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playing with words

tiberius, 2007年5月1日

讯息: 12

语言: English

taneli (显示个人资料) 2007年5月17日下午6:50:23

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 (显示个人资料) 2007年5月17日下午8:43:21

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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