🚀 go-pugleaf

> Neal McBurnett

> "False Friends" is a useful list of words that don't mean what you would
>		assume as an English speaker (granda == 'big', not 'grand'
>		in all it's meanings, adulta == adulterous, not adult....)

    Even Latin scholars would be thrown by "adulta == adulterous", not
    just us English speakers. The words "adult" and "adulterous" are
    not really related, and I do not understand what, besides bad
    scholarship, motivated the inventors of Esperanto to create a
    linguistic Frankenstein by hacking the disembodied meaning of "adulter-"
    upon the corpse of "adult-"
     
    "Adult" from "adultus", the past participle of "adolescere" (to
    grow), *ought* to mean "grown up", just as "adolescent", the present
    participle, means "(still) growing, young". 

    "adulterous", from "ad-alter-are" (to perform an alteration to
    something, to defile it) is not really related to "adult"; their
    resemblance is accidental. If not for obscure Latin sound changes,
    they might have come down to us as "adolt" and "adalterous".

    Perhaps we could petition to the Comittee for Righteous Esperanto
    to amend the situation: adult-o,-a (or perhaps adolt-o,-a) should
    mean "adult", and adulter-o,-a (or perhaps adalter-o,-a) should mean
    "adulterer", "adulterous". I bet all those Chinese (or anyone else
    for whom Esperanto is their first exposure to European languages)
    would appreciate not learning Esperanto false friends.

    Never mind me. Despite my trivial objections, it is hard to
    overlook the practical success of Esperanto, and the world clearly
    needs a simple international language.

-michael