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Palabrarium

A list of 378 words by golliwogs.

About

The delicious wonderful words that I love terribly dearly and without which, the world would be a less inventive and worthwhile place. Also, ostensibly, the reason 1984 and esperanto secretly suck.

Comments

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  • ruzuzu *favorited (and not just for the found poetry of the lovely keening disaster sonnet there in the middle)* May 22, 2010

  • pterodactyl Oooh, ooh, yarb, pick me, pick me! Mi nur parolas iomete da Esperanto (kaj tio malbone), sed mi vere estas strangulo! May 1, 2009

  • golliwogs OK, OK I give! I do like Esperanto, but I guess the people I speak it with are not terribly creative in their vocabularies, which could easily be said of people speaking any language. Apr 30, 2009

  • michjo One feature of Esperanto that perhaps doesn't come through as clearly as it should is that every root can be an affix, and every affix can be a root, with total freedom to combine roots/affixes at will. The Esperanto root "esprim", for instance, carries the idea of "express". The adjective "expressive" (ending in "-a") can be created on the fly by combining the building blocks, e.g. with "standard" affixes: "esprima" (pertaining to expression), "esprimeta" (expression-diminutive), "esprimega" (expression-augmentative), "esprimanta" (that which expresses now), "espriminta" (that which has expressed), "esprimema" (expression-having-tendency), "esprimila" (expression-instrumental), "esprimuja" (expression-containing), "espriminga" (expression-holding), then with other roots as affixes: "esprimpova" (expression-able), "esprimhava" (expression-having), "esprimriĉa" (expression-rich), "esprimplena" (expression-full), "esprimkapabla" (expression-capable), "esprimdona" (expression-giving), "esprimdira" (expression-saying) etc., each perfectly good Esperanto, each with its own nuance. As long as you follow the few rules, you can literally combine roots/affixes at will, with no one being able to say "Yeah, you could say it like that, but nobody does". Anyone reasonably fluent in Esperanto can and does create and use words like these regularly. Apr 30, 2009

  • golliwogs The capacity is there in Esperanto, of course- and I don't have a lot of experience with how it is spoken in person, but when using it across countries, people use the fixed affixes to change a word's meaning instead of using a new word- for example, pretty and ugly, can share a root, essentially cutting down the total roots in a persons' frequent vocabulary. There's elegance to this, of course, and it contributes to the point of Esperanto, but it means less variety in everyday communiction. But you're right- the way the word-making system is designed is incredibly inclusive and flexible. I just don't hear people take advantage of it that much. Apr 29, 2009

  • yarb I wouldn't mind a weirdo esperantist friend... just one...

    Marvellous list. Apr 29, 2009

  • michjo Looks like the secret's out :-).

    wonderful words ... without which ... the world would be a less inventive and worthwhile place. Also, ostensibly, the reason 1984 and esperanto secretly suck.

    Actually, in Esperanto, the opposite is true: you are incredibly free to invent words at will, instead of waiting for someone else to invent them and the community to accept them and give them enough currency for you to hear about them and use them yourself. The result is a creative and expressive power that rivals and even often exceeds that of English or any other national language. Which takes nothing away from your list of words - they are all delightfully expressive, and a testament to the power of English. Apr 29, 2009

  • golliwogs I must keep this from all my weirdo esperantist friends! Apr 29, 2009

  • madmouth secretly?! Apr 29, 2009