CONLANG Digest - 17 Oct 2000 to 18 Oct 2000 (#2000-285)

>In Esperanto, all names of persons and places
>(proper nouns) must have the same ending -o.
>So a book of geographical names would have
>hundreds of thousands of names -- all ending
>the same. So would the phonebook. This is
>not the case in any natural language.
This is not quite true. The names of large places and very famous
(particularly classical) people are Esperantized: Parizo, Londono, Sokrato,
Platono. Also, Esperantists often take an Esperantized first name: Mateo
McLAUCHLIN. Esperantized versions of most common Judeo-Christian first names
exist.

However, the vast majority of names are not Esperantized. In Zamenhof's
translation of Genesis, for example, he talks about Adam, Eva, Eden, not
Adamo or Edeno. However, he does add -on for the accusative (Dio forsendis
Adamon de la gxardeno). One of my friends doesn't even do that, instead
using the universal preposition je (Mi malamas je Jean Chrétien).

In fact, even when there is an Esperantized version of a famous person's
name, except with classical names, it is rarely used. I've never heard
anyone refer to Zamenhofo, for example (although I have heard Ludoviko
Zamenhof.) In my translation of The Doubter's Companion I am talking about
René Descartes, not Renato Kartezio, although I do use "karteziismo" for
Cartesianism.

Some journals spell the person's name and then add a pronunciation: Bill
Clinton /bil klinton/. And when the person's name doesn't come from a
language with a Roman alphabet, they are spelled out with Esperanto letters,
although not usually Esperantized: Pjotr Ilicx Cxajkovskij.


Blessed be,                  Écartons ces romans
Matt McLauchlin                  qu'on appèle systèmes,
GM19, Montreal, Canada       Et pour nous éléver
English/français/esperanto       descendons dans nous-mêmes.
icq: 4420218                               -Voltaire
http://www.crosswinds.net/~montrealais

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