Rank Names in Esperanto

[Lukasz Gaszewski]

Inspired by the discusion and suggestion to translate rank names to Esperanto ([url]http://forum.rankinsignia.info/viewtopic.php?t=2353[/url]), I spent some time on the Net browsing military terms in this laguage. I found some rank names, but not many. It is parhaps because Esperanto is supposed to be a "pacifist" language, hence any military terms are not welcomed. What I found were predominantly most popular rank names: generalo, kolonelo, subkolonelo, majoro, kapitano, leŭtenanto, subleŭtenanto.
The situation about non commisioned ranks was even worse. I was actually able to find only three: ĉefserĝento, serĝento and kaporalo. What regards navy ranks, all I was able to discover were the flag ranks: admiralo, vicadmiralo (also named subadmiralo) and kontradmiralo. No NCOs at all.
The result of my little research is this list. Some of the names are the ranks I found on the net and in dictionaries, some others are my invention. Alternatives have been given in some cases. I know the output is far from being perfect and should be rounded up. You are all welcome to join the discussion and comment on the names.

A short technical note: all nouns in Esperanto end with an -o, all adjectives with an -a. Esperanto has six diacritics: ĉ ĝ ĥ ĵ ŝ ŭ. The diacritics are sometimes replaced by caret (^) to make sure they are displayed correctly, which seems to be a common practice. ĝ and ŝ are also sometimes spelled gh and sh, but out of what I could find it is not very common. I can see all the diacritics on my screen, but if you can't, let me know and I'll post the list again with carets. I've decided to leave the names untranslated - hope they are self-evident and do not need further explanation. What regards word combinations, , I prefer the most significant part at end rather than at beginning (majorgeneralo rather than generalmajoro), but this is my personal opinion. I also noticed some of such combinations hyphenated (general-majoro).


ARMEO - ARMY, AVIADO - AVIATION
(feld)marŝalo
ĉefgeneralo (kapitangeneralo)
generalo de armeo
kolonelgeneralo (generalkolonelo)
generalo (de infanterio, de kavalerio, de artilerio, de aviado, de serv(ad)o, etc.)
leŭtenantgeneralo (generalleŭtenanto, generalo de korpuso)
majorgeneralo (generalmajoro, generalo de divizio)
generalo de brigado (brigadgeneralo, brigadestro, brigadisto)
--
kolonelo
subkolonelo (leŭtenantkolonelo, kolonelleŭtenanto)
majoro
kapitano
(unua) leŭtenanto, (supraleŭtenanto)
subleŭtenanto (dua leŭtenanto)
vicleŭtenanto
--
ĉefstandardisto
stabstandardisto
suprastandardisto (adjutanto de unua klaso)
standardisto (adjutanto)
substandardisto (adjutanto de dua klaso)
--
kadeto
--
majorserĝento (serĝentmajoro)
stabserĝento
ĉefserĝento
supraserĝento
serĝento de unua klaso
stabserĝento
serĝento
furiero
subserĝento (plotonisto, plotonĉefo)
kaporalo
vickaporalo
soldato/aviadisto de unua klaso
soldato, aviadisto

MARARMEO - NAVY
admiralo de floto (granda admiralo)
generaladmiralo
admiralo
vicadmiralo (subadmiralo)
kontradmiralo (malantaŭa admiralo)
komodoro
--
kapitano (de ŝipo, de mararmeo)
komandoro (kapitano de fregato)
leŭtenantkomandoro (kapitano de korveto)
kapitanleŭtenanto
leŭtenanto (de ŝipo, de mararmeo)
subleŭtenanto
standardisto
--
supraĉefsuboficiro
ĉefsuboficiro
suboficiro de unua klaso
suboficiro de dua klaso
suboficiro de tria klaso
maristo de unua klaso
maristo

I am in favor of introducing the word "bosmano". Polish "bosman" is used to denote a petty officer of the navy.

[Ilek]

I have a feeling that the creator of Esperanto, the Polish born Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof (1859-1917), at least to some extent was influenced by the Polish rank names. The ranks of subleŭtenanto and subkolonelo sound for me as litteraly translations of Polish podporucznik and podpulkownik: porucznik (Lieutenant) and pulkownik (Colonel), together with pod (sub, under).

BTW: I believe Polish bosman has German origin.

[Erskine Calderon]

God, I was KIDDING!!! :lol:

Erskine

[Nati]

I have a feeling that the creator of Esperanto, the Polish born Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof (1859-1917), at least to some extent was influenced by the Polish rank names. The ranks of subleŭtenanto and subkolonelo sound for me as litteraly translations of Polish podporucznik and podpulkownik: porucznik (Lieutenant) and pulkownik (Colonel), together with pod (sub, under).

Or Russian ones - then they had just the same names: podporutchik and podpolkovnik.

BTW: I believe Polish bosman has German origin

The Russian botsman (boatswain) obviously has Dutch origin.

[Ilek]

I have a feeling that the creator of Esperanto, the Polish born Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof (1859-1917), at least to some extent was influenced by the Polish rank names. The ranks of subleŭtenanto and subkolonelo sound for me as litteraly translations of Polish podporucznik and podpulkownik: porucznik (Lieutenant) and pulkownik (Colonel), together with pod (sub, under).

Or Russian ones - then they had just the same names: podporutchik and podpolkovnik.

Correct. Besides, there was no Polish Army at that time. Zamenhof lived in that part of Poland that belonged to the Russian Empire.

BTW: I believe Polish bosman has German origin

The Russian botsman (boatswain) obviously has Dutch origin.

Could be. But I guess the Polish Navy took it from the German Navy's bootsmann.

[Lukasz Gaszewski]

Ilek is right saying that when Zamehof (he lived in my city - Lodz) was creating his language, Polish armed forces did not exist. Still Polish rank names existed, preserved from the pre-paritional period, the Napoleonic pariod and the army of the Kingdom of Poland until 1831. On the other hand I am not sure if it was him who invented rank names in Esperanto. He only developed the grammar rules and a very small dictionary of most basic words. His genius consisted in the fact that unlike other creators of artificial languages he did not try to be a language guru and did not interfere with further development of Esperanto.
The forms subkolonelo and subleŭtenanto were actually the only ones I found. The alternative ones are my invention and the literal translation from English and German.

What do you think about bosmano (or bocmano) for the navy NCO?

[DML]

In my opimion Ilek is right, bosmano is the German Bootsmann (NATO-Code OR 6 (Petty Officer 1. Cl.); it would be a good idea to introduce this rank for Navy Petty Officers.

[marcpasquin]

Espenrantist seem to have often created new words by using what sounded like the one that could be recognised by most. In that sense, ranks such as general, lieutenant, colonel, etc.... are similar enough in many european language that thatey could serve the puropse well.

Another aproach, and one that could be use for the harder ones to find a consensus, would be to create compound words base on pre-existing ones: something along the lines of "army-chief", "regiment-leader", etc... due to the high number of affixes in esperanto, this could probably be done easily.

[Erskine Calderon]

Guys.

Not to be a wet towel on a subject that I inadvertently started, but the language used by this forum is English; therefore, it would seem illogical to use any other language to express the information presented here.

My two cents,
Erskine

[Al Jumhuriah Al Hind]

just curious. where is esperanto spoken?

[Erskine Calderon]

In bad William Shatner movies... ;)

From Answerbag:

Esperanto was created to facilitate communication amongst people from different countries. It is a constructed language. An artificial or constructed language is a language whose vocabulary and grammar were specifically devised by an individual or small group, rather than having naturally evolved as part of a culture like a natural language.

Esperanto was created by L. L. Zamenhof in the 1880s (pseudonym was Dr. Esperanto). The first grammar of the language was published in 1887.

Esperanto is spoken by roughly 2 million people worldwide (figure varies, but this seems the most accepted number. Some sources 3-6 million and others 1.5 million) and is most prosperous in multilingual countries such as Belgium and Poland. There are roughly 200-2000 people who speak Esperanto as a first language.

Esperanto is also most widely used in Central and Eastern Europe, particularly the former satellite nations of the old Soviet Union (including Baltic republics), and in East Asia, particularly mainland China. It is also fairly well known in certain areas of South America and Southwest Asia. It is less well known in English-speaking North America, Africa, and the Moslem world. It is not an official language of any country.

[Guest]

Although I don't have MUCH information on this I heard somewhere that in the 1950s the US Army OPFOR considered using Esperanto as the OPFOR Langauge (all troop communications would be in Esperanto, probably to sound suitably foriegn), nothing much came of it but they did print several manuals to introduce the OPFOR soldiers to the language and these manuals, of course, included military terms such as rank. If anyone out there knows any more about this (or if I misheard) then please post here.

[Nila MadhaVa]

i was browsing the forum the other day, very bored, and i revisited this thread...anyways i started messing around on the net and came up with these translations of british model air force ranks

AERARMEO – Air Force
marŝalo de aerarmeo (marshal of the air force)
aerĉefmarŝalo (air chief marshal)
aermarŝalo (air marshal)
aervicmarŝalo (air vice marshal)
aerkomodoro (air commodore)
grupkapitano (group captain)
flugilkomandoro (wing commander)
rotestro (squadron leader) {im really not 100% on this one though}
flugleŭtenanto (flight lieutenant)
flugoficiro (flying officer)
pilotoficiro (pilot officer)

[orke]

Hello friends,

I actually am for the fact that the original designations are only
used for ranks.Always easily the designations are not to be found to respective ranks.Most of our members and guests have the knowledge to translate the landtypical names for its language.The Arab, Greek, many slawische, Turkish and asiatic and African designations do not fulfill the sense of the English translations.Also from the German in the English is not easy.
There are examples enough:

Korporal(corporal) and also Unteroffizier (corporal).Both are thus translated in the English as Corporal, are however in
German not and the same.The same applies to the Sergeanten of the old German army.Also in the Polish and Russian language out that younger sergeant and
the older sergeant, first and Lance sergeants and/or Corporals
become.And in many asiatic languages certain ranks are indicated in classes,assigned in the English language however the rank names.These differences are naturally all historically conditioned.Many rank names were transferred from other languages and inserted accordingly in the ranking of the respective country.


And now still the rank designations in Esperanto?Is not me bad Lukasz, but that is nonsense.


Orke