Meldinger: 13
Språk: English
annabalquin (Å vise profilen) 2017 10 9 17:57:53
I'm very new to esperanto, just started learning out of a general interest in language learning. I was enjoying it thoroughly until I discovered there exist a whole host of adjectives that instead of having their own name are simply expresed using their opposite eg. maljuna = old (not/opposite of [mal] young [juna]) What an impoverishment of language and the conceptual pool... if something is simply defined as its lack, we miss so much of the concept itself. It's as if they are just shadow-qualities, rather than standing on their own referring to a rich experience, or an independent idea.
Perhaps I'm so put off by it because as a spanish speaker I have the association of mal with bad, with evil and general negativity, which would be reduced over time with my deepening understanding of Esperanto. But still... it seems lazy at best..
Does this irritate anyone else, and does anyone know if there are Esperantists who seek to change this through the promotion and use of alternative vocab?
thyrolf (Å vise profilen) 2017 10 9 18:50:04
Of course there are other languages, who concept is designed to meet the need of people like you. Have a look on interlingua at interlingua dot com, and you will learn about a language that chiefly optimizes the grammar and standardizes the words of roman languages, without getting rid of the roots. As if the french, italian, portugues and spanish come together and decide to learn a common dialect clearing away the specific odds of each national language.
It's comparingly easy to understand, but - especially for non-romans - needs a lot more efforts in comparism to Esperanto to learn all the words. But if You're an italian or spaniard ...
It depends on what You want.
trojo (Å vise profilen) 2017 10 9 19:51:55
if something is simply defined as its lack, we miss so much of the concept itself. It's as if they are just shadow-qualities, rather than standing on their own referring to a rich experience, or an independent ideaSo you define that concept (independence) by the lack of dependence. You probably didn't even realize you were (ironically) doing the very thing you inveigh against.
If you are accustomed to the idea of un- and in- words in English, you can probably become accustomed to mal- in Esperanto.
does anyone know if there are Esperantists who seek to change this through the promotion and use of alternative vocab?Probably the majority of Esperantistoj support vocabulary reforms of one kind or another, or have in the past. But there is no consensus on what needs changing, so extensive overhauls of the language are unlikely at this point. Which is a good thing-- since the core features and vocabulary of the language are stable, one can read Esperanto texts written over a hundred years ago and still understand them easily.
That said, over the years, alternate forms of some mal- words have come to be accepted to varying degrees, e.g...
Malproksima = fora
Malgaja = melankolia
Malglata = raspa
But mal- will likely always be a thing in Esperanto. To expunge it altogether would require the addition of many hundreds of new vocabulary words, which would be bad given Esperanto's primary claim to fame, which is that it's easy to learn. (Not to mention dictionary writers would hate to give up the ability to define glata as malraspa and malglata as raspa). At some point, choices have to be made between the goals of "ease of learning" and "pleasing aesthetics". In this case at least, "ease of learning" won out.
annabalquin (Å vise profilen) 2017 10 9 22:00:39
Thank you for your thoughtful and interesting response!
annabalquin (Å vise profilen) 2017 10 9 22:01:50
Meldingen er skjult.
annabalquin (Å vise profilen) 2017 10 9 22:03:05
thyrolf:Hm, the Esperanto wordlist is DESIGNED to economize on words as far as possible, as long as it is easy to understand and handle. It is an efficient method to have one adjective to learn and receave a second for free, using the mal- method. And yes, one gets used to that rapidly.Thanks for the tip! I think I can get used to 'mal'
Of course there are other languages, who concept is designed to meet the need of people like you. Have a look on interlingua at interlingua dot com, and you will learn about a language that chiefly optimizes the grammar and standardizes the words of roman languages, without getting rid of the roots. As if the french, italian, portugues and spanish come together and decide to learn a common dialect clearing away the specific odds of each national language.
It's comparingly easy to understand, but - especially for non-romans - needs a lot more efforts in comparism to Esperanto to learn all the words. But if You're an italian or spaniard ...
It depends on what You want.
bartlett22183 (Å vise profilen) 2017 10 10 18:57:31
nornen (Å vise profilen) 2017 10 10 19:27:29
illogical = ilógico = unlogisch = something that lacks logic.
irresponsible = irresponsable = unverantwortlich = something that lacks responsibility.
Some Esperanto words with mal- work the same way:
sato -> malsato = lack of hunger
Others however not:
amo -> malamo is not the lack of love (and why is hate the opposite of love? is this choice not quite arbitrary? E.g. in Q'eqchi' rahro is something you love, but maarahro (=mal-amato) is something you don't care about (like a stoic adiaphoron) and not something you hate.)
And then we have also the prefixes ne- and sen-.
dependa = dependent
sendependa = independent
stokaste nedependaj = stochastically independent
logika = logical
nelogika = illogical
What would maldependa and mallogika mean?
How do you say irresponsible? Senresponda like sendependa, neresponda like nelogika or malresponda?
Which makes me wonder for instance if Spanish "in-sensato" would be malsenca, nesenca or sensenca?
With some words ne- and mal- mean different things. According to PIV online negranda and malgranda have different meaning.
However with other words ne- and mal- mean the same thing. According to PIV online neebla and malebla have the same meaning.
Very confusing.
(EDIT: Browsing the dictionary I just stumbled over "gnostik/" and "agnostik/". Why a second root "agnostik/"? Wouldn't "mal'gnostik/" have done the trick?)
Metsis (Å vise profilen) 2017 10 11 07:19:02
I agree. Sometimes it is confusing to know what is the direct opposite. I read somewhere an explanation using colours:
blanka is white, so malblanka is in the opposite side of the spectre, i.e. black, and neblankaj are those 50 shades of grey there between
Roch (Å vise profilen) 2017 10 11 15:55:57
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complementary_colors