Alkanadi:Imagine if someone labels you as a non-Christian, as if being a Christian is somehow a standard that people are supposed to be. It seems that most religions do this.

Huh? That makes no sense. It would be offensive if you labeled all non-Christians as "heathens". I am happy to be called a non-Christian, because indeed I am not a believer in Christianity. I am also a non-vegetarian and a non-smoker and a non-Chinese speaker. These are simple statements of fact and not value judgments of me as a person.

I have no idea how you could say this concept less offensively. Sometimes you just need to talk about people who aren't members of a certain group. I can't even count the number of times I've spoken of "neesperantistoj" (non-Esperantists). Sometimes you just need a way to refer to everyone who isn't a member of a group. Sample sentence - "Most non-Esperantists have probably never heard of Zamenhof".

"Not" doesn't have the same meaning as "Mal", obviously - we are not talking about opposites. But the same thing stands, it's a statement of fact, not a value judgement. Not unless you happen to append it to a value judgement, in which case it was an expression containing a judgement regardless. (for example: generous/non-generous/ungenerous)

richardhall:

Alkanadi:Mal in Esperanto acts the same way by indicating what should be normal. Amo kaj malamo. Dekstra kaj maldekstra.

I can see your argument from English, but Esperanto is not English. Mal- in Eo does not indicate abnormality. It just means 'opposite': rekte la kontraŭo, inverse. It doesn't contain any inherrent value judgements, and we shouldn't read them in

There may be some unconscious value judgements at work behind the reason why amo is chosen as the word that needs mal- to render its opposite (hate). Subconsciously, and consciously too, people want to choose 'love' as the dominant, perhaps more positive, word.

I don't think it's purely accidental. Though the choice of some opposite pairings seems quite randomised.

Vestitor:

richardhall:

Alkanadi:Mal in Esperanto acts the same way by indicating what should be normal. Amo kaj malamo. Dekstra kaj maldekstra.

I can see your argument from English, but Esperanto is not English. Mal- in Eo does not indicate abnormality. It just means 'opposite': rekte la kontraŭo, inverse. It doesn't contain any inherrent value judgements, and we shouldn't read them in

There may be some unconscious value judgements at work behind the reason why amo is chosen as the word that needs mal- to render its opposite (hate). Subconsciously, and consciously too, people want to choose 'love' as the dominant, perhaps more positive, word.

I don't think it's purely accidental. Though the choice of some opposite pairings seems quite randomised.

For some reason, I wanted fermi to mean to open, and malfermi to mean to close. I also keep wanting mal- to mean un- rather than the exact opposite.

In English unhappy does not mean the same thing as sad, but means something more than displeased. I might be unhappy to get called into work on an off day, but I'm not feeling sadness. There are other examples that when I work through a passage doesn't make sense when reading mal- as un-, until I work through it again with mal meaning the opposite of. Its hard for me to name them right now, but another one is malamika. It doesn't help that we have constructions in English like, "She wasn't unfriendly, but she was not friendly either." or "I won't say he was unkind, but he certainly wasn't kind."

FoxtrotUniform:In English unhappy does not mean the same thing as sad, but means something more than displeased. I might be unhappy to get called into work on an off day, but I'm not feeling sadness.

Here's an example of how there isn't always a one-to-one correspondence between a word and a meaning, even in a single language. 'Sad' and 'unhappy' are often perfect synonyms ("I'm sad/unhappy because my dog has died") but not always, as you say. No wonder translating one language into another is rarely simple!

FoxtrotUniform:In English unhappy does not mean the same thing as sad, but means something more than displeased. I might be unhappy to get called into work on an off day, but I'm not feeling sadness. There are other examples that when I work through a passage doesn't make sense when reading mal- as un-, until I work through it again with mal meaning the opposite of. Its hard for me to name them right now, but another one is malamika. It doesn't help that we have constructions in English like, "She wasn't unfriendly, but she was not friendly either." or "I won't say he was unkind, but he certainly wasn't kind."

Still not a problem. Esperanto has both an option of mal- for an opposite and ne for a simple negation.

Unhappy would be "malfelicxa", but that would have a distinct meaning from "ne felicxa", not happy, which you would certainly see in some contexts.

Doing something badly (malbone) is also quite distinct from doing something not well (ne bone), and "malbona" is certainly not a synonym for "ne bona"