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Esperanto for non-European languages | ||
Tags: Esperanto | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Esperanto |  | |
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6472 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes  Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 1 of 16 22 November 2010 at 4:04pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
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Ever since studying Swahili, I have been amazed at just how many of Esperanto's
structures allow me to understand features in languages that Esperanto is in no way related to. Let's try to collect them here, for the sake of Esperanto-speaking polyglots. To be clear: I am looking for features of non-Romance non-Germanic languages which resemble Esperanto's features without at the same time resembling typical features of Romance or Germanic languages. I. e. features that would be new and alien and possibly difficult to you if you didn't know Esperanto. Ancient Greek Participles not available in modern European languages but available in Ancient Greek and Esperanto: past-active, present-passive, future-active (available in Latin) and future-passive Arabic -a = -ino = for female family members, female professionals etc. جَدّ = avo = grandfather --> جَدَّة = avino = grandmother m...a = -ejo = for places دَرَس = lerni = to learn --> مَدْرَسة = lernejo = school Chinese (Mandarin) 爱- = -ema = a disposition or tendency 怀疑 = dubi = to doubt --> 爱怀疑的 = dubema = (hard to translate, "not trusting"? numbers (up till 9999) 三百十五 = tri-cent dek kvin = three hundred fifteen certain word constructions 国 = lando = country --> 外国人 = ekster-land-ano = foreigner Finnish -ema = -lias puhe (speech) -> puhelias (talkative) antaa (to give) -> antelias (generous) uni (sleep) -> unelias (sleepy) kipu (pain) -> kivulias (painful) -igi = -taa/-ttaa muu (other) -> muuttaa (to change) vapaa (free as in freedom) -> vapauttaa (to free) kirja (mark, pattern) -> kirjoittaa (to write) herätä (to wake up) -> herättää (to wake somebody up) asua (to live, reside) -> asuttaa (to populate, colonize) Swahili ki- = -eta = makes things smaller karatasi = papero = papero --> kikaratasi = papereto = little paper ma(ji)- = -ega = makes things bigger buibui = araneo = spider --> mabuibui = araneego = big spider macho = okuloj = eyes --> majicho = okulegoj = big eyes u- = -eco = for generalised nouns kweli = vera = true --> ukweli = vereco = truth -ua = mal- = to turn something into its opposite funga = fermi = to close --> fungua = malfermi = to open -isha/-iza/-esha/-eza/-aulisha = -igi = cause sth./sb. to do something or to happen kufahamu = kompreni = to understand --> kufahamisha = komprenigi = to explain, announce tayari = preta = ready --> kutayarisha = pretigi = prepare, make ready -wa/-ewa/-iwa/-lewa/-liwa = -iĝi = to become; passive construction kuzaa = naski = to give birth --> kuzaliwa = naskiĝi = to be born kuita = nomi = to call/name --> kuitwa = nomiĝi = to be called/named ... TO BE CONTINUED ... Edited by Sprachprofi on 23 November 2010 at 7:23pm 7 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6144 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 2 of 16 22 November 2010 at 5:23pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
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Swahili
-wa/-ewa/-iwa/-lewa/-liwa = -iĝi = to become; passive construction kuzaa = naski = to give birth --> kuzaliwa = naskiĝi = to be born kuita = nomi = to call/name --> kuitwa = nomiĝi = to be called/named 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6911 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 16 22 November 2010 at 5:56pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
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I just want to say that ellasevia's example exist in Swedish too (even if it's not a non-European language):
-s = -iĝi = to become; passive construction föda = naski = to give birth --> födas = naskiĝi = to be born kalla = nomi = to call/name --> kallas = nomiĝi = to be called/named In addition to the copula+past tense construction (e.g. to be+called), just about any verb can be made passive by adding -s. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| palfrey Senior Member Canada Joined 5275 days ago 81 posts - 180 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, French | Message 4 of 16 23 November 2010 at 2:51am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
I may be missing something here, as I don't know any Chinese. But the Esperanto formation looks very similar to the German "Ausländer" (Aus-länd-er, literally "outlander" in English), which also means "foreigner" or "alien". Edited by palfrey on 23 November 2010 at 3:55am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| alang Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 7223 days ago 563 posts - 757 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish | Message 5 of 16 23 November 2010 at 4:00am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
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Do not forget Agglutination. This is one reason I wanted to eventually learn Turkish and Uzbek after Esperanto.
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| lingoleng Senior Member Germany Joined 5300 days ago 605 posts - 1290 votes | Message 6 of 16 23 November 2010 at 5:05pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
This is really a feature of Esperanto I found immediately pleasing: The full set of participles, which can result in an elegant expressive brevity.
How about German backen -> Bäckerei, Metzger -> Metzgerei? (It is no longer fully productive, usable for new words, what makes it less convincing.)
Diminutives are a common Indo-european feature, aren't they? Latin -ulus, German -chen, -lein, Spanish -ito, there are many of them.
Maybe less common, but in Spanish there are many of these augmentatives: sombrero -> sombrerón. (They often have a pejorative meaning at the same time, so that the analogy is not always complete, of course.)
German wahr -> Wahrheit, English true -> truth ;-)
I still don't know if I should find this mal- terribly ugly or wonderfully elegant, but it is nothing unusual: wahr -> unwahr, able -> unable. (These may not mean exactly the opposite, but often enough I think they do.) I may miss some point, sorry then, but in this case I don't think your examples are very convincing. (I enjoy quite everything you write, so this is nothing personal, I hope this goes without saying.) 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6472 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 7 of 16 23 November 2010 at 6:23pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
Thank you for your comments.
The point is not to convince anyone! I do not actually want this thread to become another place to discuss Esperanto's value; instead I'd like to increase the number of threads that help Esperanto speakers indulge in polyglottery. Let's save us all a lot of time by linking exotic concepts to Esperanto concepts. It's like finding mnemonics, but better. In response to your points, for me, the biggest difference is that in European languages you learn things like true -> truth as separate units, you don't spend time thinking about the defining quality of these words, and any semblance of regularity (as with the German -ei) is seen as purely incidental. To learn Swahili however, you can't afford to think of each constructed word as a separate unit, there are way too many of them. From an English point of view, there is no connection between the u- words, much less the -isha words; yet you have to discover the logical connection and make it your own in order to master the language. infaneco = utoto = childhood grandeco = ukubwa = size beleco = uzuri = beauty Btw, the -ua only applies to verbs, while European un- is mostly for adjectives. I also notice you haven't found European equivalents for -ema (爱) and -igi (-isha) yet; if there are, let me know. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| GREGORG4000 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5525 days ago 307 posts - 479 votes Speaks: English*, Finnish Studies: Japanese, Korean, Amharic, French | Message 8 of 16 23 November 2010 at 6:38pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
Obviously these don't apply quite as cleanly or easily as in Esperanto, but Finnish has pretty direct equivalents I believe: -ema = -lias puhe (speech) -> puhelias (talkative) antaa (to give) -> antelias (generous) uni (sleep) -> unelias (sleepy) kipu (pain) -> kivulias (painful) -igi = -taa/-ttaa muu (other) -> muuttaa (to change) vapaa (free as in freedom) -> vapauttaa (to free) kirja (mark, pattern) -> kirjoittaa (to write) herätä (to wake up) -> herättää (to wake somebody up) asua (to live, reside) -> asuttaa (to populate, colonize) Edited by GREGORG4000 on 23 November 2010 at 6:39pm 5 persons have voted this message useful |
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