Demando koncerne esperanto
Raghav Krishnapriyan
posting in English. My apologies.
My question is as follows: Many websites give numerous advantages to
Esperanto. However, I have seen various other 'conlangs' that have the
same features or better. One of my favourites is Lojban, the only
conlang I really know to a conversational level, which represents all
sounds by one letter, except for tc (CHurch) and dj (Joke) which are
really two sounds combined. It is a very elegant language. Does anyone
who knows about Lojban know any superiorities of Esperanto over Lojban?
I'm very sorry if this is a trivial question.
~Raghav~
Arnold VICTOR
ragm...@hotmail.com wrote on 5/11/01 20:42:
Don't apologize; it's not trivial. I know absolutely no Lojban, so I am
going on hearsay. Esperanto is easier to pronounce and the vocabulary is
easier to learn. I am surprized to hear you attained a conversational level,
as I understood that only a handful of people were fluent.
A linguistics professor I studied with once said that the total complexity
of each language is about the same. A simple phonology is probably wedded to
a complex semantics. This would imply that Lojban's semantics is matched to
a difficult phonology and morphology. It's my impression that Esperanto is
the mirror image of this.
Esperanto has the advantage of a vastly larger body of enthusiasts.
Publications in Esperanto run to the hundreds annually. On-line pages are
pretty numerous. Discussion groups are lively, with thirty messages a day in
the most popular. An annual convention attracts at least a thousand visitors
almost every year, even to Adelaide, Australia. Esperantists enjoy travel
and social advantages that I suppose to be considerably rarer in the Lojban
community.
My impression from outside is that Lojban is purely an exercise in modeling
an efficient semantic system.
--
++=====+=====+=====+=====+=====+=====+=====+=====+=====++
||Arnold VICTOR, New York City, i. e., ||
||<arvi...@mars.superlink.net> ||
|| ||
||Arnoldo VIKTORO, Nov-jorkurbo, t. e., ||
||<arvi...@mars.superlink.net> ||
|| ||
||"Wer die Fragen nicht beantwortet, hat die Pruefung ||
||bestanden." Kafka, "Die Pruefung" ||
|| ||
||'Kiu ne respondas al la demandoj, tiu estas ||
||sukcesinta en la ekzameno.' Kafka, "La ekzameno" ||
++=====+=====+=====+=====+=====+=====+=====+=====+=====++
Raghav Krishnapriyan
'.i mi fi do ca cusku doi pendo fe ledu'u mi mu'inai loi cazi li'i nandu joi se steba cu ca'o pacna da .i da mutce se jicmu le'e merko se pacna' the only consonant clusters are 'st', 'tc' (tsh), 'sk', 'nd' and 'c<nasal>'.
I'm sorry to bring Lojban into a group about Esperanto. However, this posting is sort of like a compare and contrast.
Donald J. HARLOW
"Raghav Krishnapriyan" <ragm...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:3AFCAB46...@hotmail.com...
Arnold VICTOR
news:3AFCAB46...@hotmail.com...
> It's obviously true that Esperanto has a much larger body of speakers. But it
> isn't that true that Lojban is hard to learn. The words themselves are not
> hard. Its just that the grammar works in different ways from most languages.
> It helps to have the brain of a programmer. And the pronunciation, at least
> for me, is easy. It is very vowel rich, so there aren't many tongue-tying
> consonant clusters. I've noticed in Esperanto there are sometimes combinations
> like 'sts' which at first are a bit difficult for English speakers. For
> example, in the passage
> '.i mi fi do ca cusku doi pendo fe ledu'u mi mu'inai loi cazi li'i nandu joi
> se steba cu ca'o pacna da .i da mutce se jicmu le'e merko se pacna' the only
> consonant clusters are 'st', 'tc' (tsh), 'sk', 'nd' and 'c<nasal>'.
>
> I'm sorry to bring Lojban into a group about Esperanto. However, this posting
> is sort of like a compare and contrast.
>
No apology necessary; it is quite appropriate. Would your ciatation from
Logban be equally easy/very difficult to pronounce in Loglan?
Raghav Krishnapriyan
"Donald J. HARLOW" wrote:
Answer to the below: Whether Lojban is hard to learn or not is hardly a theoretical question, but one of practice. Obviously it is learnable; I am told that there is at least _one_ fluent speaker (who, by the way, also speaks Esperanto). On the other hand, in slightly more than ten years of existence it seems not to have picked up any significant number of speakers, despite a fair amount of enthusiasm on the part of a fair number of people. The same can be said for its predecessor Loglan, which has been around considerably longer. Loglanists have attempted to explain this practical failure in terms of the lack of a speaking community to encourage fluency (the chicken-egg syndrome), but the experience of Esperanto (which very quickly generated a large number of speakers despite an identical initial lack of such a community) suggests that the cause is something else entirely. It is not clear to me that the _structure_ of Loglan / Lojban helps a lot. It is a purely theoretical construct, originally created to be significantly _different_ from "natural" human languages (it was intended not as an international language but as a scientific instrument to probe the so-called Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis), and, as such, may deviate in a few, but possibly important, ways from certain of the "language universals" which have been described in recent years. That the human brain can encompass such a construct has been demonstrated (it is possible to converse, though perhaps with some difficulty, in Loglan / Lojban; proponents have been quite proud of their 15- or 45- minute conversations). Whether it _welcomes_ such a construct remains to be demonstrated. So-called _a posteriori_ planned languages such as Esperanto, for instance (it's not the only one), are much less theoretical, deriving as they do their structural concepts from already extant languages, and are theoretically more likely to be welcomed by the human brain (a point which has, over the years, been practically demonstrated numerous times by Esperanto). By the way, with respect to 'sc' (you write it as 'sts'), this sibilant-affricate pair is actually quite easily pronounceable, and is very common in English, though usually as a terminal (wrists, casts, etc.) or somewhere in the middle of a word ('best-seller'). Note that the Esperanto spelling correctly reflects the nature of the combination, while the English spelling does not (the final sound is not 't' followed by 's' but a single phoneme whose articulation lies about halfway between that of 't' and 's'). Probably more difficult (for English speakers) is the initial "kv" pair. But you can't please everybody all the time.
"Raghav Krishnapriyan" <ragm...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:3AFCAB46...@hotmail.com...It's obviously true that Esperanto has a much larger body of speakers. But it isn't that true that Lojban is hard to learn. The words themselves are not hard. Its just that the grammar works in different ways from most languages. It helps to have the brain of a programmer. And the pronunciation, at least for me, is easy. It is very vowel rich, so there aren't many tongue-tying consonant clusters. I've noticed in Esperanto there are sometimes combinations like 'sts' which at first are a bit difficult for English speakers. For example, in the passage
Donald J. HARLOW
"Raghav Krishnapriyan" <ragm...@hotmail.com> skribis en mesag^o news:3B11E4C8...@hotmail.com...
<<
However, Lojban has a feature called buffering (which, in another form, Loglan also offers.) This is obviously not a perfect solution, but with experience talking to people who buffer, one can understand it quite well. The sound of 'i' as in pit is used in buffering, so the selbri 'zdani' (x1 is a residence of x2) can be buffered as 'zidani', the first 'i' being short. In my opinion, which due to lack of knowledge, isn't worth much, is that when Esperanto was concieved, people were more likely to be enthusiastic about a new artificial language (as demonstrated by Volapuk's success). After Esperanto, which was a huge improvement over it's predecessors, took the conlang world by storm, there really hasn't meen much opportunity for other conlangs.
>>
There is much truth in what you say. As Paul O. Bartlett points out in his essay on the topic, Esperanto was in the right place at the right time. Whether Esperanto would have awakened as much enthusiasm if it had been introduced in America in 1988 as it did when it was introduced in Central Europe in 1887 is really very doubtful.
On the other hand, two points worth mentioning:
(1) Esperanto has _not_ blocked other Conlangs. At its greatest extent (today) Esperanto is spoken by a fraction of one percent of the human race; that leaves a 99+% field for the competition. The argument may be made that Esperanto has occupied the field of those particularly interested in planned international languages 100% (as opposed to the field of all mankind), but, given that the speaking population of Esperanto has continued to grow (both absolutely and proportionately) steadily (with a minor burble in the late thirties-early forties, when lots of Esperanto speakers in Europe and the USSR and a few other places ... "disappeared" ...), indications are that there is still a fairly large potential clientele for an IAL out there that other candidates, all other things being equal, could be recruiting.
(2) My comments, however, related not to outsiders but to enthusiasts for Lojban. From everything I've heard (which is partly first hand and partly second hand), in more than a decade the language has _not_ generated, even among its most ardent enthusiasts, a significant body of competent speakers. In _its_ first decade, Esperanto generated a body of some thousands. So, even considering this limited statistical universe where "all other things are equal", Esperanto demonstrated a marked superiority over Lojban. Again, I don't know the reason, except to suppose that Lojban is intrinsically more difficult to learn and use than Esperanto is.
--
-- Donald J. HARLOW
http://www.webcom.com/~donh/don/don.html
Recenzoj/Reviews: http://www.best.com/~donh/Esperanto/Literaturo/Recenzoj/
Raghav Krishnapriyan
criticizing Lojban-- save for the fact that it is hard to learn. (I don't think it's hard to learn at all-- In school I took Chinese which is a bit like learning an a priori language if you don't speak a Sino-Tibetan language and Lojban was easier. However, Chinese was also pretty easy compared to most Indo-European languages) But I think the main reason Esperanto draws more criticism is because it's more popular, sort of like the fact that Windows in criticised a lot more than, say, BeOS.
Donald J. HARLOW
"Raghav Krishnapriyan" <ragm...@hotmail.com> skribis en mesag^o news:3B12E723...@hotmail.com...
> There is a difference between Esperanto and Lojban however-- Esperanto was designed from the start to be an international auxilliary language whereas Lojban (and Loglan) had other purposes... many other purposes.
At least historically, this is inaccurate. Loglan was designed by Dr. James Cooke Brown _specifically_ as a Sapir-Whorf probe (though I've never understood what sort of experiment he would have designed to use it). But by the time it was almost ready (*), Chomsky had (perhaps unjustly) put an end to any linguistic interest in Sapir-Whorf. By the time of the famous June, 1960, article (in "Scientific American") Brown was already musing about other possible uses, most notably as an IAL; Loglan was already a solution in search of a problem.
Naturally, by the time of the schism that led to Lojban, the IAL use was the most prominent, especially among Bob LeChevalier's faction (from which originated, if I remember correctly, Loglan-88, which eventually became Lojban).
> There *are* proponents of Lojban as an international language, but what I've come to like about it is its simplicity and intelligent design. Also, since Esperanto was meant to be easily recognised, it uses international vocabulary, but sometimes two words are too similar. (Such as 'mato' and 'maato') It also doesn't have another feature of Lojban, namely unique resolvability. Of course, in designing a language with that feature, the creators of Lojban had to give up the advantage of legibility. However, if you look on the WWW, you will see many pages criticizing Esperanto, but probably not even one
> criticizing Lojban-- save for the fact that it is hard to learn. (I don't think it's hard to learn at all-- In school I took Chinese which is a bit like learning an a priori language if you don't speak a Sino-Tibetan language and Lojban was easier. However, Chinese was also pretty easy compared to most Indo-European languages) But I think the main reason Esperanto draws more criticism is because it's more popular, sort of like the fact that Windows in criticised a lot more than, say, BeOS.
>
There are actually three good reasons why Esperanto receives as much criticism as it does on the net:
(1) There are people who know something about Esperanto but feel that this or that feature could have been dispensed with, or, contrariwise, should have been included;
(2) There are people who know nothing about Esperanto, but feel that the whole idea of an IAL is a sin against man and nature. See Piron's paper on the subject; (**)
(3) There are people who know something about Esperanto, but have an agenda of their own (e.g., support some competing project).
By and large, your observation is correct. This is why there are not only criticisms of Esperanto and none of Lojban on the net, but why there are uncountable thousands (or tens of thousands, or maybe even hundreds of thousands) of pages _in_ Esperanto scattered around the Web and -- outside of www.lojban.org -- how many in Lojban?
As to the facility of Lojban, I won't argue with your reasons for supposing it easy -- I have not looked at the structure of the language and its vocabulary enough to be competent to form an a priori idea of this. What I _have_ looked at is results, and those would indicate that would-be students who have gone beyond an overview have found that Lojban is nowhere near as easy to learn as Esperanto.
---
(*) "Ready" is, of course, a relative term. The Loglan Institute was still proposing basically structural changes to the language clear up to the time of Dr. Brown's death a bit more than a year ago. I'm not sure what the situation is today. The situation is different with Lojban, since Bob LeChevalier decided to "baseline" the language after suffering, so I'm told, a near-rebellion among the ranks of enthusiasts because of its constantly-changing structure and vocabulary. This IMHO wise move, of course, earned Bob the well-deserved detestation of those in the IAL community who have spent large parts of their lives screaming about how Esperanto has been "petrified" by its "Fundamento" and who believe that an IAL should not be released upon an unsuspecting world until it has attained perfection. Now if only they could agree among themselves what constitutes "perfection" ...
(**) I particularly liked the chap in England who tore Zamenhof to pieces for having lifted Esperanto's phonology en bloc from his native Polish. He seemed rather surprised to discover that Z did not speak Polish natively; his native language was, by his own account, Russian, and he most likely spoke Yiddish even earlier. I vaguely remember that the criticism did not disappear, but was modified to complain about Zamenhof's having lifted Esperanto's phonology en bloc from his native _Slavic_.
Brion Vibber
> maybe even hundreds of thousands) of pages in Esperanto scattered around
> the Web and -- outside of www.lojban.org -- how many in Lojban?
I've actually stumbled into one, on the Klingon Language Institute site. :)
http://www.kli.org/kli/langs/KLIlojban.html
> (**) I particularly liked the chap in England who tore Zamenhof to pieces
> for having lifted Esperanto's phonology en bloc from his native Polish. He
The article that Don is referring to is, I believe, this one:
http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/ranto.html
It makes a very amusing read... the man has a gift for argumentation! Many
of the features he cites are true (or close to it), but his conclusions
require a leap of faith. It's rather like hearing a biologist complaining
that the horse is an inferior animal because it has too many legs - after
all, some animals get by just fine with only two! The other two are just
redundant and difficult to learn how to use.
He also has excellent rants about Star Trek, fictional time-travel physics,
alien languages in fiction, and English spelling reform (which, sadly, also
remains fiction). JBR is no Claude Piron, but his articles do make for fun
reading.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
Donald J. HARLOW
"Brion Vibber" <br...@pobox.com> skribis en mesag^o news:XsFQ6.16969$Rh7.5...@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net...
> Donald J. HARLOW skribis:
>
> > maybe even hundreds of thousands) of pages in Esperanto scattered around
> > the Web and -- outside of www.lojban.org -- how many in Lojban?
>
> I've actually stumbled into one, on the Klingon Language Institute site. :)
> http://www.kli.org/kli/langs/KLIlojban.html
>
Besides Lojban, you'll find versions in Esperanto, Interlingua, Volapuk, Klingon itself, and a slew of ethnic languages, some of which apparently have even more trouble presenting themselves on the Web than Esperanto (though certainly generate less controversy about this); most notably Chinese, with five different presentations, two of them GIFs.
(A similar source of stuff in multiple languages is, of course, http://www.esperanto.net/, which has an even larger selection of ethnic languages, but -- as far as I know -- nothing in other planned languages.)
> > (**) I particularly liked the chap in England who tore Zamenhof to pieces
> > for having lifted Esperanto's phonology en bloc from his native Polish. He
>
> The article that Don is referring to is, I believe, this one:
> http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/ranto.html
>
I think that's the one, though it's been a while.
Raghav Krishnapriyan
At least historically, this is inaccurate. Loglan was designed by Dr. James Cooke
Brown _specifically_ as a Sapir-Whorf probe (though I've never understood what sort
of experiment he would have designed to use it). But by the time it was almost ready
(*), Chomsky had (perhaps unjustly) put an end to any linguistic interest in
Sapir-Whorf. By the time of the famous June, 1960, article (in "Scientific
American") Brown was already musing about other possible uses, most notably as an
IAL; Loglan was already a solution in search of a problem.
>>
Lojban, although based on Loglan, was created with other purposes in mind besides the Sapir whorf hypothesis.
Donald J. HARLOW
"Raghav Krishnapriyan" <ragm...@hotmail.com> skribis en mesag^o news:3B159390...@hotmail.com...
George Partlow
> Donald J. HARLOW skribis:
> > (**) I particularly liked the chap in England who tore Zamenhof to pieces
> > for having lifted Esperanto's phonology en bloc from his native Polish. He
>
> The article that Don is referring to is, I believe, this one:
> http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/ranto.html
>
> It makes a very amusing read... the man has a gift for argumentation! Many
> of the features he cites are true (or close to it), but his conclusions
> require a leap of faith. It's rather like hearing a biologist complaining
> that the horse is an inferior animal because it has too many legs - after
> all, some animals get by just fine with only two! The other two are just
> redundant and difficult to learn how to use.
>
> He also has excellent rants about Star Trek, fictional time-travel physics,
> alien languages in fiction, and English spelling reform (which, sadly, also
> remains fiction). JBR is no Claude Piron, but his articles do make for fun
> reading.
I agree. As a regular lurker on alt.fan.heinlein I also enjoyed his anit-RAH pro-ACC
rant... which has similar assets and defects to those of his Espe-RANT-o.
For Don's benefit, we should perhaps point out that Justin B. Rye, although
raised in a rectory in English (Norfolk, I believe), has lived in Edinburgh
for the past 16 years, since going up to University. I believe that's NOT
in England... ;-)
Georgo, en bela sudorienta alasko
Donald J. HARLOW
"George Partlow" <pricer...@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:680335c5.01060...@posting.google.com...
Add _ridikonojn_ (*) as required.
--
-- Donald J. HARLOW
http://www.webcom.com/~donh/don/don.html
Recenzoj/Reviews: http://www.best.com/~donh/Esperanto/Literaturo/Recenzoj/
(*) "ridikono" = (angle) "smiley"
Stanley Richard Dalton
"Donald J. HARLOW" <d...@donh.vip.best.com> wrote in message
news:_7FR6.51319$%i7.39...@news1.rdc1.sfba.home.com...
"Raghav Krishnapriyan" <ragm...@hotmail.com> skribis en mesag^o
news:3B159390...@hotmail.com...
> >>
>
> At least historically, this is inaccurate. Loglan was designed by Dr.
James Cooke
> Brown _specifically_ as a Sapir-Whorf probe (though I've never understood
what sort
> of experiment he would have designed to use it). But by the time it was
almost ready
> (*), Chomsky had (perhaps unjustly) put an end to any linguistic interest
in
> Sapir-Whorf. By the time of the famous June, 1960, article (in "Scientific
> American") Brown was already musing about other possible uses, most
notably as an
> IAL; Loglan was already a solution in search of a problem.
I never could figure out how Loglan could test the Sapir Whorf hypothesis
when it starts out by denying it. All the Loglan introductions I have seen
define items of vocabulary by reference to words in "national" languages.
Brown specifically denied that Loglan was in any way a competitor to
Esperanto.
Rik
Raghav Krishnapriyan
Stanley Richard Dalton deithant i phith hin:
Of course it's not a competitor. In fact, even Lojban is not. However, I'm
simply raising the idea that perhaps Lojban might make a better international
language than Esperanto... not that either is likely to succeed, as you've seen
from the 'Does Esperanto have a chance' thread.
Raghav Krishnapriyan
"Donald J. HARLOW" deithant i phith hin:
> On the other hand, two points worth mentioning:
>
> (1) Esperanto has _not_ blocked other Conlangs. At its greatest extent (today) Esperanto is spoken by a fraction of one percent of the human race; that leaves a 99+% field for the competition. The argument may be made that Esperanto has occupied the field of those particularly interested in planned international languages 100% (as opposed to the field of all mankind), but, given that the speaking population of Esperanto has continued to grow (both absolutely and proportionately) steadily (with a minor burble in the late thirties-early forties, when lots of Esperanto speakers in Europe and the USSR and a few other places ... "disappeared" ...), indications are that there is still a fairly large potential clientele for an IAL out there that other candidates, all other things being equal, could be recruiting.
I say it -has- blocked the way for other constructed languages. Due to it's immense popularity (compared to other conlangs) in it's first few years of life, it is the most well known conlang... and one of the few you'll actually find in a book outside of one about conlanging itself. (Others include Quenya and Sindarin) It is much more likely someone will stumble across an article about Esperanto than Lojban simply because Esperanto was able to accumulate such a large number of speakers so quickly. Moreover, most people who do so probably will not know that there are alternatives, and seeing Esperanto and it's 'wonderful claims' (You can learn it in a month or less! It's very flexible and it's phonetic! It's naturally allophonic) they start learning it. As Geoff Allan Eddy states in his site "Why Esperanto is
not my favourite artificial language" (http://www.cix.co.uk/~morven/esp.html) followers of Esperanto feel a bit like belonging to a minority religion."Some Esperantists indeed promote the
language with a zeal worthy of the more aggressive religions, implying that some sort of linguistic revolution is just about to happen and you are morally obliged to take part".
Common gripes about Esperanto from the site:
** Why does 'nacio' have stress on the 'i' when nearly every language with that word (with the exception of French) has it on the 'a'?
** 'altkreska' and 'pendsxnuro' have many consonant clusters, whereas an IAL should have as few as possible, since speakers of some languages (Japanese, for instance) have trouble with many of them.
** Look at the words 'eksscio' (former knowlege) and 'ekscio' (flash of insight) 'Nuff said.
** WHY must you use articles in front of numbers when telling time? Do the majority of languages say 'la kvar' when telling the time? As the site says further, many languages lack articles altogether.
**
"
Many roots are imported more or less without major change, such as hundo "dog" and vivi "to live". However, and for no obvious
reason, many more roots are distorted from their forms in the source language and thus become unrecognisable, such as the following:
word meaning source
boji to bark French "aboyer"
lerta clever "alert"?
fulmo lightning "fulminate"!
venko victory French "vaincre"
mejlo mile English
bojketi boycott English
pordo door Romance
aldo alto Italian
The last two were presumably altered to avoid confusion with derivations from alta "high" and porti "to carry". Similarly, poshto
"post/mail" apparently needs its SH to distinguish itself from post "after" - a pretty lame excuse for the accented letters, if this is what it's
supposed to be.
"
>
>
> (2) My comments, however, related not to outsiders but to enthusiasts for Lojban. From everything I've heard (which is partly first hand and partly second hand), in more than a decade the language has _not_ generated, even among its most ardent enthusiasts, a significant body of competent speakers. In _its_ first decade, Esperanto generated a body of some thousands. So, even considering this limited statistical universe where "all other things are equal", Esperanto demonstrated a marked superiority over Lojban. Again, I don't know the reason, except to suppose that Lojban is intrinsically more difficult to learn and use than Esperanto is.
>
Well, I don't know. Doesn't English have more speakers than Esperanto? Perhaps English is intrinsically more difficult to learn than Lojban? Or perhaps it just has more converting power?
The situation without Esperanto: If English is the international language (which seems to be the major fear of most Esperantists) then everyone else will have to learn it... and the English native speakers will have an advantage. Zamenhof had this same problem, only English wasn't quite so 'international' then. So he created Esperanto, European based conlang, so now Europeans could easily learn this language and everyone else would be at a disadvantage. Who cares about them anyway? `_^ Can you say 'ethnocentric'?
"Lojban, on the other hand", says the Lojban fanatic "is equally easier for nearly all people of the world. The number of people who speak one more of Lojban's 'root languages' compromise well over 50% of the world's population. Bottom line? Lojban is -REALLY- culturally neutral, not just a decoy."
Sorry about the venom,
Raghav
Raghav Krishnapriyan
> Perhaps English is intrinsically more difficult to learn than Lojban?
>>
Correction: Perhaps English is intrinsically more difficult to learn than Esperanto?
Rosalind
Krishnapriyan <ragm...@hotmail.com> skribas
What has provoked all this venom?
An international language is supposed to bring understanding and less
"venom".
I know that there are hundreds of artificial languages and I would find it
very difficult to learn most of them or find them very lacking in
communication possibilities.
Why all these senseless complaints about Esperanto - a language you
very plainly have failed to understand? Why do you not try learning
Chinese, it is the language of the future?
>
Best of luck and make sure the Chinese produce an alphabet that all
can understand.
>
--
Rosalind Walter
Raghav Krishnapriyan
Rosalind deithant i phith hin:
>
> What has provoked all this venom?
> An international language is supposed to bring understanding and less
> "venom".
>
I was joking... `_^ Just griping about Esperanto's failings.
>
> I know that there are hundreds of artificial languages and I would find it
> very difficult to learn most of them or find them very lacking in
> communication possibilities.
>
I don't think I asked you to learn most artificial languages. And I'm pretty sure the
number of artificial languages runs up to at least the thousands. (Not that it matters
much) And furthermore, at least in my experience, Esperanto very much lacks commmunication
possibilities. (I've never talked to an esperantist, I've never written an email in
Esperanto)
>
> Why all these senseless complaints about Esperanto - a language you
> very plainly have failed to understand? Why do you not try learning
> Chinese, it is the language of the future?
>
Senseless complaints about Esperanto? If they're so senseless, why do you not brush them
away like a fly and laugh at my stupidity for even suggesting such idiotic things? How
have I failed to understand Esperanto? Perhaps it is you who have failed to understand it.
Also, I speak Mandarin with moderate fluency... I have since before the age of 10. 62% of
the students in my school are originally from PRC or Taiwan, and there are many, many
Chinese language TV stations, schools, and (yes, believe it or not!) street and business
signs. So I have had quite a bit of exposure.
However, I wouldn't go so far as to say that Chinese is the language of the future. At
least today, the huge number of Mandarin speakers are primarily concentrated in the PRC
and Taiwan.
> >
> Best of luck and make sure the Chinese produce an alphabet that all
> can understand.
> >
There -are- Mandarin phonetic symbols, you know. They are taught in schools in the PRC and
in grade 4 of the Chinese schools here. Besides, at least Chinese looks nice (at least
Traditional does... simplified always looked icky to me) which I (note the I) can't say
about Esperanto's famous accented letters.
Raghav Krishnapriyan
Brion L. VIBBER
>> What has provoked all this venom?
>> An international language is supposed to bring understanding and less
>> "venom".
Raghav Krishnapriyan skribis:
> I was joking... `_^ Just griping about Esperanto's failings.
It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye. :)
> And furthermore, at least in my
> experience, Esperanto very much lacks commmunication possibilities. (I've
> never talked to an esperantist, I've never written an email in Esperanto)
I don't know about you, but I'd feel pretty silly griping about the
deficiencies of a language I hadn't made an attempt to use. It's like
complaining about the personality of someone I've never met based solely on
a photograph.
> Senseless complaints about Esperanto? If they're so senseless, why do you
> not brush them away like a fly and laugh at my stupidity for even
> suggesting such idiotic things?
Well, there was no point as I already did that in my response. :)
> How have I failed to understand Esperanto?
> Perhaps it is you who have failed to understand it.
Now you're just being deliberately provocative! Vi ne komprenas Esperanton
char vi ne parolas ghin, chu ne? Bonvole, lernu plu. Ekparolu. Ekskribu.
Ekkomprenu. Or else, stop complaining and find a positive goal - a language
you feel you *can* support, or a multilingual or translation system that
you believe will benefit people more than an auxlang. Nobody ever effected
social change through mere whining about the status quo (if you consider
Esperanto the 'status quo' of the auxlang world), it takes goals and
organization.
Witness the utter failure of Esperanto and other auxlang advocates of
getting nations and international organizations to commit to the
institutionalization of an international auxiliary language. I suspect that
unless a substantial fraction of the population already spoke or very
strongly supported speaking such a language, few political institutions
would care to make such a drastic change in the way they work. The
political force of a petition is zero; the political force of a willful,
organized populace is much greater. (Compare with the Indian independence
movement, the US civil rights movement, etc)
In short, whatever it is you're seeking or advocating, Raghav, you're
unlikely to get it by griping about Esperanto's flaws, whether real or
perceived. There are numerous other languages you can throw your weight
behind if you think they have that special something that Esperanto doesn't
do for you based on your lack of experience with it. (Glosa, if you like.
It looks nice enough on the surface at least.)
> Also, I speak Mandarin with moderate fluency... I have since before the
> age of 10. 62% of the students in my school are originally from PRC or
> Taiwan, and there are many, many Chinese language TV stations, schools,
> and (yes, believe it or not!) street and business
> signs. So I have had quite a bit of exposure.
> However, I wouldn't go so far as to say that Chinese is the language of
> the future. At least today, the huge number of Mandarin speakers are
> primarily concentrated in the PRC and Taiwan.
"Of the future" ... "At least today"
Who knows what the future may bring? :)
> There -are- Mandarin phonetic symbols, you know. They are taught in
> schools in the PRC and in grade 4 of the Chinese schools here. Besides, at
> least Chinese looks nice (at least Traditional does... simplified always
> looked icky to me) which I (note the I) can't say about Esperanto's famous
> accented letters.
Personally, I find many of the traditional hanzi characters too busy, and
the simplified ones too angular. (Disclaimer: I don't know Chinese, I can
only comment on the script based on my occasional attempts to skim
Chinese-language material based on my limited knowledge of Japanese.) I've
always had a soft spot for Japanese hiragana, though. They're quite
attractive, curvy but not too full. Unfortunately as syllabics, they don't
cover languages with consonant clusters very well. Bopomofo is alphabetic,
but not as pleasing to my eye.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox,com)
Raghav Krishnapriyan
coi doi brai,yn. vibyr.
Mi modere bone parolas esperanton. Tamen, vidu la mesagxoj plifrua kaj vi vidos
ke mi vivtenas la lojxbanon. Mi grajpis ('I griped' `_^) por fortigi mian
pozicion.
(Pardonu min, mia esperanto ne bone estas)
Gxis kaj co'o,
mi'e ragyv.
"Brion L. VIBBER" deithant i phith hin:
Raghav Krishnapriyan
> but not as pleasing to my eye.
>
I assume you mean Zhuyin, right? To me, it looks no worse than simplified.
Brion L. VIBBER
> Saluton, O Brian Vibber
> coi doi brai,yn. vibyr.
>
> Mi modere bone parolas esperanton. Tamen, vidu la mesagxoj plifrua kaj vi
> vidos ke mi vivtenas la lojxbanon. Mi grajpis ('I griped' `_^) por fortigi
> mian pozicion.
> (Pardonu min, mia esperanto ne bone estas)
Nepardoninda! Mi komprenas vin suficxe bone. Do nun, vi ja estas skribinta
retmesagxon Esperante, kaj vi ne plu povas plendi ke gxi "mankas komunikajn
eblecojn", cxu ne? :)
Sed, mi tute ne komprenas kial kaj kiel plendado (complaining, griping)
povus fortigi vian pozicion. Gxi nur sxajnigas vin kiel plendanto, kaj kiel
oni diras, "nobody likes a whiner".
I'm still only on the 5th chapter of the lojban lessons, so alas I can't
say anything of note in it - 'mi tavla fi la lojban.' may be a true
statement, but not yet 'mi tavla fo la lojban.' to any great degree.
Unless, of course, tavla is too specific to use for non-vocal communicative
acts. Hmm, I should look that up.
> > Bopomofo is alphabetic,
> > but not as pleasing to my eye.
> >
> I assume you mean Zhuyin, right? To me, it looks no worse than simplified.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, no?
David Galadí-Enríquez
> Saluton, O Brian Vibber
> coi doi brai,yn. vibyr.
>
> Mi modere bone parolas esperanton. Tamen, vidu la mesagxoj plifrua kaj vi vidos
> ke mi vivtenas la lojxbanon. Mi grajpis ('I griped' `_^) por fortigi mian
> pozicion.
> (Pardonu min, mia esperanto ne bone estas)
Do, vi modere bone parolas Esperanton, sed via Esperanto ne bone estas.
Mmmm... Vi diris, ke vi parolas la latinan. En la latina, tio, kion vi
diras, estas "contradictio in terminis".
--
----------------------------------
David Galadí-Enríquez
Centro de Astrobiología
INTA, edificio S-18
Carretera de Ajalvir, km 4
E-28850-Torrejón de Ardoz (Madrid)
tlf/fax (+34) 915 201 074
----------------------------------
dga...@am.ub.es, gala...@inta.es
----------------------------------
Brion L. VIBBER
> Do, vi modere bone parolas Esperanton, sed via Esperanto ne bone estas.
>
> Mmmm... Vi diris, ke vi parolas la latinan. En la latina, tio, kion vi
> diras, estas "contradictio in terminis".
Mi dirus, ke nia kamarado "bone parolas malbonan Esperanton". Ne malsama ol
iu kiu "speaks in perfect broken English". :)
Tio ne estas vera memkontrauxdiro, sed esprimo de grado: suficxe bone por
iom da komprenado, sed ne perfekte.
George Partlow
> Centro de Astrobiología
Se mi rajtas draste sxangxi la temlinion: Cxu vi bonvole komentus pri
<http://unisci.com/stories/20013/0730011.htm>?
Anticipe dankon,
Georgo
Raghav Krishnapriyan
"Brion L. VIBBER" deithant i phith hin:
>
> Nepardoninda! Mi komprenas vin suficxe bone. Do nun, vi ja estas skribinta
> retmesagxon Esperante, kaj vi ne plu povas plendi ke gxi "mankas komunikajn
> eblecojn", cxu ne? :)
>
Jes, sed mi skribas pli ofte en la tri kanaloj #Lojban (IRC) ke en la kanalo
#Esperanto kaj tio novajgrupo. Ankoraux, Esperanto havas pli ebleco de
kommunikajo. Kiel vi gxin klarigi?
>
> Sed, mi tute ne komprenas kial kaj kiel plendado (complaining, griping)
> povus fortigi vian pozicion. Gxi nur sxajnigas vin kiel plendanto, kaj kiel
> oni diras, "nobody likes a whiner".
>
Mi bedauxras. Mi ne volis pleni. Mi donis realaj problemoj esperantaj. (Kaj mi
rimarkas ke neniu respondis ^_^)
>
> I'm still only on the 5th chapter of the lojban lessons, so alas I can't
> say anything of note in it - 'mi tavla fi la lojban.' may be a true
> statement, but not yet 'mi tavla fo la lojban.' to any great degree.
> Unless, of course, tavla is too specific to use for non-vocal communicative
> acts. Hmm, I should look that up.
If you're leraning Lojban, go to #Lojban to learn how to 'sutra lojbo pensi'.
Also, I think you mean 'mi kakne lo nu tavla fi la lojban'. (I can speak about
Lojban, lit. I am able of the event of speaking about Lojban.) You can also go
to http://nuzban.wiw.org/ for 'nuzba bau po'o la lojban' (News only in Lojban).
Last time I checked, it was actually quite up to date, but as I see it right
now, it seems to have fallen woefully behind the times.
>
>
> > > Bopomofo is alphabetic,
> > > but not as pleasing to my eye.
> > >
> > I assume you mean Zhuyin, right? To me, it looks no worse than simplified.
>
> Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, no?
>
Yes, but you said simplified was 'too angular' whereas Zhuyin is 'not as
pleasing to my eye'. I suppose you meant Zhuyin was also too angular. Oh, well,
that's not important.
If you'll check my later thread, you'll see that I think that the laissez-faire
attitude towards the 'language problem' will continue. However, if any language
should be 'international', I think it should be Lojban should be it. (Not that
it's likely to be) Cf. the post about Esperanto's flaws (and I encourage you to
visit that site, "Why Esperanto is not my favourite artificial language"
http://www.cix.co.uk/~morven/esp.html) Note that Lojban does not have any of
those shortcomings. Obviously it was more thoroughly thought out than
Esperanto... but then it is one of the most well thought out constructed
languages. Oh, and that rumour about Lojbanists being very proud of their '15 to
45 minute conversations with dictionaries' (the one la lojbab. debunked about a
month back on the mailing list)? Just go to any one of the (I think) 3 Lojban
channels on IRC. The people there speak too quickly to be consulting
dictionaries (They type faster than on #Esperanto, but that's probably because
Lojban has no capitalization (except for some names) and less punctuation, so
it's faster to type) and lots of times (though not always, same as #Esperanto)
you will see hour long conversations, especially during Logfests. (A side note
(sorry for all the parentheses (and the nesting)): Usually #Esperanto has more
active members on, but every time save one that I've connected to both last
week, at least one of the #Lojbans had more active speakers. Maybe more people
are hopping on the bandwagon. `_^)
>> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox,com)
Is that a spam deflecting address, with spaces and a comma? That's clever. I
ought to try that.
co'o mi'e la'o ry. Raghav Krishnapriyan .ry .i zoi gy. ragmaster @ hotmail,com
.gy
Brion L. VIBBER
>> Sed, mi tute ne komprenas kial kaj kiel plendado (complaining, griping)
>> povus fortigi vian pozicion. Gxi nur sxajnigas vin kiel plendanto, kaj
>> kiel oni diras, "nobody likes a whiner".
>
> Mi bedauxras. Mi ne volis pleni. Mi donis realaj problemoj esperantaj.
> (Kaj mi rimarkas ke neniu respondis ^_^)
Nu, kiel oni respondu?
1) Some of the accusations are true. (Gasp!)
2) But that doesn't seem to stop plenty of people from learning and using
it successfully with much greater ease than popular natural languages (such
as English), and in much greater numbers than any other conglang including
reformed Esperanto attempts (Ido), other "naturalistic" languages
(Interlingua) and "logical" attempts such as Loglan and lojban, perhaps
because
3) Everything that's said so cruelly about Esperanto is ten times worse
when I replace the name with "English" and throw in examples from my
infamous native tongue. Esperanto may not be perfect but it seems to pass
the "good enough" level, and its long history and ample literature gives it
enough background and character to be interesting in its own right even if
you don't want to use it "practically".
Why is it necessary to revile Esperanto? Why do schoolyard bullies beat up
other kids to make themselves feel superior? Whatever its flaws, the fact
remains that Esperanto is a usable, learnable, speakable, readable,
writable language, which is used, learned, spoke, read, and written by some
unknown number of thousands of people.
> If you're leraning Lojban, go to #Lojban to learn how to 'sutra lojbo
> pensi'. Also, I think you mean 'mi kakne lo nu tavla fi la lojban'. (I can
> speak about Lojban, lit. I am able of the event of speaking about Lojban.)
Dank'. I'm not generally that fond of IRC, though - I'm a terrible
conversationalist even in my native tongue. I believe it was Dave Barry
that once said, "The difference between witty people and comedy writers is
that witty people can think of something funny to say right on the spot,
while comedy writers can think of something *absolutely hilarious* two days
later." In general I feel more like the comedy writers. :)
>> Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, no?
>
> Yes, but you said simplified was 'too angular' whereas Zhuyin is 'not as
> pleasing to my eye'. I suppose you meant Zhuyin was also too angular. Oh,
> well, that's not important.
I may have been unclear; I meant to say that I found Zhuyin 'not as
pleasing to my eye' as hiragana, which I described as 'attractive, curvy'.
So yes, the angularism is part of what (iom) maplacxas min about Zhuyin.
Not that that would stop me from learning Chinese. Simple lack of time does
that!
> If you'll check my later thread, you'll see that I think that the
> laissez-faire attitude towards the 'language problem' will continue.
Very likely, I tend to agree.
> However, if any language should be 'international', I think it should be
> Lojban should be it. (Not that it's likely to be)
As a frequent lurker on lojban-list, I say we make it international when
the folks who invented it can agree on how the grammar works. :)
> Cf. the post about
> Esperanto's flaws (and I encourage you to visit that site, "Why Esperanto
> is not my favourite artificial language"
> http://www.cix.co.uk/~morven/esp.html)
I'll check it out. My favorite such page, though, remains JBR's "Ranto":
http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/ranto.html
Simply for the incredibly rabid attitude that he puts into all his rants,
it makes entertaining reading. And, of course, he's a "trained linguist"
and therefore qualified to pass judgement on the quality of a language! :)
> Note that Lojban does not have any
> of those shortcomings.
Based on a quick lookthrough, it (the referenced page) appears to have the
usual good points mixed together with the usual pointless complaints and
incomprehensible venom -- I can visualize the author stopping every few
paragraphs to wipe the foam from his mouth. I'll respond to a few things
that strike me just now, mainly from the appendices which seem to have been
written after a calming nap:
1. Phonotactic observations
Some consonant clusters are indeed difficult. Ido fixes this, but breaks
the rest of the language. :) Personally I'm not such a fan of some of the
ones that are present in lojban, but neither language is unspeakable.
I'd also point out a little error: 'the only words with ca- co- cu- are the
rarely-useful caro "czar" and celo "inch".' Eh? (Flip through dictionary.)
"Celo" is clearly a typo for "colo". I suppose I should inform the author.
"In a further remarkable indication of the lack of thought given to
phonotactics, three words - cent, trans and post - end in two consonants;
Italian has none of these." Uhhh, Esperanto isn't Italian. Nor is Italian
the world's perfect magic language which everything should imitate. And, of
course, Italian is derived from Latin, which contains many such words.
2. Ambiguities
This is a legitimate problem. Unless, of course, you're an incorridgeble
punster like me, and you want those available. :)
3. Absurdities
This is just stupid. I'm sorry, but I have a hard time taking anybody
seriously whose argument is based on the subjectively "silly" sound or
appearance of a foreign-language word. Lojban certainly suffers from the
"silly" problem at least as badly as Esperanto (or for that matter, any
language other than the native tongue of whoever's looking). Gosh golly,
they don't even use proper capitalization and punctuation! Look at all
those stupid lowercase words and wacky apostrophes! Ha ha ha! Sigh.
4. Country names:
"Leaving aside the regrettable fact that Esperanto's names for countries
are often distorted from familiar forms..." Again I point out lojban's
"merko", "glico", "ponjo", etc. These are certainly "more distorted" from
any familiar form I know of than "angla" and "japana", though "usona" is a
bit of a stretch if you're not familiar with the rarely-used word "Usonian".
5. Miscellaneous oddities
Some of these are silly, pointless complaints that cannot be refuted
logically any more than, for instance, a firm conviction that one "race" or
"nationality" of people is superior, since the person spouting them does
not seem to follow the same logic that I do. Others are legitimate, a
result of Esperanto's lack of distinct morpheme boundary markers (thus,
ambiguous compound words). Lojban does seem to win there thanks to its
incredibly strict morphology. Unless, of course, you're borrowing foreign
words through fuivla or cmene, then who knows what they're supposed to mean?
6. Quotes:
These prove nothing except that the author carefully selected his quotes to
pander to his view.
> Obviously it was more thoroughly thought out than
> Esperanto... but then it is one of the most well thought out constructed
> languages.
So well thought out that no one could use it for 30 years while it
constantly changed. :) (Yes, that was a low blow. Sorry!)
> Oh, and that rumour about Lojbanists being very proud of their
> '15 to 45 minute conversations with dictionaries' (the one la lojbab.
> debunked about a month back on the mailing list)? Just go to any one of
Yes, this is certainly an exagerrated claim, no better than the anecdotes
that the anti-Esperantists spout. It's patently false since, after all, the
lojban dictionary hasn't even been published yet! :)
>>> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox,com)
>
> Is that a spam deflecting address, with spaces and a comma? That's clever.
> I ought to try that.
Not clever enough, since I don't bother to do it in my main headers. But
that's okay, sometimes I get spam in foreign languages that's fun to try to
read...
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
Raghav Krishnapriyan
"Brion L. VIBBER" deithant i phith hin:
> Raghav Krishnapriyan skribis:
> >> Sed, mi tute ne komprenas kial kaj kiel plendado (complaining, griping)
> >> povus fortigi vian pozicion. Gxi nur sxajnigas vin kiel plendanto, kaj
> >> kiel oni diras, "nobody likes a whiner".
> >
> > Mi bedauxras. Mi ne volis pleni. Mi donis realaj problemoj esperantaj.
> > (Kaj mi rimarkas ke neniu respondis ^_^)
>
> Nu, kiel oni respondu?
I thought it was 'kiel oni respondas'. Since you're a much better esperantist
than I am, and I'd not like to make an error, why is the imperative used?
>
> 1) Some of the accusations are true. (Gasp!)
> 2) But that doesn't seem to stop plenty of people from learning and using
> it successfully with much greater ease than popular natural languages (such
> as English), and in much greater numbers than any other conglang including
> reformed Esperanto attempts (Ido), other "naturalistic" languages
> (Interlingua) and "logical" attempts such as Loglan and lojban, perhaps
> because
> 3) Everything that's said so cruelly about Esperanto is ten times worse
> when I replace the name with "English" and throw in examples from my
> infamous native tongue. Esperanto may not be perfect but it seems to pass
> the "good enough" level, and its long history and ample literature gives it
> enough background and character to be interesting in its own right even if
> you don't want to use it "practically".
>
> Why is it necessary to revile Esperanto? Why do schoolyard bullies beat up
> other kids to make themselves feel superior? Whatever its flaws, the fact
> remains that Esperanto is a usable, learnable, speakable, readable,
> writable language, which is used, learned, spoke, read, and written by some
> unknown number of thousands of people.
You're right. Esperanto is useful, and it's probably the best bet for a
constructed IAL. Though both Lojban and Esperanto have such few speakers
compared to the world population that in comparison they're both nearly equally
far from becoming the IAL although Esperantists outnumber lojbos about 1000 to
one, maybe more. I'm pretty sure neither one will become an IAL, not in my
lifetime, and I postulate, without much authority, ever.
>
> > If you're leraning Lojban, go to #Lojban to learn how to 'sutra lojbo
> > pensi'. Also, I think you mean 'mi kakne lo nu tavla fi la lojban'. (I can
> > speak about Lojban, lit. I am able of the event of speaking about Lojban.)
>
> Dank'. I'm not generally that fond of IRC, though - I'm a terrible
> conversationalist even in my native tongue. I believe it was Dave Barry
> that once said, "The difference between witty people and comedy writers is
> that witty people can think of something funny to say right on the spot,
> while comedy writers can think of something *absolutely hilarious* two days
> later." In general I feel more like the comedy writers. :)
>
No need to be funny. No one is on #Lojban. I can imagine them all being computer
nerds like me.
>
> >> Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, no?
> >
> > Yes, but you said simplified was 'too angular' whereas Zhuyin is 'not as
> > pleasing to my eye'. I suppose you meant Zhuyin was also too angular. Oh,
> > well, that's not important.
>
> I may have been unclear; I meant to say that I found Zhuyin 'not as
> pleasing to my eye' as hiragana, which I described as 'attractive, curvy'.
> So yes, the angularism is part of what (iom) maplacxas min about Zhuyin.
> Not that that would stop me from learning Chinese. Simple lack of time does
> that!
>
> > If you'll check my later thread, you'll see that I think that the
> > laissez-faire attitude towards the 'language problem' will continue.
>
> Very likely, I tend to agree.
>
> > However, if any language should be 'international', I think it should be
> > Lojban should be it. (Not that it's likely to be)
>
> As a frequent lurker on lojban-list, I say we make it international when
> the folks who invented it can agree on how the grammar works. :)
>
They're getting there... `_^
He was talking about TYE claiming Esperanto is like Italian or some such
claim... I read the book some time ago.
>
> 2. Ambiguities
> This is a legitimate problem. Unless, of course, you're an incorridgeble
> punster like me, and you want those available. :)
>
> 3. Absurdities
> This is just stupid. I'm sorry, but I have a hard time taking anybody
> seriously whose argument is based on the subjectively "silly" sound or
> appearance of a foreign-language word. Lojban certainly suffers from the
> "silly" problem at least as badly as Esperanto (or for that matter, any
> language other than the native tongue of whoever's looking). Gosh golly,
> they don't even use proper capitalization and punctuation! Look at all
> those stupid lowercase words and wacky apostrophes! Ha ha ha! Sigh.
>
> 4. Country names:
> "Leaving aside the regrettable fact that Esperanto's names for countries
> are often distorted from familiar forms..." Again I point out lojban's
> "merko", "glico", "ponjo", etc. These are certainly "more distorted" from
> any familiar form I know of than "angla" and "japana", though "usona" is a
> bit of a stretch if you're not familiar with the rarely-used word "Usonian".
>
Well, what do you expect from Lojban? Look up the etymologies (I don't want to,
I like to guess). 'merko' seems to be a miz of 'meigo' (Chinese) and "'merican".
'bengo' is probably a mix of 'bengali' and 'bangla'. All are edited to match
Lojban's rules for selbri. CCVCV or CVCCV.
>
> 5. Miscellaneous oddities
> Some of these are silly, pointless complaints that cannot be refuted
> logically any more than, for instance, a firm conviction that one "race" or
> "nationality" of people is superior, since the person spouting them does
> not seem to follow the same logic that I do. Others are legitimate, a
> result of Esperanto's lack of distinct morpheme boundary markers (thus,
> ambiguous compound words). Lojban does seem to win there thanks to its
> incredibly strict morphology. Unless, of course, you're borrowing foreign
> words through fuivla or cmene, then who knows what they're supposed to mean?
>
> 6. Quotes:
> These prove nothing except that the author carefully selected his quotes to
> pander to his view.
>
> > Obviously it was more thoroughly thought out than
> > Esperanto... but then it is one of the most well thought out constructed
> > languages.
>
> So well thought out that no one could use it for 30 years while it
> constantly changed. :) (Yes, that was a low blow. Sorry!)
>
> > Oh, and that rumour about Lojbanists being very proud of their
> > '15 to 45 minute conversations with dictionaries' (the one la lojbab.
> > debunked about a month back on the mailing list)? Just go to any one of
>
> Yes, this is certainly an exagerrated claim, no better than the anecdotes
> that the anti-Esperantists spout. It's patently false since, after all, the
> lojban dictionary hasn't even been published yet! :)
>
I think it was talking about Loglan.
Brion L. VIBBER
>> Nu, kiel oni respondu?
>
> I thought it was 'kiel oni respondas'. Since you're a much better
> esperantist than I am, and I'd not like to make an error, why is the
> imperative used?
The -u mode isn't strictly speaking an imperitive. From my understanding
I'd describe it as making a statement about the way things ought to be,
perhaps a bit more forceful than I think of a typical subjunctive (which
it's sometimes called) being. When used without a subject, it works
basically as an imperative with an assumed "vi" subject: "Malfermu la
pordon" and "Vi malfermu la pordon" are essentially the same.
So "Kiel oni respondas?" would translate as "How does one respond?",
whereas "Kiel oni respondu?" is more like "How should one respond?" or
maybe "How shall one respond?"
> You're right. Esperanto is useful, and it's probably the best bet for a
> constructed IAL. Though both Lojban and Esperanto have such few speakers
> compared to the world population that in comparison they're both nearly
> equally far from becoming the IAL although Esperantists outnumber lojbos
> about 1000 to one, maybe more. I'm pretty sure neither one will become an
> IAL, not in my lifetime, and I postulate, without much authority, ever.
We shall see. Personally, I hold out little hope for the whole world doing
*anything* together that's particularly logical, helpful, or useful without
it being imposed, and then no one will do it out of spite. :)
>> As a frequent lurker on lojban-list, I say we make it international when
>> the folks who invented it can agree on how the grammar works. :)
>
> They're getting there... `_^
Yes. :) To be fair, much Esperanto usage was hammered out through actual,
well, usage as well.
>> "In a further remarkable indication of the lack of thought given to
>> phonotactics, three words - cent, trans and post - end in two consonants;
>> Italian has none of these." Uhhh, Esperanto isn't Italian. Nor is Italian
>> the world's perfect magic language which everything should imitate. And,
>> of course, Italian is derived from Latin, which contains many such words.
>>
> He was talking about TYE claiming Esperanto is like Italian or some such
> claim... I read the book some time ago.
He mentions that up in the beginning, certainly. But it's quite an
exaggeration to misuse the claim that way.
What's actually said on the subject in TYE is (Introduction, page 3):
<<The section on pronunciation is as important as any in the book, and it
would be a pity to neglect it in that (a) a good pronunciation of Esperanto
is quite easy to acquire, and (b) it is one of the most beautiful-sounding
languages on earth. If this seems a rash claim, consider what _is_ the most
beautiful language. Tastes differ, of course, but if a vote were taken,
perhaps Italian might be the winner: and the general sound of Esperanto
very closely resembles that of Italian.>>
Then in Pronunciation, page 9:
<<Failing these aids, Zamenhof himself recommended the Italian language as
a model -- listening to spoken Italian will help you to acquire the sounds,
especially the _vowel_ sounds, and the general intonation of Esperanto.>>
(Original emphasis.)
Now, let's look at WEINMFAL:
<<Much propaganda claims that Esperanto is "naturally euphonious" or words
to that effect, by which is meant pleasant to speak, hear and write. For
example, [TYE 3] presents a highly dubious argument that, because Esperanto
is supposed to sound like Italian, it must therefore be "one of the most
beautiful languages on Earth". Yet, obviously, any claims of euphony are largely
subjective,since whether a language sounds pleasant or unpleasant depends
principally on the individual. The resemblance to Italian is in any case
largely imaginary, and depends almost entirely on the preference of both
languages for words ending in vowels.
Sadly, by any standards, what Zamenhof did with Esperanto displays
complete ignorance of any considerations of euphony.>>
(The whole essay is full of complaints about "how ugly Esperanto is", which
clash oddly with the author's own claim that "whether a language sounds
pleasant or unpleasant depends principally on the individual.")
Now, from reading the TYE quotes, I note three things:
* The people who wrote TYE think Esperanto is beautiful, and plainly admit
that this is a subjective experience.
* The recommendation of Italian as a pronunciation model is intended as a
rough guide for the learner, NOT an exact model for the creation of the
language!
* In particular this is claimed useful for the VOWEL SOUNDS, which is
especially important for the English-speaking audience of TYE. I'd point
out that many lojban introductory materials also refer to Italian
pronunciation, again particularly for the vowels. (See the brochure and
lessons at http://ptolemy.tlg.uci.edu/~opoudjis/lojbanbrochure/ )
From the above quote from WEINMFAL, I note two additional things:
* Mr. Eddy likes blow things massively out of proportion in order to
support his position, committing the same grievous sins of propaganda that
he accuses Esperantists of.
* Looking elsewhere on his site (http://www.cix.co.uk/~morven/), I notice
that he's a fan of free software and opposes Microsoft's virtual monopoly
position in the proprietary software market. An admirable trait, but I also
note that he consistently refers to Microsoft as "Micro$oft", childish
name-calling at its worst. I know I'm not the only Unix-user who feels
embarassed to be linked with people who speak that way. It *doesn't* make
you look smart or witty. It doesn't make you look like you have the force
of righteousness behind you. It just makes you look rude. Clearly this
isn't just something he has against Esperanto, but a general tendency in
his writing to use insults as though they supported his position.
>> "Leaving aside the regrettable fact that Esperanto's names for countries
>> are often distorted from familiar forms..." Again I point out lojban's
>> "merko", "glico", "ponjo", etc. These are certainly "more distorted" from
>> any familiar form I know of than "angla" and "japana", though "usona" is
>> a bit of a stretch if you're not familiar with the rarely-used word
>> "Usonian".
>
> Well, what do you expect from Lojban? Look up the etymologies (I don't
> want to, I like to guess). 'merko' seems to be a miz of 'meigo' (Chinese)
> and "'merican". 'bengo' is probably a mix of 'bengali' and 'bangla'. All
> are edited to match Lojban's rules for selbri. CCVCV or CVCCV.
Certainly. The language's arbitrarily strict rules make it all but
impossible to create a word that's entirely recognizable to anyone without
looking up the etymologies. Nonetheless the language is workable and usable.
Yet you seem willing to entertain as valid a complaint that Esperanto has
words that differ in a phoneme or two from their sources? (The complaint in
the rant about the initial 'g' in "germana" being unrelated to the form of
the word in any other language, incidentally, is plain wrong. The 'g' is
hard in the Latin "Germania".)
>> > Oh, and that rumour about Lojbanists being very proud of their
>> > '15 to 45 minute conversations with dictionaries' (the one la lojbab.
>> > debunked about a month back on the mailing list)? Just go to any one of
>>
>> Yes, this is certainly an exagerrated claim, no better than the anecdotes
>> that the anti-Esperantists spout. It's patently false since, after all,
>> the lojban dictionary hasn't even been published yet! :)
>
> I think it was talking about Loglan.
Possibly. I'll have to look up which quote we're talking about. Was that
from Don Harlow's page o' languages-that-aren't-Esperanto, or did it appear
elsewhere? (However, *you* did say "Lojbanists".)
David Galadí-Enríquez
Saluton!
George Partlow (1 Aug 2001):
> David Galadí-Enríquez <dga...@am.ub.es> wrote in message news:<Pine.LNX.4.30.010801...@pchpc8.am.ub.es>...
>
> > Centro de Astrobiología
Jes; mi laboras kiel astronomo en la Centro pri Astrobiologio, apud
Madrido, Hispanio.
> Se mi rajtas draste sxangxi la temlinion: Cxu vi bonvole komentus pri
> <http://unisci.com/stories/20013/0730011.htm>?
>
Mi legis la artikolon.
La ideoj de D-roj. Hoyle (brito) kaj Wickramasinghe (hindo) pri vivo
ekster la Tero estas konataj de antaulonge en akademiaj forumoj, kaj ankau
en cirkloj de nefakuloj. Ekzemple, vi povus legi la libron de Hoyle "The
Intelligent Universe".
Esence ili proponas, ke la kosmaj interstelaj grajnoj, kiuj konsistigas
la polvo-nuboj, kiuj kushas en la ebeno de la Galaksio, estas bakterioj.
Ili aldone defendas, ke kometoj enhavas hholosajn kvantojn el tiuj
bakterioj. Ili ech defendas (tute serioze) ke kelkaj malsanoj, kiel
ekzemple gripo, venas rekte el la spaco: la virusoj falas tra la
atmosfero, kaj ni malsanighas kiam ni spiras ilin.
Kompreneble, biologistoj, astronomoj kaj astrobiologoj fajfas pri tiaj
ideoj, sed, tute nature, oni permesas, ke ili partoprenu sciencajn
kongresojn por prezenti siajn rezultojn, char en scienco oni devas ne
malpermesi ech la plej strangajn elpensajhojn.
La "novajho", kiun vi legis, ne surprizis iun en astrobiologiaj cirkloj.
Chiuj spertuloj samopinias: ne malfacile oni montros, ke tiuj bakterioj
venas el la Tero mem, el la troposfero.
Ghis!
PD. Nun mi havas demandon al vi, koncerne al via familinomo. Chu vi estas
familiano de tiu aktorino, kies nomo estas... eble... Winnet au io simila?
Mi shatus koni shin! Chu vi povus prezenti shin al mi?
Stanley Richard Dalton
"Raghav Krishnapriyan" <ragm...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:3B647CA7...@hotmail.com...
>
>
What gives non Esperantists the wrong impression is that Esperantists prefer
to spend their time in using Esperanto rather than attacking would-be
competitors, while Idists etc(who are for the most part unable to use the
projects they favour ) spend their time attacking the so-called deficiencies
of Esperanto
Rik
Rosalind
Krishnapriyan <ragm...@hotmail.com> skribas
>
>
do not find them helpful - they bear little likeness to the sounds I use for
the letters. In fact, there is more than one set. Ping yang is the name
given to one set.
> Besides, at least Chinese looks nice (at
>least
>Traditional does... simplified always looked icky to me) which I (note the I)
>can't say
>about Esperanto's famous accented letters.
>
>Raghav Krishnapriyan
>
I fail to see any interest in your repeated odd comments about
Esperanto. Have you never come across Hungarian or Polish? There
are several experiences awaiting you in European languages!
--
Rosalind Walter
Raghav Krishnapriyan
Stanley Richard Dalton deithant i phith hin:
"Raghav Krishnapriyan" <ragm...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
to spend their time in using Esperanto rather than attacking would-be
competitors, while Idists etc(who are for the most part unable to use
the
projects they favour ) spend their time attacking the so-called deficiencies
of Esperanto'.
(1) On #Esperanto, more than once when I've said that I'm learning
Lojban, I've gotten responses like 'Lojban? Neniu parolas gxin' and thus
Esperanto is superior.
(2) Don Harlow's bash-every-conlang-except-Esperanto site was up long
before any Lojbanist started criticizing Esperanto.
(3) I didn't like Esperanto even before I learnt Lojban. In other words,
it has nothing to do with any other language I've learnt. I have way more
opportunities to communicate in Lojban than in Esperanto. There's a Lojban
club at our school, there's a summer Lojban class at Stanford (not affiliated
with the university though, just being held there) etc. I've actually had
a CONVERSATION orally in Lojban, which is more than I can say about Esperanto.
(OK, I taught a friend of mine 'Saluton', but that's hardly a conversation.
"Saluton."
"Saluton."
"Kiel vi fartas?"
"Um.... um...."
So you can see that it's NOT because of lack of communication possibilities that I attaced Esperanto.(Note past tense if you can't see HTML mail.)
co'o mi'e ragyv.
Raghav Krishnapriyan
Rosalind deithant i phith hin:
> I did know about the Latin characters used to transliterate Chinese but I
> do not find them helpful - they bear little likeness to the sounds I use for
> the letters. In fact, there is more than one set. Ping yang is the name
> given to one set.
>
(1) The romanization system supported by the PRC is 'hanyu pinyin', not ping yang.
(2) Mandarin Phonetic Symbols, also known as Zhuyin and Bopomofo are NOT romanization
systems. They're a phonetic alphabet for Chinese. There's one character to one sound.
They're easy to read. In short, it's a Chinese alphabet.
>
> > Besides, at least Chinese looks nice (at
> >least
> >Traditional does... simplified always looked icky to me) which I (note the I)
> >can't say
> >about Esperanto's famous accented letters.
> >
> >Raghav Krishnapriyan
> >
> I fail to see any interest in your repeated odd comments about
> Esperanto. Have you never come across Hungarian or Polish? There
> are several experiences awaiting you in European languages!
>
I even wrote 'Note the I'. I was saying Esperanto's characters looked bad to me. Are you
questioning my aesthetic taste? Do so, but it'll be pretty hard to back up a statement
like 'You shouldn't think that kind of letter is pretty', etc.
George Partlow
(trancx')
> La "novajho", kiun vi legis, ne surprizis iun en astrobiologiaj cirkloj.
> Chiuj spertuloj samopinias: ne malfacile oni montros, ke tiuj bakterioj
> venas el la Tero mem, el la troposfero.
Dankon. Jen precize tia respondo, kiun mi priesperis. La nociojn de
Hoyle mi konis ek de antaux jardekoj; fakte mi legis "The Nature of
the Universe" antaux 40 jaroj... k la ideo, ke la interplaneda k/aux
interstelsistema spaco povus esti pli bonveniga loko por la unua
ekapero de vivantajxoj ja aperis en lia sciencifkcia romano "The Black
Cloud" ("La Nigra Nubo"), kiu ankaux aperis dum la 60aj jaroj. Do
tiuj ideoj ne surprizis min, sed la apero de artikoleto, kiu sxajne
priskribas "evidentajxojn" apogante tiujn spekulativajn teoriojn,
vekis scivolemon mian (afisxanto en la uzreta forumo alt.fan.heinlein
sciigis min pri la artikolo).
> PD. Nun mi havas demandon al vi, koncerne al via familinomo. Chu vi estas
> familiano de tiu aktorino, kies nomo estas... eble... Winnet au io simila?
> Mi shatus koni shin! Chu vi povus prezenti shin al mi?
Bedauxrinde mi ecx neniam auxdis pri sxi! Mi sercxos en TTT...
Mi ne scias, ke ekzistas iu ajn famkonata homo kun tiu nomo "Partlow".
Laux mia kompreno, gxi devenas de la brita kantono de Warwickshire
(je kiu naskigxis Sxekspiro, interalie). La plej frua prapatro mia,
pri kiu mi certe scias, edzigxis en Supra Kanado (nuntempe Ontario)
dum la 1830's. Ja troveblas manpleno da "George W Partlow"-oj en la
TTTa porusona telefonadresaro switchboard.com. Mi neniam provis
kontakti ecx unu el ili.
Cxu eble vi misliterumis la familinomon de la koncerna aktorino?
Georgo
George Partlow
> PD. Nun mi havas demandon al vi, koncerne al via familinomo. Chu vi estas
> familiano de tiu aktorino, kies nomo estas... eble... Winnet au io simila?
> Mi shatus koni shin! Chu vi povus prezenti shin al mi?
Nu, mi revenas post rapido sercxo per Google... k venis en mia kapo,
ke vi simple renversigis la "l" kaj la "r", k temas pri "Gwyneth
Paltrow". Cxu vere?
Konstateble sxi ne estas mia parenco, cxar niaj familinomoj malsamas!
Tamen vi ne estas la unua homo, kiu tiel konfuzigxas.
Cetere, placxas al mi sxia verkaro, precipe "Sxekspiro Enamanta" k
ankaux tiu filmo kiu enhavas duoblavoja rakonto: laux unu vojo, sxi
sukcese hejmeniris per metroa trajno (en Londono), laux la alia vojo
sxi maltrafis gxin. Mi nen remmerois la titolon de la filmo; io pri
"pordoj".
Georgo
Donald J. Harlow
news:3B69E12E...@hotmail.com...
Stanley Richard Dalton deithant i phith hin:
"Raghav Krishnapriyan" <ragm...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:3B647CA7...@hotmail.com...
>
>
What gives non Esperantists the wrong impression is that Esperantists prefer
to spend their time in using Esperanto rather than attacking would-be
competitors, while Idists etc(who are for the most part unable to use the
projects they favour ) spend their time attacking the so-called deficiencies
of Esperanto
Rik
Don't you believe it. Don't be so general as to give a blanket statement
like 'Esperantists prefer
to spend their time in using Esperanto rather than attacking would-be
competitors, while Idists etc(who are for the most part unable to use the
projects they favour ) spend their time attacking the so-called deficiencies
of Esperanto'.
(1) On #Esperanto, more than once when I've said that I'm learning Lojban,
I've gotten responses like 'Lojban? Neniu parolas gxin' and thus Esperanto
is superior.
Of course, it could be that _very few_ people (virtually nobody) _does_
speak Lojban.
I just read a (very short) report on LogFest 2001 (dated 31 July), the
annual weekend get-together back east. The author reports that one
individual actually spoke Lojban all weekend, and several others spoke it
part of the time. (The author does not state how many individuals were
present.)
Thirteen years into the lifetime of Esperanto (learning materials for Lojban
were available as early as 1988, when the language was called Loglan-88),
the language was already in (relatively) widespread use in literature and
travel.
(2) Don Harlow's bash-every-conlang-except-Esperanto site was up long before
any Lojbanist started criticizing Esperanto.
Before making such a blanket statement, you might want to take a look at
entries in the Lojban archives dating from the late eighties. Don Harlow's
web site first went up in 1994, accessible through FTP rather than through
HTTP, at Netcom, and the document to which you are referring (Chapter 3 of
"The Esperanto Book") was first put on-line in 1995 when he got a
five-megabyte space at Webcom. (It is now located at Best, for those
interested.)
Donald J. Harlow
"Stanley Richard Dalton" <srda...@freenetname.co.uk> skribis en mesařo
news:tm8jb4q...@xo.supernews.co.uk...
For a long time I doubted whether (at least in a Western democracy) the
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis _could_ be tested, no matter what the language.
Hypothetically, you could train up a group of grad students to speak fluent
Loglan (this may have seemed possible in 1955 -- since then, it's not been
made obvious that you could train _anybody_ to speak fluent Loglan), and
then give them a bunch of kids to raise, isolated from the world at large.
After reading about the Iowa experiment on generating stammering in a group
of orphans, as well as several other notorious medical experiments (a group
of black men allowed to develop full-blown mature cases of syphilis so that
the medical establishment could get an idea of how it developed, the U.S.
navy's release of a respiratory virus into the westerlies off San Francisco
back around 1950 to see how well it would spread in the local population), I
think I see where Brown was coming from. Today, you likely couldn't perform
such an experiment in the United States, but I doubt that anybody in power
would care if you used a bunch of orphans in some third-world place such as
Botswana. In fact, likely nobody in the United States (except those involved
in the experiment) would ever hear of it.
Donald J. Harlow
"Raghav Krishnapriyan" <ragm...@hotmail.com> skribis en mesařo
news:3B65BA46...@hotmail.com...
>
> "Donald J. HARLOW" deithant i phith hin:
>
> > On the other hand, two points worth mentioning:
> >
> > (1) Esperanto has _not_ blocked other Conlangs. At its greatest extent
(today) Esperanto is spoken by a fraction of one percent of the human race;
that leaves a 99+% field for the competition. The argument may be made that
Esperanto has occupied the field of those particularly interested in planned
international languages 100% (as opposed to the field of all mankind), but,
given that the speaking population of Esperanto has continued to grow (both
absolutely and proportionately) steadily (with a minor burble in the late
thirties-early forties, when lots of Esperanto speakers in Europe and the
USSR and a few other places ... "disappeared" ...), indications are that
there is still a fairly large potential clientele for an IAL out there that
other candidates, all other things being equal, could be recruiting.
>
> I say it -has- blocked the way for other constructed languages. Due to
it's immense popularity (compared to other conlangs) in it's first few years
of life, it is the most well known conlang... and one of the few you'll
actually find in a book outside of one about conlanging itself. (Others
include Quenya and Sindarin) It is much more likely someone will stumble
across an article about Esperanto than Lojban simply because Esperanto was
able to accumulate such a large number of speakers so quickly. Moreover,
most people who do so probably will not know that there are alternatives,
and seeing Esperanto and it's 'wonderful claims' (You can learn it in a
month or less!
Actually, I've known people who learned it well enough to correspond in it
(with the aid of a dictionary) in a _day_ or less. But, of course, they are
the exceptions.
It's very flexible and it's phonetic!
True enough.
It's naturally allophonic
Probably true ... if "naturally allophonic" means anything, which I doubt.
("Allophonic", if I remember correctly, refers to subtle distinctions
between different sounds that have no grammatical or semantic significance;
Esperanto is, in this sense, naturally allophonic, as is every other
language in the world.)
) they start learning it. As Geoff Allan Eddy states in his site "Why
Esperanto is
> not my favourite artificial language"
(http://www.cix.co.uk/~morven/esp.html) followers of Esperanto feel a bit
like belonging to a minority religion."Some Esperantists indeed promote the
> language with a zeal worthy of the more aggressive religions, implying
that some sort of linguistic revolution is just about to happen and you are
morally obliged to take part".
>
Strange. Given what I read in the newspapers, you are more likely talking
about "some" _English_-speakers than about "some" Esperanto speakers.
> Common gripes about Esperanto from the site:
>
> ** Why does 'nacio' have stress on the 'i' when nearly every language with
that word (with the exception of French) has it on the 'a'?
Where did you ever get that idea???
The stress in Spanish is on the -ON ending (nacio'n). In Italian, it's on
the -ONE (nazione). Not surprising, since in the Latin genitive, from which
the modern languages derive the word, it is also on the -ON- (nationis). I
suspect that in German it is also on the -ON (Nation), since most such
German borrowings from Latin (usually via French) accent the ultimate.
> ** 'altkreska' and 'pendsxnuro' have many consonant clusters, whereas an
IAL should have as few as possible, since speakers of some languages
(Japanese, for instance) have trouble with many of them.
In which case, they are perfectly free to use different constructions
(altekreska, pendosxnuro), which is quite common in Esperanto for stylistic
reasons.
> ** Look at the words 'eksscio' (former knowlege) and 'ekscio' (flash of
insight) 'Nuff said.
I see (and hear) no problem.
> ** WHY must you use articles in front of numbers when telling time? Do the
majority of languages say 'la kvar' when telling the time? As the site says
further, many languages lack articles altogether.
In fact, you can speak Esperanto _without using the definite article at all_
if you desire -- Zamenhof specifically said so (though he recommends
learning and using it -- he was, after all, a native speaker of an
article-less language). I have written material in which I purposely omitted
the article; nobody seemed to notice the difference.
Several languages, I believe, _do_ use an article to tell time. In
Esperanto, the reason is that you're realling saying "la kvara (not kvar)
horo" -- the fourth hour. You'd do the same in English if you used "hour"
instead of "o'clock".
>
> **
> "
>
> Many roots are imported more or less without major change, such as hundo
"dog" and vivi "to live". However, and for no obvious
> reason, many more roots are distorted from their forms in the source
language and thus become unrecognisable, such as the following:
>
No reason they should be recognisable (to whom?). And in any case, there
_always_ seems to be a reason for any "distortion" you find in an Esperanto
root that Zamenhof created. To wit:
> word meaning source
>
> boji to bark French "aboyer"
Aphoresis, supported by the English "to bay", to rid the word of an excess
and unnecessary syllable (an action more recently supported by Zipf's Law,
if I remember correctly).
> lerta clever "alert"?
Ditto.
> fulmo lightning "fulminate"!
Removal, again, of an unnecessary syllable (which in any case collided with
the Esperanto -IN- suffix). I've seen the same complaint about "fulgo"
(soot) as opposed to "fuligino". Strangely, nobody who actually _uses_
Esperanto ever seems to complain about this. It works.
> venko victory French "vaincre"
Sorry, don't have Vilborg vol. 5 at hand (they've got a stock at the ELNA
office, but it hasn't been registered yet). But I will point out that the
French -R- is simply part of the French infinitive ending, not part of the
root itself (Latin "vinco, vincere, vici, victus").
> mejlo mile English
Also German "Meile", closely related to the word for "a thousand" (Esperanto
"mil"), as in Latin "mille (pasuum)" = mile. Vilborg quotes various near
cognates in French, Italian, Polish, Russian, Spanish. "It was necessary to
distinguish between this root and _mil_. Z chose a diphthong, apparently
according to the German orthography (cf. _hejmo_ from G _Heim_, _hejti_ from
G _heizen_). The alternative would have been to transcribe the soft l-sound
in Italian + Russian (Spanish), but neither *_mijl-_ nor *_milj-_ would be
easily distinguishable from _mil_; _mili-_ was needed for another meaning."
> bojketi boycott English
Your misspelling. The word is "bojkoti". Of course, he could have spelled it
"bojcoti", but then it would have been pronounced wrong.
> pordo door Romance
> aldo alto Italian
>
> The last two were presumably altered to avoid confusion with derivations
from alta "high" and porti "to carry".
Right. This is one of two major reasons why T is changed to D in Esperanto,
the other one being to avoid collision with the suffix -ET- (planedo,
bufedo, kasedo, etc.)
> Similarly, poshto
> "post/mail" apparently needs its SH to distinguish itself from post
"after" - a pretty lame excuse for the accented letters, if this is what
it's
> supposed to be.
> "
Actually, quite a good one. (Z. was probably inspired in this change by the
Polish _poczta_ and the Russian _poc^ta_.)
>
> >
> >
> > (2) My comments, however, related not to outsiders but to enthusiasts
for Lojban. From everything I've heard (which is partly first hand and
partly second hand), in more than a decade the language has _not_ generated,
even among its most ardent enthusiasts, a significant body of competent
speakers. In _its_ first decade, Esperanto generated a body of some
thousands. So, even considering this limited statistical universe where "all
other things are equal", Esperanto demonstrated a marked superiority over
Lojban. Again, I don't know the reason, except to suppose that Lojban is
intrinsically more difficult to learn and use than Esperanto is.
> >
>
> Well, I don't know. Doesn't English have more speakers than Esperanto?
Perhaps English is intrinsically more difficult to learn than Lojban? Or
perhaps it just has more converting power?
>
Gotta admit, it would be nice of Esperanto were being pushed by the world's
biggest military establishment and only remaining superpower.
> The situation without Esperanto: If English is the international language
(which seems to be the major fear of most Esperantists) then everyone else
will have to learn it... and the English native speakers will have an
advantage. Zamenhof had this same problem, only English wasn't quite so
'international' then. So he created Esperanto, European based conlang, so
now Europeans could easily learn this language and everyone else would be at
a disadvantage. Who cares about them anyway? `_^ Can you say 'ethnocentric'?
>
Remarkably, Esperanto's greatest successes in the past 50 years have
occurred _outside_ the WENSA world. The country with the largest number of
speakers would appear to be China.
> "Lojban, on the other hand", says the Lojban fanatic "is equally easier
for nearly all people of the world. The number of people who speak one more
of Lojban's 'root languages' compromise well over 50% of the world's
population. Bottom line? Lojban is -REALLY- culturally neutral, not just a
decoy."
>
Lojban has yet to show that it's easier than anything for anybody, no matter
what part of the world we're talking about.
> Sorry about the venom,
We'll live with it.
Stanley Richard Dalton
"Brion L. VIBBER" <br...@pobox.com> wrote in message
news:v%2a7.14344$bl1.1...@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net...
> I'll check it out. My favorite such page, though, remains JBR's "Ranto":
> http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/ranto.html
> Simply for the incredibly rabid attitude that he puts into all his rants,
> it makes entertaining reading. And, of course, he's a "trained linguist"
> and therefore qualified to pass judgement on the quality of a language! :)
>
Esperantist crudely satirising
the usual anti-esperantist and anti-Zamenhof vitriol of the extremist
followers of the would-be competitors. His self- contradictions and his
assumptions of omniscience seemed to suggest this, but correspondence
revealed that he really believed that a "trained linguist " could pass
judgement on a language of which he had no practical ( and little up-to-
date theoretical) knowledge (a linguist should realise that linguistics is
descriptive not prescriptive).When his errors are pointed out, he rests on
saying that he has his information from his fan mail (!) or from unnamed
esperantists before resorting to flaming and after a final explosion lapsing
into silence
Rik
Raghav Krishnapriyan
"Donald J. Harlow" deithant i phith hin:
> "Raghav Krishnapriyan" <ragm...@hotmail.com> skribis en mesařo
> news:3B69E12E...@hotmail.com...
>
> Stanley Richard Dalton deithant i phith hin:
> "Raghav Krishnapriyan" <ragm...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:3B647CA7...@hotmail.com...
> >
> >
> What gives non Esperantists the wrong impression is that Esperantists prefer
> to spend their time in using Esperanto rather than attacking would-be
> competitors, while Idists etc(who are for the most part unable to use the
> projects they favour ) spend their time attacking the so-called deficiencies
> of Esperanto
> Rik
> Don't you believe it. Don't be so general as to give a blanket statement
> like 'Esperantists prefer
> to spend their time in using Esperanto rather than attacking would-be
> competitors, while Idists etc(who are for the most part unable to use the
> projects they favour ) spend their time attacking the so-called deficiencies
> of Esperanto'.
> (1) On #Esperanto, more than once when I've said that I'm learning Lojban,
> I've gotten responses like 'Lojban? Neniu parolas gxin' and thus Esperanto
> is superior.
>
> Of course, it could be that _very few_ people (virtually nobody) _does_
> speak Lojban.
>
OK, but yet on #Lojban, you can usually have pretty long, interesting
discussions in Lojban. So maybe Lojbanists are better at typing Lojban than
speaking it?
>
> I just read a (very short) report on LogFest 2001 (dated 31 July), the
> annual weekend get-together back east. The author reports that one
> individual actually spoke Lojban all weekend, and several others spoke it
> part of the time. (The author does not state how many individuals were
> present.)
>
> Thirteen years into the lifetime of Esperanto (learning materials for Lojban
> were available as early as 1988, when the language was called Loglan-88),
> the language was already in (relatively) widespread use in literature and
> travel.
>
Lojban has differentiated so much from Loglan as to be completely
unintelligible. (Actually, it would have been so even when Lojban was first
created, as Dr. Brown claimed copyright over every Loglan word so nearly all the
Lojban vocabulary was generated anew) Also, I believe Lojban to be -much- easier
to learn than Loglan. I've tried reading Loglan 3... and I think only a computer
can understand Loglan.
>
> (2) Don Harlow's bash-every-conlang-except-Esperanto site was up long before
> any Lojbanist started criticizing Esperanto.
>
> Before making such a blanket statement, you might want to take a look at
> entries in the Lojban archives dating from the late eighties. Don Harlow's
> web site first went up in 1994, accessible through FTP rather than through
> HTTP, at Netcom, and the document to which you are referring (Chapter 3 of
> "The Esperanto Book") was first put on-line in 1995 when he got a
> five-megabyte space at Webcom. (It is now located at Best, for those
> interested.)
??????
Donald J. Harlow
>
>
> "Donald J. Harlow" deithant i phith hin:
>
> > "Raghav Krishnapriyan" <ragm...@hotmail.com> skribis en mesařo
> > news:3B69E12E...@hotmail.com...
> >
Lojban,
> > I've gotten responses like 'Lojban? Neniu parolas gxin' and thus
Esperanto
> > is superior.
> >
> > Of course, it could be that _very few_ people (virtually nobody) _does_
> > speak Lojban.
> >
>
> OK, but yet on #Lojban, you can usually have pretty long, interesting
> discussions in Lojban. So maybe Lojbanists are better at typing Lojban
than
> speaking it?
>
far better at typing Java than speaking it.
Of course, a language does not exist only (or even primarily) to be typed, a
fact that most proponents of projects other than Esperanto (which seem to
exist mainly in written rather than spoken form) don't seem to understand.
> >
> > I just read a (very short) report on LogFest 2001 (dated 31 July), the
> > annual weekend get-together back east. The author reports that one
> > individual actually spoke Lojban all weekend, and several others spoke
it
> > part of the time. (The author does not state how many individuals were
> > present.)
> >
> > Thirteen years into the lifetime of Esperanto (learning materials for
Lojban
> > were available as early as 1988, when the language was called
Loglan-88),
> > the language was already in (relatively) widespread use in literature
and
> > travel.
> >
>
> Lojban has differentiated so much from Loglan as to be completely
> unintelligible. (Actually, it would have been so even when Lojban was
first
> created, as Dr. Brown claimed copyright over every Loglan word so nearly
all the
> Lojban vocabulary was generated anew) Also, I believe Lojban to be -much-
easier
> to learn than Loglan. I've tried reading Loglan 3... and I think only a
computer
> can understand Loglan.
>
From what I've heard, the _structures_ of the two languages are almost
identical -- as you point out, it was the _vocabulary_ that had to be
re-generated because of the copyright hassle. You seem to be falling into
the "language = vocabulary" trap.
> >
> > (2) Don Harlow's bash-every-conlang-except-Esperanto site was up long
before
> > any Lojbanist started criticizing Esperanto.
> >
> > Before making such a blanket statement, you might want to take a look at
> > entries in the Lojban archives dating from the late eighties. Don
Harlow's
> > web site first went up in 1994, accessible through FTP rather than
through
> > HTTP, at Netcom, and the document to which you are referring (Chapter 3
of
> > "The Esperanto Book") was first put on-line in 1995 when he got a
> > five-megabyte space at Webcom. (It is now located at Best, for those
> > interested.)
>
> ??????
>
In words of (mostly) one syllable:
(1) You said that my "bash-ever-conlang-except-Esperanto site was up long
before any Lojbanist started criticizing Esperanto".
I pointed out (and let me make it more specific here) that
(1) Lojbanists were criticizing Esperanto as early as the late 1980s.
(2) The HTTP protocol and earliest web browsers were devised in 1990 or
shortly thereafter. Ergo
(3) There were _no_ web sites up at the time that "any Lojbanist started
criticizing Esperanto". Ergo
(4) Don Harlow had no site whatsoever up long before any Lojbanist started
criticizing Esperanto. Ergo
(5) Don Harlow had no "bash-every-conlang-except-Esperanto" site up before
any Lojbanist started criticizing Esperanto. Ergo
(6) Your statement was incorrect (by about seven years, actually).
I hope this makes my comment above more comprehensible.
David Galadí-Enríquez
> Cxu eble vi misliterumis la familinomon de la koncerna aktorino?
>
Vi pravas. Shi estas "Paltrow", ne "Partlow". Tiel, ia ebla rilato via
al shi malaperas.
David Galadí-Enríquez
> Cetere, placxas al mi sxia verkaro, precipe "Sxekspiro Enamanta"
Mi trovis tiun filmon iom naiva. Shekspiro tutcerte ne estis tiel
"ideala" persono. La aktorino ja aktoras konvinkige, sed la historio mem
ne estas konvinkiga.
> k
> ankaux tiu filmo kiu enhavas duoblavoja rakonto: laux unu vojo, sxi
> sukcese hejmeniris per metroa trajno (en Londono), laux la alia vojo
> sxi maltrafis gxin. Mi nen remmerois la titolon de la filmo; io pri
> "pordoj".
>
En Hispanio, oni metis la titolon: "Próxima parada, Wonderland", shajnas
al mi. tio signifus "Venonta haltejo, Wonderland". Tamen, mi ne certas,
kaj mi ne vidis la filmon.
Sed estas alia bonaga filmo, tre interesa, en kiu Paltrow aktoras
belege: "Mr. Ripley's Talent", au io simila. Chu vi vidis ghin?
Donald J. Harlow
(well, it was late ...)
"Raghav Krishnapriyan" <ragm...@hotmail.com> skribis en mesařo
news:3B65BA46...@hotmail.com...
>
> I say it [Esperanto -DH] -has- blocked the way for other constructed
languages. Due to it's immense popularity (compared to other conlangs) in
it's first few years of life, it is the most well known conlang... and one
of the few you'll actually find in a book outside of one about conlanging
itself. (Others include Quenya and Sindarin) It is much more likely someone
will stumble across an article about Esperanto than Lojban simply because
Esperanto was able to accumulate such a large number of speakers so quickly.
Moreover, most people who do so probably will not know that there are
alternatives, and seeing Esperanto and it's 'wonderful claims'
I've quoted this anecdote before, under almost identical circumstances, in
another forum, so some here might have seen it. I originally (the better
part of half a century ago!) got it from "Reader's Digest".
Back around 1953 there was a state dinner held in Beijing (or Peking, as it
was customarily referred to then). In the course of it, a Chinese official
seated next to a British representative began to harangue the Englishman
about the fact that another Englishman (Sir Edmund Hillary) had placed a
British flag on the summit of Mt. Everest, a geographical location to which
Britain had no claim (though China, through Tibet, did). The Englishman
listened for some time and, when the Chinese official finally ran down,
quietly said to him: "If you don't like it up there, old chap, you're
perfectly free to go up and take it down."
I'm not sure _why_ I think of that story every time some proponent of a
language project that, after years of self-promotion, has yet to generate
not only a respectable, but _any_, body of speakers starts complaining about
how Esperanto is bad because it's done so well.
We (the Esperanto-speaking community) _climbed_ that mountain, while
everybody else simply sat in their armchairs and complained how they could
have done it better.
George Partlow
> Mi trovis tiun filmon iom naiva. Shekspiro tutcerte ne estis tiel
> "ideala" persono. La aktorino ja aktoras konvinkige, sed la historio mem
> ne estas konvinkiga.
Konvinkiga?!?! Mi _neniam_ atendas, ke holivudajxo estu "konvinkiga"!
Tiu filmo placxas al mi, cxar gxi _amuzas_. Kompreneble temas pri mia
propra gusto; ankaux placxis al mi la antauxa teatrajxo de Tom
Stoppard, "Rozencrantz kaj guldenstern estas mortintaj". Estas amuze
vidi, kiel la auxtoro kunligigas imagitajn aferojn en la supozita vivo
de Sxekspiro al aferoj en liaj teatrajxoj.
Kompreneble tiuj, kiuj neniel konas Sxekspiron, povus kapti misan
nocion pri li, sed aliflanke, se renkonto kun la filmo instigas ilin
al _legado_ de Sxekspirajxoj, aux intereso pri la vera historio de la
elizaveta epoko, tio estos bone, cxu ne? (Sed mi timas, ke neniu legas
librojn cxi-epoke... kiu estas malbonega afero, cxar fakte, kvankam mi
amas filmojn, oni ne povas lerni tion per filmoj, kion oni povas lerni
per libroj... precize kiel libroj ne estas adevkataj anstatauxajxoj
por Reala Vivo [Marca Registrada]!)
Simile placxas al mi la muzika filmo "Viro de La Mancha", kvankam gxi
nur "tusxetas" la veran Cervantes aux lian "Ingenioso Hidalgo".
> Sed estas alia bonaga filmo, tre interesa, en kiu Paltrow aktoras
> belege: "Mr. Ripley's Talent", au io simila. Chu vi vidis ghin?
Bedauxrinde ne, kvankam mi nebule sciis, ke la recenzistoj sxatis
gxin. Eble dum la malluma vintro, kiam mi emas spekti pli da
vidbendoj, mi vidos gxin!
Raghav Krishnapriyan
"Donald J. Harlow" deithant it phith hin:
> "Raghav Krishnapriyan" <ragm...@hotmail.com> skribis en mesařo
> news:3B6D6FBD...@hotmail.com...
> >
> >
> > "Donald J. Harlow" deithant i phith hin:
> >
> > > "Raghav Krishnapriyan" <ragm...@hotmail.com> skribis en mesařo
> > > news:3B69E12E...@hotmail.com...
> > >
> > > (1) On #Esperanto, more than once when I've said that I'm learning
> Lojban,
> > > I've gotten responses like 'Lojban? Neniu parolas gxin' and thus
> Esperanto
> > > is superior.
> > >
> > > Of course, it could be that _very few_ people (virtually nobody) _does_
> > > speak Lojban.
> > >
> >
> > OK, but yet on #Lojban, you can usually have pretty long, interesting
> > discussions in Lojban. So maybe Lojbanists are better at typing Lojban
> than
> > speaking it?
> >
> That's certainly possible, as I can attest from a similar experience -- I'm
> far better at typing Java than speaking it.
>
> Of course, a language does not exist only (or even primarily) to be typed, a
> fact that most proponents of projects other than Esperanto (which seem to
> exist mainly in written rather than spoken form) don't seem to understand.
>
I can only say that I've found people to be fluent on #Lojban. For all I know,
since I've never seen an Esperanto speaker, there might not be any. What bosh.
Anyway, I HAVE talked to Lojbanists, and there -is- a Lojban club near our
school with some very fluent speakers.
I -don't- think their grammars are very similar at all. Loglan doesn't have
selbri with place structures, has different pronunciations for its letters (And
includes some letters Lojban doesn't have, such as capital 'X', with a voiced
[x] sound) and uses a different orthography (one that makes it look more like a
natural language). In fact, they're nearly as different as Ido and Esperanto.
According to 'http://www.animal.helsinki.fi/lojban/lojbroch.html', the Lojban
language was finished in 'late 1990'. So I don't see how Lojbanists could
criticise Esperanto before there were any Lojbanists.
Raghav Krishnapriyan
"Donald J. Harlow" deithant i phith hin:
> One other comment I forgot to put in the other night when I replied to this
I'd like to think that Lojban is still climbing the mountain. After all, unlike
most artificial languages, the number of Lojban speakers seems to be increasing.
It seems that out of English, Esperanto and Lojban, the less logical a language
is, the more importance it has. (Cf. English first, then Esperanto, then
Lojban).
Brion L. VIBBER
> I -don't- think their grammars are very similar at all. Loglan doesn't
> have selbri with place structures, has different pronunciations for its
> letters (And includes some letters Lojban doesn't have, such as capital
> 'X', with a voiced
> [x] sound) and uses a different orthography (one that makes it look more
> [like a
> natural language). In fact, they're nearly as different as Ido and
> Esperanto.
That's not very different. The changes between Eo and Ido are basically:
* Some vocabulary changes (I include altered endings here)
* Word derivation is regularized (mostly)
* Accusative is "optional", but still must be known for reordered sentences
* Adjective/noun agreement is removed
An Esperantist can read an Ido text with very little trouble, especially
with an anglo-french-latin background to help with the alterations in the
lexicon.
Donald J. Harlow
>
>
> "Donald J. Harlow" deithant it phith hin:
>
> > "Raghav Krishnapriyan" <ragm...@hotmail.com> skribis en mesařo
> > news:3B6D6FBD...@hotmail.com...
> > >
> > >
> > > "Donald J. Harlow" deithant i phith hin:
> > >
> > > > "Raghav Krishnapriyan" <ragm...@hotmail.com> skribis en mesařo
> > > > news:3B69E12E...@hotmail.com...
> > > >
have
> selbri with place structures,
This _does_ sound like a structural difference.
> has different pronunciations for its letters (And
> includes some letters Lojban doesn't have, such as capital 'X', with a
voiced
> [x] sound) and uses a different orthography (one that makes it look more
like a
> natural language).
These differences, however, don't address the point, since they have nothing
to do with grammar or structure.
(1) No language is ever "finished".
(2) Lojban and proponents existed as early as the late 1980s; I used to get
their magazine during that period. Again, even learning materials (in
privately prepared form, available on request) were available before 1990.
_But_, even accepting the date of "late 1990" (though in fact Bob
LeChevalier did not "baseline" it until the mid-nineties or later -- again,
"never finished"), your comment is still erroneous, since my first web site
did not go up until 1994, as I said, and the document to which you refer did
not go up until 1995.
George Partlow
> "Donald J. Harlow" deithant it phith hin:
> > (1) Lojbanists were criticizing Esperanto as early as the late 1980s.
> According to 'http://www.animal.helsinki.fi/lojban/lojbroch.html', the Lojban
> language was finished in 'late 1990'. So I don't see how Lojbanists could
> criticise Esperanto before there were any Lojbanists.
Actually what it says is:
"This version is the first version with a stable vocabulary, and the
first to have a stable and completely defined grammar (the grammar of
mathematical expressions, for example, was not developed until 1990).
The basic Lojban vocabulary was baselined (stabilized against change)
in the last half of 1988, and the grammar similarly stabilized in
late-1990, after completion of the first Lojban courses, actual usage
of the
language, and several iterations of careful analysis."
Thus the key words are "version" and "finished". "Lojbanists" existed
before Lojban was stabilized, when the language existed in earlier
versions, so there's no inconsistency between Don's reasoning and what
you found at that website.
George
Raghav Krishnapriyan
whereas on most Lojban websites I find them -praising- Esperanto and find plans to use it to spread info
on Lojban.
George Partlow
> Of course this would mean that as soon as Lojban was created, Lojbanists started criticising Esperanto...
> whereas on most Lojban websites I find them -praising- Esperanto and find plans to use it to spread info
> on Lojban.
If you go back and read Don's post, he's clearly talking about e-mail
and Usenet, not websites, since the WWW didn't even exist at the time.
Lojbab certainly isn't "anti-Esperanto", nor is Nick Nicholas, and
anumber of other people... but they don't exhaust the ranks of
Lojbanists, by a long stetch.
I think you are being misled by your having come onto the secne rather
late. I suggest you read
<http://www.invisiblelighthouse.com/langlab/farewell.html>.
I quote, for example:
"What kind of people rush into a milieu
whose participants are involved in centuries-old debates for
which no
solution or agreement can ever be expected? People who like to
argue, mostly."
George (who hopes that he'll eventually find time to learn more than
the rudiments of Lojban)
Donald J. Harlow
"George Partlow" <pricer...@my-deja.com> skribis en mesařo
news:680335c5.01080...@posting.google.com...
> Raghav Krishnapriyan <ragm...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:<3B6F3DEC...@hotmail.com>...
> > Of course this would mean that as soon as Lojban was created, Lojbanists
started criticising Esperanto...
> > whereas on most Lojban websites I find them -praising- Esperanto and
find plans to use it to spread info
> > on Lojban.
>
> If you go back and read Don's post, he's clearly talking about e-mail
> and Usenet, not websites, since the WWW didn't even exist at the time.
> Lojbab certainly isn't "anti-Esperanto", nor is Nick Nicholas, and
> anumber of other people... but they don't exhaust the ranks of
> Lojbanists, by a long stetch.
>
the paper magazine, whose name I don't remember (La Lojpli? La Logpli?
Something like that ...) which Bob produced (and, I believe, still
produces). Raghav will find it mentioned in the single document that he
refers to as my "bash-every-conlang-except-Esperanto site". Criticisms of
Esperanto there were generally part of an ongoing discussion of the
question, to which I, also, contributed from time to time.
Of the two individuals you mention, I find Lojbab to be a generally
level-headed person who -- unlike most IAL aficionados outside the Esperanto
camp -- is not unwilling to learn from the history of Esperanto rather than
merely ignoring it and going off to make the same mistakes over and over
again. Nick Nicholas (who is perhaps best known as the translator of
"Hamlet" into Klingon) was, in his time, Secretary of the Australian
Esperanto youth organization; you'll find several translations of his from
Esperanto into Lojban in the Lojban archives (Kalocsay's poem "Iras
Abiturient'", I believe, is there).
Raghav Krishnapriyan
by word translation: Attention Lojbanic Use and The Lojban
newspaper/periodical/journal.
Raghav Krishnapriyan
"Donald J. Harlow" wrote:
Mi ne komprenas la analogo. La diplomato cxina plendas koncerne la rajto brita
por Everest, ne ke la cxinoj povas gxin pli bona fari. Sed mi forgesos gxin.
>
> We (the Esperanto-speaking community) _climbed_ that mountain, while
> everybody else simply sat in their armchairs and complained how they could
> have done it better.
Jes, kun 2,000,000 esperantistoj, la Esperanto komunumo grimpis cxirkaux du kaj
duono metroj. (La monto Everest estas 8848 metroj en alteco.)
George Partlow
> Jes, kun 2,000,000 esperantistoj, la Esperanto komunumo grimpis cxirkaux du kaj
> duono metroj. (La monto Everest estas 8848 metroj en alteco.)
Ha, sed nun vi provas eviti la veron: estis ja vi, kiu plendis, ke
Esperanto estis "tro sukcesa", k sekve kreis baron gxis la disvatigado
de aliaj, pli bone konstruitaj, planlingvoj. Vi ne rajtas samtampe
plendi, ke Esperanto estas _tro_ sukcesa, kaj ankaux _nesuficxe_
sukcesa; almeanux, vi ne rajtas pretendi, ke vi rezonas logike, tiel
plendinte...
Alivorte, la monto, pri kiu Don analogumas, ne estas la monto de
tuthomara universaleco, sed nur la monto de relative ofta prikono de
Esperanto: la relative ofta agnosko, de homoj kiuj cetere scias
preskaux nenion pri la demando pri helplingvoj, ke ja ekzistas iu
konstruita lingvo, kiu ecx havas parolkomunumon kiu uzas gxin kvazaux
cxiutage. Mi mem opinias, ke la ofteco de tiu prikono ne estas tiel
rimarkinda, kiel sxajne kaj vi kaj Doncxjo kredas... sed tio estas
alia afero.
Raghav Krishnapriyan
George Partlow wrote:
Mi disputas ke Esperanto estas tre fora de la celo de komunikajxo internacia. Certe estas treege sukcesa
ke aliaj planlingvoj, sed gxi havas multa malpli parolantoj ke angla. Kaj mi sxaltos al Angle tie cxar
mia Esperanto ne suficxe estas bona, sed vi povas vidi.
Mr. Stanley Richard Dalton said in an email to me that it is rare to find a site on Ido that lacks a
criticism of Esperanto. Similarly, most sites that are introductions to Esperanto criticise English...
but most sites to English don't criticise anything. In other words, proponents of Esperanto -do- feel
that Esperanto isn't as successful as it should be, and English speaker usually do feel that English is
the international language, whether or not it is. If you've read Orson Scott Card's "Children of the
Mind", then the analogy that English speakers think themselves a 'center language' may make sense, as
they think everyone speaks English or wants to, and they don't feel very threatened by other world
languages.. Similarly, Esperanto speakers think of themselves as 'edge languages'. As
'http://www.micheloud.com/FXM/LA/LA/english.htm' states, "This [English] is the most useful language in
the world, no questions asked."
In other words, all international auxilliary languages are so far from reaching their goal that they can
argue about it now, since none of them will be successful soon.
George Partlow
> Similarly, most sites that are introductions to Esperanto criticise English...
> but most sites to English don't criticise anything. In other words, proponents of Esperanto -do- feel
> that Esperanto isn't as successful as it should be, and English speaker usually do feel that English is
> the international language, whether or not it is. If you've read Orson Scott Card's "Children of the
> Mind", then the analogy that English speakers think themselves a 'center language' may make sense, as
> they think everyone speaks English or wants to, and they don't feel very threatened by other world
> languages.. Similarly, Esperanto speakers think of themselves as 'edge languages'. As
> 'http://www.micheloud.com/FXM/LA/LA/english.htm' states, "This [English] is the most useful language in
> the world, no questions asked."
>
> In other words, all international auxilliary languages are so far from reaching their goal that they can
> argue about it now, since none of them will be successful soon.
I wouldn't claim to be expert enough to generalize about all or most
sites promoting Esperanto, let alone "sites to English"! (I'm not
sure what you mean by that: websites that access English-language
content, websites for people who want to learn English, websites that
promote English as an International Auxiliary Languages, or what? In
my very limited experience, websites _in_ Esperanto give relatively
little attention to other consturcted languages (although some do; for
example, IIRC, most of the information I found about Volapuk was in
Esperanto), while those that do are in some "ethnic language", for
example English or German. The proper comparison would be between the
latter, and sites in German, or Japanese, or whatever language,
inviting/persuading people to learn English. I think you are right
that the creators of those sites generally don't feel threatened by
Esperanto or Interlingua, or any other "constructed IAL", although I
have seen some mentions (usually a one or two sentence dismissal of
them); one is more likely to see some brief attack on the pretensions
of francophones. OTOH exactly the sort of vaguely triumphalist
trumpeting of the alleged victory of English such as your quote from
micheloud.com is disappointingly frequent, leading me, at least, to
wonder "If English has 'won', why do they find it necessary to
continually remind us of all of its virtues (X% of all scientific
papers being published, language of choice for pop music, X% of all
films with worldwide distribution, IATA official langauge, etc etc),
as though we're so clueless that we hadn't noticed any of this?".
With your last statement I profoundly agree; I would merely note that
the "they" properly speaking, is "those people who want to argue about
such things", which is not coterminous with the set of all
Esperanto-speakers, Interlingua-speakers, or Lajbanists.
However... you still fail to see, or at least to acknowledge, that
what you said did not really address Don's "mountain" analogy.