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- Topic: Esperanto >
- "Mia hejmo estas via hejmo!"
56 Comments
I'm more familiar with that phrase than with the English; I almost typed it in as the answer!
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As a Spaniard, I have always been curious about the reason why they always say that sentence in Spanish in American movies and series. I guess it's something you picked up from Mexico.
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There are a lot of "Mexican" things in the US that aren't really Mexican - or which developed in border areas for the benefit of richer clients. Much of Mexican food is this way.
I just spent a few minutes poking around the internet for stories about where this phrase came from. It's not a common Mexican phrase. The stories I found ranged from poor workers living in houses that belonged to their rich Spanish overlord, to indigenous people thinking that the Spanish settlers were gods, or to simple explanations stemming from Mexican hospitality. Right or wrong, it's this last notion which lives on in the conventional thinking today.
I'm persuaded by the following, more practical explanation. We Americans wanted to invent a fancy-sounding foreign phrase to use when we're welcoming people into our homes, and "mi casa es tu casa" is much easier to say than the Welsh alternative: 'Fy nghartref yw dy gartref'.
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It's hard to see the threading when there are so many replies, but I think this is a reply to the Spanish... so the comment is that the Spanish is the right way to say it in English.
Nitpicky, but isn't really tú? I don't speak Spanish, so I'm not too sure. :P
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You are absolutely right! It is a big mistake to write tú without the diacritic (español: tilde) when you mean "you". However, in blogs (like this) or very informal situations we do not use to write the diacritic
You are right that that is the literal translatiom though. :-) While I was in Latin America I never heared anyone use that phrase, but in the US it seems very common ("mi casa es tu casa")
Don't think this whole discussion should be on here then. It's nothing to do with the Esperanto sentence above and is going to cause confusion for learners.
"Mi casa es tu casa" is a Spanish idiom that's become widely known in the English-speaking world. Its meaning is exactly the same as, "Mia hejmo estas via hejmo."
Part of learning Esperanto, as with any other language, is finding relevance to what one already knows. For most people, it's far easier to remember something if we can attach it to something else: for example, Ĉu ne? = Nicht wahr? = N'cest pas?
It's a building related to living though, ĉu ne? Domo is related to "domicile" right?
Yes, I think Zamenhof may have taken it from "domicile" or more likely, since Russian was his language spoken at home, "Дом" which is latinized to "Dom". That is just my best guess and the association I make in my head.
I think what esperisto is saying is that it is acceptable to use 'domo' for buildings in the general case in place of the longer 'konstruajho'.
OK, well, that's just crazy; and I'm looking forward to learning all about it as I make my way through Turkish on Duolingo!
Turkish is craaaaazy, but that is what makes that tree so fun! :D
İyi şanslar! (by your Turkish level I assume you have completed the Phrases skill and will be able to understand this 8D)
The intonation in this particular sentence is rather strange. The speaker stresses "hejmo" in both parts, whereas "mia" and "via" should be accented...
Can someone explain my very quickly and shortly why we don't have "Mia hejmo estas vian hejmon" ? It seems that accusative is never used/always cancelled with "esti"
That's exactly right. Because accusative nouns represent the objects of a sentence, whereas in a sentence using "esti" the second noun is called a predicate nominative and takes the same form as the nominative noun, aka the subject of the sentence.
A direct object (-n) receives the action of the verb. With esti, you're saying the subject is the same as the thing after it, so it must be the same case. This is a feature of many languages, including English, even if most people are free with subject and object forms.
"My house is your house" should be acceptable since it's the normal way of saying that in English.
Normal is relative to the listener. I'm a native English speaker and I've never heard that phrase once in my life. I've only heard "My home is your home".
Just some food for thought.
ive never even really heard it in english before. ive only heard "make yourself at home" and "what's mine is yours"
