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How to translate "sapient" (as a level of sentience)?

Esperanto Language Asked on August 24, 2021

“sapient” has at least 3 distinct meanings in English:

  1. wise, sage
  2. being member of the species homo sapiens, i.e., being human
  3. being member of a species (or other category),
    whose members are generally sufficiently sentient to be self-aware.
    (Like humans are, but not necessarily limited to only humans.)

How would one capture that third meaning in Esperanto?

I’m looking for an adjective or noun, so that the word or expression could be used in “Mi estas <?>.”

2 Answers

Though memkonscia, altkonscia is fine and corresponds to sapient/self aware, I would translate the latin sapiens either as neologism (latin!) sapiensa (how else to translate "homo sapiens" sensibly), or better as kogna [Glosbe], cognitive refering to cognition (kogno), mental self-reflection.

Same as mamuloj (mammals) one could have the category kognuloj (sapient species).

See also kogni [PIV].

Because of the typical overspecification of terms in Esperanto dictionary definitions, here the English (maybe too general) definition of Glosbe:

Cognition The operation of the mind by which an organism becomes aware of objects of thought or perception; it includes the mental activities associated with thinking, learning, and memory.

Answered by Joop Eggen on August 24, 2021

self awareness can be translated as memkonscio.

You could say something like:

Delfenoj estas memkonsciaj bestoj.

Answered by Eduardo Trápani on August 24, 2021

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