR, B) PARTS OF SPEECH, 2. where it states "E. g. root patr, „father”;"

Rugxdoma (Voir le profil) 1 janvier 2015 18:48:26

Bemused:
marbuljon:...Normally I don't like the idea of changing any "rules" in Esperanto. But I think little things like this, which are actually changed to be more logical and regular, can only help.
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Beautifully argued. I for one would be happy to jump aboard your wagon.
Just let me know when you have convinced everyone to disregard FUNDAMENTO DE ESPERANTO, GRAMMAR, B) PARTS OF SPEECH, 2. where it states "E. g. root patr, „father”;"
To use the language as logically as possible doesn't require any violation of the Fundament. And "little things" is what marbuljon talks about. What we should guard ourself againts is the fundamentalist idea that the whole language should or could be made totally "logical and regular". Human langages do not work that way. Every act of communication is a redefinition of the language. The language always has to be applied to a new, ever-changing reality.

Very often the same word is used to mean both the totality and one part of it. In several languages, including Esperanto, "letero" can mean either the paper you put inside the envelope, or the envelope and its content together.
"Korpo" can mean the whole living body, or "la trunko", without legs and arms, or the dead "kadavro". I think these two examples are enough to convince you that it is like this with almost all concepts.

I even think that a more symmetrically structured language would be more difficult to learn. One would mix up the two halves of the symmetrical pair.

The British writer Samuel Butler has been called a "chiasticist" because of his obsession about symmetry. In his writing he over and over again tried to change whatever seemed to him to be an asymmetrical statement, by completing it with its opposite.

Like Butler struggled with the reality, every language user does. All have their ideas about what is logical and regular and important. Some of these efforts will have some influence. Butler's impact on the English language was negligible.

dbob (Voir le profil) 2 janvier 2015 12:14:49

Bemused:Yes, viro is a man.
Therefore virbovo is a manbovine aka a minotaur.
Which is why the term tauxro was introduced to mean bull.
The word “virbovo” does not mean minotaur, at all. According to Zamenhof “compound words are formed by the simple junction of roots, (the principal word standing last)”. In this case: vir(o)+bovo. Here the principal word is “bovo”. This tells us that it is some kind of “bovo”, not some kind of “viro”. It’s a “bovo” with “viro” quality, aka a bull. A minotaur is a kind of “bovoviro”, specifically a mythological creature with the head of a bull on the body of a man who lived in Crete at the time of King Minos.

According to ePIV the root “vir” is regularly used as a prefix to denote the male of animal species. In the early days, “vir” was used in this sense as a suffix, but it caused confusion, therefore it is not recommended using the word “virbovo” meaning “bovoviro” (minotaur).

Maybe the term “taŭro” was introduced to mean “bull”, but not because “virbovo” means “minotaur”, which is not the case as explained above. Which is why the suffix “iĉ” is not at all useful, at least in this particular case.

Christa627 (Voir le profil) 2 janvier 2015 20:41:51

ben701:i do wonder why esperanto uses male as standard
ex)knabo(male) + in = knabino
like this, you put some words in male nouns to make female nouns. why?????????
Well, I can't say much about the original motive for this, but it does help when making Bible translations:
Kaj Dio la Eternulo faligis profundan dormon sur la homon, kaj ĉi tiu endormiĝis; kaj Li prenis unu el liaj ripoj kaj fermis la lokon per karno. Kaj Dio la Eternulo konstruis el la ripo, kiun Li prenis de la homo, virinon, kaj Li venigis ŝin al la homo. Kaj la homo diris: Jen nun ŝi estas osto el miaj ostoj kaj karno el mia karno; ŝi estu nomata Virino, ĉar el Viro ŝi estas prenita.

Genezo 2:21-23
No one has to put a clarifying note like in the Spanish version I have where the passage says:
Entonces Dios el SEÑOR hizo que cayera sobre el hombre un sueño profundo, le sacó una costilla y cerró la carne en el lugar de donde la había sacado. Con la costilla hizo al la mujer y se la llevó al hombre. Al verla, el hombre exclamó: «¡Ésta sí es hueso de mis huesos y carne de mi carne! Se llamará "mujer" porque fue sacada del hombre».
And then there is a footnote that says:
En el original la palabra «mujer» y «hombre» vienen de la misma raíz. [translation: In the original, the words "woman" and "man" come from the same root.]

Christa627 (Voir le profil) 2 janvier 2015 21:01:37

Rugxdoma:The British writer Samuel Butler has been called a "chiasticist" because of his obsession about symmetry. In his writing he over and over again tried to change whatever seemed to him to be an asymmetrical statement, by completing it with its opposite.
I understand that feeling completely! That is part of why my attempt at making a language hasn't gotten very far; the main principle of the alphabet is that every voiced consonant must have an unvoiced counterpart and vice versa. This eliminated l, m, and n, and I found that I couldn't get along very well without them malgajo.gif. And why the words "dekstra" and "maldekstra" still plague me, because they seem so asymmetrical, while I feel fairly symmetrical myself; right and left feel to me more the same than opposite; but then, Zamenhof was probably not ambidextrous (another etymologically plaguesome word, as it literally means "both-right" ), and so didn't have the same perspective.

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