First of all Erinja I didn't propose ĝiri in the sence of 'turn' but for 'bear' - and if you don't like ĝiri I might ask what you propose to make the distinction between turning left (taking a side road) and bearing left (following a curve or motorway lane to the left).

Secondly, consulting the Esperanta Bildvortaro, I find my intuition about this word is confirmed by the use of ĝiri in relation to a very clear illustration on page 197 of a road curving to the right.

And what do you say for hairpin bend? Harpingla ĝirejo!

It is true that the word for indicators on a car is ĝirindikiloj but you can't go from that to assuming ĝiri is an equivalent of 'turn' in the sense of leave one road and enter a new one.

Kirilo81:It's common to distinguish between the "good" hand (right) and the "bad" hand (left), because before there was toilet paper you used the left one to clean your back.
For tabuistic reasons the word for "left" is often changed or replaced, often with euphemistic words.
On the other side there is often a conflation of the compass directions and left/right, depending whether your main direction is east, north or south, e.g. Luvian ipala- 'left' is related to ipaman- 'west' and the root *yebh- 'to enter'.
Going back to the Indo-European words, Latin dexter and Greek deksíteros go back to *dek'- 'take', so the right hand is "the acceptable one". For "left" there seem to be traces of a very old word *sewyo-, but more often a *sk'eh2iwo- (Lat. scaeuus, Gr. skaiós) and *leh2iwo- (Lat. laeuus, Polish lewy), literally "the one in the shadow (Gr. skiá) and "the hidden one" (*leh2- 'hide', no relation with left!).
The words for "right" you cited ultimatively go back to the root *h3reg'- 'straighten, reach out' (Lat. rex 'king' as the one who gives the direction).

Thanks Kirilo for bringing meaning to that puzzling phenomenon!
Could that also be connected with writing hands, e.g. how most in the west are right handed, and how we right left to right, unlike the Afro-Asiatic descended languages like Hebrew and Arabic? (Asia would be a joker of sorts, since up to down in a right to left fashion on one hand would probably result in less smudging with a left hand, yet on the flipside it's more or less a clockwise 90 degree rotation of how we write in the west and holding a brush is different to holding a pen. That said, in Japan and China they teach their children only to right with your right hand normally)

ceigered:
Thanks Kirilo for bringing meaning to that puzzling phenomenon!
Could that also be connected with writing hands, e.g. how most in the west are right handed, and how we right left to right, unlike the Afro-Asiatic descended languages like Hebrew and Arabic?

You're welcome

I'm sure that right-handedness is the cause that we use(d) the left to clean our back (in Arabia it's still very impolite to give someone the left hand), but I have no idea whether there's a connection with writing directions.
For logical reasons I think there isn't: The percentage of right/left handed people probably is the same everwhere, so statistically it can't be a relevant factor for the writing mode.
One should bear in mind that many early scripts were written boustrophedon (Greek: "like the ox plows"), that means in one direction (left or right) for one line, in the other direction for the next etc. Later one of the two possibilities was fixed, perhaps just by chance.

sudanglo:First of all Erinja I didn't propose ĝiri in the sence of 'turn' but for 'bear' - and if you don't like ĝiri I might ask what you propose to make the distinction between turning left (taking a side road) and bearing left (following a curve or motorway lane to the left).

Iremu liven should work. The meaning of "bear" in this sense is precisely to "tend to go" in one direction or another.

For bearing, as in following a curve, I would say "sekvu la straton maldekstren" (follow the street to the left), or perhaps "laŭu la vojon maldekstren" (go along the street to the left), to give the idea of continuing to follow the street, always in the "left-most" direction.

I have given and received street directions in Esperanto quite a number of times, and I never needed questionable words like "ĝiri", and everything worked just fine.

I can't see why you are so set against ĝiri, Erinja. The word seems very well established in non-financial senses.

What would you call the ĝirindikiloj on your car (which you would use when changing lanes on a motorway.)

Ĝiri seems to me precisely the word you want to translate 'bear'. And although you might not need it to give directions at a 'strata' level, one would often encounter a situation on a motorway where there is gentle separation of lanes feeding some traffic off to the left and the rest to the right so that for both streams of traffic there appears to be a continuation of the motorway but the two streams are directed to different destinations.

sudanglo:I can't see why you are so set against ĝiri, Erinja. The word seems very well established in non-financial senses.

Most times that I have seen Erinja giving her opinion on the correct use of Eo words, I have realized that she is right

That's why now I checked on la Reta Vortaro and I found this on ĝiri:

1. Transpagi iun sumon el sia konto en la konton de iu alia: K-do B ĝiris hodiaŭ per ŝtata banko la sumon de 20 rubloj en la konton de SAT .
2. endosi

There is no mention of any definition even close to turning/bearing.

sudanglo:What would you call the ĝirindikiloj on your car (which you would use when changing lanes on a motorway.)

Also checked la Reta Vortaro... If you search indikilo, you can see this example:

la ŝoforo avertis pri direktoŝanĝo per turnindikilo

So, it seems that turnindikilo is how you should call it. (At least, it seems coherent to me).

I can understand the confusion, as in Spanish the verb "girar" has both meanings: to turn, and to transfer money (usually, to send money to somebody on other city/country).

Amike,

Daniel.

henma:

sudanglo:I can't see why you are so set against ĝiri, Erinja. The word seems very well established in non-financial senses.

Most times that I have seen Erinja giving her opinion on the correct use of Eo words, I have realized that she is right

After a bit of hunting around, i found the word "giri, to gyrate". This word is even on the vortaro on this web site. Perhaps this is the word sudanglo is thinking of? Perhaps it is just another hat trick

sudanglo:What would you call the ĝirindikiloj on your car (which you would use when changing lanes on a motorway.)

I call them turnindikiloj.

And surely if you believe that "ĝiri" means "to bear", then "ĝirindikiloj" would be a poor choice, because we use them for turning, not for bearing to one direction or another.

In fact I am not against creation of words for meanings that Esperanto needs a word for. But as far as we are discussing a car manoeuvring through the streets, I see no difference in meaning between the Fundamental word "turni" and the suggested word "ĝiri". I don't happen to care if 'ĝiri' is in PIV (the source of MANY a dubious word) with the meaning of "turni", or in any two-language dictionary.

The Academy of Esperanto defines ĝiri as:

8th official addition:ĝir/i. Transpagi iun sumon el sia konto en la konton de iu alia

[ĝiri: To pay a sum from one's account into someone else's account]

I believe the Academy's official dictionary before I believe any other source, including Wells' dictionary, though I have the highest respect for John Wells and his work. I will continue to use "turni" as it has been used for more than a century, and "ĝiri" as it was defined in the 8th oficiala aldono. Others can do as they please but I believe I am on solid footing with my own decisions on how to use these words.

I've found just one example of 'ĝiri' in the sense of 'turn' in the Tekstaro:

"Eble, ŝi povas informi, ĉu la vizitinto tro drinkis, ĉu li estis moroza, distrita, aŭ ĉu eble li simple trorapide veturigis la aŭton sur la ĝiroplena vojo?"

I had never heard of 'ĝiro' in the sense of a 'bend' or 'turn' before. In that sentence, I think you could replace 'ĝiroplena' with 'kurbiĝoplena'.

According to ReVo, 'kurbo' is used when talking about lines, whereas to describe the curbed part of something you use 'kurbiĝo'.

I suppose there is a difference between bearing to the left or right on a motorway, for example, where you are just changing lanes, rather than actually turning off the road. But, according to the definitions given, 'ĝiri' doesn't seem to fit with this either.