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The summary below is very useful, but it does point up the problem: proper names are difficult for an IAL -- or any conlang that reflects people and places on earth. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Matt McLauchlin" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Wednesday, October 18, 2000 9:48 PM Subject: Re: 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. This is no place E-o's the famous "only 16 rules" or have I missed it? It seems far more important than the rule on dropping final vowels for poetry. > 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. But would't these be pronounced in E-o with an added -o? Or some vowel? Or does E-o assume that a final in -cx is acceptable? Regards, LEO