Tin nhắn: 23
Nội dung: English
ceigered (Xem thông tin cá nhân) 08:33:59 Ngày 06 tháng 1 năm 2011
Jen, la artikoloj:
Ĉinaj 5 sudaj provincoj suferas de frosta vetero
Legendo pri jarfina vespero
The examples from both articles respectively:
- The title of the first one has it already - "Ĉinaj 5 sudaj provincoj". (5 southern provinces of China)
- "Vespermanĝo diferencas en ĉinaj diversaj lokoj" (An evening meal is different in China's diverse locations).
At first made me wear a strange expression on my face - it's understandable, but certainly different to what "English" Esperanto uses. It seems that this is a "translation" of the idea behind the -de suffix in Chinese, which is used for both the possessive and for creating adjectives. (Zhongguode can mean "china's", "of china" and "chinese").
Anyway, I thought I'd bring it to the English forum for the digestion of others like me who are used to using -a and "de" and word order a certain way and might be in need of a little shake up
(also the word "de" still is used in those articles, well at least one of them. Another thing I want to know is whether this is a pattern amongst Chinese esperantists, or just one particular author)
geo1963 (Xem thông tin cá nhân) 09:20:03 Ngày 06 tháng 1 năm 2011
5 chińskich miast = 5 ĉinaj urboj (word for word)
5 miast Chin = 5 cities of China (this is not good in Polish)
ceigered (Xem thông tin cá nhân) 12:25:16 Ngày 06 tháng 1 năm 2011
I did not say that I expect Esperanto to follow English conventions, nor did I say that it is strange form an Esperantist's perspective for these seemingly Chinese conventions to be used in Esperanto. I was posting these "findings" here because I thought it might be interesting to those who have not seen such conventions before, or, like many English speakers, normally expect to see adjectives ordered a certain way in their own language.
So, I thought that if I went "
" when I saw this new thing to me, then other English speakers might also go "". A good "" does us all a bit of good every now and then doesn't it? 
Anyway, for me the interesting thing here is that it's not "multaj ĉinaj urboj", but "ĉinaj multaj urboj" - it seems like a delibrate contrast, so that "ĉinaj" is not so much an adjective but a genitive construction (linguistically speaking). Of course Esperanto normally uses "de" in genitive constructions, but that doesn't mean anything using "de" is a genitive construction I guess...
Offtopic, but I really like that word "miast/miasto" (I don't know which is correct, Polish declension is too hard for my mind that can't even remember Russian declension)
geo1963 (Xem thông tin cá nhân) 12:45:00 Ngày 06 tháng 1 năm 2011
Jen estas miaj 3 filoj.
Jen estas 3 miaj filoj.
Jen estas 3 filoj miaj.
3 jen estas miaj filoj (?).
Filoj 3 miaj jen estas (?).
...
PS:
miasto - miasta : city - cities
miasta - miast : of city - of cities
miastu - miastom : to city - to cities
mieście - miastach : about city - about cities
miastem - miastami : with city - with cities
...
But don't learn Polish unless you have to. It is VERY difficult.
ceigered (Xem thông tin cá nhân) 13:11:12 Ngày 06 tháng 1 năm 2011
geo1963:The real beauty of Esperanto is that it has no fixed word order, so esperantists can use the language just as they use their own mother tongue. I know that the English are not used to that. But after all Esperanto is a foreign language with its own curiosities and we all have to accept that. Else it would not be international, would it?I had no idea that it would be so normal to a non English speaker - that makes me feel good then, I was worried that this "new" convention I was starting to like might be derided by others (or was just plain wrong)! Phew!
Jen estas miaj 3 filoj.
Jen estas 3 miaj filoj.
Jen estas 3 filoj miaj.
3 jen estas miaj filoj (?).
Filoj 3 miaj jen estas (?).
...
Although I must admit the last 2 examples you've got with the (?)s look very confusing, I don't think there are any languages (or any well known languages) that use such constructions, well, maybe the last, but the 2nd to last looks a bit too formidable for the human mind...
PS:Haha, don't worry I've learnt that Slavic languages are no easy task, especially Polish - but it doesn't stop them from being very nice languages and dreaming that I could speak at least one (Ruski/Polski, both are great!)
(multaj formoj de unu vorto)
...
But don't learn Polish unless you have to. It is VERY difficult.
Miland (Xem thông tin cá nhân) 13:49:41 Ngày 06 tháng 1 năm 2011
T0dd (Xem thông tin cá nhân) 13:56:25 Ngày 06 tháng 1 năm 2011
Native English speakers don't even think of it as a "rule" to say "big red house" instead of "red big house". We just don't say the latter, and we don't give it any thought. An Esperanto sentence with the words in a different order sounds odd to us and may be a bit confusing. The repeated sounds in the endings helps to fuse them together into a semantic unit.
Todd
geo1963 (Xem thông tin cá nhân) 20:06:56 Ngày 06 tháng 1 năm 2011
ceigered:Although I must admit the last 2 examples you've got with the (?)s look very confusing, I don't think there are any languages (or any well known languages) that use such constructions, well, maybe the last, but the 2nd to last looks a bit too formidable for the human mind...These are all Polish word order, though the last two are rare and only found in some historical texts (normally we do not use them any more).
Jen estas miaj 3 filoj. Oto są moi 3 synowie.
Jen estas 3 miaj filoj. Oto są 3 moi synowie.
Jen estas 3 filoj miaj. Oto są 3 synowie moi.
3 jen estas miaj filoj (?). 3 oto są moi synowie.
Filoj 3 miaj jen estas (?). Synowie 3 moi oto są.
There more possibilities but I don't want to be boring.
In Polish there are 7 cases, 3 genders and verbs conjugate in all tenses so we can put words in almost any order. I think that Polish (Russian?) somehow affected Zamenhof's plan of Esperanto.
ceigered (Xem thông tin cá nhân) 09:50:38 Ngày 07 tháng 1 năm 2011
) had an influence on Esperanto orthography, but whether that relates to grammatical influence or not I haven't an idea.I do feel though there is a strong slavic side with the language, not just the one that a beginner might notice, but a stronger, deeper slavic influence... Which is good, all things are better with a subliminal slavic influence (well, as long as it's not a Soviet subliminal slavic influence
@ Todd - I noticed that a bit earlier in my learning of Esperanto, that while I mightn't be able to understand individual words, I could get an idea of what grammatical features were present. Alas, if I miss a word in English the whole sentence can be a failed cause, and that happens in my EO too
sudanglo (Xem thông tin cá nhân) 13:50:59 Ngày 07 tháng 1 năm 2011
In the first case the parent has presumably just three sons (not three sons out of many). In any case that is the implication.
On hearing 'jen tri miaj filoj', many Esperantists might well feel that there is a missing preposition, required for the meaning of three sons of mine (compare with 'jen tri miaj libroj') - but in any case would imagine that the parent has more than 3 sons.
On the other hand, I suppose that there are more than 5 southern provinces, though I don't know what the situations is.
5 sudaj provincoj may be qualified with a preceding adjective if the 5 is a natural group - ie if lots of countries have just 5 provincoj and you want to refer the Chinese rather than the French or German group, or for some other reason the mentioned quantity form a natural grouping (eg la supraj 16 dentoj de la homo).
There are many word-order restrictions in Esperanto, Geo, as you will see, as you learn the language. The idea that you can put the words in any order is nowhere near the truth.
Even '5 ĉinaj sudaj provincoj', with the numeral in its normal position, is not brilliant style. If you want to avoid 'de Ĉinujo', I think I might prefer '5 sudaj provincoj ĉinaj'.
Again, Todd, there is a difference beween the ruĝa granda domo and the granda ruĝa domo. Compare 'eta supera lernejo' and 'supera eta lernejo'.