Note that Esperanto is the only language that you would normally refer to in this way, with a simple noun. That's owing to the historical fluke that the name of the language, Esperanto, was simply borrowed from Zamenhof's pseudonym, Dr. Esperanto.

If you want to say "I speak English," for example, you would say "Mi parolas la anglan." You certainly wouldn't say "Mi parolas anglon," since "anglo," the noun, refers to an ethnically English person. Saying "Mi parolas angle," suggests, as others have pointed out, that you are speaking English at the moment. You could, of course, say "Mi povas paroli angle," to make the point clear.

This use of an adjective without a noun, in "Mi parolas la anglan" should be understood as a sentence with an implied but omitted noun. "Mi parolas la anglan [lingvon]." It's also used in cases where, in English, we'd say "one." "Mi preferas la bluan." (I prefer the blue one)

I don't think I've ever heard anyone say, however, "Mi parolas la esperantan," but I guess it's possible.

My knwledge of the language has sufficiently improved, though some of my foundation and noun-learning is a bit shaky.

However, one quick question. Could someone confirm that my translation of the following sentence is correct?

Angle: "Look- your pronounciation is as good as hers."

Esperante: "Jen- via elparolo estas tiel bona kiel la sxia."

Espereble tiu traduko ests korekta, sed mi ofte eraregas.

T0dd:Note that Esperanto is the only language that you would normally refer to in this way, with a simple noun. That's owing to the historical fluke that the name of the language, Esperanto, was simply borrowed from Zamenhof's pseudonym, Dr. Esperanto.

If you want to say "I speak English," for example, you would say "Mi parolas la anglan." You certainly wouldn't say "Mi parolas anglon," since "anglo," the noun, refers to an ethnically English person. Saying "Mi parolas angle," suggests, as others have pointed out, that you are speaking English at the moment. You could, of course, say "Mi povas paroli angle," to make the point clear.

This use of an adjective without a noun, in "Mi parolas la anglan" should be understood as a sentence with an implied but omitted noun. "Mi parolas la anglan [lingvon]." It's also used in cases where, in English, we'd say "one." "Mi preferas la bluan." (I prefer the blue one)

I don't think I've ever heard anyone say, however, "Mi parolas la esperantan," but I guess it's possible.

I still think that the proper name of Esperanto is "La Internacia Lingvo", but it is just to lengthy and has essentially completely given way to the more colloquial 'Esperanto'. Following the same rules as those mentioned about, one could, in theory, say "Mi parolas la internacian." But it would earn you a lot of strange looks.

Novico Dektri:My knwledge of the language has sufficiently improved, though some of my foundation and noun-learning is a bit shaky.

However, one quick question. Could someone confirm that my translation of the following sentence is correct?

Angle: "Look- your pronounciation is as good as hers."

Esperante: "Jen- via elparolo estas tiel bona kiel la sxia."

Espereble tiu traduko ests korekta, sed mi ofte eraregas.

Yes, that's fine, but it touches on a semantic controversy. There are people who would say "Via elparolo estas tiom bona, kiom la ŝia." The controversy centers on whether it's acceptable to use the -iom correlatives to talk about degrees of some property, rather than just amounts of substances. The -iom usage is on the increase, mainly because the use of "iom" itself to talk about degrees has been around for a long time. "Mi estas iom malsata" etc. So, while your translation is completely okay, and is "preferred" by many, you may encounter the other usage as well.

T0dd:
Yes, that's fine, but it touches on a semantic controversy. There are people who would say "Via elparolo estas tiom bona, kiom la ŝia." The controversy centers on whether it's acceptable to use the -iom correlatives to talk about degrees of some property, rather than just amounts of substances. The -iom usage is on the increase, mainly because the use of "iom" itself to talk about degrees has been around for a long time. "Mi estas iom malsata" etc. So, while your translation is completely okay, and is "preferred" by many, you may encounter the other usage as well.

Bertilo suggests in the PMEG that the tiel-kiel combination is preferable, and that the tiom-kiom combination should only be used in cases where you want to add strong emphasis. It's just his opinion of course, but it's a nice way to add nuance to your speech through your choice of one combination or the other.

So basically, Bertilo would suggest that "Via elparolo estas tiel bona, kiel la sxia" for usual cases, but "Via elparolo estas tiom bona kiom la sxia" would be strongly emphasized - probably it would mean that her pronunciation is wonderful, and yours is just as wonderful as hers.

T0dd:Note that Esperanto is the only language that you would normally refer to in this way, with a simple noun. That's owing to the historical fluke that the name of the language, Esperanto, was simply borrowed from Zamenhof's pseudonym, Dr. Esperanto.

This is not quite true. The -o ending is used for languages that don't have an ethnic or national group associated with them. Practically speaking, most other constructed languages use the -o ending (Volapuko, Ido). For something like Klingon - even though it's constructed, it has an ethnic group associated with it (albeit a group that doesn't really exist), so it's "la klingona". Some people hold the opinion that some dead languages should get the -o ending too - so "latino" and "sanskrito". But some other people prefer to use "la latina" and "la sanskrita", since these languages once had ethnic groups associated with them, even though they no longer do.

Although I'm not a huge fan of Ido, I do like the Ido suffix -ez, meaning language, which enables the formation of language names readily: anglezo, francezo ktp. In Esperanto, it seems we end up talking about language quite often, and it makes sense to have a handy suffix.

Indeed, some have tried to import -ez into Esperanto, apparently without much success. Out of curiosity, I googled "anglezo" and found this interesting web site: Anglezo kaj Esperanto. It's interesting in that it's written in NHA, the unofficial "Nova HelpAlfabeto", and, of course, it features the word "anglezo"!

Novico Dektri: You know what I'm really confused about? In my esperanto dictionary I bought, it said that "I am speaking Esperanto" is "Mi parolas Esperante"? But I don't understand. Why would Esperanto have an 'e' on the end? Wouldn't it be "Esperanton" instead? Also, I get very confused about word order. If anyone can explain the whole "Esperante" thing to me, I would be very appreciative.

Benjamin

It's actually a Russianism. Zamenhof's native language was Russian and thus Esperanto has a lot of Russian/Slavic syntax in it. Re: esperante: In Russian one says "Ja govorju po-russki" where "po-russki" in Esperanto would be directly translated as "ruse." Another Russianism in the language is "ne X-ante" to mean "without X-ing": "without telling mom where I was going I left the house" Ne dirante al Panjo kien mi iris, mi elighis el la domo." It confused me to no end till I studied Russian in the military.

T0dd:Although I'm not a huge fan of Ido, I do like the Ido suffix -ez, meaning language, which enables the formation of language names readily: anglezo, francezo ktp. In Esperanto, it seems we end up talking about language quite often, and it makes sense to have a handy suffix.

Indeed, some have tried to import -ez into Esperanto, apparently without much success. Out of curiosity, I googled "anglezo" and found this interesting web site: Anglezo kaj Esperanto. It's interesting in that it's written in NHA, the unofficial "Nova HelpAlfabeto", and, of course, it features the word "anglezo"!

Ho ve! That helpalfabeto looks like it's designed to help English and French speakers and confuse the rest of the world. It makes Esperanto look sort of "ido-ish". Actually part of the reason I learned Esperanto was that I thought the word "kaj" looked cool, but I guess I probably wouldn't have thought it was cool if it were written "kay".

I don't really see the need for an -ez- suffix though. "Anglezo" doesn't even take fewer syllables to say than "la angla".

This is not quite true. The -o ending is used for languages that don't have an ethnic or national group associated with them. Practically speaking, most other constructed languages use the -o ending (Volapuko, Ido). For something like Klingon - even though it's constructed, it has an ethnic group associated with it (albeit a group that doesn't really exist), so it's "la klingona". Some people hold the opinion that some dead languages should get the -o ending too - so "latino" and "sanskrito". But some other people prefer to use "la latina" and "la sanskrita", since these languages once had ethnic groups associated with them, even though they no longer do.

AGGH! My fiance, who doesn't speak Esperanto, just read this, and asked how would you refer to someone who speaks D'ni(for those of you who don't know, D'ni is the people, and the language, used in the Myst exploration games).

As the construction of the name (D'ni)wouldn't work at all in Esperanto, this is what I've come up with:

dinio-a D'ni person (ethnically D'ni)
ex. Atrus (a major character in the games) estas dinio. (Atrus is D'ni)

dinie-the D'ni language
ex. Atrus lernis la lingvon dinie de lia avino, Tiana (Atrus learned the D'ni language from his grandmother, T'iana)

I think I've just discovered a new way to be a geek...discussing a language from a computer game in Esperanto.

Take that, Klingonistas!

Shawna