Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu!bas+ From: bas+@andrew.cmu.edu (Bruce Sherwood) Newsgroups: comp.std.internat Subject: Re: All numeric representation of dates Message-ID: Date: 15 Sep 88 15:24:07 GMT References: <622@uwovax.uwo.ca>, <3690001@otter.hple.hp.com> Organization: Carnegie Mellon Lines: 17 In-Reply-To: <3690001@otter.hple.hp.com> > I will certainly concede Esperanto's tendency towards literal meanings can > cause loss of some very subtle distinctions. E.g. `damp' and `moist' both > translate to `malseketa'; `beautiful' and `handsome' both become `bela'. Actually, damp would typically be translated as humida, and moist as malseketa. Similarly, a better translation of handsome is probably bonaspekta or possibly belaspekta. There is plenty of nuance available in Esperanto. When I first lived in Italy I thought Italian was an impoverished language because there were lots of things I could say in English that I couldn't say in Italian. Guess where the real fault turned out to lie.... On the cultural issues, I agree completely. The cultural value of learning Esperanto is very high. I posted a longer note on this topic to ext.in.esperanto. Bruce Sherwood