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Metaphoricl adjectives

של Cirariko, 25 ביולי 2016

הודעות: 6

שפה: English

Cirariko (הצגת פרופיל) 25 ביולי 2016, 11:50:00

Hi everyone,

Something I was just wondering is how we approach the idea of metaphor in Esperanto.

For example, if you wanted to say something was like something else, you could just use an adjective of its properties, like "ŝtona vizaĝo" for "stony faced". But in English you could have said "face like stone" which gives a slightly different feeling to it.

So how would "face like stone" translate?

Possible ideas I've had are:
"Vizaĝo de ŝtono"
"Vizaĝo similas ŝtono"
"Ŝtonvizaĝa"

Thanks, and please feel free to make wider points about metaphors in Esperanto other referring to my direct example.

sudanglo (הצגת פרופיל) 26 ביולי 2016, 13:03:27

Esperanto tends to be a rather literal language. However metaphorical usage does occur. The question is usually one of international comprehensibility.

As native speakers of English we know how stony is used in stony-faced and that it refers to immobility rather than other features of stone (eg texture or colour) and we also know that rocky is not equivalent.

Both in the case of English and Esperanto the literature has been the great driver of metaphorical extension, but in the case of Esperanto such extension of meaning tends to be less idiomatic - less opaque, more guessable.

In the case of doubt, we may turn to PIV (our international dictionary) or we may search in the Tekstaro or more widely in the internet using Kukolo. Google Translate or knowledge of other languages may also reveal if other languages share the same metaphor.

However, often we just rely on our intuition as to what will be understood by other Esperantists, and my own personal intuition about ŝton-vizaĝa would be that it would be understood as showing no expression - looking rather grim.

Cirariko (הצגת פרופיל) 28 ביולי 2016, 19:45:06

Thanks for your response. What's your opinion on how Sxtona Vizagxo differs from Sxtonvizagxo? Or basically which form is more common in Esperanto?

sudanglo (הצגת פרופיל) 29 ביולי 2016, 12:59:53

In the meaning of with a face lacking expression it would appear from a quick search with Kukolo that that ŝtona vizaĝo is more common than ŝtonvizaga, however in meaning I wouldn't see a big difference, except that ŝtona vizaĝo might also be used in a more literal meaning - ie to refer to the face of a statue, or the stone façade of a building.

However, my personal intuition would be that with vizaĝo kiel ŝtono you open up the possibility of referring to other characteristics of stone and not just immobility.

Vizaĝo de/el ŝtono would seem to me to more likely as a literal usage.

jcelko (הצגת פרופיל) 30 ביולי 2016, 18:44:14

"senmova vizaĝo" ?

sudanglo (הצגת פרופיל) 31 ביולי 2016, 10:09:51

Senmova vizaĝo would be typical of the preference in Esperanto for the literal translation of the meaning when there is some doubt about the international acceptability of some more figurative expression.

However it doesn't convert easily to an adjective (senmov-vizaĝa) and my researches suggest that isn't any particular problem with ŝton-vizaĝa.

Messing around with Google Translate, which may not be that reliable, throws up translations with some languages with a word like impassive (senpasia, senemocia?) but with many others suggests that this figure of speech is widely understood.

One of the features of Esperanto that I suspect many find attractive is the way it invites the learner to find creative solutions, using the flexibility that its word building offers. And because it is in not straitjacketed as in the national languages by the requirement to use the solution that native speakers of those languages have actually settled on, there is some considerable sense of freedom,

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