ceigered:Vera seems to be quite abstract

Yes, that's what I would use for logic states.

whereas prava is natively an adjective and has two uses, being 'saying (as you said) that which is truthful' and also simply 'right' which is more abstract.

I see "prava" as "right" as in "having reason on its side", whereas "ĝusta" is more related to truthfulness, exactness, precision.

However I didn't know about 'korekta', I just assumed it mean 'correct' like in most native languages. Would I be right in saying 'korekta' is a false friend?

Yes. "korekta laboro" is what a teacher does on classwork.

Dank' MNLG, that explanation was good for 'prava' makes sense to me.

Korekta is just confusing though. I think I'll stick to using the colloquial meaning of 'right' than use the technical meaning ha ha, at least with people I know will understand (e.g. countries with 'correct' in the sense of 'right' in their language).

One problem in the Esperanto community is low standards. People go around speaking with poor grammar and they don't even try to improve; they simply say "People understand me, and that's what's important, so it doesn't matter". But how can we as Esperanto speakers ask others to learn the language, if we can't even be bothered to learn it properly ourselves?

So when you run across something that seems difficult based on your native language, I really encourage you not to say "Oh, I'll do it however I want to when speaking with other speakers of my language". Or "Oh, that requires too much thought so I won't do it". Or "Can I use XYZ instead since it's easier?"

Just because someone else is using a word in the wrong way doesn't mean you should do it too. Also when it comes to pronunciation, I encourage you not to take half measures. Rather than saying "X is hard to pronounce, can I just say Y instead?", you should be simply concentrating on getting it right, rather than negotiating your way to an easier solution.

I know it's tempting to find the "easy way out". But if you want to speak the language very well, I encourage you to plow through, accept the difficulties as they come and find ways to learn them, rather than trying to take a shortcut around them.

I was speaking in terms of colloquialisms, but nonetheless I won't be using 'korekta' now

And I don't think it's 'low standards'. In Australian English, we have this habit of shortening words and adding 'o' to the end: compo, dero, susso (sustenance payments) info, bizo, johno, chrisso, etc. And many people call that bad English, but, if everyone in Australia understands you, then it's not bad English, it's a dialect of it. Same thing works with Esperanto. While I agree that we should be considerate of the gramatiko and the vortaro for the sake of those who do not necessarily speak the same 'dialect' of Esperanto, as long as understanding (the purpose of an IAL) is clear, I don't think the colloquial use of 'korekta' is going to cause many problems, provided it stays as a colloquial term until it gets accepted into the common vernacular.

I don't see it as a question of low standards, to me it's just people trying to use what feels natural believing that others will agree. And in most cases that's true (they do understand), even if it's grammatically incorrect. And language only evolves through colloquial use as everyone adapts their communication to match others (when I say 'evolve', I don't mean Ido-style ). And considering 'correct' is used to mean 'right' in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish etc, all of which have disproportionate international influence, I'm pretty sure the use of 'korekta' for 'right' is acceptable at least on a colloquial level.

Just as 'Hey mate did you getcha work compo?' means 'Hello friend, did you receive your compensation from your workplace?' to all Australians, 'Korekta' would subconsciously mean 'right' for most Esperantists who most of which are European.

Nonetheless, I agree with you Erinja on the fact that we should still strive to reach higher standards and perfect pronunciation etc, but I still think that the colloquial uses of a word are as important as their formal uses.

I think it is incumbent upon every serious Esperantist to resist colloquialisms or the formations of dialects whenever possible, as both are contrary to the spirit of Esperanto (i.e., clear communication between peoples from different backgrounds). Dialects and colloquial speech obscure understanding by dividing the world into "those who understand the nonstandard form and those who don't".

For Esperanto to thrive, it must be ONE language, not a multitude of similar ones.

Everyone misuses words now and then, and it's certainly no crime. But, once we realize we are not speaking correctly (i.e., not according to the rules of the language, or with nonstandard meanings for common roots and/or affixes) we should strive to correct ourselves. To do otherwise is to make ourselves purposely misunderstood (or NOT understood). What's the point of that?

The point of a language is to be understood. If an Australian asked me "Did you getcha work compo?", I would have no idea what I was being asked. You would have to simplify that and ask me the question in standard English, otherwise I could not respond. Esperanto is not designed to be used between speakers of the same language; it is used between people from many nations and cultures. It is natural that small groups form their own slang, only used within the group. But Esperanto speakers need to be extremely careful about this.

When studying a foreign language, I think it's a good idea to err on the formal side until you speak a language well enough to understand when it's ok to be casual and slangy. It's hard to know, with a foreign culture, when certain profanities are acceptable or when they are over the top, when it's ok to speak to someone informally and when polite terms are needed, and when slang is ok to use, and when use of slang would show disrespect.

I think this is true in Esperanto as well. A certain amount of slang, a certain amount of colloquial speaking happens. But for beginners, I think it's best to learn the proper grammar first. You need to learn to speak so that you sound like an educated and well-spoken person, in my opinion, before you get involved in slang. There's a fine line between slang and bad grammar/poor language use, and it takes a fair amount of experience with the language to tell the difference. For the record, Esperanto slang breaks the rules of Esperanto grammar very, very rarely. Esperanto speakers tend to be sticklers for correct grammar, and this is reflected in our slang. Esperanto slang normally involves use of words in novel or interesting ways - but still with correct grammar! For example, a beginner at something might be described as a "fresxbakita", or "fresh-baked".

Even with Esperanto, it takes a level of experience to know what freedoms the language does and doesn't allow. For example, you can't abbreviate "dankon" as "dank'". Why? Because the -n is there for a grammatical purpose. Dank' is an abbreviation of "danko", which makes it ungrammatical to use it as you would use "dankon".

How come we can say something like "dank' al la helpo de mia amiko, mi finis la projekton" ? In that case, "dank'" is an abbreviated form of "danke". It's a long-running and well-established colloquialism, but you have to have been speaking the language for a while to know that.

Colloquialisms from other languages are seldom brought into Esperanto, as they tend to harm comprehension between people from different countries. The only time I have really encountered much in the way of abbreviating words and borrowing them from other languages is in "private language". You know how very close friends, or people in a relationship, or co-workers in a very small office, tend to have private jokes and allude to past events, so that no one outside the group understands what they are talking about? This also happens when Esperanto speakers are very close friends, or in a relationship, or working very closely on something in a small team. They end up with a sort of private Esperanto, often involving interesting wordplay and some words borrowed from other languages, used in a way that would not necessarily be recognized even by people who spoke both the other language and Esperanto. This "private" form of Esperanto would never be used outside of the small group, and it is not the type of slang that would ever be spread into the rest of the Esperanto world. Similarly, you wouldn't talk to your mom or your teacher using the same in-jokes and expressions that you use with your very best friend, right? And you would never expect your private slang between you and your best friend to reach the wider English-speaking community.

RiotNrrd:To do otherwise is to make ourselves purposely misunderstood (or NOT understood). What's the point of that?

My point is that it would still be understood, not to hinder communications .

Sure, some colloquialisms don't make sense, but some do. For instance, just about everyone can figure out what amik' or dank' means, as long as the root is intact. However, in this case, 'korekta' is unique given the fact that despite resembling a internationally common word 'correct' (or any of its forms, e.g. corretto and korekt etc) but having a much different meaning. In fact, in just about every language I know, 'correct' (or however it is spelt in that country) means 'right', and it even has *some* use in Japan (although it resembles 'korekuto' コレクト in righting). Also the verb 'korekti' (the root of the Esperanto 'korekta') resembles the English 'to correct' rather than the French (corriger), German (korrigieren), Spanish (corregir) or Italian (correggere) forms which seems to indicate that the English form which the Esperanto form was likely derived from was in fact born from colloquial use of the noun 'correct'.

Sorry for any misunderstanding that I seem to be producing - I'm a tad tired
But I'm not saying that we shouldn't strive to be correct as possible in Esperanto, I'm saying that there are some colloquialisms existing in Esperanto that SHOULD be noted given the likelihood of them being used widespread. I agree that we should try and smooth out colloquialisms that hinder communication, only in this case 'korekta' is quite unique.

But I do have one thing to say in support of general colloquialisms - at least they allow unrivaled creativity. And we don't want Esperanto to turn into Newspeak, do we?

Nonetheless, don't flame me for putting this idea forward. I just think that this deserves more lenient thought than an immediate shutdown response.

As I said before, just being understood isn't always enough. Just because "dank'" is a root, doesn't mean you can always use it. There are rules about when you can and can't do away with the final -o. Even songs and poems adhere to this rule, and they are famous for violating language rules, in all languages!

Please understand that I'm not trying to shut you down instantly, and I'm not trying to make you talk like an encyclopedia. I'm trying to explain that Esperanto is a language more flexible than English. We don't have to resort to abbreviating words and using poor grammar, in order to express ourselves in an interesting manner. You can sound young and fun and creative, and say things in a really cool way, and still remain 100% within correct grammar! This may sound hard to believe, but please believe me when I tell you, that you will find this to be true. You can say things in such cool and creative ways in Esperanto, you can really maximize your creativity. But you have to learn with time how to do it. And you won't do it the way that Australians do it. It doesn't come from randomly abbreviating words and assigning new meanings to existing words. In Esperanto, it comes from using interesting word orders and combining grammar elements in unexpected and creative ways.

This doesn't sound like much fun, but trust me, it is. Perhaps someone else can attest to this. Lots of people have been reading this forum since they were beginners; they can probably share some of their experiences.

You may enjoy reading about "Esperant'", a sort of joke way of speaking the language. It requires you to stay within normal grammar rules, but puts on some additional restrictions that force you to say everything in interesting and convoluted ways. Of course no one would really speak like that unless they were joking, it's just a funny idea that someone came up with, so it's not even a slang. But I think you can read about it to get an idea of the possibilities that are open to you.

A short description in English:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperantido#Esperant....

You can read some more here in Esperanto, at this page "Lernu je Esperant'"
http://www.geocities.com/mihxil/esperant/esperant....

Ah, dankon, mi nun komprenas

I'll cut down my use of 'dank'' to when I want to be completely incomprehensible then (or maybe it could be part of a 'what-if' ido to see what Esperanto would look like if it was affected by the same changes as the Germanic languages - ooh the possibilities ha ha)

I've seen some Esperant' before, I use 'stas' sometimes myself.

I think though I started to misunderstand a bit before, sometimes when I hit a chunk of text I skim over it rather than read the whole thing, mi bedauxras.

I'll read a bit slower next time. I'm a bit hasty when it comes to esperanto, so i get certain concepts but completely misunderstand others, but I guess it will smooth out with experience.

Read more carefully about Esperant', though, because 'stas isn't correct. Remember that one of the rules of Esperant' is that you *never* break the rules of grammar. And 'stas has broken a rule. The root word is est/. You can't take off the e from est/; you can't break up roots or abbreviate them.

A form like 'stas would only be found very rarely, in poetry etc. (which, as I mentioned before, poetry tends to break rules of grammar in all languages!) It is not really be found in everyday speech, even in casual colloquial among young people.