Malproksime en la maro la akvo estas tiel blua, kiel folioj de la plej bela cejano, kaj klara, kiel la plej pura vitro, sed g^i estas tre profunda, pli profunda, ol povas atingi ia ankro...
A word for word translation reads as follows:
Far in the sea the water is so blue as the petals of the most blue cornflower, and clear, as the most pure glass, but it is very deep, more deep, than can reach any kind of anchor...
And the translation of the first line of my copy of Hans Christian Anderson's The Little Mermaid, published in Copenhagen, reads:
Far out at sea, the water is as blue as the petals on the fairest cornflower, and as clear as the purest glass; but it is very deep, deeper than any anchorline can go...
(For an alternative version and the full text of this much-loved story, go to: The Little Mermaid
If you carefully compare Zamenhof1s version with the English translation two things are apparent. One, which is obvious to anyone with even the most elementary knowledge of Esperanto, is that Zamenhof's prose, like the ocean he is describing, is also "as clear as the purest glass."
The second is that although the Esperanto version is very similar, in structure and syntax, to the English version, there are nevertheless subtle but important differences. Even the punctuation is different.
Therefore, if somebody whose native language is English wishes to write in classical Esperanto, in other words in a style which will be not only comprehensible but aesthetically pleasing to anybody else in the world who has been taught Esperanto by a good teacher, he or she must make some effort to avoid the cadences and phrasing of his native language and emulate the stylistic model which Zamenhof created. In other words, he or she must first have a good knowledge of classical Esperanto literature so that it becomes second nature to think and to write in a way which embodies the style of Esperanto writers whose excellence is generally accepted.
