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Esperanto - animal, vegetable, mineral | ||
Tags: Esperanto | Meaning of words | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Lianne Senior Member Canada thetoweringpile.blog Joined 4909 days ago 284 posts - 410 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Esperanto, Toki Pona, German, French | Message 1 of 4 18 May 2011 at 5:12pm | IP Logged |
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I came across some interesting vocabulary recently. The word for animal in Esperanto is besto. However, there's also the word animalo, translated as animal (not vegetable). Similarly, vegetable is legomo, but there's also vegetalo, translated as vegetable (not animal or mineral). For mineral, all I've found is mineralo.
So, my question is this: When would you use animalo or vegetalo instead of besto or legomo, except perhaps when singing "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General"? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| dmaddock1 Senior Member United States Joined 5227 days ago 174 posts - 426 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, Esperanto, Latin, Ancient Greek | Message 2 of 4 18 May 2011 at 8:10pm | IP Logged |
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Using the Reta Vortaro, legomo appears to refer more specifically to edible plants, while vegetalo is a more general, scientific word. Like the difference between vegetables and vegetation in English. I don't see a significant difference between besto and animalo.
Regarding why they exist, legomo and besto are the earlier words, both appearing in works written by Zamenhof himself, while vegetalo and animalo are later neologisms. d. Edited by dmaddock1 on 18 May 2011 at 8:10pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| davidwelsh Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5323 days ago 141 posts - 307 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, Norwegian, Esperanto, Swedish, Danish, French Studies: Polish, Sanskrit, Tibetan, Pali, Mandarin | Message 3 of 4 19 May 2011 at 7:39am | IP Logged |
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Besto refers to what are more precisely called "non-human animals" in English. Animalo includes human
beings. Edited by davidwelsh on 19 May 2011 at 7:40am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Lianne Senior Member Canada thetoweringpile.blog Joined 4909 days ago 284 posts - 410 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Esperanto, Toki Pona, German, French | Message 4 of 4 19 May 2011 at 3:55pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks for the answers, both of you! That clears things up a bit.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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