Subject: Re: [lojban] re: bonan tagon ktl

From: "T. Peter Park" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 01 Dec 2000 16:54:33 -0500

Bonan vesperon!
Esperanto "bonan tagon" brings me back nostalgic memories of reading
Lester DelRey's 1952 or 1953 science-fiction novel MAROONED ON MARS as a
12 or 13 year old 7th grader in 1953 or 1954. The first couple of
chapters were set in the multi-national Lunar base of "Moon City,"
apparently some time in the late 20th or early 21st century. DelRey
described the citizens of Moon City as using Esperanto as their common
medium of communication because of their international origins, and
included a few sentences of Esperanto dialogue scattered thru these
early chapters. In one episode, the novel's youthful protagonist was
greeted by an acquaintance, "Bonan matenon!" A few pages later on,
another character wished him "Bonan tagon!" This, I think, was my very
first introduction ever to Esperanto. 
My next introduction was a couple of years later, in a LIFE magazine
article around 1956 where someone quoted an Esperanto sentence beginning
"Nigraj nuboj kolektig^as...," "Black clouds are gathering..." Somebody
wrote a letter to the editor in response the following week wonderng if
a lot of Esperantists weren't Communists or Communist dupes, and the
original author in turn replied the week after, "Neniu komunisto
sukcesos en Esperanton," "No Communist will succeed in Esperanto." This
LIFE interchange, I vaguely recall, took place roughly around the same
time as movie star Grace Kelly's wedding to Prince Rainier of Monaco,
and I also vaguely recall seeing a newspaper article around that time on
the Rainier-Kelly wedding quoting a couple of stanzas of doggerel verse
in the local Franco-Italian peasant dialect of the Monaco-Nice area, a
kind of half-Italian half-French Romance patois that reminded me a lot
of Esperanto! But then, of course, Esperanto itself has always struck
many people as largely a sort of artificial Romance language.
Kun multaj memoroj,
T. Peter <[email-masked]>
John Cowan wrote:
> 
> [email-masked] wrote:
> 
> > The last time I passed a personal enemy.>>
> >
> > Well, pc admits that it can happen, but doubts that it does very often.Â He
> > tends to say polite things even to enemies, i.e., deans, directors,
> > chancelors and other academic vermin
> 
> I wouldn't go so far as to say "Bad morning", but I would maintain
> silence.
> 
> --
> There is / one art || John Cowan <[email-masked]>
> no more / no less || http://www.reutershealth.com
> to do / all things || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
> with art- / lessness \\ -- Piet Hein
> 
> 
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