Talk:Comparison between Esperanto and Novial

Constructed languages: Esperanto Mid‑importance

	Constructed languages portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Constructed languages, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of constructed languages on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Constructed languagesWikipedia:WikiProject Constructed languagesTemplate:WikiProject Constructed languagesconstructed language articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by the Esperanto task force.
	This article is an Esperanto core topic.

Lord's Prayer[edit]

Shouldn't the text of the Lord's Prayer match the one on the main Novial page. The version on the main page strikes me as slightly better, btw.--Chris 21:28, 19 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Would you care to detail in which ways the other is better? This one is a closer translation of the Koine Greek. Nov ialiste 09:31, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Mey on fa vun volio" strikes me as less transparent than "mey vun volio eventa". I suppose the latter is closer to the King James, which is what most people will mentally compare it to. "Tentatione" is clearer than "tento" -- but perhaps "tento" is more logical? Novial isn't supposed to be Interlingua, after all. In the last line, possibly "ma liberisa nus" is better than "ma fika nus liberi", but shouldn't "malu" be "malum"? All in all, the translations are pretty close.

I don't see any need to follow the Koine version; it's not an article on theology.--Chris 14:12, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is Novial, not a relexification of English. Since when is "eventa" (= happen) similar to "be done" anyway? What do you mean by more logical? Whose logic? "Tenta" means "tempt". So "tento" means "tempting" and "tentatione" means "tempting" or "the process and or result of tempting". The latter is either the same or perhaps more accurate. The abstract/concrete distinction, -um/-u, was not strongly established and would make the language more difficult as well as being unnecessary.

I don't see the need not to follow the Koine original. Nov ialiste 17:25, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I'm no expert on Novial, so as far as I'm concerned you should do what you think is best. I do think the two texts should be the same, regardless of which one you use. While Novial is obviously not a relex of English, there's an advantage in making the text relatively transparent for an English-speaker, since many people are going to be reading it cold, without having looked at the Novial grammar section. That implies things like using the King James version as the base. I assumed tentatione was bordering on a relex, but if you say it's not, I'll accept that. As for -um, I've always thought it was one of the good features of the language.--Chris 17:53, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't mind either way whether the 2 Novial versions are identical or not. Beyond the very simplest of sentences there is generally no single best translation. As far as the similarity to English goes: would you expect, for example, a Finnish Lord's Prayer to read somewhat like English to help the English-speaking reader? That might be impossible even if attempted and realistically there is no reason a Finnish translation should reflect an English translation at all. It should simply be good Finnish. Likewise with Novial. Nov ialiste 21:27, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

POV?[edit]

This article seems rather POV to me. All differences mentioned seem to point at the opinion that Novial is more regular or easier than Esperanto. Maybe we should mention that word order is more flexible in Esperanto than in Novial. Also, something should be said about word formation: In Novial there are seperate word roots for words like "poor" and "bad", whereas in Esperanto they are formed from existing word roots using the prefix mal-. Marcoscramer 09:40, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The article is still incomplete. I believe the sections so far written are purely factual in nature though, so not themselves POV.Nov ialiste 09:15, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't say that what has been written so far is POV. I just noted that the choice of differences mentioned is POV. We certainly need to mention some other differences soon. Marcoscramer 11:26, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Esperanto's word order is *not* more flexible: read "An International Language" by Jespersen. Novial certainly tends to use less "des-" (= Esperanto "mal-") for common words. In a section on vocabulary and word-building these can be compared, along with, for example, reversibilty and lack of reversibility, number systems etc. Some professional philosophers and linguists have found Esperanto wanting in its word derivation. Nov ialiste 12:54, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dude, esperanto is a real language, with, like, speakers… What's the use these comparisons, anyway? («Wanting in its derivation», indeed. What a troll!) 82.155.72.33 (talk) 01:36, 9 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

KZ[edit]

In the alphabet and pronounciation table, the following is written: "KS, ks or GZ, gz; but Esperanto writes it KZ, kz". As pronounciations, [ks] or [gz] is given. However, the only correct pronounciation of Esperanto "kz" is [kz], even if people sometimes pronounce it as [ks] or [gz] when they don't make an effort to speak clearly. Marcoscramer 15:57, 31 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That was my fault, I fixed it now.Cameron Nedland 15:10, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

correlatives[edit]

Can you fill the blanks? —Tamfang 06:18, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

English	Esperanto	Novial
some kind of	ia	(?)
what kind of?	kia	quali
that kind of	tia	tali
no kind of	nenia	nulali
all kinds of	ĉia	omnali
for some reason	ial	(?)
why?	kial	(?)
therefore	tial	(?)
for no reason	nenial	(?)
for all reasons	ĉial	(?)
sometime	iam	(?)
when?	kiam	quand
then	tiam	tand
never	neniam	(?)
always	ĉiam	(?)
somewhere	ie	(?)
where?	kie	(?)
there	tie	(?)
nowhere	nenie	(?)
everywhere	ĉie	(?)
somehow	iel	(?)
how?	kiel	qualim
thus	tiel	talim
in no way	neniel	nulalim
in every way	ĉiel	omnalim
someone's	ies	(?)
whose?	kies	quen
that one's	ties	ten
no one's	nenies	nulen
everyone's	ĉies	omnen
something	io	(?)
what?	kio	quum (?)
that	tio	tum
nothing	nenio	nulum
everything	ĉio	omnum
some amount	iom	(?)
how much?	kiom	quanti
so much	tiom	tanti
no amount	neniom	(?)
all amounts	ĉiom	(?)
someone	iu	(?)
who/which?	kiu	que/qui
that one	tiu	te/ti
no one	neniu	nule/nuli
everyone	ĉiu	omne/omni

I bring this up because one of the most striking differences, to me, is that in Esperanto you can't use the prefixes i– ki– ti– ĉi– neni– or the suffixes –a –al –am –e –el –es –o –om –u to derive words meaning, for example, '(at) the same time', but in Novial these words are mostly integrated with the rest of the language and thus extensible. —Tamfang (talk) 05:46, 6 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

continuous[edit]

As I know both language do not have separate form for continuous aspects. Am I wrong?--85.18.136.99 (talk) 19:22, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Esperanto has -adi, but I'm not sure that's what you have in mind. —Tamfang (talk) 00:16, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Notability[edit]

Why is Esperanto being compared with Novial in an article that is listed in the main conlang infobox? Why not instead compare it with Arcaicam Esperantom? Are you trying to make Novial look more spoken than it is? (also this doesn't really read like a Wikipedia article) Kraŭs (talk) 20:51, 4 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The Esperanto Verb[edit]

As the tables show Esperanto can be made to parallel verbal structures in Novial (and English) but such tables do not reflect the design of the language or the way it is used in what is considered 'best practice'. As is correctly stated, Esperanto has no continuous form as such. In practice an adverb would most likely be used, if it was felt necessary to stress an ongoing action. The Esperanto verb has only six forms, i.e. present, past, future, conditional, volitive and infinitive, the first four literally in alphabetical order. The missing letter 'e' was reserved for the imperfect but dropped before publication, i.e. the imperfect was deliberately omitted from the design of the language. The tables include expressions for imperfect, perfect, pluperfect constructed with the use of participles as adjectives. A study of any well written Esperanto original or translated prose will show that participles are mostly used as adverbs or people (i.e. nouns). The perfect, pluperfect etc are rendered with temporal adverbs. The conditional has no time reference, but the influence of people's first languages often make them feel one is needed, as a temporal expression may not readily come to mind. The volitive covers imperative, subjunctive and optative and may require more effort as not often directly paralelled in first languages. Esperanto does not need simple passives forms as the use of changed word order and and the (so-called) 'accusative ending' can create the same effect. On the other hand the over-use of 'iĝi' betrays the influence of first languages, which favour passive expressions. For further info consult the Plena Manlibro de Esperanta Gramatiko. Muraena~eowiki (talk) 21:15, 16 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The Great Merge[edit]

Why have so many separate articles comparing various international auxiliary languages? They are poorly maintained, obscure, and (on their own) potentially not notable. I propose we merge all of these into one big article: Comparison of international auxiliary languages.

Here is a list of articles comparing IALs:

TucanHolmes (talk) 09:27, 22 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion only the first one (Esperanto <> Ido) make some sense, because Ido is directly based on Esperanto and could even be considered a dialect of it. The remaining four are merely a matter of juxtaposing things that can also be found in the respective articles about the languages themselves, which makes them pure original research (see WP:SYNTHESIS). If you ask me, these articles are as relevant as a comparison between Chinese and Japanese. I'd much rather submit them for deletion. Same goes BTW for International auxiliary language orthography.

The comparison you propose wouldn't solve any problem, yet it could become an open invition to creators/supporters of other languages for dropping unnecessary info about their projects. —IJzeren Jan _Uszkiełtu? 15:50, 22 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Addition: I just saw that an article like the one you suggest has actually existed but was deleted, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Comparison of Esperanto, Ido, Novial, Interlingua, and Lingua Franca Nova. The text of that article must have been something close to this. —IJzeren Jan _Uszkiełtu? 20:35, 22 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm also very much open to deleting the undue articles altogether instead of merging them into one big article (however, in this case I'd agree that the article Comparison between Esperanto and Ido is useful and should remain in some form). As long as the current issues are resolved, I'm fine with it.

Regarding the International auxiliary language orthography article, its content can simply be included in the main article's section International auxiliary language § Writing systems (only reason I haven't already done this is lack of time to integrate it properly). TucanHolmes (talk) 13:15, 24 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]