"Who should rule over us?"
Translation:Kiu devus regi super ni?
13 Comments
890
???? When did it start that "should" has to be translated with "devas" instead of "devus"? "Who should rule over us" and "Kiu devas regi nin?" is the correct translation? This would mean - the other way round - "devas" means "should" and not "must"???? I cannot believe that.
- 969
Should and would are confusing words in English. Their meaning has changed in the last century. Compare them with shall and will.
I usually use "should" in the old fashioned sense when I am being formal in a request for something: "I should be grateful if you would ...". It doesn't mean "ought to" in this sense it means that the feeling of gratitude is going to (must) occur when the request is fulfilled.
that's also possible - according to Krause* it's possible to use "regi" with accusative for 'to rule / govern over so.' (but "super" + pron. is also correct - they're semantically identical)
[* Großes Wörterbuch Deutsch-Esperanto, ISBN-13: 978-3875484663]
I don't think you can use "regi" like that.
"Regi" can be used transitively, but the object appears to be either a group or organisation (rule a country) or something that you control individually (regi ĉevalon). Neither is what a king does to individual people - you're not puppets whose sticks get pulled by him.
That more abstract "rule" seems to be "regi super (iu)".
but this isn't talking about an individual person??? the sentence says "us", so by what you've said it seems like it should be just "regi nin" (although I'm still not 100% clear on the distinction between "regi" and "regi super" so maybe I'm just missing something)
--you cannot use an imperative in a question...-- [P.S.: I was wrong reg. Esp., see below]
(and "kiu regus nin?" would be semantically different - more like 'who would rule over us?' [after the last king dies... / when the election does not lead to the forming of a stable government])
I think you can use an imperative in a question.
PMEG agrees: http://bertilow.com/pmeg/gramatiko/verboj/vola.html has the example Ĉu ni iru al la dancejo?
Kiu faru tion? sounds fine to me as well - "Who should do that?" or something like that.
The imperative here "montras, ke la ago aŭ stato ne estas reala, sed dezirata, volata, ordonata aŭ celata" -- in this case, the "doing that" is desired but the doer of this desired with is in question.
good point! Esperanto surprises me again with its possibilities! and another good reason not to call the u-form imperative, but "volitivo"
I don't think you can use regi like that, because the king does not directly control or "run" us the way he might control a horse or the way he metaphorically runs a country - see my comment to Fantomius. Kiu regu super ni? could work, though.
That's the translation of "Devus"?, I thought that the conditional of "Devi" was "Would have to".
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devus, volus and povus can act a bit differently from other conditional verbs. This gives a good explanation. https://adventuresinesperanto.wordpress.com/2011/07/29/should-a-would-a-could-a/ We do something similar in English: 'I would like' can be a polite way of saying 'I want' as well as a condition statement. (I think (though not sure) that 'Je voudrais' is similar in French, is a conditional form of the verb 'to want' but also a polite way of asking for something).
