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Is "Knabvirino" a good way to say tomboy?

by ComeradeKat, July 28, 2021

Messages: 25

Language: English

ComeradeKat (User's profile) July 28, 2021, 6:29:01 PM

Idk for sure if "Knabvirino" is a good word to use for tomboy, but i couldn't find a word for it online.

is there a correct way of saying tomboy in Esperanto?

sergejm (User's profile) July 28, 2021, 8:50:54 PM

Knabeca knabino

Using Google Translate you can get bad translate sovaĝa kato, which means wild cat.
If you translate to Russian, you get девчонка-сорванец, which is translated bubino, but I think this is not modern meaning of tomcat.
a girl who enjoys rough, noisy activities traditionally associated with boys is translated
knabino, kiu ĝuas malglatajn, bruajn agadojn tradicie asociitajn kun knaboj
So I suppose to translate knabeca knabino = boyish girl
knabvirino = boyish woman
Another variant is to Esperantize tomboy: tombojo

Metsis (User's profile) July 29, 2021, 9:51:28 AM

I agree with Sergejm's knabeca knabino because it describes quite clearly what you are talking about. Any soundlike "translation", like tombojo requires that you can track it to English and know what the English word means (I did not, so I had to get a translation to my native language first). Needless to say the latter is hardly suitable for any international use.

ComeradeKat (User's profile) July 29, 2021, 2:23:58 PM

In the ESPDIC, it's "knabulino".

sergejm (User's profile) July 29, 2021, 2:33:32 PM

http://www.denisowski.org/Esperanto/ESPDIC/espsear...
knabulino: tomboy
ĉjo-knabino : tomboy, masculine lesbian, butch girl, boy dyke, butch woman

bubo : brat kid, urchin, jack (cards)
bubino : hussy, wench

And I wonder:
knabaĉo : brat - in Russian брат means brother (frato)

njo-knabo aŭ inknabo mankas tie

sergejm (User's profile) July 29, 2021, 3:15:53 PM

En PIV ĉeestas njo-knabo
https://vortaro.net/#njo-knabo_kd
Sed mankas ĉjo-knabino

RiotNrrd (User's profile) July 31, 2021, 1:44:39 PM

I like the idea behind knabeca knabino, but it's just a description, not really a term. I'm thinking that you could condense it into a single term, though. The -ec suffix usually comes at the end of words, but it doesn't have to, so I'm thinking maybe knabecino? Or, if you want to generalize it beyond kids, virecino?

sergejm (User's profile) August 1, 2021, 4:15:46 AM

Vireco and knabeco (manhood and boyishness) both are 'ĝi' (it), and you cannot and -ino to them. You must add -ul- at first: vireculino, knabeculino, compare belulino; you can remove -ec-, so knabulino is findable in ESPDIC.

RiotNrrd (User's profile) August 1, 2021, 8:01:04 PM

Vireco and knabeco (manhood and boyishness) both are 'ĝi' (it), and you cannot and -ino to them.

I don't actually know what that means.

nornen (User's profile) August 1, 2021, 10:22:54 PM

I think what Sergej meant is the following, and Sergej please correct me if I'm wrong.

You can only attach -in to words (simple or compound) which by themselves can denote gender/sex. Those are generally words refering to humans, animals, gods, etc and those derived by -ul, -ist, -ant, -int, -ont, ktp.

Exempli gratia: knabo -> knabino; hundo -> hundino; dio -> diino; belulo -> belulino; militisto -> militistino; leganto -> legantino.

However, you cannot attach -in to words (simple or compound) which refer to objects, abstractions and other concepts that lack gender to begin with:

Exempli gratia: paco -> *pacino (peace but with a vulva); vido -> *vidino (sight but with female gametes); fenestro -> *fenestrino (a window which identifies as a 14-year old girl).

There is no morphosyntactic argument against these compound words, however semantics break down.

Now in the specific case of knabecino, the word "knabo" can denote gender (that's why knabino works), but "knabeco" is an abstract quality without any trace of gametes. Hence *knabecino would be the same as knabeco but with female gender. However boyishness cannot have gender as it doesn't refer to a human or an animal, but to an abstract concept. Now "knabeculo" again refers to a human being (which expresses boyishness; which has boyish traits) and only now you can slam the -in to the end of it.

That's why we say libremulino (a female book enthusiast) and not libremino (which would be some weird book enthusiasm (sic! not: enthusiast) which identifies as female and whose pronouns are she/her).

In my head this whole train of thought seemed a lot clearer than it came out written. Sorry.

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