From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 31908 invoked by alias); 1 Oct 2004 00:49:15 -0000 Mailing-List: contact xconq7-help@sources.redhat.com; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: xconq7-owner@sources.redhat.com Received: (qmail 31894 invoked from network); 1 Oct 2004 00:49:14 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO sccrmhc12.comcast.net) (204.127.202.56) by sourceware.org with SMTP; 1 Oct 2004 00:49:14 -0000 Received: from [192.168.181.128] (c-67-172-156-222.client.comcast.net[67.172.156.222]) by comcast.net (sccrmhc12) with ESMTP id <200410010049130120018eo7e>; Fri, 1 Oct 2004 00:49:13 +0000 Message-ID: <415CA973.3070302@phy.cmich.edu> Date: Fri, 01 Oct 2004 02:57:00 -0000 From: Eric McDonald User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.8 (Windows/20040913) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Jim Kingdon CC: xconq7@sources.redhat.com Subject: [Offtopic] EsperantoConq References: <200409301655.i8UGt6F04972@panix5.panix.com> In-Reply-To: <200409301655.i8UGt6F04972@panix5.panix.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-SW-Source: 2004/txt/msg01298.txt.bz2 Jim Kingdon wrote: >>Esperanto appears to be a declined and conjugated language, like >>Latin. > > > Only a little bit. There are only 2 cases (subject and object), > compared with 6 (I think) for Latin, 4 for German. Yes. Latin has Nominative (subject), Genitive (possessive), Dative (to/from), Accusative (object), Ablative (prepositional, excluding the Dative), and Vocative (direct address). As a side note, the accusative can be used with 'ad' or 'a', in which case the meaning is "into" rather than "to". Vocative would be like: "Dico te Pyrrhe..." -> "I say [to you], Pyrrhus..." (This is the beginning of a famous Latin pun (because the whole sentence can be parsed two different ways, both of which have perfectly valid semantics) in which a Roman author (I forgot whom) poked fun of the Greek general Pyhrrus' "Pyrrhic victory" over the Romans). > And there are only 3 tenses (past, present, future), compared with > many more for romance languages. What, no pluperfect?! :-) > There is no gramatical gender. Then there are three separate 3rd person singular personal pronouns, I assume.... > Not sure where that comes from, but I have a vague recollection of > other languages which form plurals by adding "y" (or "j", but it is > the sound that would be spelled "y" in English). That depends: "j" can also go to a breathing sound or a full "h". And with Latin, it is a consonantal "i". > Here is the list of endings: Agh, you ruined it for me! I had already guessed part of the list. But, not to sound ungrateful, I'll say thanks. > There's always http://www.lernu.net/ (but that's only for people who > read manuals - the Real Hacker(TM) will want to skip right to the > grammar book written in Esperanto - http://purl.oclc.org/NET/pmeg ) Thanks. >>Now we will have to see if any Klingon speakers want >>representation as well. > > Klingon speakers do not *want* representation; Kling speakers *demand* > representation. :-) I hear that they're not just confined to mental institutions and Star Trek conventions anymore.... Eric