Talk:Esperanto vocabulary

Italian play

I cannot find the name of the Italian play that was translated into Esperanto and Ido, or the two Italian dialects used in the original (Tuscan and Florentine, maybe?). Can anyone help here? kwami 01:35, 2005 May 12 (UTC)

Du, ju?

I'm wondering about the origin of these words, which are supposedly from Lithuanian. Surely du is more likely inspired by Latin/Romance. Ju is pretty clearly an alteration of German je:

   Ju pli granda la familio,  des malpli grandaj la porcioj 
   Je größer die Familie, desto kleiner die Portionen.
   (The bigger the family, the smaller the portions)

I've asked on the Lithuanian talk page. Hopefully someone can confirm or disconfirm. Lithuanian "two" is du, but given Italian due, it would be hard to justify it's actually from Lithuanian. And even if L comparative "the" is ju, the parallel of both words in German is convincing. Perhaps L was used as a model for modifying the German? We'll have to see what the L equivalent is.

kwami 00:46, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Someone responded that Tuj is similar to tuojau, "right away". No comment on the the more the merrier construction, so I've removed that from the list. Looks like we really have only the one probably Lithuanian root.

(The Hebrew one is the masculine/epicene plural imperative suffix -û.) kwami

The Esperanto construction ju ... des corresponds precisely to the Swedish ju ... dess—which raises the question as to whether Zamenhof was consciously borrowing from Swedish (and if so, was it a one-off), or is there some other Germanic source as precise as this which he might have been using? Vilcxjo 23:03, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Is there really no authoritative dictionary of Esperanto etymology which can straightforwardly resolve these issues? (If not—looks like there's a gap in the market!) Vilcxjo 23:28, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

There are two that I'm aware of, but they're both expensive. And of course they're going to be pretty speculative, comparing Eo roots to various languages and drawing conclusions based on appearances much of the time. I've pretty much lifted this section from Eo wiki, so we can ask there. Of course, they credited ju ... des with being Lithuanian, so ... kwami 01:25, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

In Norse it's jo ... jo and in Dutch it's hoe ... hoe, so it looks like Swedish is it. kwami 01:35, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

This is probably a stretch, but I would guess that du is a general compromise among two in many European languages. Albanian has dy, Croatian dva, Czech dvě, Danish to, Dutch dwee, French deux, Portuguese dois... etcetera. Interchangeable|talk to me 22:55, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

In Dutch it is twee. --JorisvS (talk) 15:29, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Slavic suffixes?

I have the suspicion that a good number of the suffixes are Slavic, though I've never seen this mentioned. The pra- prefix certainly is, and maybe a couple others; and I assume that -aro is Slavic. Could someone who knows Russian or Polish (and especially if you know German as well) go over these and point out any likely possibilities? kwami 03:26, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

I always thought "-aro" was Latin, as in "aviary", collection of birds, "library", collection of books, etc. — {{User:JonMoore/sig}} 03:55, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Maybe, though that's not the etymology of the ending (aquarium, secretary, secondary, sanctuary, etc., all "connected with"), and neither biblioteko nor birdejo use the -ar suffix. Still, there's both glossary and slovarj as analogies for vortaro, so a Latin source is certainly possible. kwami 05:39, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Edzo

Wasn't edzo linked to German (or Yiddish) words like Prinzessin interpreted as princ-edz-in-o?

I have no idea. Rather a stretch from es to edz. Can you find a ref? kwami 02:57, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Jen http://www.esperanto.org/Ondo/L-lr.htm --Yuu en 22:40, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for that, Yuu en. An unusually convoluted etymology. I've added it in. kwami 16:40, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Komputi

I see komput-il-o in Wikipedia as a frequent example of Esperanto word creation from basic roots. Isn't the computer-related meaning a modern innovation? Old komputi was more like "meter" or "counter" as in gazkomputilo (gasometer, not *"gas-powered computer". Hence, the proposal of komputoro and komputero. An older root would be better.

Komputi is a fairly recent root - more recent than kalkuli or the use of metro as a suffix meaning mezurilo. Do you have examples of komputilo ever being used for anything but 'computer'? kwami 01:20, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

You're right, though: we should have a recent compound created from an old root. Can't think of anything offhand. kwami 06:31, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

A-I-O ablaut

When I first came across Esperanto, I learned the distinction between the tenses by analogy with Latin first-conjugation verbs, e.g. ama (present), amavi (perfect), amabo (future). Though my personal aide-memoire may be a matter of pure coincidence (and probably counts as "original research" anyway), I thought it worth mentioning in this context. Vilcxjo 23:20, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree. Zamenhof didn't leave detailed notes of which languages inspired which words, so Eo etymology is as speculative as any other. Pointing out similarities in such a situation is acceptable. However, there is no o in the Latin future - it's just a 1sg marker. kwami 01:13, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Of course you're right about the o of amabo (the future is no more distinctively marked by an o than is the present), but I don't think that necessarily rules it out as a possible model for the ablaut. It certainly seems to me no more speculative than the implication in your current edit (unless I'm misinterpreting you!) that the future o is related in some way to the u of the future participle amaturus (I assume that's the connection you're making, since it can surely have nothing to do with the u of Eo conditional or jussive).

I think there's a risk of applying to conlang etymology, standards or principles which are appropriate to natural languages but not to conlangs. An amabo—amos linkage would make little or no sense in dealing with a natural language, for the reason you correctly state; but it can perfectly well work with a conlang, since we are ultimately having to consider what may have constituted a connection (no matter how tenuous or ill-founded) in the mind of the conlang's originator. Unfortunately, this makes the whole process far more speculative and less susceptible to normal linguistic analysis. Vilcxjo 04:04, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

On the other hand, there are just five vowels, and he used four of them in verbal endings, so the o doesn't have to be from anything. I wonder if that's how the infinitive came about: four vowels were assigned, and i was the only one left. Can you think of anyplace it could have come from? Maybe it should be listed as an innovation along with gxi and ujo.

I'll take out the comment about the conditional (which after all could be the vowel of the jussive, as a fellow non-indicative mood - all speculation, of course). kwami 05:19, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

The infinitive in -i is reminiscent of the infinitive of Latin deponent verbs (uti, loqui, sequi &c). The jussive -u is likewise paralleled in the imperative of Greek deponent verbs (e.g. δέχου) as well as some -μι verbs (δίδου, θοῦ). (This strikes me as a stronger connection than the -û ending of the Hebrew imperative, which only appears in the masculine plural.) Granted, it may seem slightly desperate looking to deponent forms for parallels, but as you say LZ may simply have been running out of vowels at this stage! I can only say that, unlike the indicative tenses which I had to consciously learn, the -i and -u forms felt entirely natural to me when I came across them (being already conversant with Latin and Greek).

The "u" of -us, however, remains a mystery to me. Your suggestion that it simply marks a "fellow non-indicative mood" to the jussive seems about as reasonable as anything. Vilcxjo 14:46, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

The Hebrew is not my suggestion. Perhaps masculine plural is used as a general imperative. (I don't know if biblical or 19th century Hebrew had a tu-vous distinction, but masculine plural is at least used for groups of mixed gender.) But of course Eo -u could have been modeled on more than one source. I have made the Hebrew claim look more solid than my sources indicated, so I'll tone it down.

I think the o of -os is also still a mystery. Of course, trying to find cognates for an element one segment long will always be a challenge. kwami 19:50, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

QUOTE:

This play of vowels is not an original idea of Zamenhof's: -as, -is, -os are found for the three tenses of the infinitive in Faiguet's system of 1765; -a, -i, -o without a consonant are used like Z's -as, -is, -os by Rudelle (1858); Courtonne in 1885 had -am, -im, -om in the same values, and the similarity with Esperanto is here even more perfect than in the other projects, as -um corresponds to Z's -us.

END QUOTE

Source: An International Language (1928): Verbs, Otto Jespersen

User:Nov_ialiste 11:43, 2006 April 29

Thank you! kwami 21:53, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Source languages

Good current edit of the "Source languages" section. There are a few dubious etymologies, however:

(1) hepato, though it may have come (as so often) through Latin, is basically from Greek ἧπαρ (gen. ἥπατος)—there is a perfectly good native Latin word iecur. On the other hand I'm leaving brako under Latin, because bracchium is the ordinary Latin word, even though it could just as easily be from the cognate Greek word βραχίων.

Several of the examples are also generic Romance, including Italian: kapo, mano, reno. We should stick to unambiguously Latin forms, since Italian/generic Romance is already listed as a primary source. kwami

(2) OK, it's late at night here and my brain's not at its sharpest, but I really can't think what Greek word would serve as the root for pri (mind you, I can't think what would in any other language either). I'm removing it - if you put it back, please tell me what the answer is!

I've seen this assertion several places. I've always assumed the source was peri. It's typical for grammatical words in Eo to have more retricted meanings than in their source language, or for the original vagueness to be divided up among words from different languages (in this case ĉirk- vs pri). Z tended to make prepositions monosyllabic, and it would make sense to drop the unstressed vowel to do that. (Besides, there's already a per.) No more of a distortion than nepre from nepremenno. kwami

Of course, obvious once you point it out. Vilcxjo 16:24, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

(3) I'm surprised to see the adverbial suffix -e being described as being of Russian/Polish origin. I confess to knowing no Polish, but Russian adverbs typically end in -о (много, хорошо, плоxо, etc.), or else –ому or –ски. It is, on the other hand, a standard adverbial form in Latin (bene, digne, facile ...), so I shall change the text accordingly.

You're probably right about it being Latin. However, it could well have been reinforced by Russian -e, which is the form after palatalized consonants, as well as after ž, š when unstressed. But best to leave it as you've changed it, I think. kwami

On reflection, my example of δίδου as a -μι-verb imperative was not the best, since general opinion seems to be that it is formed on the basis of normal -ω/-ομαι verbs. I'm changing it to δείκνυ.

It's all Greek to me.

It's probably best just to give the deponent example, then, since δείκνυ doesn't have the same vowel. The deponents are common enough. kwami

I'm also going to be bold and put in the (admittedly speculative, and marked as such) Latin -bo in connection with Eo -os. If this is really thought to be a step too far, I shan't throw a tantrum if it's reverted ... Vilcxjo 01:17, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I do wish to remove that. Sorry, but the o isn't characteristic of the future (and i or an e I could understand), and it appears in the 1sg of the present as well. I just don't see any connection, and I don't see how we could defend it if someone attacked it. kwami 02:37, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

That's fair enough, it was only ever really a private aide-memoire. In fact I wasn't sure how seriously the amat/amavit links would be taken, though they're clearly more defensible than amabo. Vilcxjo 16:24, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for this, by the way. You've made some substantial improvements. kwami 02:40, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Actually, there are lots of Latin words that are common as roots in derived forms in the Romance languages, but which no longer exist on their own. Does anyone still use vir for 'man'? Maybe vir- from virility and okulo- from occulist should be given as examples of common/generic Romance roots, with only brako remaining as a purely Latin anatomical term? kwami 02:55, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Suffixes

Whoever the anon is who isn't bothering to read the article they're editing, there's a reason the part-of-speech endings are added to the lexical suffixes: they show which part of speech the suffixes function as. Please don't delete. kwami 19:15, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Krokodili

The meanings of kajmani and aligatori in the article at this writing are reversed from what is used among Esperantists I know (in the western United States): Aligatori is where at least one person is speaking their native language and at least one person is not, and kajmani is where no one is speaking their native language, but the language spoken is an ethnic (as opposed to an artificial) language. I wanted to see whether other Esperanto speakers use these meanings or whether someone made an editing mistake. Comments? --Cxarli 22:12, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Order in compounds

Compound words in Esperanto are similar to English, in that the final root is basic to the meaning.

This is not totally true. I think PAG deals with this. A counterexample is bon-kor-a ("goodhearted") from bona koro + -a. Kor-bon-a ("heart-good") is also possible but not used. Kompare sen-esper-a and esper-mank-a. Esper-sen-a is also possible, but prepositions are rarely used like that.

Good point. Will deal with this when I have time, unless you get to it first! kwami 09:35, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami: I disagree with the anonymous poster (PAG? Really?)'s reasoning (13 years ago or more!!). Bonkora is easily analyzed as "having a good heart" (bona koro). That's how I've always understood it for the 50-some years I've spoken Esperanto, and I see no reason to force it into the Procrustean interpretation as "good at heart", with kor- modifying bon-. --Thnidu (talk) 04:55, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

@Thnidu: Definitely. I read it the same way, just didn't bother to critique it. But their second example works: prepositions used as prefixes are a counterexample to the general rule. Other than that, Esperanto compounds typically correspond to the word-order of a prototypical verb-final language, which is modifier–noun in addition to noun–postposition. And of course not everyone makes a distinction between centjaro and jarcento, so the order in a lot of compounds can be arbitrary. — kwami (talk) 05:05, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Numido/meleagro

There's an error here -- a meleagro undoubtedly means turkey (Meleagris gallopavo), not a kind of guineafowl. The word is actually in the Fundamento. Turkeys are in the order Galliformes like guineafowl but are in a different family, Meleagrididae. --Cam 18:02, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Fixed it. --Cam 20:22, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

affectionate form

'affectionate form' should probably redirect to hypocoristic not nickname. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Em3ryguy (talk • contribs) 02:02, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Perfective and imperfective aspect... in Esperanto?

In the article there is information about perfective and imperfective verbal aspect in Esperanto. (Almost) quote of definition in this page: "ek -> imperfective aspect (frequent, repeated, or continual action); [...] -adi -> perfective aspect (beginning, sudden, or momentary action)" Esperanto has not properly verbal aspect as slavic languages. Imperfective and perfective aspect is not just what is defined above, but it means that there is a different verbal form to address "perfect" actions (made only once, and finished) and the "imperfective" ones (actions that are not finished, repeated as habit not just for long time, but as habit = many times). E. g. a perfective verb cannot have the present tense since a present action (even momentary) is still not finished. A verb with ek- can have present and can address imperfective actions:

John ekamas = John falls/is falling in love (in this moment, the action is not finished = imperfect)
John cxiam ekparolas = John always starts to talk  (always, as habit, many times = imperfect)

Imperfective means that a verbal form is used only to address non finished actions, or repeated actions (habits). Paroladi can address both perfective and imperfective actions (in contrast with the definition on this page for all verbs with -adi):

Maria paroladis = Maria had a spech (once and the action is finished = perfect action)
Maria paroladas = Maria is having a spech (ok once, but the action is still not finished = imperfect action)

Rather big error for an enciclopedia (every good grammar books says that), I can correct it, but I would like to hear the opinion of others before that. Thanks --Iosko (talk) 21:12, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Slavic Espists tend to use ek- and -adi as aspectual affixes. Also, habitual and present are not exclusive to perfective. For example, "in Bulgarian the Perfective Present may be used with habitual meaning [...] where the habituality involved is that of a situation which would in itself, as a single instance, be treated as perfective [...] as in spoglednat [pp] se, pousmixnat [pp] devojki, ponadevat [pp] zarumeni lica ... 'the girls look at one another, smile at one another, incline their reddened faces...'." (Comrie, Aspect, p. 69) kwami (talk) 21:50, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I still think it's wrong. Maybe in Bulgarian it happens that a perfective verb is used to address a non perfective action (this doesn't mean that the action is imperfective), but we are talking about Esperanto, or about general grammar (not related with any language in particular). I cannot check the references you told me (but if they are online just write me the address and i'll have a look). I wrote above some sentences with the same verb with -adi that are both perfective or imperfective, I could give other, and not only in present tense. I think that the mistake for imperfective is the confusion between "ongoing, habitual, repeated" and "continual" action.--Iosko (talk) 13:03, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

The point is that aspect and tense are potentially independent parameters, even if they often become intertwined in things like the perfect. In Bulgarian, if I understand correctly, the present perfective is perfective. I would argue that J cxiam ekparolas is perfective (this nicely parallels the Bulgarian example), and that M paroladis is imperfective, pace your descriptions of them (at least, I would never understand paroladis to have a perfective meaning). Of course, most Western European speakers do not consistently use aspect for all tenses when speaking Eo, so it may be meaningless to describe their Eo in terms of aspect, but Slavs who regularly use aspect natively tend to carry that over into Eo.

I hadn't noticed that aspect was the primary definition of these affixes. I agree that that seems unlikely. kwami (talk) 20:22, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Now it's already better. Paroladis should mean talk for long time. If one wants to say that John talks for long time just once and he already finished to talk, this is perfective. If one wants to say that usually J talks for long time, or he still didn't finish to talk (since long time, or he will continue for long), this is imperfective. Maybe I am wrong... (the only slavic language i studied is polish) However thank you for listening--Iosko (talk) 07:08, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

No, you're right. I wish I could remember the source, but I do know some Slavic Espists have used ek- and -adi to translate PFV/IMPV aspect. That might be one of the things that makes Eo written by a Pole easy to read, but difficult to translate into English. kwami (talk) 07:12, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

krokodili II

Per objection, I removed the following:

These words are sometimes subsumed under the general term reptilumi (from reptilo, reptile, plus the undefined suffix -um), though this is rare and krokodili is generally used instead as the generic term.

I've never actually heard reptilumi, though it has an article on wiki-eo. I wonder, though, do we want to keep all the other words besides krokodili ? Are they really Eo slang, or are they just proposals for Eo slang which hardy anyone actually uses? How many people have fluent command of these words, and use them in conversation or in writing? Should krokodili just be defined as "speaking another language when Eo would be appropriate", which is how it's generally used? kwami (talk) 02:09, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

It looks almost like somebody wanted to launch new words. I am not sure of that, just I never heard/red them, except for the word kokodrili (from Piron's website). It can just be that I never was in some situation where such words were used. Maybe we can choose to leave only words wich are in some important dictionary, like the Plena ilustrita vortaro, and it will be easier (anyway, I don't thnk that we need them all). --Iosko (talk) 11:56, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, the PIV would work. I actually have heard these words, but only in discussions about which one means which. I've heard ne krokodilu! is spontaneous conversation, but never ne-anything else. But then, my experience is hardly enough to go on. kwami (talk) 12:05, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

The Reta vortaro[1] defines krokodili as Paroli kun esperantistoj ne en Esperanto. It doesn't mention the others. kwami (talk) 12:16, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

table of correlatives

Just curious, but wouldn't putting the '-i' (ki-,neni-,ti- etc) at the start of the correlative ending (e.g. -ia) help prevent confusion with things like adjective and noun endings if people learn the endings as for example "-ia" as a whole rather than trying to figure out the differences between noun/adjective endings and correlative endings? Sorry if that didn't make sense, if I could I'd show you what I mean in a diagram but not sure how to go about that. Ceigered (talk) 12:06, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

That makes perfect sense, and may be a good pedagogic approach. Unfortunately, it doesn't correspond to the morphology. It would fail to account for neniaĵo, neniigi, nenieco, etc., where the i is part of the root, and nonce forms such as alies, aliom, where the i is also in the root. Also, in my dictionary, when the root is replaced by a swash ~, you get ~o, ~es, ~om, etc. kwami (talk) 14:55, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry - can -es be used in anywhere other than the correlatives? As far as I know, ali- is a root and not a correlative. Interchangeable|talk to me 21:39, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

It's been extended by analogy with the correlatives. We cover that somewhere. — kwami (talk) 04:04, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Where...? Interchangeable|talk to me 17:17, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Esperanto vocabulary#An extension of the original paradigm --JorisvS (talk) 18:41, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Contrast Correction

It seems to me that the origins section is flawed in saying that Esperanto is a compromise between naturalistic and an a priori language. Esperanto is between a posteriori and a priori (in that it contains borrowed roots but invented suffixes) but is schematic, not naturalistic (a distiction I always thought was seperate from a priori and posteriori), so this may need to be changed. Colorado 2993 (talk) 21:55, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

I think it's intermediate there as well. The suffixes are borrowed, not invented; they are used naturalistically for much of the vocabulary that uses them in the source language, but then extended schematically. — kwami (talk) 08:09, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Um

I'm a bit curious about the section about um. I can think of alternative words for most of the given examples: kolingo instead of kolumo, krucmortigi instead of krucumi, malvarmalsano instead of malvarmumo, kompleti instead of plenumi, brakĉirkaŭiĝi instead of brakumi, amigi instead of amindumi, and desktrronde instead of dekstrume. If the examples are the only words in which this suffix is used then there isn't much need for it. Interchangeable|talk to me 21:36, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Those aren't synonyms, and several of them are rather awkward. (desktrronde isn't possible in Eo, for example.) But people have tried creating replacements. — kwami (talk) 04:03, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

That was a typo; I'd meant dekstrronde. And in my opinion it's better to have an awkward word in pronunciation or construction that makes sense than a word whose meaning can't be found because of an undefined suffix. Interchangeable|talk to me 17:11, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I didn't notice the typo: dekstrronde is still not Eo. And if you fixed it up, I wouldn't know what it was supposed to mean unless you explained it. Same for malvarmmalsano and brakĉirkaŭiĝi and maybe kolingo. The nice thing about Eo word formation is that compound are the sums of their constituents. Your words are not. And then kompleti does not mean plenumi, and amigi does not mean amindumi. — kwami (talk) 11:17, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

This was my thinking behind those words: "right"+"circle"=clockwise. "Cold"+"opposite of health"=cold. "Arm"+"around"+"become, put"=put arms around=hug. Of course a collar is a receptacle for a neck; the only other candidate is the base of a guillotine and that could just be formed with fikolingo or something similar. "Complete" and "fulfill" are near-synonyms (what difference is there between "I completed my dreams" and "I fulfilled my dreams"?), and "cause to love" would be a very good definition for "woo". Interchangeable|talk to me 17:09, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that I wouldn't know those were the meanings you had in mind. A cold has nothing to do with being cold, so malvarmmalsano I might interpret as hypothermia. (In Japanese, for example, you catch a wind, not a cold.) For kolingo, I might imagine the cone you put around a dog's head to prevent it from biting out stitches after surgery. And brakoĉirkaŭiĝi would be something like 'become enfolded in arms'. Maybe poetic for a long, loving hug, but as a simple word, maybe being overwhelmed by zombies? Amigi is what a love potion is supposed to do. You can also amigi someone unintentionally, but to amindumi is intentional courtship. Kompleti means 'to be complete'; kompletigi is 'to make complete': you can kompletigi your collection, but you're not plenumante it. You plenumi an obligation, such as the law, but if you said kompletigi a law I'd think you were draughting it. — kwami (talk) 00:29, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I was already aware that different languages had different words for the common cold. But if that's the case, why was 'malvarm-' used to denote it? I thought about kolingo today, and a better word for the dog collar would be fihundkolingo (shameful dog collar). Besides, that's just being overly fussy. If you think of something that holds a neck, you don't think of a dog that's just had surgery; you think of a dog that's being chained to go for a walk. Try to find anyone (besides you) who upon being approached and told "I'm going to enfold you in arms" would not say "Don't you hug me, you creep!" but would instead say "OH MY GOSH THE ZOMBIES HAVE ARRIVED!". (Besides, zombies just devour; they don't enfold in arms - which would be a sort of hug anyway.) I agree that kompletiganta a law would sound as if you were draughting it, but you don't complete a law per se but you complete your obligations to the law, in which case fulfill could easily be substituted. But saying amigi is wrong... is wrong. If you woo someone, you make them love you, plain and simple. There's no point in distinguishing between whether it was by potion, force, accident, or plain romantic skills. (All of those can be denoted by a few extra words, anyway!) Interchangeable|talk to me 23:02, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but your understanding of the words is wrong. The whole point of the um suffix is that it is not a rational derivation. Therefore it doesn't matter that 'malvarm' has nothing rational to do with a cold. That's the reason for having this suffix! Also, to woo s.o. is not to make them love you: it's an attempt to make them love you. Amigi would mean you succeeded, not the same thing at all. Etc. — kwami (talk) 23:58, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Fine. I'm wrong on those. But I still don't understand why krucmortigi and dekstrronde are impossible. Interchangeable|talk to me 23:23, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Krucmortigi would be alright. Might be a bit awkward since it's such a common word in some contexts, but that's just a matter of style and opinion. There are several -um words that have been replaced by regular derivation, or at least which now have a regular alternative, and you could probably add this one to the list. (I found one hit on Google, an online glossary that uses krucmortigi as the definition of krucumi.) What we have now are the -um words that haven't been replaced after a century, so there's generally some reason that they're still around.

Dekstreronde (you can't have rr in Eo) would mean 'right-roundly', or 'round to the right'. It doesn't mean anything, unless maybe s.t. was supposed to be round on the right and angular on the left, but that would be stretching it. There is no logical connection between 'right' and 'clockwise', and that's what the -um- suffix is used for: derivations without any logical basis, or without enough logical basis for the naive reader to understand what you mean. — kwami (talk) 15:11, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

I didn't bother to look up present tense, since there were almost no hits in the infinitive and past, but I did get krucmortigas in a poem in Espero Katolika from 1904.[2] So it would seem that it's a rare variant, and in any case it would be understood regardless, so I don't see any reason not to use it if you like. — kwami (talk) 15:21, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

My intention with dekstreronde was to create something like "right in a circle", which would be clockwise. But if you say that can't be done... Interchangeable|talk to me 22:46, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

But even taking it to mean "right in a circle", that wouldn't mean "clockwise". Why shouldn't left in a circle be clockwise? If you take the international right-hand convention for vector rotation, clockwise is left-handed, not right. — kwami (talk) 04:04, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Ambiguities Regarding Affectionate Forms

The affectionate forms injo and iĉjo could not only be interpreted as affectionate forms of ino, but also as similar forms of ido (perhaps an English equivalent would be "my little pup/kit"). Perhaps this is worth mentioning in the affectionate forms' sections. Interchangeable|talk to me 22:49, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Compounds

In the article: "This epenthetic vowel [inserted between the elements of a compound] is most commonly the nominal suffix -o- ..." I see no justification to analyse this as a nominal suffix, and not simply an epenthetic phoneme, which is not, in fact, a morpheme. I propose that a justification for this analysis be provided, or this description removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 27.252.102.67 (talk) 08:32, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Esperanto grammars characterize it as the nominal -o. It contrasts with adjectival -a etc. — kwami (talk) 18:59, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

dura

§ Antonyms says

Two root antonyms are frequently encountered: eta (little), and dura (hard [not soft]). However, their popularity is due to their iconicity. Eta is derived from the diminutive suffix and more properly means slight, but it's a very short word, and its use for malgranda (little) is quite common. The reason for the popularity of dura is similar: official malmola simply sounds too soft to mean "hard".

The reason given for dura is original research pure and simple; I have softened the wording to use "may" and "perhaps", and noted the phonetic factors which could be involved.

The putative iconicity of eta is dubious, but IMHO it's at least somewhat plausible, so I've left it; but I've changed "little" in the description ("a little word")— a weasel word in this context— to "short".

--Thnidu (talk) 23:30, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

It's not OR, just uncited. But your fix is fine. — kwami (talk) 05:11, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Bracketed inflection

In § Interrogative vs relative pronouns the gloss in

Kiel vi faris tion? (How did you do that [accusative]?)

where "[accusative]" applies to the correlative tion, is easily misread as applying it to the correlative being described, kiel: a stumbling block for the reader. Compare the immediately preceding example:

La polico ne kaptis la ŝtelistojn, kiuj ŝtelis mian ringon. (The police haven't caught the thieves who [plural] stole my ring.)

Here the similarly bracketed inflection-specifier "[plural]" refers to kiuj. The exact placement is less conspicuous than the bracketed term itself. To avoid such confusion, I'm changing both bracketed terms to subscripts:

• La polico ne kaptis la ŝtelistojn, kiuj ŝtelis mian ringon. (The police haven't caught the thieves who_plural stole my ring.)
• Kiel vi faris tion? (How did you do that_accusative?)

--Thnidu (talk) 22:04, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, that's better. Tho I think the brackets should be retained as well, to make it as clear as possible. — kwami (talk) 21:35, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Reword paradigm?

The sentence: " Thus by learning these 14 elements the speaker acquires a paradigm of 45 adverbs and pronouns. " came up and the word "paradigm" seems to be a bit confusing. This was discussed here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Teahouse#Is_it_appropriate_to_simplify_regular_wikipedia_vocabulary%3F — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hiveir (talk • contribs) 23:25, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Historical misrepresentation

The section "original setup" clearly oversimplifies and distorts the linguistic aspects of implied gender assumptions in original Esperanto usage. I plan to make improvements by refining the current presentation. Hereby I provide an advanced warning to the original author or anybody who is interested. Please let me know if I should be aware of any constraints or dependencies that I need to heed while undertaking this endevor. Thanks, Filozofo (talk) 22:59, 30 May 2020 (UTC)