richardhall:[
Is there a rule of thumb or something for the correct punctuation of a sentence like this one in Esperanto? The comma after scias isn't obvious. There's nothing in my copy of "Teach Yourself..." about punctuation, but there clearly are conventions. Is it just a question of reading lots of Esperanto to learn the rules, or is there a shortcut?/quote]Oh one other thing re: punctuation. There is actually one rule that is followed. Eo uses the European convention for decimal notation.

In the states we would write 3,430.5 but in an Eo text you would write that as 3.430,5

awake:Mostly you'll pick up these punctuation conventions just by seeing them over and over, I wouldnt worry about them too much. It's not wrong to omit them, and eventually it will all look natural to you.

That's great, so I don't have to worry about adding those rules to my already malbone Esperanto! LOL!

awake:Oh one other thing re: punctuation. There is actually one rule that is followed. Eo uses the European convention for decimal notation.

In the states we would write 3,430.5 but in an Eo text you would write that as 3.430,5

That will take a bit getting used to. Do you think if we make the mistake once or twice, Esperanto speakers from different native languages would understand still what we were talking about?

byronarnold:
That will take a bit getting used to. Do you think if we make the mistake once or twice, Esperanto speakers from different native languages would understand still what we were talking about?

I think they would almost certainly understand.

And realistically, how often do you even talk about numbers like this in your personal correspondence? Most people only really need to talk about numbers and worry about number decimal notation in work-related activities, which are usually performed in a national language.

I have also noticed that in US Esperanto technical publications (for example, budget reports for Esperanto groups) they use the normal US notation. It's just for international use that you need to be aware of the existence of other standards.

The thing that is more likely to trip you up about the Esperanto community is dates - in the US, we write month/day/year, so 11/7 = November 7th. But in Europe, the standard is day/month, and this has become fairly standard also in Esperanto, so 11/7 is July 11th.

Due to the international setting, the form year/month/day is often used in the Esperanto world to avoid confusion, so 2007/4/5 or 2007.4.5 (depending on country!) is April 5, 2007. Use of a 24-hour clock is also common (18.00 or 18:00 = 6 PM)

Also, temperatures are usually quoted in Celsius, weights in kilograms, and distances in kilometers, but in US Esperanto events, people will use the English system as usual.

Eo uses the European convention for decimal notation. In the states we would write 3,430.5 but in an Eo text you would write that as 3.430,5

sorry, quite an unimportant question, but is it generall use in european countries to write . after thousands? Cause I cannot remember seeing that often at all. But perhaps it was only in my country/region (sweden)?

annadahlqvist:sorry, quite an unimportant question, but is it generall use in european countries to write . after thousands? Cause I cannot remember seeing that often at all. But perhaps it was only in my country/region (sweden)?

Punctuation varies greatly between languages and countries - for example, what is referred to here as the "European" convention definitely doesn't apply to the English speaking countries in Europe. Note too that in Esperanto, the thousand marker can be either "." (a full stop) or " " (a space) - so five million euros could be either €5.000.000 or €5 000 000. Using spaces is perhaps less potentially confusing.

As it happens, the SI international writing style (for scientific texts, etc) favours the use of spaces as thousand markers and the comma as the decimal point.

Erinja skribis:

Even under strict interpretation of Esperanto genders, I believe that "bebo" is gender neutral. The word "bebo", I believe, doesn't automatically indicate a boy.

Dear Erinja, under STRICT interpretation of Esperanto genders, bebo is male, and bebino, female. You are partially right though: you could use bebo to refer to a babe (male or female) when the sex doesn’t matter, but in a case like this, where the sex DOES matter, you can STRICTLY make it clear by the "in" suffix.

Take a look at the Retavortaro:

Ajxgenro aux neuxtra genro:
Genro asociata kun la objektoj ĝenerale, sen implici ion ulan (personan, viran, inan): aĵgenra objekto ĉe la verbo „danki“ indikas la motivon: „danki ion“ = „danki pro io“.

If you type "bebino" in Google you'll find al least 70 Esperanto pages where the word BEBINO is used.

Kwekubo:As it happens, the SI international writing style (for scientific texts, etc) favours the use of spaces as thousand markers and the comma as the decimal point.

A quote from the most trusted source of information on the web (Wikipedia ): "The 10th resolution of CGPM in 2003 declared that "the symbol for the decimal marker shall be either the point on the line or the comma on the line". In practice, the decimal point is used in English, and the comma in most other European languages."

I think the decimal point is far more common than the decimal comma in the technical literature, but that may be because I'm only reading the English language journals...

Mendacapote:Dear Erinja, under STRICT interpretation of Esperanto genders, bebo is male, and bebino, female. You are partially right though: you could use bebo to refer to a babe (male or female) when the sex doesn’t matter, but in a case like this, where the sex DOES matter, you can STRICTLY make it clear by the "in" suffix.

Do you have any sources that say bebo is male? ReVo and PIV
define the word as "infaneto" and "tre juna infano" respectively, and infano in turn is described as a young "homo", which is definitely a neutral word; PMEG seems to suggest it's neutral too.

Mendacapote:If you type "bebino" in Google you'll find al least 70 Esperanto pages where the word BEBINO is used.

Sure, but that doesn't mean the root word "bebo" can't be neutral.

Mendacapote:
Dear Erinja, under STRICT interpretation of Esperanto genders, bebo is male, and bebino, female. You are partially right though: you could use bebo to refer to a babe (male or female) when the sex doesn’t matter, but in a case like this, where the sex DOES matter, you can STRICTLY make it clear by the "in" suffix.

The PMEG's page on genders is worth reading:
http://www.bertilow.com/pmeg/gramatiko/o-vortoj/se...

"infano" is classified as a gender-neutral root; I think "bebo" would fall into the same classification.

In addition, just because a word doesn't have an inherent gender, doesn't mean that you can't use the -in- ending on it. You can use -in- for any word at all, so you can't really use use of -in- as a justification for whether a word is (at its base) considered. gender neutral or gender male. For example, "bovo" is firmly gender neutral (English translation according to the dictionary "bovine animal"). Yet you will commonly see "bovino" used. Use of "bovino" doesn't mean that "bovo" is masculine. It just means you are specifying a cow (female) rather than any bovine. Similarly, we use "virbovo" to indicate a male bovine animal.

It's important to treat Esperanto as its own language with its own standards and rules, rather than taking the standards of our national languages and applying them to Esperanto. While many romance languages assume a default gender of male when talking about children in particular, this is not the case in Esperanto. The important thing is to learn Esperanto's rules and use them.

In the case we were discussing, "bebo aŭ bebino" clearly doesn't make sense, because it would translate as "a baby of any gender or a female baby". Certainly they can say "bebino". But if they want to say "a male baby or a female baby", that would have to be "virbebo aŭ bebino". That's part of the reason why I suggested "knabeto aŭ knabineto"; I do agree that "virbebo" has a bit of a strange sound to it.

Actually in Spanish the word “bebé” is grammatically neutral… but you only seldom use it without stressing the gender difference: “El bebé” and “La bebé” or “Un bebé” and “una bebé”.

Let’s assume YOU ARE RIGHT: The word bebo maybe neutral, like infano. I hadn’t read the PMGE on this topic (thank you for posting the link!). But if you read a little bit more, in the same chapter you will find:

“Plej ofte oni rutine aldonas la sufikson IN al neŭtraj vortoj, se oni parolas pri ino, kvankam tio principe ne necesas. Aliflanke ĉe multaj neŭtraj vortoj oni ofte ne montras virseksecon, eĉ kiam tio povus esti bezonata. Oni kontrastigas inter ekz. bovo kaj bovino, koko kaj kokino, Ĉino kaj Ĉinino, Svedo kaj Svedino, kuracisto kaj kuracistino, lernanto kaj lernantino k.t.p., tiel ke bovo, koko, Ĉino, Svedo, kuracisto kaj lernanto ŝajnas viraj. Tiam la kunteksto (kontrasto kun ina vorto) momente donas viran signifon al vorto, kiu per si mem estas neŭtra. Tio estas eble mallogika, sed tre praktika. Temas pri ekonomia esprimomaniero”.

According to that text, I could be absolutely wrong about the gender of bebo, but the expression “bebo aux bebino” still be reasonably right!!!

As a matter of fact when I typed the word virbebo in Google; I couldn’t find any link. So, unless nothing has ever been written about a male babe in Esperanto, I suppose the authors assumed that bebo, was sufficient to mean he was a boy. Curiously by the other hand you can find more than a hundred examples of the use of bebino!

Do you still think that the expression “bebo aux bebino” makes no sense?