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From: lilandbr@scn.org (Leland Bryant Ross)
Subject: Re: BBC2's Anti-Welsh Newsnight Programme
Message-ID: <E7ooqr.CA8@scn.org>
Sender: news@scn.org
Reply-To: lilandbr@scn.org (Leland Bryant Ross)
Organization: Seattle Community Network
References: <859188189snz@vision25.demon.co.uk> <5h31jh$pdl$1@nntp01.news.se.dataphone.net>
Date: Thu, 27 Mar 1997 04:06:26 GMT
Lines: 68


In a previous article, phil@vision25.demon.co.uk (Phil Hunt) says:

>"Bertil Wennergren" writes:
>
>> Phil Hunt skribis: 
>> 
>> > > Actually, nobody is stopping any Esperantist from saying 'sxipeto';
>> > > It's just that this could mean any type of 
>> > > small vessel. 'Boato' is perhaps more precise.
>> 
>> > OK, so what's the difference between a _sxipeto_ and a _boato_? Give
>> > me an example of something that is one but not the other.

It seems clear (to me) that the boundaries between English "ship" and 
"boat", between Esperanto "sxipo" and "boato", and between similar (but 
of course not identical) pairs like

French       navire       and       bateau
German       das Schiff   and       Boot
Italian      nave         and       battello
Russian      sudno        and       lodka
Spanish      buque        and       barco
Swahili      meli         and       chombo
Hebrew       aniyah       and       shirah
Latin        navis        and       linter    (cf. navicula)
Yiddish      di shif      and       lotke     (cf. dos shifl)

etc. are neither clearcut nor rational.

Actual Esperanto usage in cases of this sort--because most Esperantists are 
not native speakers, and because most Esperantists (including most adult 
native speakers) actually use some other language(s) more and with 
greater fluency than they do Esperanto--is always heavily influenced both 
by a given Esperantist's native or most-used language and by the native 
or most-used languages of those Esperantists a given user looks to as 
models (be they Miyamoto Masao or Kalman Kalocsay or LL Zamenhof or 
Ferdinand De Diego--or Waringhien and the other contributors to the 
PIV).  

In addition to specialized terms like _trireme_, in analysing translation 
equivalencies of this sort one must consider, too, less "common" (= frequent)
yet perhaps more "common" (= general) terms like (in English) "craft" 
(which can also mean a variety of other things ranging from "skill" to 
"slyness") and "vessel" (which can also refer to practically any 
container, from a cup to a human being, or a tube through which blood 
circulates...)

Granting the irregular and irrational grounds of the sxipo/boato 
distinction in Esperanto, one still wonders how the Eurolang speaker is 
to know whether a given vessel is small enough to need (or allow) the 
diminutive, or large enough to require (or invite) the augmentative 
suffix.  Is part of learning Eurolang learning the (metric, I imagine) 
dimensions of vocabulary items' referents?  Or is one (wo)man's shipet 
another's shipisim?  Is the Eurolang-speaking marine engineer or 
fisherman expected to use the same vocabulary, with the same meanings, as 
the apathetic landlubber?

Is Eurolang really (even potentially) a real language for a real world 
(or subcontinent)?

Seven years after publishing the first outline of Esperanto grammar, 
Zamenhof published the first Esperanto translation of _Hamlet_.
--
Liland Brajant ROS' / Leland B. ROSS - Delegito de UEA  en Seatlo, Usono
204 N 39th St (aux PO Box 30091)        Hejmo de Mikrosofto kaj Boeingo
Seattle, WA 98103 Usono/E'tats-Unis     Nirvano kaj la Universa Centro!
Tel. (1-206)633-2434  *  Seatla Esperanto-Societo bonvenigas vin vizite!
