Zafur:What about the reverse? A big smile meaning laughter... Does anyone here actually laugh out of pure happiness? Not an adrenaline rush giddyness, but just happiness?

My little sister was going to have a day at the beach, and she also got a doughnut (!), and she said, "I'm trying hard not to laugh!" (i.e. I'm so happy).

well if we look at it from a scientific point of view, most great apes (incl. humans) seem to laugh or at least make rapid coarse huffing and puffing noises when highly positively excited (especially chimps and humans), which could stem from humour or happiness. Or tickles! . Not sure about smiles though.

Wikipedia article on the smile

Askville explanation of the smile

The latter link more or less links the primate 'fear face' with the human smile as it seems to be stemming from trying to appease the other party, and if we take that route then it has a very different origin to laughter which is out of excitement (or tickles!).

ceigered:Please keep in mind everything that this is in relation to Esperanto as a world language and promoting it's use as one that's logical, flexible and easy for everyone - someone is just giving their opinion on how they think having a new word root for 'smile' could be helpful. Otherwise, Esperanto isn't much of a world language if people from around the world can't have their say about it can they?

Fair enough, as long as those statements stay as constructive opinions on the value of it in Esperanto and stop dragging other languages into the discussion with no reference to EO.

And a language might not be 'linguistically impoverished' if they don't have a word for smile. Esperanto might not be living up to its fullest potential though without one.

Calling it culturally imperialistic is going a bit far and undeserved IMHO.

No. No language is impoverished by lacking any particular word or concept from any other language. So saying it "might" not be impoverished is complete garbage. It isn't impoverished at all. That's like saying English is impoverished because it doesn't have a word for schadenfreude, or that Japanese would be richer by the addition of more consonant clusters. That is what's culturally imperialistic about it - the belief, however unconscious, that one's own linguistic background is the one that does it "right," that your own linguistic framework is "richer" than any other. I would have thought Esperantists of all people would be more aware of this kind of issue.

Chinese has functioned perfectly well calling a smile a micro-laugh, and I don't think anyone could rightly call that an impoverished language in any way for that, so clearly neither way is inherently better than the other.

Where the discussion is about whether or not not having a separate root for smiling versus laughing was positive or negative for Esperanto, I'm down with it. It gets dicey when people start saying that doing it their way would improve any given language, that needs to be called out, because it leads down dark paths.

(Sorry for butting in there!)

That's cool, it wouldn't be a good conversation if everyone agreed.

TetsuoTW:
Fair enough, as long as those statements stay as constructive opinions on the value of it in Esperanto and stop dragging other languages into the discussion with no reference to EO.

Roger that! Ryoukaishimashita!

In regards to "And a language might not be 'linguistically impoverished' if they don't have a word for smile", please excuse the wording, I was trying to be as politely neutral as possible to more or less drop that topic (consider it a form of formality) - personally I agree with you.

Of course a language carries a people's culture and so Esperanto should try and sit somewhere in the middle.

It gets dicey when people start saying that doing it their way would improve any given language, that needs to be called out, because it leads down dark paths.

Vi pravas . But I think most EOists are fine when it comes to natural languages like Mandarin, Japanese, French etc et al, just we like to argue about EO so much haha

ceigered:
Vi pravas . But I think most EOists are fine when it comes to natural languages like Mandarin, Japanese, French etc et al, just we like to argue about EO so much haha

I think this is one of the big problems of Esperanto: What you call "just we like to argue about EO so much haha" is the simple fact that the people accept anything in the so called "native" languages, but they want to change everything in Esperanto.
Perhaps many "Esperantists" don't really like Esperanto, they don't even want to learn it. What the like is to play something with language, to have their own ideas and perhaps to invent something really new and get "immortal".

Because the value of Esperanto is in using it, not in its linguistic qualities.

How does one say "to frown?"

Malrideti?

Oŝo-Jabe:How does one say "to frown?"
Malrideti?

sulkigi la frunton
aŭ
malgaj(eg)e rigardi
.
What is the opposite of smiling? Perhaps starting to cry?

Good translation does not always require matching root words. Word for word translation is difficult between ANY two languages because each is different and unique. Esperanto is no different. It is different and unique too. So rather than trying to create new roots why not use the words and the rules and the flexibility that Eo brings to translate the intent of the message rather than focus on not having a root that you would like.

horsto:
I think this is one of the big problems of Esperanto: What you call "just we like to argue about EO so much haha" is the simple fact that the people accept anything in the so called "native" languages, but they want to change everything in Esperanto.
Perhaps many "Esperantists" don't really like Esperanto, they don't even want to learn it. What the like is to play something with language, to have their own ideas and perhaps to invent something really new and get "immortal".

Well, as many an aussie would say, "I really don't give a rat's rear" (It's not much of a big issue for me, although it sounds a lot cruder ). You wouldn't be too wrong about people wanting to play around with Esperanto and making their own, considering the large amounts of EO-derived conlangs out there (although wanting to change 1 word or add a new one hardly constitutes wanting to change the entire language, let alone forming a dialect ). As for "immortality", well, that's one of those stupid things in society which probably has been with humanity ever since our villages went past the 20 people mark.

Regarding 'changing everything in Esperanto', I always would have said that it's because there are so many smart people learning it that you're just bound to have interesting arguments. However there is no doubt that in the EO community there are some who want to change everything about Esperanto and those who want it to stay preserved the way it is, very similar with English (which as we all know has resisted many a spelling-reform).

Anyway throughout the general discussion it seems that the general esperantist population seem to be against having a separate root for smiling, so I guess there's little reason resisting.