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From: donh@netcom.com (Don HARLOW)
Subject: Re: One point against Esperanto
Message-ID: <donhD5vAIE.rD@netcom.com>
Organization: Esperanto League for North America, Inc.
References: <794976261snz@storcomp.demon.co.uk> <3k2pfa$gfr@due.unit.no> <795410079snz@storcomp.demon.co.uk>
Distribution: inet
Date: Thu, 23 Mar 1995 00:25:26 GMT
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Sender: donh@netcom5.netcom.com

philip@storcomp.demon.co.uk skribis en lastatempa afisxo <795410079snz@storcomp.demon.co.uk>:
>In article <3k2pfa$gfr@due.unit.no>
>           jardar@nvg.unit.no "Jardar Eggesb Abrahamsen" writes:
>> English           Esperanto (with a hyphen between the morphs)
>> -------           ---------
>> to eat            mangx-i
>> food              mangx-ajx-o
>> meal              mangx-o
>> nutricious        nutr-a
>> nutrition         nutr-ajx-o
>> nutricious food   nutr-a mangx-ajx-o
>> healthy food      san-a  mangx-ajx-o
>> health            san-o
>> good food         bon-a  mangx-ajx-o
>
>_Teach Yourself Esperanto Dictionary_, by John Wells has:
>
>   food nutrajxo
>   nutrition nutrado
>
RULE 1: There is no consistent one-to-one mapping between the words of 
any two given languages (except maybe Glosa and English, for those who 
follow the Conlang list ;-).

food (which nourishes) = nutrajxo
food (which you eat) = mangxajxo

At least in the United States, there is little overlap between the two terms.

In another posting, Konrad Hinsen points out that you really should learn 
Esperanto terms by their definitions, not by their supposed English 
equivalents. This is almost an absolute necessity for words like "droni" 
= "to drown" -- unless you learn that "droni" = "sufokigxi en fluidajxo", 
you will probably never figure out why "mi dronis" is right and "mi 
dronis la katidojn" is wrong.

>Is this dictionary wrong? If so, can anyone recommend a better one.

Peter Benson's _Comprehensive English-Esperanto Dictionary_, available 
from ELNA for $26.95 (hardback) or $19.95 (paperback). For those who 
doubt the existence of this work, I held a copy of the hardback in my 
hand yesterday afternoon.



-- 
Don HARLOW			donh@netcom.com
Esperanto League for N.A.       elna@netcom.com (800) 828-5944
ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/el/elna/elna.html         Esperanto
ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/do/donh/donh.html 
