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From: donh@netcom.com (Don HARLOW)
Subject: Re: Esperanto? The EU? (Very, very long)
Message-ID: <donhD46Hu0.61L@netcom.com>
Organization: Esperanto League for North America, Inc.
References: <donhD3v8EG.275@netcom.com> <DG.95Feb13155548@lambek.sfs.nphil.uni-tuebingen.de> <3hqgau$2ji@news.cs.tu-berlin.de> <DG.95Feb16104328@lambek.sfs.nphil.uni-tuebingen.de>
Distribution: inet
Date: Sat, 18 Feb 1995 04:30:00 GMT
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Sender: donh@netcom10.netcom.com

dg@lambek.sfs.nphil.uni-tuebingen.de (Dale Gerdemann) skribis en lastatempa afisxo <DG.95Feb16104328@lambek.sfs.nphil.uni-tuebingen.de>:
>
>Don't try to create misunderstanding where there is none. Mr Harlow
>and I don't see eye to eye on the issues, but I looked back at our
>usages of the word "fix" and I'm pretty sure that we meant about the
>same thing.
>
I believe that this is correct.

>Anyway, I'm really disturbed by the tone of your comment. You strongly
>suggest that misunderstandings do not occur in Esperanto. You've got a
>language in which every word means exactly one thing, so that
          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>misunderstandings become logically impossible. All I can say is: Wake
>up Oskar!!! (did you understand that?)
>
Excuse me? Did someone change Esperanto while I was asleep last night? 
No, the _Plena Ilustrita Vortaro_ still has nine definitions for _kapo_
...

It would, I suspect, be impossible to have a language in which every 
word meant exactly one thing. For one thing (you should excuse the 
expression!), it is not clear to me exactly how you would define "one 
thing". "Kapo", for instance, has pretty much the same meaning as the 
English "head".(*) "Head" of what? A human? A cat? The mafia? A promontory? 
Are metaphorical uses excluded? Etc. Where do you draw the boundary 
around the particular object/action/attribute/whatever that the word 
represents, and say "thus far and no farther"?

Recycling of words is a tradition in most languages, and Esperanto is 
no exception.

(*) "Head" in American is also used for several things that are _not_ 
translated by "kapo" -- for instance, in the military it is commonly 
used for "necesejo". The Esperanto "kapo" is generally restricted to 
the heads of animals and other objects which, because of use or position, 
closely resemble them -- although the same root has been used to  
describe certain inmates of WWII German concentration camps (see e.g. 
the poetry of Julius Balbin).



-- 
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 
