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Street Names in Esperanto

door Ironchef, 17 augustus 2009

Berichten: 28

Taal: English

Ironchef (Profiel tonen) 17 augustus 2009 17:06:02

If "Esperantujo" were such a place, how does one translate street names properly? Are adjectives used or nouns? For example, if we had "Park Street" in English, do we get "Parka Strato" or "Parko Strato" or even "Strato de la Parko"? The same for landmarks and locations: would Columbus Square/Plaza be translated as "Kolumbusa Placo" or "Placo Kolumbuso"?

Your thoughts? Thanks.

Pharoah (Profiel tonen) 17 augustus 2009 17:19:31

Couldn't you also just call Park Street "Parkstrato"?

ceigered (Profiel tonen) 17 augustus 2009 18:27:09

I'd go just 'Park Strato' or 'Colombus Placo' (in spelling). In pronunciation I'd pronounce it like it was in the language the name originally came from (or the 'Esperanto' approximation at least - so Colombus would sound like /kolom'bus/ or /kolom'buso/ despite the spelling).

I say this because
A) it could get messy if grammatical word endings etc got involved with postal addresses ridulo.gif For instance, I wouldn't say 'Caralue's St' or 'Street of Caralue' in English for the street I live on (Caralue St).

B) Esperanto-ising preexisting street names can get a bit tedious. Take for instance words like 'Forest' in English - in EO 'foresto' means absence. I wouldn't translate names either, it's like calling my area 'Ongkaparringa' it's kaurna-to-english translation 'Women's river' (nangkiparringga). Which sounds a bit weird and also disregards the culture of the land (it's unlikely an Esperantujo would just magically appear with new streets and towns, it'd probably be built on preexisting settlements with respect to the original people's culture)

Sorry if that message didn't make sense - I'm feeling very tired now, so I've likely written a whole lot of incomprehensible gibberish above lango.gif

EDIT: of course, if this esperantujo had always existed or was founded on another planet, then there'd be no problem using any system, as long as all the residents agree.

darkweasel (Profiel tonen) 17 augustus 2009 18:57:41

You can't say "*Parko Strato" or "*Placo Kolumbuso". That's just not possible because you can't use nouns adjectivally in Esperanto.

Don't translate street names from other languages. You can add word endings if they're in the plural or accusative. "Park Streeton" (or Park Street-on), for example. If you want you can add a pronunciation guide in brackets, as in "Park Street [Park Strit]".

Personally, I don't even transliterate product names into Esperanto ortography, although many Esperantists do so. Thus, I don't say "Linukso", "Vindozo" and "Makintoŝo", but "Linux", "Windows" and "Macintosh". I believe that they were created only because the x-system conflicts with Linux (making it Linŭ) - and for consistency, "Unikso", "Vindozo", "Makintoŝo" and similar names were created, although I don't know of any other language which transliterates product names into its ortography system. At least not one using the Latin alphabet. Just stay with the original names, that doesn't sound as strange. (Heck, I've even been called "darkvisel".)

@ceigered: You'd just translate "forest" as "arbaro". What would be the problem with that?

qwertz (Profiel tonen) 17 augustus 2009 18:58:21

Hhm. I assume the mostly city names were well discussed heavly by the local Esperanto folks. To do this with all street names of one city. That's woah ... Pooh, I just did count the the first page of Munich's first street index page (around 150 entries, that doesn't include the whole ++4989 Munich telephone predial code area) So in result there are around 6300 street names which everything has it's own history. So, to discuss and translate all this street names with their historical story and its esperanto language properness would take ages. That's even takes more energy than mapping the whole city to set it into Munich's Open Street Map Cities doing this (Esperanto street names) would to have a very strong Esperanto identity.

darkweasel:Just stay with the original names, that doesn't sound as strange. (Heck, I've even been called "darkvisel".)
And try to name Munich the original German name: München okulumo.gif (Very less english nat's will do this due to it's hard pronouncing)

That's remembering me to Australia. If I tried to pronounce a city name with the English pronouncing i.e. Kununurra it was wrong. If I did it the German pronouncing it was wrong. Arrgh. So I took a map and said: "I wanna to go here" and put my finger on it. Surprisly, it did work this way rideto.gif

For me that's one of the hardest tasks learning English. You have to learn every english words pronouncing by itself. That's why I like Esperanto for. Even if a french talks in Esperanto I will understand that. (They have a very special sound. But I like this sound, too.)

Erik

Pharoah (Profiel tonen) 17 augustus 2009 19:41:41

For me that's one of the hardest tasks learning English. You have to learn every english words pronouncing by itself.
You are right there. I have often thought that English isn't much different from Chinese in this respect. Our words might give a bit of a hint as to how they're supposed to be pronounced, but so do Chinese characters many times (by including a smaller version of a similarly pronounced character).

Rogir (Profiel tonen) 17 augustus 2009 20:09:16

If there's a national language name for a street, I think the preferred way is 'Strato Park'. However, translated into Esperanto there are two main options: 'Strato de la Parko', or 'Parkstrato'. The second is shorter, and I think would be more likely. But I don't think it is a very common problem.

Also, Zamenhofstrato would be the most common name.

qwertz (Profiel tonen) 17 augustus 2009 20:21:44

Pharoah:
You are right there. I have often thought that English isn't much different from Chinese in this respect. Our words might give a bit of a hint as to how they're supposed to be pronounced, but so do Chinese characters many times (by including a smaller version of a similarly pronounced character).
I try to figure that out watching english nat' movies using the english main voice and english subtitle. And then - what did s/he say?! Just rewind the movie. Jesus, the subtitle was correct! S/he said that rideto.gif
Okej, jes I know. You only can recognize what you still know. And mostly you don't take focus/listen to every word. So you expect a context or better you expect a special range of words in this special context. In a face to face situation you are capable to navigate to the proper range of word through asking the other people what isn't clear or if you loose the context "track". In a dvd movie you have to rewind again and again. Until you get it. Or you believe you got it.

Miland (Profiel tonen) 17 augustus 2009 22:29:29

In Esperanto the tradition for named nouns like streets is that the name comes second, thus: Strato Zamenhof or Kafejo Piron. See for example PMEG (first box, last example).

ceigered (Profiel tonen) 18 augustus 2009 07:07:35

darkweasel:@ceigered: You'd just translate "forest" as "arbaro". What would be the problem with that?
I guess... I still would just go with 'forest' though, no esperantisation at all okulumo.gif

qwertz:That's remembering me to Australia. If I tried to pronounce a city name with the English pronouncing i.e. Kununurra it was wrong. If I did it the German pronouncing it was wrong. Arrgh. So I took a map and said: "I wanna to go here" and put my finger on it. Surprisly, it did work this way.
As an Australian, I have no comment on crazy place names lango.gif. 'Kunanara', said with French vowels instead of English ones, would probably be a good guess, but the truth is many Australians don't even know how to pronounce half of these place names rido.gif. If we don't know how to spell or pronounce the name, we generally just call the place 'whoop-whoop'.

"Ah hey kev where a you goin ull of a suddin?"
"Ah ta some place out a' whoop-whoop"
"Ah beaut ma'e bring us back a soovenier!"

Maybe esperanto needs a similar convention...
You are right there. I have often thought that English isn't much different from Chinese in this respect. Our words might give a bit of a hint as to how they're supposed to be pronounced, but so do Chinese characters many times (by including a smaller version of a similarly pronounced character).
Try learning Danish and try learning Chinese. You'll immediately find Danish pronunciation much easier to guess by spelling. And Danish is approximately as irregular as English pronunciation. Foroese is also similar to English pronunciation in many aspects only they have accent markers. While English does look as if it is highly irregular and gives no hint to the pronunciation, there are some subtle patterns which can make it as easier as any other major European language (and there's the bonus that it is spoken with so many accents that you'll always be right somehow rido.gif)

Chinese is special in that the written language has no real relation to the spoken language at all. A character can have heaps of different pronunciations, and a spoken word can match heaps of different characters. Of course realistically speakers use the best known/easiest to understand of the characters and pronunciations, but for a learner, it's much harder than English ridulo.gif

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