Kwa maudhui

playing with words

ya tiberius, 1 Mei 2007

Ujumbe: 12

Lugha: English

taneli (Wasifu wa mtumiaji) 17 Mei 2007 6:50:23 alasiri

tiberius:My only qualm with Esperanto is the overuse of mal-. I think it works great as a general "un" or "de" prefix, but words like "malami" for "to hate" just don't seem right. However "malamita" or "malama" for "unloved" would be great.
Esperanto is supposed to be relatively simple for everyone, not totally natural to a native speaker of any particular language at the expense of all others. Try to put yourself in the shoes of someone learning Esperanto who knows only Chinese. Would you rather memorize two completely different words for every pair of opposites or just one, especially if none of those words bore any resemblance whatsoever to your language?

As to "unloved", what's wrong with "neamita" (or "neamata", if you're talking about someone whom nobody loves right now)?

mnlg (Wasifu wa mtumiaji) 17 Mei 2007 8:43:21 alasiri

taneli:As to "unloved", what's wrong with "neamita" (or "neamata", if you're talking about someone whom nobody loves right now)?
More precisely it should be somebody whose action of not being loved is in progress, not yet complete; not necessarily right now, though.

(I agree with the rest of your message.)

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