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Critique of the Esperanto profile | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Esperanto |  | |
| Johntm Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5232 days ago 616 posts - 725 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 9 of 19 21 January 2010 at 11:13pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Edited by Johntm on 21 January 2010 at 11:18pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| davidwelsh Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5339 days ago 141 posts - 307 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, Norwegian, Esperanto, Swedish, Danish, French Studies: Polish, Sanskrit, Tibetan, Pali, Mandarin | Message 10 of 19 24 January 2010 at 10:32pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I wonder how many people you need to make a proper culture then. If a few hundred thousand people isn't enough, I guess that means Iceland and Estonia don't have proper cultures, not to mention Scottish Gaels or Faroese or Inuit or Sámi or Native Americans... 7 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| zooplah Diglot Senior Member United States zooplah.farvista.net Joined 6178 days ago 100 posts - 116 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto Studies: German | Message 11 of 19 30 January 2010 at 7:18pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
How so? It's not that much different than German: Esperanto: Mi amas vin. Vin amas mi. German: Ich liebe dich. Dich liebe Ich. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| daristani Senior Member United States Joined 6954 days ago 752 posts - 1661 votes Studies: Uzbek | Message 12 of 19 30 January 2010 at 7:56pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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The question of an Esperanto "culture" is not one of numbers. The Estonians, the Faroese, the Sami, etc., have cultures because they have things they share with one another (history, folklore, customs, clothing, food, etc.) What do Esperantists have in common beside Esperanto?
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| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6966 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 13 of 19 30 January 2010 at 9:38pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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It seems a bit odd that a sentence in OVS has the same meaning and makes the same emphasis as SVO. As Splog posted, there is a tendency in languages which permit variable word order outside poetic contexts to use this flexibility to express changes in emphasis, or even changes in voice (i.e. active vs. passive).
THE computer is on the table. ~ Tietokone on pöydällä. (Finnish) There is A computer on the table. ~ Pöydällä on tietokone. (Finnish) Are you eating (some) bread? (i.e. rather than doing sg else) ~ Eszel kenyeret? (Hungarian) Is it (some) bread that you're eating? (i.e. rather than some other food) ~ Kenyeret eszel? (Hungarian) I am reading a/the book. ~ Čítam knihu. (Slovak) A/The book is being read by me. ~ Knihu čítam. (Slovak) On the other hand, davidwelsh's mentioning Esperanto's ability to use unmarked free word order makes Esperanto look odd as it's redundant to allow for a given sentence in different word orders to yield the same meaning or emphasis (I think that this is what Gusutafu meant when he mentioned "poor utilization of features"). (As a side note, the idea that this flexibility is exploited even outside poetry by Esperantists to make Esperanto's word order match the word order of their native language also seems odd. In that case, this could lead to Esperanto becoming pluricentric (or if things go far enough in other areas too, split Esperanto into mutually unintelligible dialects/languages), as "intereference" from Esperantists' native languages creeps into/affects their Esperanto.)
I don't think that German is a good example to match with Esperanto since the former's word order in main clauses or declarative sentences is SVO, with SOV in subordinate clauses, and VSO in questions. From what I remember from my German lessons of yore, OVS would be very unusual, if not "wrong" outside poetry/song-writing. For "Dich liebe ich" versus "Ich liebe dich" the difference in word order corresponds not so much to difference in meaning, but suitability for register. They're not identical nor do they evoke identical reactions from native speakers of German. Edited by Chung on 31 January 2010 at 4:00pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| zooplah Diglot Senior Member United States zooplah.farvista.net Joined 6178 days ago 100 posts - 116 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto Studies: German | Message 14 of 19 01 February 2010 at 2:17am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
http://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanta_kulturo
Did you not read my original post?
Um: Psychological Reactions to Esperanto 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| zooplah Diglot Senior Member United States zooplah.farvista.net Joined 6178 days ago 100 posts - 116 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto Studies: German | Message 15 of 19 01 February 2010 at 2:56am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Exactly. The meaning of a sentence doesn't change; it's just the most important aspect of it does: Mi havas ruĝan aŭton. = I have a red car. Mi havas aŭton ruĝan. = I have a car, which is, incidentally, red. Ruĝan aŭton mi havas. = I have a red car (the car is the most important aspect; having it is the least).
Esperanto has different morphemes for that: ant = present active at = present passive int = past active it = past passive ont = future active ot = future passive I like this arrangement because: 1) It follows the same pattern as the present indicative, so it's easy to remember. 2) It spares you from have two different auxiliary verbs used (English be/have; German sein/haben; Spanish estar/haber).
La komputilo estas sur la tablo. Ekzistas komputilo sur la tablo.
It's used when beginning Esperanto, to help you understand it better, before you learn how to change things for emphasis. You have to learn how to crawl before you can run. Of course, it's not always possible. You can't translate "I can't do that"; you'd have to say "I not can do that" ("Mi ne povas fari tion"). Similarly, you couldn't really translate something like "Se lo él dio a él" from Spanish because Esperanto doesn't have indirect-object pronouns. You'd normally say "Li donis al li ĝin" or to emphasize the receiving rather than the giving, "Li al li donis ĝin" or a number of other word orders (following the English word order "Li donis ĝin al li" would render the recipient unimportant). When an Esperantist claims that word order doesn't change meaning, he means that it doesn't give it the opposite meaning: "A man bites a dog" and "A dog bites a man" are exact opposites, and changing the word order in Esperanto doesn't render it as the exact opposite; it only changes the most important part of what's being said. Now, if German word order is important and it still has cases, then that's truly redundant. Everything I've read is that German is a V2 language and the utility of the accusative case is so that you can use SVO or OVS, but my actual knowledge of German is very low. Edited by zooplah on 01 February 2010 at 3:01am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| zooplah Diglot Senior Member United States zooplah.farvista.net Joined 6178 days ago 100 posts - 116 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto Studies: German | Message 16 of 19 01 February 2010 at 3:04am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
People who know nothing about a subject shouldn't pretend to be an expert of it. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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