{"id":1373,"date":"2011-06-15T18:15:36","date_gmt":"2011-06-15T18:15:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/esperanto\/?p=1373"},"modified":"2011-06-15T18:27:52","modified_gmt":"2011-06-15T18:27:52","slug":"in-defense-of-the-accusative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/esperanto\/in-defense-of-the-accusative\/","title":{"rendered":"In Defense of the Accusative"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amelie Ambrus<\/strong> hits us again with another interesting post about Esperanto literature. This time she wants to share her love of the accusative with the world. Enjoy!<\/em><\/p>\n

Is there any point to that pesky -n ending? People disagree – English-speaking learners often dislike it, and some people go so far as to propose reforms to get rid of it.<\/p>\n

I admit the accusative is not the easiest part of Esperanto. However, it allows Esperanto to have a fairly free word order. That might not sound like much, but it allows translations into Esperanto to be more flexible and natural, and also makes poetry sparkle.<\/p>\n

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Yes, an entire book about the accusative!<\/p><\/div>\n

Free word order allows you to emphasize what is most important in a sentence. In English, you can say “the dog bit the cat”. If someone doesn’t hear you and asks “the dog did what to the cat?”, you can change your intonation patterns and say “the dog BIT the cat”. In writing, you need to rely on typographical conventions, or adding extra words. In Esperanto, though, you can change the word order to get a similar effect, putting the most important part first. “La hundo mordas la katon” and “mordas la hundo la katon” mean the same thing, but the second one emphasizes the biting. Similarly, to emphasize that it is the cat being bitten, you could write “La katon mordas la hundo”. This flexibility also gives speakers and authors freedom in when to reveal information, so it has the most impact, as the following poem shows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Vila\u011deto \u0109e rivero,
\nverda monto, flora bord’,
\nsonoril-son’ de l’ vespero,
\nbenko \u0109e la doma pord’,
\nligas min al vi memoro:
\ngaja ludo de infan’,
\nla sekret’ de juna koro,
\nkiso de l’ unua am’…
\nVila\u011deto \u0109e rivero,
\nvin revidi vanas rev’,
\ntenas min en mallibero
\nurba vivo, zorgoj, dev’.<\/td>\n		Little village by the river,
\ngreen mountain, flowery shore,
\nbell-sound of the evening,
\nbench at the home’s door
\nmemory ties me to you:
\nmerry games of a child,
\nthe secret of a young heart,
\na kiss from ones’ first love…
\nLittle village by the river,
\nto see you again is a vain dream,
\nI’m held in a prison
\n(by) urban life, worries, duty.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

“\u0108e fenestro de vagonaro” by Julio Baghy, translation by Amelie Ambrus
\n(used with permission from Voja\u011do en Esperanto-lando<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n

I can’t find a way to get English to render “ligas min al vi memoro” as powerfully as in the Esperanto original, which is fundamentally about the tie; more striking near-synonyms such as bond still aren’t quite satisfactory at conveying this nuance. Similarly, the last couple of lines of the original poem are in a powerful, active form; to put them into English, one either needs to change the word order (negating the suspense about what is keeping the poet in a ‘prison’, and that the prison is metaphorical), or use a passive form, which loses most of the vigor.<\/p>\n

Flexible word order takes a while to get used to. However, once you are used to it, it is such a powerful, graceful tool that it becomes hard not to miss it in English.<\/p>\n

Postscript: The above translation tries to be quite close to the original, while remaining readable English. The trade-off involves both slightly strained English, and slight inaccuracies, unfortunately.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Amelie Ambrus hits us again with another interesting post about Esperanto literature. This time she wants to share her love of the accusative with the world. Enjoy! Is there any point to that pesky -n ending? People disagree – English-speaking learners often dislike it, and some people go so far as to propose reforms to…<\/p>\n

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