Talk:Esperanto and Novial compared

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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)

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)

"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)

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)

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)

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)

[edit] POV?

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)

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)

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)

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)

[edit] KZ

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)