I can get behind the "notlight" but "notright"... feels like something my brain would never get used to haha.

Because based on the words it's composed of, it's different from "left" - it would include "forward" and "backward".

Similarly for "notlight" implying including twilight, which "dark" does not.

> twilight

Perhaps that is lightandnotlight. We almost have notlight in English: unlit. An unlit room feels twilighty to me.

> notright

Left in Esperanto: maldekstra

I can’t imagine why a language designer would choose “mal” as the prefix for “not”. In English and Spanish (two common languages), mal has some bad connotations (malodour, malady, malfeasance, malo, malformed). Let’s try the opposite: “not left” is definitely something different from “right” - urrrgggh. “Do not go left” doesn’t mean to go right.

However it looks like Esperanto also has “liva”. Turnu liven tuj post la angulo ~= Turn left immediately after the corner.

> I can’t imagine why a language designer would choose “mal” as the prefix for “not”. In English and Spanish (two common languages), mal has some bad connotations (malodour, malady, malfeasance, malo, malformed).

Well, there's also the Latin word "sinister" which has a very different meaning in English... Kinda seems like a common theme.

Literally see maladroit

> Let’s try the opposite: “not left” is definitely something different from “right” - urrrgggh. “Do not go left” doesn’t mean to go right.

“maldekstra” doesn't actually mean “not right” — mal in Esperanto more precisely means “opposite.” Left is opposite of right, and so malmaldekstra (opposite of the opposite of right) is still right (dekstra).

“Not right” in Esperanto doesn't exactly mean left, either, just like in in English. That'd be ne + dekstra = nedesktra.

Sure. It just feels like a malicious choice for left. No soy maleducado. !Tengo mucho mano izquirdo, y es derecho mio a decir la palabra “maldekstra” es «malappropriate»¡

http://www.anmal.uma.es/Numero9/Forment.htm

  Joan Bastardas habla de la extrañeza de la existencia de la palabra ensinistrar del catalán, puesto que tiene un significado claramente positivo a pesar de ser derivado de siniestro-a. «... ensinistrar que no deixa de sorprendre els qui s´acosten al català des d´altres llengües romàniques, en què les idees d´habilitat i aptesa s´associen amb la mà dreta i no amb la mà esquerra, el castellà adiestrar, l´italià addestrare; en francès hi ha dexterité, però també en català hi ha destresa i destre-a 'hàbil', 'expert', i també maldestre, com el francès maladroit». (Bastardas 1996: 26)

  la contraposición entre la bondad y la justicia — simbolizados por la derecha — y la maldad, el egoísmo —relacionados con la izquierda—.

> However it looks like Esperanto also has “liva”. Turnu liven tuj post la angulo ~= Turn left immediately after the corner.

If you wanted to be understood, it'd be better to say maldekstren though. I'd never heard of liv-, English Wiktionary lists it as "neologism, nonstandard" and Reta Vortaro as "malofte" (infrequent).

The word "notright" is as clear of an example as you can get: does it mean straight or left? Up?

The most confoundingly powerful feature of language is ambiguity: on one hand, you can't take it literally; on the other hand, you don't have to.

I think the example doesn't quite do it justice, a better interpretation would be antiright, which would be unambiguous

in orwellian newspeak, the whole point is to be ambigious so you can't point at harm.

If you like that you're gonna love TokiPona. So few words that even basic objects might take a paragraph to explain.

Esperanto dekstra only means right, the direction/side, though, and so maldekstra only means left, the direction/side.