Concerning the number of esperantists
Jens S. Larsen
On 26 Jul 1996 in <4t9npr$k...@mordred.cc.jyu.fi> Jorma Kyppo
<jo...@jytko.jyu.fi> wrote:
> "Jens S. Larsen" <je...@cphling.dk> wrote:
> > The "Universala Esperanto-Asocio" (UEA), the world Esperanto
> > Association, founded in 1908, consists of
> > (a) individual members (like me),
> > (b) national associations (like mine, Dana Esperanto-Asocio; in some
> > countries there are also regional associations), and
> > (c) the so-called "delegitoj" (delegates).
> [deleted]
> > 16 countries have "delegitoj" but no association:
> > Azerbaidjan, Bolivia, Belize, Algeria, Guatemala, Haiti, Iran,
> > Kenya, Sri Lanka, New Caledonia, Reunion, San Marino, Tajikistan,
> > Tunisia, Vanuatu and - Slovakia!!
> Why "!!"?
Because it's unexpected. All other European countries have a
national Esperanto association affiliated to the UEA, and there have
been esperantists in Slovakia more or less from the beginning (the
language being published by Zamenhof in Warsaw in 1887).
--
Gxis, CU, Tschüß, Hej, Salut /Jens S. Larsen, lingvist (BA in spe)
Igor GAZDIK
#In article <Pine.SOL.3.93.960729114728.26456C-100000@rask>,
#je...@cphling.dk says...
#>
#>> > 16 countries have "delegitoj" but no association:
#>> > Azerbaidjan, Bolivia, Belize, Algeria, Guatemala, Haiti, Iran,
#>> > Kenya, Sri Lanka, New Caledonia, Reunion, San Marino, Tajikistan,
#>> > Tunisia, Vanuatu and - Slovakia!!
#>
#>> Why "!!"?
slovakia is strong in interlingua (as is denmark) which is a more
beautiful, easier to learn and more useful language.
Philip Hunt
In article <4tqqsh$g...@mn5.swip.net>, Igor GAZDIK <igor.gazdik@mailbox.s
wipnet.se> writes
>
>
> slovakia is strong in interlingua (as is denmark) which is a more
> beautiful, easier to learn and more useful language.
>
Is Interlingua easier for *Slovaks*? I'd have thought they'd find
Esperanto as easy.
--
Phil Hunt <ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk>
D Gary Grady
igor....@mailbox.swipnet.se (Igor GAZDIK) wrote:
> slovakia is strong in interlingua (as is denmark) which is a more
> beautiful, easier to learn and more useful language.
Beauty is a matter of taste and I would not attempt to judge the
relative beauty of Esperanto and Interlingua beyond saying that both
must surely sound more pleasant than English, at least to my own ears.
As for "easier to learn" it depends on what you mean. Interlingua is
surely easier to learn to read for someone with a reasonably good
Romance-language background, but it has enough complications in
grammar and especially vocabulary that I'm not sure it's easier to
learn to speak and write than Esperanto, even for that someone with a
Romance-language background. It surely must be a great deal harder
than Esperanto for other people. I must say, however, that this
reflects my own experience in studying the two languages, and I'm open
to correction if someone can offer some contrary empirical evidence.
But it is certainly not true that Interlingua is more useful by any
practical measure. The number of magazines published in Interlingua is
no more than a handful, against a few dozen major ones and hundreds of
minor ones published in Esperanto. There is a fair amount of
short-wave radio broadcasting in Esperanto against (to my knowledge)
none in Internlingua. There is nothing like the number of
international gatherings.
Has Interlingua ever had even one convention comparable to the
week-long world Esperanto congress held last week in Prague with over
3000 participants from every continent but Antarctica? Is there any
significant amount of Interlingua activity in Asia or Africa? Are
there any notable Interlingua-speaking recording artists? Are there
any Interlingua "cultural centers" -- basically vacation sites or
resorts -- as exist for Esperantists in Japan, Switzerland, France,
and elsewhere?
D Gary Grady
Durham NC USA
73513...@compuserve.com / dg...@nando.net
Edmund Grimley-Evans
|> #>> > 16 countries have "delegitoj" but no association:
|> #>> > Azerbaidjan, Bolivia, Belize, Algeria, Guatemala, Haiti, Iran,
|> #>> > Kenya, Sri Lanka, New Caledonia, Reunion, San Marino, Tajikistan,
|> #>> > Tunisia, Vanuatu and - Slovakia!!
|> #>
|> #>> Why "!!"?
|>
|> beautiful, easier to learn and more useful language.
That is certainly not the reason for there not being a Slovakian
Esperanto association at present. It's also untrue, but that
would be best discussed in soc.culture.interlingua, to which I
have directed the follow-ups.
I don't suppose the details of what happened to the Slovakian
Esperanto organisation are of interest to anyone not closely
involved in running a similar organisation. In Hungary I
listened to a discussion of what happened in Slovakia and I
was quite glad when the conversation moved onto another topic ...
Edmundo
Igor GAZDIK
#In article <0dex4AAK...@vision25.demon.co.uk>,
#ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk says...
#>
#>Is Interlingua easier for *Slovaks*? I'd have thought they'd find
#>Esperanto as easy.
#>--
interlingua is easiest for speakers of the romance languages,
as well as speakers of english. because its vocabulary is
truly international, and its grammar is many times simpler
than is that of esperanto, i don't think that esperanto would
appear as easy to slovaks (or anybody). on the other hand,
do not expect slovaks to be interlingua speakers en masse.
i just mean that there are interlinguists who already have
made themselves a name internationally
Igor GAZDIK
#In article <3201d9bf...@news.nando.net>, dg...@nando.net says...
#>
#>But it is certainly not true that Interlingua is more useful by any
#>practical measure. The number of magazines published in Interlingua is
#>no more than a handful, against a few dozen major ones and hundreds of
#>minor ones published in Esperanto. There is a fair amount of
#>short-wave radio broadcasting in Esperanto against (to my knowledge)
#>none in Internlingua. There is nothing like the number of
#>international gatherings.
i agree. but, europe needs a common language, because the
present medley is hard to manage. once we had latin, hwich
i would favour for its flexibility and richness. interlingua
is the closest substitute.
>
#>Has Interlingua ever had even one convention comparable to the
#>week-long world Esperanto congress held last week in Prague with over
#>3000 participants from every continent but Antarctica?
there are annual world-wide meetings. in 1995 the meeting
was held in prague.
#Is there any
#>significant amount of Interlingua activity in Asia or Africa? Are
#>there any notable Interlingua-speaking recording artists? Are there
#>any Interlingua "cultural centers" -- basically vacation sites or
#>resorts -- as exist for Esperantists in Japan, Switzerland, France,
#>and elsewhere?
significant? there are some. it is interesting to note
that the culturally and materially affluent countrries of europe
(switzerland, the netherlands, scandinavia, finland, uk, among
others) are those that put most wattage into interlingua.
there are many translators of fiction, there are several very
good textbooks, as well as dictionaries. i have no idea how
strong interlingua is in asia.
Sylvan Joel Zaft
In <4tvqlh$8...@mn5.swip.net> igor....@mailbox.swipnet.se (Igor
GAZDIK) writes:
> interlingua is easiest for speakers of the romance languages,
> as well as speakers of english. because its vocabulary is
> truly international, and its grammar is many times simpler
> than is that of esperanto,
What are some of the specific ways in which the grammar of Interlingua
is many times simpler than the grammar of Esperanto?
Thank you.
Sylvan Zaft
Farmington, MI
USA
Philip Hunt
In article <4tvqlh$8...@mn5.swip.net>, Igor GAZDIK <igor.gazdik@mailbox.s
wipnet.se> writes
>#In article <0dex4AAK...@vision25.demon.co.uk>,
>#ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk says...
>#>
>#>Is Interlingua easier for *Slovaks*? I'd have thought they'd find
>#>Esperanto as easy.
>#>--
>
> as well as speakers of english. because its vocabulary is
> truly international, and its grammar is many times simpler
> than is that of esperanto,
Is this the case? I was onder the impression that Interlingua had
irregular verbs, and that (unlike Esperanto) forming an adjective from a
noun was also irregular.
Is there an Interlingua/English dictionary or grammar on the net?
>i don't think that esperanto would
> appear as easy to slovaks (or anybody).
AFAIK Esperanto has quite a lot of Slavic words (Its inventor spoke
Russian).
--
Phil Hunt <ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk>
Harry Bowman
I've noticed an odd exception to these endless discussions
of which "international language" is the best. Nobody wants to admit
that this question is largely settled. There exists a language formed
in the Middle Ages as a medium of communication between speakers of
Romance and Germanic dialects which has a very simple grammar (although
not as simple as Esperanto or Interlingua). Orthography is a bit
problematic due to sound shifts which have occurred since then, but it
isn't as unmanageable as widely believed. It has been adopted as the
official language of more countries than any other. It has an
estimated one billion speakers worldwide (including 400 million native
ones) and a nearly endless variety of publications are produced in it.
Of course, it is somewhat problematic because of its use in
North America as a means of communication between Europeans, which has
over time eliminated their original languages. Particularly, the bit
about a common language for "Europe" indicates a difficulty here. Why
shouldn't it be the same as the language used for communication in North
America? And why are the discussions of which international language
should be used conducted in it?
D Gary Grady
Harry Bowman <hl...@cornell.edu> wrote:
> I've noticed an odd exception to these endless discussions
>of which "international language" is the best. Nobody wants to admit
>that this question is largely settled.
For many purposes, to be sure, English is the de facto international
language, and this fact is widely acknowledged.
That doesn't mean that it fulfills its role perfectly, however, or
that there is no reason to be interested in other languages for
various purposes.
>It has an
>estimated one billion speakers worldwide (including 400 million native
>ones) and a nearly endless variety of publications are produced in it.
English is clearly by far and away the most useful language to learn
for most people. (Of course, there are many exceptions; an immigrant
to, say, France would likely find French of even greater practical
use, a French student of Chinese culture might be better advised to
concentrate on Chinese, and so on.)
But many foreign students (and even native speakers!) of the language
find that it requires an immense amount of time to truly master. The
problem is not the grammar, which is, as you note, relatively easy, at
least in comparison with that of most other Indoeuropean languages.
The problem is the vocabulary, which is full of complications,
pitfalls, and traps for the unwary, in which words mean one thing in
one context and something entirely different in another, in which two
words can be virtually perfect synonyms across their whole range of
meanings except for one or two special cases, in which hundreds of
idiomatic phrases mean something that can't be guessed from the words
they contain, and so on.
Surveys have turned up disappointingly low rates of English competence
in much of Europe outside the Netherlands, Scandanavia, and parts of
Germany.
What seems to be developing at least in international commerce, as
noted a year or so ago in the Wall Street Journal, is a sort of
simplified English or pidgin. If it serves its purpose, well and good,
but, as they say, is it art? :-)
>And why are the discussions of which international language
>should be used conducted in it?
That discussion has taken place in many languages, of course, not just
the one currently used in this thread.
Alan Gould
In article <3204F7...@cornell.edu>, Harry Bowman <hl...@cornell.edu>
writes
> Of course, it is somewhat problematic because of its use in
>North America as a means of communication between Europeans, which has
>over time eliminated their original languages. Particularly, the bit
>about a common language for "Europe" indicates a difficulty here. Why
>shouldn't it be the same as the language used for communication in North
>should be used conducted in it?
Esperanto is not an international language, it is neutral and non-
national. It is not only for Europe, but for all people of the planet.
--
Alan Gould - AGo - Woodrising, Thorn Lane, Goxhill, North Lincs.
England DN19 7LU Tel/Fax: (44) 01469 530356
*Sennacieca Asocio Tutmonda en Britio (SATEB)
*SATEB Informservo
*La Verda Proleto - oficiala gazeto de SATEB
Christopher ZERVIC
Igor GAZDIK mensogis:
> interlingua is easiest for speakers of the romance languages,
> as well as speakers of english. because its vocabulary is
> i just mean that there are interlinguists who already have
> made themselves a name internationally
There is a very comprehensive study of interlingua called "Anatomy of a failure:
Interlingua examined" It is available on the net in four parts:
ftp://ftp.stack.urc.tue.nl/pub/esperanto/other-tongues.dir/interlingua.1.gz
ftp://ftp.stack.urc.tue.nl/pub/esperanto/other-tongues.dir/interlingua.2.gz
ftp://ftp.stack.urc.tue.nl/pub/esperanto/other-tongues.dir/interlingua.3.gz
ftp://ftp.stack.urc.tue.nl/pub/esperanto/other-tongues.dir/interlingua.4.gz
--
+------------------------------------+-------------------+
| Christopher Matthew Anthony ZERVIC | E S P E R A N T O |
| http://ally.ios.com/~zervic19 | lingvo internacia |
+------------------------------------+-------------------+
D Gary Grady
Christopher ZERVIC <zerv...@starnetinc.com> wrote:
>There is a very comprehensive study of interlingua called "Anatomy of a failure:
>Interlingua examined" It is available on the net in four parts:
>
>ftp://ftp.stack.urc.tue.nl/pub/esperanto/other-tongues.dir/interlingua.1.gz
>ftp://ftp.stack.urc.tue.nl/pub/esperanto/other-tongues.dir/interlingua.2.gz
>ftp://ftp.stack.urc.tue.nl/pub/esperanto/other-tongues.dir/interlingua.3.gz
>ftp://ftp.stack.urc.tue.nl/pub/esperanto/other-tongues.dir/interlingua.4.gz
I personally found this critique to be a little overblown (as well as
overlong). Interlingua isn't THAT bad, and there's something to be
said for its use in certain contexts, especially as a read-only
language for signs, say, in Western Europe.
Still, the author raises some good points, noting for example the
inconsistent plurals of many Interlingua nouns, the inconsistent verb
endings (three distinct ones for the infinitive, depending on the
root), the inconsistent stress accent that is not marked in the
orthography (so that Interlingua is less phonetically written than
Spanish), inconsistent use of suffixes, and so on.
Interlingua is in many ways a remarkable achievement, but it isn't an
easy language to learn to write or speak, except in comparison with
other romance languages. For someone from a non-Indoeuropean
background, I would think that, say, Finnish would be easier.
vic...@sky.net
Being the semi-default international language does not make English a GOOD
international language. As a native English speaker myself, I can honestly say
that, even though I like (AND AM USED TO) the language personally, I would not
wish its bizarre irregularities upon my worst non-English speaking enemy.
Also, using the "it's kind of the international language already, so why
bother with anything else?" argument is rather like saying that "because War
is still more prevelant than the rule of international Law, that must be the
way things should be, so let them just fight it out."
The purpose of an international language is to enhance communication
amongst peoples of the world, and to that end, it would help for "the"
international language to be considerably easier than English to learn or
understand. Yes, many people throughout the world communicate in English now
(although many at varying degrees of substandard quality), but how many more
would be communicating in "the" international language if it was easier and
more logical?
National/Imperial languages that become "international" languages have the
nasty habit of falling by the wayside (Latin...French...).
National languages that become "international" also tend to have serious
economic/social/cultural baggage attached to them which make them undesirable
for the purpose of international communication (which needs to be NEUTRAL).
P.S. Is there any difference in having this discussion in English, than it
would be to have it in Swedish or Swahili or Malay? I mean, just because we're
discussing this in English is a poor proof of the language being "the"
international language...
Robert Moldenhauer
In article <4u53fh$9...@alpha.sky.net>, vic...@sky.net says...
>
>Also, using the "it's kind of the international language already, so
why
>bother with anything else?" argument is rather like saying that
"because War
>is still more prevelant than the rule of international Law, that must
be the
>way things should be, so let them just fight it out."
No, it is more a question of using the tools you have rather than
inventing new ones. More like "you have a house, it's basement leaks,
do you build a new house with an unproven basement of do you try to
seal the basement of the house you have?"
> The purpose of an international language is to enhance
communication
>amongst peoples of the world, and to that end, it would help for
"the"
>international language to be considerably easier than English to
learn or
>understand. Yes, many people throughout the world communicate in
English now
>(although many at varying degrees of substandard quality), but how
many more
>would be communicating in "the" international language if it was
easier and
>more logical?
Why not adapt English to work, make the verbs regular (actually an IAL
probably shouldn't have verb conjugation at all), solidify the
sentence structure, fix the spelling?
> National/Imperial languages that become "international" languages
have the
>nasty habit of falling by the wayside (Latin...French...).
There has never before been an auxillary language for the entire
world.
> National languages that become "international" also tend to have
serious
>economic/social/cultural baggage attached to them which make them
undesirable
>for the purpose of international communication (which needs to be
NEUTRAL).
>
Yes, but how do you achieve true neutrality? A language has to be
based on something. English is based on German and French, Glosa on
Latin and Greek, Espernato on Russian and Romance Laguages. Are any
of these languages really nuetral? They are all European langugaes.
> P.S. Is there any difference in having this discussion in English,
than it
>would be to have it in Swedish or Swahili or Malay? I mean, just
because we're
>discussing this in English is a poor proof of the language being
"the"
>international language...
>
Not to mention the Saphir-Worf hypothesis...
Harry Bowman
> of which "international language" is the best. Nobody wants to admit
> in the Middle Ages as a medium of communication between speakers of
> Romance and Germanic dialects which has a very simple grammar (although
> not as simple as Esperanto or Interlingua). Orthography is a bit
> problematic due to sound shifts which have occurred since then, but it
> isn't as unmanageable as widely believed. It has been adopted as the
> estimated one billion speakers worldwide (including 400 million native
> ones) and a nearly endless variety of publications are produced in it.
> North America as a means of communication between Europeans, which has
> over time eliminated their original languages. Particularly, the bit
> about a common language for "Europe" indicates a difficulty here. Why
> shouldn't it be the same as the language used for communication in North
> America? And why are the discussions of which international language
> should be used conducted in it?
Just incase you haven't noticed, this message was actually intended as
a study of the sorts of flames that it would produce. Mainly I think
that what is important to think about here is that ANY successful
international language (such as English) will rapidly accumulate certain
baggage associated with its speaking community. If Esperanto were to
actually become widespread, people would come into existence who oppose
the spread of Esperanto and who dislike native speakers of it. (These
do not exist in large numbers, as far as I know. Does anyone have an
estimate of the number of native speakers?)
And it is quite amusing to see that discussions of which international
language is the best generally resort to using the most successful one
in existence. Of course, it will encounter opposition as such because
of its 400 million native speakers...
D Gary Grady
rmolde...@doit.wisc.edu (Robert Moldenhauer) wrote:
>Why not adapt English to work, make the verbs regular (actually an IAL
>probably shouldn't have verb conjugation at all), solidify the
>sentence structure, fix the spelling?
As long as the grammar is reasonably regular and not overly complex, I
don't think grammar is all that big a big hurdle for language
acquisition. The impression that it is of such great importance
probably comes from the classical approach of teaching languages by
teaching their grammars. English grammar is already pretty simple,
though it could stand to be more regular. It's also losing
irregularities, despite the best efforts of pedants like me to, e.g.,
insist that data is the plural of datum, media the plural of media,
and so forth.
But the English vocabulary is another story. English words are
amoeba-like blobs in semantic space, covering ranges of meanings with
odd overlaps and gaps. It's hard for a non-native speaker to master
the subtleties. One has to memorize not just words but scads of
phrases that don't mean what they seem to (if they seem to mean
anything at all) based on their content.
One can get to a basic level of communication (or the order of "Where
is the toilet?" -- except that that's "Where is the rest room?" in the
U.S.) fairly quickly in English, rather more so than in German or
French or Spanish, I think. But learning to fling the language about
with the reckless abandon of a native user takes a hell of a long
time, as does being able to listen to motion picture dialog and
correctly understand all that's being said. Many native speakers of
other Germanic languages seem to get to that point eventually, but for
others it's all too often a real struggle that is never won.
Of course, it's questionable whether the average person needs to learn
a foreign language to near-native competence anyway, but it's worth
noting that it can be achieved a great deal more quickly in a few
other languages (certainly including Esperanto) than in English.
>Yes, but how do you achieve true neutrality? A language has to be
>based on something. English is based on German and French, Glosa on
>Latin and Greek, Espernato on Russian and Romance Laguages. Are any
>of these languages really nuetral? They are all European langugaes.
As has been noted before, it's doubtful that any language can be
linguistically neutral and Esperanto, Glosa, Interlingua, and Engllish
certainly are not. But those other languages (and, for that matter,
Latin) are politically neutral in that they are not associated with
any great power, and certainly not with one widely accused (justly or
not) of cultural and economic imperialism.
Again, I personally doubt that Esperanto, much less Interlingua or
Glosa, stands a practical chance of being declared the world's
official international language, or even the official international
language of the Summer Olympics (although if someone were willing to
cough up the money, I'm sure the latter could be arranged...).
Robert Moldenhauer
I think if one were building an international auxillary language one
would need to allow for letter pairs that are the same to many people.
For example, Arabic has no "v", foriegn words with "v" in them are
usually represented with an "f." Now if an auxillary language has
both "f" and "v" and depends on those for word meanings the language
would be extremely difficult for Arabic speakers.
Another bad combination is "r" and "l," in both Korean and Japanese
these represent the same sound, having critical meaning based on the
letters "r" or "l" would be bad for native speakers of those
languages.
Another thing that an IAL should avoid is verb conjugation, most
people in the world do no conjugate verbs, or if they do, they do it
selectively.
Just a couple thoughts. I'm learning Glosa as an experiment in
"constructed languages," so that I can get a better feel of those
languages.
Hans Kamp
D Gary Grady wrote:
>
> Harry Bowman <hl...@cornell.edu> wrote:
>
> > I've noticed an odd exception to these endless discussions
> >of which "international language" is the best. Nobody wants to admit
> >that this question is largely settled.
>
> language, and this fact is widely acknowledged.
English is not the international language. I were in Bulgaria a few years ago, but there
the English language is quite useless.
> That doesn't mean that it fulfills its role perfectly, however, or
> that there is no reason to be interested in other languages for
> various purposes.
>
> >It has an
> >estimated one billion speakers worldwide (including 400 million native
> >ones) and a nearly endless variety of publications are produced in it.
>
> English is clearly by far and away the most useful language to learn
> for most people. (Of course, there are many exceptions; an immigrant
> to, say, France would likely find French of even greater practical
> use, a French student of Chinese culture might be better advised to
> concentrate on Chinese, and so on.)
The English language has many sortcomings:
- a huge difference between spelling and pronunciation;
- a lot of irregular verbs;
- difficult sounds;
- not really political neutral, e.g. Iran, where America (an English-speaking country)
is a big state enemy;
- is easy to learn for Europeans, but not for Asians and African;
- concatenation of word is limited, if you compare this with Esperanto.
I have learned English for 10 years; I have learned Esperanto for 3 years, but I speak
and write Esperanto better than English... Yes, I know, now you are totally amazed!!!
> But many foreign students (and even native speakers!) of the language
> find that it requires an immense amount of time to truly master. The
> problem is not the grammar, which is, as you note, relatively easy, at
The English grammar is not easy, compare:
Singular Plural
English A dog is a faithful animal Dogs are faithful animals
Esperanto Hundo estas fidela besto Hundoj estas fidelaj bestoj
For making a sentence plural, there are 5 changes needed in English, whereas only 3 in
Esperanto.
> least in comparison with that of most other Indoeuropean languages.
> The problem is the vocabulary, which is full of complications,
> pitfalls, and traps for the unwary, in which words mean one thing in
That is reason enough to assert, that the English language is not useful as
international lanugage.
> one context and something entirely different in another, in which two
> words can be virtually perfect synonyms across their whole range of
> meanings except for one or two special cases, in which hundreds of
> idiomatic phrases mean something that can't be guessed from the words
> they contain, and so on.
>
> Surveys have turned up disappointingly low rates of English competence
> in much of Europe outside the Netherlands, Scandanavia, and parts of
> Germany.
>
> What seems to be developing at least in international commerce, as
> noted a year or so ago in the Wall Street Journal, is a sort of
> simplified English or pidgin. If it serves its purpose, well and good,
> but, as they say, is it art? :-)
You mean Basic English? In Basic English you need twenty words to describe a helicopter.
In Esperanto there is only one word: helikoptero.
Or do you mean Bad English?
> >And why are the discussions of which international language
> >should be used conducted in it?
>
> That discussion has taken place in many languages, of course, not just
> the one currently used in this thread.
Sorry, but I definitely do not agree with you.
Hans Kamp.
Jens S. Larsen
(f'ups trimmed)
Harry Bowman <hl...@cornell.edu> wrote at 1996/08/04 in message
<3204F7...@cornell.edu>:
> I've noticed an odd exception to these endless
> discussions of which "international language" is the best.
> Nobody wants to admit that this question is largely settled.
That's true. The politicians are especially slow to understand it,
and it only gets worse and worse. The official languages in the
League of Nations (the precursor of UN between WW1 and 2) were only
French and English; the United Nations added Russian, Spanish and
Chinese, later also Arabic; the EEC had only French, Dutch, German
and Italian to start with; at the moment the EU has also Portuguese,
Spanish, Greek, English, Danish, Swedish and Finnish as official
languages.
> There exists a language formed in the Middle Ages as a medium of
> communication between speakers of Romance and Germanic dialects
> which has a very simple grammar (although not as simple as
> Esperanto or Interlingua). Orthography is a bit problematic due
> to sound shifts which have occurred since then, but it isn't as
> unmanageable as widely believed. It has been adopted as the
> official language of more countries than any other. It has an
> estimated one billion speakers worldwide (including 400 million
> native ones) and a nearly endless variety of publications are
> produced in it.
Life must be very easy for those who speak it. Especially if they
are not scared of a big audience.
> Of course, it is somewhat problematic because of its use
> in North America as a means of communication between Europeans,
> which has over time eliminated their original languages.
> Particularly, the bit about a common language for "Europe"
> indicates a difficulty here. Why shouldn't it be the same as
> the language used for communication in North America?
Seems like a good idea. Why not extend it to South America, now
we're at it?
> And why
> are the discussions of which international language should be
> used conducted in it?
There are at least four good reasons:
(1) Maybe half of the potential participants of the discussion speak
(American) English as their first language (having an Internet
account is not so common outside the USA yet);
(2) a good deal of the other half speak English reasonable well as a
second language;
(3) those who don't speak English well don't like to demonstrate
that, and
(4) if you don't know French good enough to follow a newsgroup in
it, you won't read the discussions about the issue in the
fr.-hierarchy.
Uzulo
>>
slovakia is strong in interlingua (as is denmark) which is a more
beautiful, easier to learn and more useful language.
<<
Pri gustoj oni ne disputas, Igor ... pri utileco tamen jes.
Tastes differ, Igor ... usefulness is also relative.
--
Uzulo <ty...@cile.msk.su>
M.G. Rison
En la artikolo <4u5j5q$a...@tofu.alt.net>,
Robert Moldenhauer <rmolde...@doit.wisc.edu> skribis:
> In article <4u53fh$9...@alpha.sky.net>, vic...@sky.net says...
> >Also, using the "it's kind of the international language already, so why
> >bother with anything else?" argument is rather like saying that "because War
> >is still more prevelant than the rule of international Law, that must be the
> >way things should be, so let them just fight it out."
> No, it is more a question of using the tools you have rather than
> inventing new ones. More like "you have a house, it's basement leaks,
> do you build a new house with an unproven basement of do you try to
> seal the basement of the house you have?"
Actually, based on my recent (and still on-going) experiences
with fixing leaks (in a shower unit), I might plump for the
unproven new house!
But it's in any case not a question of building a new house. The
house was built a while ago. Sure, it's not a skyscraper; it's
more of a maisonette. But a maisonette in a beautiful setting
with lots of space around it on which a whole new town could be
built.
> [...]
Mark "I should write books!"
======================================================================
| ri...@hep.phy.cam.ac.uk | Esperanto - lingvo inter-nacia |
| ri...@vxcern.cern.ch | * Mi estas riisto * |
======================================================================
D Gary Grady
Hans Kamp <hans...@introweb.nl> wrote:
>English is not the international language. I were in Bulgaria a few years ago, but there
>the English language is quite useless.
It's the closest thing to an agreed-upon international language we've
got, it's the by far the most widely taught and widely used language
in history, but you're right, contrary to the expectations of naive
American tourists, it isn't spoken universally. I've run into young
people in Finland -- including a docent at a museum -- who could not
speak more than a few words of English, and that poorly, despite the
fact that English is (as far as I know) mandatory in all Finnish
schools. And just a week and a half ago I had to recruit some
Norwegians to translate into German for me so I could communicate with
waitresses in a hotel restaurant in the Czech Republic.
>The English language has many sortcomings:
No argument there, and I would add to your list the
difficult-to-master vocabulary and the huge number of idiomatic
phrases, which I think are far worse than the grammar or even the
orthography as a barrier to mastery, because they require such an
immense amount of memorization. (Even native speakers continue to
learn such idioms well into adulthood, I've noted.)
>I have learned English for 10 years; I have learned Esperanto for 3 years, but I speak
>and write Esperanto better than English... Yes, I know, now you are totally amazed!!!
Not in the least. There's no question that Esperanto is far easier
than English, which is not to say that Esperanto is maximally easy. On
the other hand, one can reasonably argue that the complexities in
Esperanto grammar have positive benefits in terms of adding precision
to the language. Whether the benefits outweigh the costs is a matter
for debate, but again, even with whatever faults it may have,
Esperanto is far easier to learn than English.
On the other hand, English is tremendously more useful in terms of the
number of different things one can do with it. If I weren't a native
speaker I think I would study English even if I griped and grumbled as
I did so. I would also learn Esperanto, because, while its utility is
less than that of English, it is still great enough to repay the
relatively modest effort of learning it.
I wrote:
>> What seems to be developing at least in international commerce, as
>> noted a year or so ago in the Wall Street Journal, is a sort of
>> simplified English or pidgin. If it serves its purpose, well and good,
>> but, as they say, is it art? :-)
And you replied:
>You mean Basic English? In Basic English you need twenty words to describe a helicopter.
Basic English is largely defunct. How can I tell? It doesn't even have
a home page. (At least not the last time I looked for one...)
>Or do you mean Bad English?
That's exactly what I mean! (But if it works for the limited purposes
of trade, why not?)
>Sorry, but I definitely do not agree with you.
We may be more in agreement than you think.
7106...@compuserve.com
I still fail to see what is particularly remarkable about a discussion being
conducted by a group of people whose only common language is English, on an international network
whose origins are in the US, somehow by sheer chance
using .... English (!). This seems tautological. Presumably those participants
who are not native speakers of the language have spent some appreciable
amount of time and energy learning English, and wish to use it. People
who don't speak English (probably more like 90% of the world's population
than that 80% which the rather overblown estimate of one billion speakers
of English would indicate) do not take part in discussions in English. People
without access to the Internet (an even larger fraction of humantiy!) don't
take part in disucssions on the Net! So what?
George Partlow............Delegito de UEA en la alaska cxefurbo, Juneau (Usono)
retposxto cxe: <7106...@compuserve.com>.....Pensu terglobe, agu surloke!
To learn about Esperanto, try <http://www.webcom.com/~donh/esperanto.html>
Alan Gould
In article <4u5j5q$a...@tofu.alt.net>, Robert Moldenhauer
<rmolde...@doit.wisc.edu> writes
>
>>for the purpose of international communication (which needs to be
>NEUTRAL).
>>
>
>based on something. English is based on German and French, Glosa on
>Latin and Greek, Espernato on Russian and Romance Laguages. Are any
>of these languages really nuetral? They are all European langugaes.
>
It has been based more on European languages than others because it had
its early development in Europe. That balance is changing with input
from all sources.
International communication idicates communication between nations,
national aims and assumptions, national 'interests' etc. which mostly
lead to conflict.
Esperanto is for communication between people from wherever they may
come. It transcends all social, political, ethnic or religious
preconceptions and releases the individual to be who they are and
operate in peaceful co-operation with other like-minded people.
No national or international language can do that.
Robert Moldenhauer
In artikla <4u7kof$1...@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk>, mg...@cus.cam.ac.uk
dice...
>
>But it's in any case not a question of building a new house. The
>house was built a while ago. Sure, it's not a skyscraper; it's
>more of a maisonette. But a maisonette in a beautiful setting
>with lots of space around it on which a whole new town could be
>built.
That's just it, there isn't room for a South African rondaval or a
Arab hammam, or a Japanese teahouse. It's a house built in European
style in a European neighbourhood, and non-Europeans are welcome so
long as they build their houses in the same Eurostyle.
zhang zhiyao
Hans Kamp (hans...@introweb.nl) [Mon, 05 Aug 1996 20:50:31 -0700] :
{Shortcomings of English}
#The English grammar is not easy, compare:
# Singular Plural
#English A dog is a faithful animal Dogs are faithful animals
#Esperanto Hundo estas fidela besto Hundoj estas fidelaj bestoj
#
#For making a sentence plural, there are 5 changes needed in English, whereas only 3 in
#Esperanto.
As opposed to *NO* changes required in Chinese (well, in the 3 dialects
that I speak plus Mandarin anyway). But I'm not sure what that proves....
I don't believe that an "international" language is necessary. Anyway, I
don't believe that anyone has the right to proclaim this that or the other
as the "international" language.
Robert Moldenhauer
In article <at78YCAi...@agolincs.demon.co.uk>,
al...@agolincs.demon.co.uk says...
>
>Esperanto is neutral in the sense that it is not of or for any
nation.
>It has been based more on European languages than others because it
had
>its early development in Europe. That balance is changing with input
>from all sources.
>International communication idicates communication between nations,
>national aims and assumptions, national 'interests' etc. which mostly
>lead to conflict.
>Esperanto is for communication between people from wherever they may
>come. It transcends all social, political, ethnic or religious
>preconceptions and releases the individual to be who they are and
>operate in peaceful co-operation with other like-minded people.
>No national or international language can do that.
It slices it dices, it does the dishes! Esperanto makes us all Gods
and masters of the universe! Get a grip, Esperanto is a European
language, it carries with it the baggage all other EUropean languages
carry. It completely ignores the languages of Africa, Asia (with the
exception of Russian), and the native languages of the Americas and
Oceania!
There's zip Hawaiian, no Zulu, not a work of Mandarin. THe sentence
structure is based on Western Europena languages. It's overly
complicated with verb conjugations and all sorts of suffixes.
Maybe, just maybe Esperanto helps East Europeans a little, but that's
it.
Harry Bowman
Alan Gould wrote:
> >Yes, but how do you achieve true neutrality? A language has to be
> >based on something. English is based on German and French, Glosa on
> >Latin and Greek, Espernato on Russian and Romance Laguages. Are any
> >of these languages really nuetral? They are all European langugaes.
> >
> Esperanto is neutral in the sense that it is not of or for any nation.
> It has been based more on European languages than others because it had
> its early development in Europe. That balance is changing with input
> from all sources.
> International communication idicates communication between nations,
> national aims and assumptions, national 'interests' etc. which mostly
> lead to conflict.
> Esperanto is for communication between people from wherever they may
> come. It transcends all social, political, ethnic or religious
> preconceptions and releases the individual to be who they are and
> operate in peaceful co-operation with other like-minded people.
> No national or international language can do that.
> --
> Alan Gould - AGo - Woodrising, Thorn Lane, Goxhill, North Lincs.
> England DN19 7LU Tel/Fax: (44) 01469 530356
> *Sennacieca Asocio Tutmonda en Britio (SATEB)
> *SATEB Informservo
> *La Verda Proleto - oficiala gazeto de SATEB
>
Neutrality could be greatly increased by generating the vocabulary
randomly with a computer. I have heard that Mark Okhrand did this when
he invented vocabulary for Klingon.
S.W.
Den Sun, 04 Aug 1996 15:20:25 -0400 skrev Harry Bowman <hl...@cornell.edu> :
[snip]
=> Of course, it is somewhat problematic because of its use in
=>North America as a means of communication between Europeans, which has
You forget the political and cultural implications. There is a growing
irritation around the world because of American "cultural imperialism" and
general insensitivity. One example is when the Coca Cola Company earlier
this year demanded that their Scandinavian licensees cease all production
of their own Swedish/Norwegian specialities (including very old and very
popular soft drinks, such as "julmust") because they might compete with
Coke and Fanta. Needless to say Pripps and Ringnes stopped producing Coke
instead even though it will cost them a substantial part of their annual
turnover.....
Add to this the US political activities around the world, mostly aimed at
furthering American economic interests, and you see why fewer and fewer
people are willing to accept English as an "official" international
language.
If you look at just Europe there are other major languages available.
German is a traditional lingua franca (if that expression can be used) in
much of eastern Europe. The French also want to have a say in this,
claiming rightfully that French is used over much of Africa and elsewhere
as it is. And Spanish is used in large parts of the world too.
If there is ever to be an official international language (personally I
don't believe that there ever will be one) it must be a much more neutral
language than English. You could say that British imperialism made the
English language popular all over the world, whereas American imperialism
is making the language increasingly impopular.....
[snip]
--
S.Wendel
m-6...@mailbox.swip.net
http://www.kuai.se/%7Ewendel/
Julian Pardoe LADS LDN X1428
In article <4tvqlh$8...@mn5.swip.net>, igor....@mailbox.swipnet.se (Igor GAZDIK) writes:
-->#In article <0dex4AAK...@vision25.demon.co.uk>,
-->#ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk says...
-->#>
-->#>Is Interlingua easier for *Slovaks*? I'd have thought they'd find
-->#>Esperanto as easy.
-->#>--
-->
--> interlingua is easiest for speakers of the romance languages,
--> as well as speakers of english. because its vocabulary is
--> truly international
The last two words have no meaning!
--> and its grammar is many times simpler
--> than is that of esperanto,
This statement needs a lot of back up before it becomes anything
more than content-free.
--> i don't think that esperanto would
--> appear as easy to slovaks (or anybody).
A few bold assertions and statements of opinion don't add up to an
argument!
-- jP --
Uzulo
>>
The purpose of an international language is to enhance
communication amongst peoples of the world, and to that end, it
would help for "the" international language to be considerably
easier than English to learn or understand. Yes, many people
throughout the world communicate in English now (although many at
varying degrees of substandard quality), but how many more would be
communicating in "the" international language if it was easier and
more logical?
<<
::
No, it is more a question of using the tools you have rather than
inventing new ones. More like "you have a house, it's basement
leaks, do you build a new house with an unproven basement of do you
try to seal the basement of the house you have?"
(***) Why not adapt English to work, make the verbs regular
(actually an IAL probably shouldn't have verb conjugation at all),
solidify the sentence structure, fix the spelling?
::
In other words, you propose a new IAL (i.e., this "new house with
an unproven basement" you criticised so convincingly just a few
lines earlier) based on English ?.. Why do you think it would be any
better than the existing ones ?
BTW, how could (***) be implemented actually ?
And one more thing. One of the reasons of (relatively) enormous
success of Eo is undoubtedly that its basement is not wholly
artificial, so it IS proven.
--
Uzulo <ty...@cile.msk.su>
Uzulo
>>
but, europe needs a common language, because the present medley is
hard to manage. once we had latin, hwich i would favour for its
flexibility and richness.
<<
Does it imply that the living languages of Europe, as well as the
dead ones (such as Sanskrit, Classical Greek, Gothic, Old Slav)
aren't rich and/or flexible enough compared with Latin ?
>> interlingua is the closest substitute.
"Closest" in which sense ? Besides, the role of Latin as a means
of international communication faded long ago, so IMHO today there
is no need to substitute it by anything.
--
Uzulo <ty...@cile.msk.su>
Don HARLOW
Harry Bowman <hl...@cornell.edu> lastatempe skribis:
>baggage associated with its speaking community. If Esperanto were to
>actually become widespread, people would come into existence who oppose
>the spread of Esperanto and who dislike native speakers of it. (These
>do not exist in large numbers, as far as I know. Does anyone have an
>estimate of the number of native speakers?)
Back around 1960, the UEA yearbook listed about two hundred names that
they knew of who were native speakers of Esperanto. Of the half dozen
or so people I've personally known who spoke the language natively,
only one was in the list. I leave the arithmetic as an exercise for
the reader.
The best place to raise this question is, unfortunately, not sci.lang,
nor in Usenet at all (though somebody in soc.culture.espereanto might
have an answer). You really want the mailing list DENASK-L, which is
for people who use Esperanto as a home language (but you'd have to be
able to read and write Esperanto to get anything out of it). Somebody
at the 18th Get-Together of Esperanto-Speaking Families might have
known, but that ended three days ago, and anyway you probably wouldn't
have wanted to go to Bratislava, Slovakia, to find out. (By the way,
didn't this whole thread start with somebody wondering why there
weren't any Esperanto speakers in Slovakia?)
> And it is quite amusing to see that discussions of which international
>language is the best generally resort to using the most successful one
>in existence. Of course, it will encounter opposition as such because
Back when I was an astronomy student, I learned a useful phrase:
"biased sample". Does this ring a bell?
(I've seen the topic discussed in French and German in other
newsgroups, by the way...)
Don HARLOW
http://www.webcom.com/~donh/
(English version available at http://www.webcom.com/~donh/dona.html)
Don HARLOW
rmolde...@doit.wisc.edu (Robert Moldenhauer) lastatempe skribis:
>In artikla <4u7kof$1...@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk>, mg...@cus.cam.ac.uk
>dice...
>>
>>But it's in any case not a question of building a new house. The
>>house was built a while ago. Sure, it's not a skyscraper; it's
>>more of a maisonette. But a maisonette in a beautiful setting
>>with lots of space around it on which a whole new town could be
>>built.
>That's just it, there isn't room for a South African rondaval or a
>Arab hammam, or a Japanese teahouse. It's a house built in European
>style in a European neighbourhood, and non-Europeans are welcome so
>long as they build their houses in the same Eurostyle.
A Japanese teahouse ... you mean one of those places where people get
together _por c^anoji_?
(Sorry, I only know the expression in Esperanto, not in English. I
think that in English, a truly international language, you would
probably have to say "to hold a Japanese Shinto tea ceremony"...)
ANON
|> Singular Plural
|> English A dog is a faithful animal Dogs are faithful animals
Woligo Hunudo be fidela Hunudo be fidela
|> For making a sentence plural, there are 5 changes needed in English,
|> whereas only 3 in Esperanto.
And none in Woligo!
Woligo should be the international languiage! Let`s hear it for WOLIGO!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ANON m...@this.here.ac.nz
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The first European words spoken in the new world...
"They don't look very Chinese, Christopher."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
sebastiano hartviga
<rmolde...@doit.wisc.edu> tippste unter anderem/tajpis interalie:
> >But it's in any case not a question of building a new house. The
> >house was built a while ago. Sure, it's not a skyscraper; it's
> >more of a maisonette. But a maisonette in a beautiful setting
> >with lots of space around it on which a whole new town could be
> >built.
>
> That's just it, there isn't room for a South African rondaval or a
> Arab hammam, or a Japanese teahouse. It's a house built in European
> style in a European neighbourhood, and non-Europeans are welcome so
> long as they build their houses in the same Eurostyle.
warum bloß, warum? warum wissen nichtesperantisten immer besser über esperanto
bescheid als esperantisten? wahrscheinlich deshalb, weil sie sich nicht mit
den schnöden tatsachen herumschlagen müssen, die ihnen ins gesicht spieen!
kial, do kial? kial neesperantistoj chiam scikonas esperanton pli bone ol
esperantistoj? vershajne tial, char ili ne devas lukti kontrau la krudaj
realajhoj, kiuj krachus sur ilian vizaghon!
sebastiano
____________________
menefe bal pu"ki bal
Robert Smith
rmolde...@doit.wisc.edu (Robert Moldenhauer) wrote:
No one is going to design an IAL for the simple fact that for most
people one exisits already. It's English. I don't say this in any
nationalistic way, it's simply a fact of life. I would hate to see the
day when everybody used it as their first languauge but across much of
the world it is the de facto IAL.
Robert
Robert Smith
London, England, EU
rik...@dircon.co.uk
Jorma Kypp|
> >of which "international language" is the best. Nobody wants to admit
> >that this question is largely settled.
> language, and this fact is widely acknowledged.
I've seen 2 different aims in this thread.
1. what is the best international language?
2. what could be the best possible "lingua franca" for EU?
Sort answers:
1. this question is endless and seems to lead to never-ending
discussion mixed by personal ambitions depending what is
the person's native language or what artificial language
he/she has already started to study.
2. I personally am against lingua franca in EU and support
multilingualism, which is the basis of multicultularism,
which is the basis of different kind of thinking, different
ideas, the richness of humanity.
*If* there must be lingua franca, I support English, because
of same reason, that somebody (Gadzik?) already pointed:
it is already widely used all over the world and it is common
language in North America.
I don't understand *why* we should create one more super state,
that has *again* new language, that *separates* it from the
other world. Esperantist-EU would like kind of new Russia.
A big state, where people understand each other, but who
has a cultural wall around it. The Fortress Europe.
> But many foreign students (and even native speakers!) of the language
> find that it requires an immense amount of time to truly master. The
> problem is not the grammar, which is, as you note, relatively easy, at
> least in comparison with that of most other Indoeuropean languages.
It is also good to remember, that not all European languages are
Indoeuropean (Basque, Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian..).
> noted a year or so ago in the Wall Street Journal, is a sort of
> simplified English or pidgin. If it serves its purpose, well and good,
> but, as they say, is it art? :-)
This reminds me about one thing. If we want only some kind of code
to communicate in business, etc.., there's already an international
language, that is actually quite rich. I mean the language used
by people, who can't hear!
Why not to teach this "hand-language" for everybody, in same time
we would make a great service for this group of people that can't
speak and what is best: that kind of language could never harm
any living language!
And to the end, I think, that one aspect has been forgotten when thinking
about the "optimal language". I guess there's not such.
The language we use has different kind of effects on our thinking
and different kind of languages might lead to different kind
of thinking, different kind of ideas.
I don't know if such artificial languages like Esperanto has ever
been surveyed from this viewpoint. How that language supports
our "deep" thinking, how it corresponds with our brains.
I think, that many things, that seem unlogical in natural languages
are result of this phenomena. When we make something artificial,
we always loose something from the nature.
That's why it is important to keep your mother language.
And that's why it is important to save also small languages.
Jorma Kyppo
Laukaa
Finland
jo...@jytko.jyu.fi
M.G. Rison
En la artikolo <4u80dv$4...@tofu.alt.net>,
Robert Moldenhauer <rmolde...@doit.wisc.edu> skribis:
> In artikla <4u7kof$1...@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk>, mg...@cus.cam.ac.uk
> dice...
> > En la artikolo <4u5j5q$a...@tofu.alt.net>,
> > Robert Moldenhauer <rmolde...@doit.wisc.edu> skribis:
> > > No, it is more a question of using the tools you have rather than
> > > inventing new ones. More like "you have a house, it's basement leaks,
> > > do you build a new house with an unproven basement of do you try to
> > > seal the basement of the house you have?"
> > But it's in any case not a question of building a new house. The
> > house was built a while ago. Sure, it's not a skyscraper; it's
> > more of a maisonette. But a maisonette in a beautiful setting
> > with lots of space around it on which a whole new town could be
> > built.
> That's just it, there isn't room for a South African rondaval or a
> Arab hammam, or a Japanese teahouse. It's a house built in European
> style in a European neighbourhood, and non-Europeans are welcome so
> long as they build their houses in the same Eurostyle.
I disagree. There's lots of room for those. Of course,
all would have to use 230 V at 50 Hz, and would be expected
to be connected to a Eurostyle sewage system. But they could,
within reason, choose their type of access road, heating
provision, and of course their style of house.
Not perfect, but far preferable to having everybody living
in Anglostyle brick houses with leaky basements...
Mark
======================================================================
Thomas Tzscahu
In article <4u8eu6$e...@tofu.alt.net>, rmolde...@doit.wisc.edu
says...
>It slices it dices, it does the dishes! Esperanto makes us all Gods
>and masters of the universe! Get a grip, Esperanto is a European
>language, it carries with it the baggage all other EUropean languages
>carry. It completely ignores the languages of Africa, Asia (with the
>exception of Russian), and the native languages of the Americas and
>Oceania!
So what, we brought God to the bloody savages, we might as well bring
them a language too.
>There's zip Hawaiian, no Zulu, not a work of Mandarin. THe sentence
>structure is based on Western Europena languages. It's overly
>complicated with verb conjugations and all sorts of suffixes.
>
Give me a break, who the hell care about Zulu? Esperanto has all the
important languages covered, Russian, German, French and English.
There aren't any more real languages than those.
>Maybe, just maybe Esperanto helps East Europeans a little, but that's
>it.
We must be missionaries for Esperanto, spreading it amongst the
unwashed savages!
S.W.
Den Wed, 07 Aug 96 01:18:37 PDT skrev sebastiano hartviga
<har...@berlin.snafu.de> :
=>
=><rmolde...@doit.wisc.edu> tippste unter anderem/tajpis interalie:
=>
=>> >But it's in any case not a question of building a new house. The
=>> >house was built a while ago. Sure, it's not a skyscraper; it's
=>> >more of a maisonette. But a maisonette in a beautiful setting
=>> >with lots of space around it on which a whole new town could be
=>> >built.
=>>
=>> That's just it, there isn't room for a South African rondaval or a
=>> Arab hammam, or a Japanese teahouse. It's a house built in European
=>> style in a European neighbourhood, and non-Europeans are welcome so
=>> long as they build their houses in the same Eurostyle.
=>
=>warum bloß, warum? warum wissen nichtesperantisten immer besser über esperanto
=>bescheid als esperantisten? wahrscheinlich deshalb, weil sie sich nicht mit
=>den schnöden tatsachen herumschlagen müssen, die ihnen ins gesicht spieen!
Einige Leute reden über Esperanto als eine internationale Sprache die alle
andere Sprachen ersetzen kann. Aber wie viele Esperantisten gibt es
eigentlich? Wie viele leute sprechen heute Esperanto? Und geben Sie uns
bitte, wenn möglich, die Anzahl von Esperantisten in Europa, Africa, Nord-
und Süd-Amerika usw.
Robin E. Baylor
In article <4u9j3q$3...@newsgate.dircon.co.uk>, rik...@dircon.co.uk (Robert
Smith) wrote:
> No one is going to design an IAL for the simple fact that for most
> people one exisits already. It's English. I don't say this in any
> nationalistic way, it's simply a fact of life. I would hate to see the
> day when everybody used it as their first languauge but across much of
> the world it is the de facto IAL.
Beg pardon, Robert, but you sound an awful lot like a newspaper
article I read recently. I live near San Francisco, California,
and there are people of all different origins here. The local
newspaper did a story on different people perception of race
and race relations/ race politics. The fellow who said, "I've
never perceived a problem" was, of course, a rich white executive.
Later in the same article he mentioned a 'mentor' who helped
him become more successful, and never seemed to connect the
fact that he'd needed help with the idea that maybe minority
executive candidates aren't offered mentors.
You and I are both native English speakers (OK, I speak American)
in prosperous countries. To claim from our 'privileged' position that
there is no language problem is just not credible. If some poor
shmuck in a 3rd world country is being hurt economically because
he does't speak "English, the REAL international language"
and don't have the time to learn it, he's not doing it
IN English.
--
Newlywed Warning: If you can't stand radiated happiness, stand back.
Robin
D Gary Grady
jo...@jytko.jyu.fi (Jorma Kypp|) wrote:
>2. I personally am against lingua franca in EU and support
> multilingualism, which is the basis of multicultularism,
> which is the basis of different kind of thinking, different
> ideas, the richness of humanity.
No one -- at least no one I've ever met -- advocates doing away with
the languages of Europe and replacing them with a single language. The
idea is that since it's impractical for everyone to learn everyone
else's language, it's useful to have an agreed-up SECOND language for
international use. Currently the effective choice is English, but many
students never master English.
An argument for an easier international language is that it would
require less effort to master. That not only means more people could
master it; it would mean that those who do master it would not have to
immerse themselves so thoroughly in the auxiliary language and its
culture. One hope is that this would make it less likely for the
auxiliary language to drive out the lesser languages and cultures, as
English has largely done in Ireland, Wales, and Scotland.
> *If* there must be lingua franca, I support English, because
> of same reason, that somebody (Gadzik?) already pointed:
> it is already widely used all over the world and it is common
> language in North America.
For the record, in my experience, English is less useful in Mexico
City (part of North America) than in any major city I've visited in
Europe.
> I don't understand *why* we should create one more super state,
> that has *again* new language, that *separates* it from the
> other world.
I don't think anyone is advocating that either.
>This reminds me about one thing. If we want only some kind of code
>to communicate in business, etc.., there's already an international
>language, that is actually quite rich. I mean the language used
>by people, who can't hear!
Unfortunately, there's no single established international sign
language, nor do most sign languages have a written form.
>The language we use has different kind of effects on our thinking
>and different kind of languages might lead to different kind
>of thinking, different kind of ideas.
>I don't know if such artificial languages like Esperanto has ever
>been surveyed from this viewpoint. How that language supports
>our "deep" thinking, how it corresponds with our brains.
I'm very dubious of the notion that language much influences our
thought, but for what it's worth, Swiss psychologist Claude Piron has
argued that Esperanto corresponds very closely with the brain's
"natural" language pathways. Esperanto is not really very artificial;
it is based on living languages. The fact that people find it fairly
easy to learn suggests that it isn't so radically odd.
Christopher ZERVIC
Robert Moldenhauer wrote:
> Yes, but how do you achieve true neutrality? A language has to be
> Espernato on Russian and Romance Laguages. Are any
> of these languages really nuetral? They are all European langugaes.
No on has yet disputed the fact that Esperanto is easy to learn,
which was really the aim of its designer. Esperanto is much easier to
learn as a second language than national languages, so it doesn't
matter what it's based on, or whose definition of 'nuetrality' [sic]
you use.
> Not to mention the Saphir-Worf hypothesis...
Not many people do these days.
--
+------------------------------------+-------------------+
| Christopher Matthew Anthony ZERVIC | E S P E R A N T O |
| http://ally.ios.com/~zervic19 | lingvo internacia |
+------------------------------------+-------------------+
D Gary Grady
rmolde...@doit.wisc.edu (Robert Moldenhauer) wrote:
>It slices it dices, it does the dishes! Esperanto makes us all Gods
>and masters of the universe! Get a grip, Esperanto is a European
>language, it carries with it the baggage all other EUropean languages
>carry. It completely ignores the languages of Africa, Asia (with the
>exception of Russian), and the native languages of the Americas and
>Oceania!
This subject has been beat to death in this group before. The problem
is that it's very hard to create a vocabulary that represents
everybody because of the very different ways in which vocabularies are
structured. (Languages are not just codes for one another with neat
correspondences between words.) One could alternatively resort to a
purely a prior vocabulary but that loses the advantages of building on
an existing language tradition. On the other hand, either approach
would produce a more linguistically neutral language. The question is
whether lingustic neutrality -- being equally hard for everyone -- is
really an overriding criterion.
Basing a language on Germanic and Romance sources (the most widely
used and studied languages in the world, it's worth noting) is not a
perfect solution either, to be sure, but my point is that there is no
perfect solution.
>Maybe, just maybe Esperanto helps East Europeans a little, but that's
>it.
Helps in what way?
Esperanto has a fair number of speakers in East Asia who presumably
feel that it's worth the effort to learn and use it.
D Gary Grady
tzs...@uwashington.edu (Thomas Tzscahu) wrote:
>We must be missionaries for Esperanto, spreading it amongst the
>unwashed savages!
In other words, if you don't have any material objection to Esperanto,
let's make up some loony thing we can pretend Esperantists believe...
Uzulo
>>
I think if one were building an international auxillary language
one would need to allow for letter pairs that are the same to many
people. For example, Arabic has no "v", foriegn words with "v" in
them are usually represented with an "f." Now if an auxillary
language has both "f" and "v" and depends on those for word meanings
the language would be extremely difficult for Arabic speakers.
Another bad combination is "r" and "l," in both Korean and
Japanese these represent the same sound, having critical meaning
based on the letters "r" or "l" would be bad for native speakers of
those languages.
<<
Seems like someone has proposed a simple solution for this
problem: selecting e.g. the Hawaiian language (having a very
restricted number of consonants) as the international one ...
Somehow nobody liked it too much.
>>
Another thing that an IAL should avoid is verb conjugation, most
people in the world do no conjugate verbs, or if they do, they do it
selectively.
<<
Esperanto has such a feature already, as well as (I believe)
Glosa, Ido, Lojban etc.
--
Uzulo <ty...@cile.msk.su>
Uzulo
Hans Kamp (hans...@introweb.nl) :
>>
The English grammar is not easy, compare:
Singular Plural
English A dog is a faithful animal Dogs are faithful animals
Esperanto Hundo estas fidela besto Hundoj estas fidelaj bestoj
For making a sentence plural, there are 5 changes needed in
English, whereas only 3 in Esperanto.
<<
::::
As opposed to *NO* changes required in Chinese (well, in the 3
dialects that I speak plus Mandarin anyway). But I'm not sure what
that proves....
::::
Not only in Chinese, then. It's true for Japanese, as well as for
some other languages ...
::::
I don't believe that an "international" language is necessary.
Anyway, I don't believe that anyone has the right to proclaim this
that or the other as the "international" language.
::::
It's your right, to believe or not. BTW, nobody proclaimed Eo THE
[1 & only 1] international L. It is AN international L, whether one
wishes it or not; i.e., its primary goal was to facilitate
international communication, regardless of whether it is official or
not.
--
Uzulo <ty...@cile.msk.su>
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}
>>>>> "D" == D Gary Grady <dg...@nando.net> writes:
D> I'm very dubious of the notion that language much influences
D> our thought, but for what it's worth, Swiss psychologist Claude
D> Piron has argued that Esperanto corresponds very closely with
D> the brain's "natural" language pathways. Esperanto is not
D> really very artificial; it is based on living languages. The
I don't agree with you on this. To me, the case system,
noun-adjective agreement and the tense system of Esperanto are
*unnatural*. I don't do thinking that way! I cannot see how more
natural it is when compared to any other natural languages.
D> fact that people find it fairly easy to learn suggests that it
D> isn't so radically odd.
The ease is mainly contributed by the lack of irregularities and the
agglutinative morphology of Esperanto. Another fact is that the
Esperanto grammar resembles that of Indo-European languages well.
It's logic is also close to the European culture. So, native speakers
(and many second-language speakers) of IE languages find it easy.
Is Esperanto really easy for Asians or Africans? I suspect. Will
Esperanto develop irregularities as it evolves (perhaps because of
euphemism)? Who knows?
--
Lee Sau Dan
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
URL: http://www.cs.hku.hk/~sdlee
e-mail: sd...@cs.hku.hk
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}
>>>>> "Thomas" == Thomas Tzscahu <tzs...@uwashington.edu> writes:
Thomas> Give me a break, who the hell care about Zulu? Esperanto
Thomas> has all the important languages covered, Russian, German,
Thomas> French and English. There aren't any more real languages
Thomas> than those.
Do *ALL* the important languages just include the above four? I would
like to have you explain what your OWN *definition* of "importance"
is! If you think "Europe" is more "important" than another other
continents, then yes, you're right and I won't argue with you. But...
Don't forget that the language that has the greatest speaking
population is Chinese! Hindi-Urdu has also got a lot of speakers.
Arabic is also important, or else it wouldn't be an official language
of the UN. Don't you think that Chinese, Hindi-Urdu and Arabic are
important? Aren't these languages as important as those you have
mentioned? Don't forget that there are more languages outside Europe
than inside Europe.
Jan Armann
rmolde...@doit.wisc.edu (Robert Moldenhauer) wrote:
> I'm learning Glosa as an experiment in
>"constructed languages," so that I can get a better feel of those
>languages.
Vole ben visitar un homepage pro Interlingua a
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Paolo_Castellina/
Vos pote trovar plure interessante paginas. Un continuente information
pro linguas Nordic existe in
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JanArmann
Benvenite!
Jan Armann
Roman Kanala
Gentlemen,
This thread (Re: Concerning the number of esperantists) has been
spread into a considerable number of newsgroups:
talk.politics.european-union,
bit.listserv.slovak-l,
soc.culture.europe,
soc.culture.nordic,
soc.culture.german,
soc.culture.esperanto,
sci.lang
It originated from a question
>> The "Universala Esperanto-Asocio" (UEA), the world Esperanto
>> Association, founded in 1908, consists of
>> (a) individual members (like me),
>> (b) national associations (like mine, Dana Esperanto-Asocio; in some
>> countries there are also regional associations), and
>> (c) the so-called "delegitoj" (delegates).
>[deleted]
>> 16 countries have "delegitoj" but no association:
>> Azerbaidjan, Bolivia, Belize, Algeria, Guatemala, Haiti, Iran,
>> Kenya, Sri Lanka, New Caledonia, Reunion, San Marino, Tajikistan,
>> Tunisia, Vanuatu and - Slovakia!!
> ^^
>
> Why "!!"?
This question being now replaced by discussions of other issues,
like which language is better, esperanto or interlingua, etc.,
I think the matter has no more a relevance to the matter discussed
in Slovak-L, a newsgroup devoted to discussions of Slovak issues.
For people interested in observing and studying interesting ways
of thinking, this newsgroup offers a number of opportunities to
observe links between occurence of syndroms of mental diseases and
specimen with pronounced nationalist exaltation. For other people,
discussions about the Slovak fascism may be rather boring.
In case someone is willing to come and see: Slovak-L can be read
as newsgroup bit.listserv.slovak-l or as a mailing list to which
it's possible to subscribe by sending a message "subscribe Slovak-L
First_name Family_name" to the list...@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu with
empty subject line.
I propose to drop the Slovak-L newsgroup from the distribution list
for the subsequent followups. Apologies for the crossposting (once
more).
Roman Kanala
(For reference, Mr. Gazdik is an extremely interesting specimen. The way
of thinking can be deduced from the above.)
Robert Moldenhauer
article <3208c113...@news.nando.net>, dg...@nando.net says...
>
>This subject has been beat to death in this group before. The
problem
>is that it's very hard to create a vocabulary that represents
>everybody because of the very different ways in which vocabularies
are
>structured. (Languages are not just codes for one another with neat
>correspondences between words.) One could alternatively resort to a
>purely a prior vocabulary but that loses the advantages of building
on
>an existing language tradition. On the other hand, either approach
>would produce a more linguistically neutral language. The question
is
>whether lingustic neutrality -- being equally hard for everyone --
is
>really an overriding criterion.
But is Esperanto's solution of being hard for some and easy for
others
an equally undesirable situation? Yes, the European Languages on
which it is based are heavy studied, but the point is you are just
exchanging one European vocabulary for another. There is no real
gain.
It would be possible to take English (one in five people speak some
English) mix it with Madarin (again one in five), throw in some
Arabic
and have a language where half the world would recognise pieces of
the
vocabulary.
>
>Basing a language on Germanic and Romance sources (the most widely
>used and studied languages in the world, it's worth noting) is not a
>perfect solution either, to be sure, but my point is that there is
no
>perfect solution.
>
The thing Esperanto does have going for it is a strong set of
Missionaries, sort of the Hari Krisnas of the language crowd.
Metaphoricaly handing out flowers at the airports of communication.
>>Maybe, just maybe Esperanto helps East Europeans a little, but
that's
>>it.
>
>Helps in what way?
>
Perhaps not at all, who knows?
>Esperanto has a fair number of speakers in East Asia who presumably
>feel that it's worth the effort to learn and use it.
I know a lot of people that speak Klingon too, it's a hobby, what
people do with their free time is up to them. You know that's a
thought, if you want to get more Esperanto speakers may you need a
character from Esperanto to be on Star Trek. Maybe Wesley Crusher
;-)
Marko RAUHAMAA
>>>>> "Lee" == Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~} <sd...@cs.hku.hk> writes:
Lee> I don't agree with you on this. To me, the case system,
Lee> noun-adjective agreement and the tense system of Esperanto are
Lee> *unnatural*. I don't do thinking that way! I cannot see how more
Lee> natural it is when compared to any other natural languages.
Despite being an Esperantist, I don't consider those features of the
language particularly natural. It's just an arbitrary choice adopted
from some Indo-European languages. The same mechanisms are in use also
in Uralic languages and at least Japanese, I've heard. There are other
solutions used by other languages, but they are no more "natural" or any
easier to learn. (In fact, the word order rules of Chinese, English or
Swedish must be very difficult to formulate compared with the simple
accusative case.)
Remember, however, that many European Indo-European languages are moving
away from the case system, noun-adjective agreement and the mode/tense
system is being simplified. Therefore I'd say Esperanto is in many
respects closer to Finnish than French, English or Swedish.
Lee> The ease is mainly contributed by the lack of irregularities and
Lee> the agglutinative morphology of Esperanto. Another fact is that the
Lee> Esperanto grammar resembles that of Indo-European languages well.
Lee> It's logic is also close to the European culture. So, native
Lee> speakers (and many second-language speakers) of IE languages find
Lee> it easy.
I think your latter point, Esperanto being European, is closer to the
point than the argument that it is Indo-European. Farsi and Hindi are
Indo-European but they are probably (I don't know at all) remote from
the European language tradition. Finnish, on the other hand, has been
under constant influence of Baltic, Germanic and Slavic languages and
culture so it has adopted sentence structures and even verb tenses and
the adjective-noun agreement from Indo-European languages. A great
source of influence in most European languages must be the Bible whose
translation often set the standard of literary language (Latin, Greek
and Hebrew influence).
Lee> Is Esperanto really easy for Asians or Africans? I suspect. Will
Lee> Esperanto develop irregularities as it evolves (perhaps because of
Lee> euphemism)? Who knows?
If you speak of the grammar, I guess the speakers of English and Chinese
are among those for whom Esperanto is hardest. I don't think the basic
grammar (tenses, cases) is the problem. But sentence structure is a
different matter. As a speaker of Finnish, I don't see much difference
between the language use of Swedish, German and Russian Esperantists and
that of my own. However, I constantly see very different use of language
among the Chinese and Japanese Esperantists.
I'm actually not sure if Esperanto grammar standardizes the sentence
structure. One could say that until now the Esperantist community has
been dominated by Europeans so the most common sentence structures in
use have a European bias. However, the Japanese could favor the Japanese
word-order and use of relative clauses in Esperanto and not break any
grammar rule.
BTW, there _are_ irregularities in Esperanto, most of which originated
during the very first years of Esperanto and were introduced by the
creator of the language. For example, the verb "aldoni" literally means
"to give to" but has been given another meaning "to add", and "eldoni"
should means "to give out" but since the beginning has meant "to
publish". There are quite a bunch of other similar examples. They are
simply literal translations of similar peculiar expressions of Latin,
German and Russian. Even though many of those words are still in
constant use (in the lack of better synonyms), their number is not
growing -- I would say it's slowly diminishing.
Marko
Igor GAZDIK
#In article <4tvrf4$3...@sjx-ixn3.ix.netcom.com>, sjz...@ix.netcom.co
#says...
#>
#>What are some of the specific ways in which the grammar of Interlingua
#>is many times simpler than the grammar of Esperanto?
#>
the interlingua grammar can be learned in 30 minutes.
the esperanto grammar: maybe in 3 years, or so...
Manuel M Campagna
In Article 30962 rmolde...@doit.wisc.edu (Robert Moldenhauer) typed
recently :
<<
I think if one were building an international auxillary language one
would need to allow for letter pairs that are the same to many
people.
For example, Arabic has no "v", foriegn words with "v" in them are
usually represented with an "f." Now if an auxillary language has
both "f" and "v" and depends on those for word meanings the language
would be extremely difficult for Arabic speakers.
Another bad combination is "r" and "l," in both Korean and Japanese
these represent the same sound, having critical meaning based on the
letters "r" or "l" would be bad for native speakers of those
languages.
>>
IMHO it is reasonable to expect that in all fairness the same criteria
will be used for any candidate for international language.
The criterion you mention excludes any European language from the
position.
Manuel
.
Manuel-M. CAMPAGNA . . . . 1 613 789 21 11
survey interviewer . . Ottawa ON Canada
translator (En/It/Eo -> Fr) . . ah...@freenet.carleton.ca
Uzulo
>>
Esperanto is for communication between people from wherever they
may come.
<<
::
Get a grip, Esperanto is a European language, it carries with it
the baggage all other EUropean languages carry. It completely
ignores the languages of Africa, Asia [...], the Americas and
Oceania !
[...]
::
Yes. So what ? EVERY [natural] language of the world comes from
SOMEwhere ... and [sometimes completely] ignores the language(s) of
ELSEwhere ! :)
BTW, what is that baggage 'ALL OTHER European languages carry' ?
There are many of them ! ;)
An attempt to make an IAL like ALL the languages of this planet
(so that nobody gets offended) would no doubt result in a monstrous
mixture which nobody will be able to understand properly.
The so called "autonomous" IALs (i.e., whose vocabulary is formed
artificially, with little or no resemblance to the existing ones,
like Lojban) are no doubt all right; but somehow their popularity
cannot be compared with that of Eo. Maybe because TOO professional
linguists (who sometimes forgot that their construction is to be
used as a _language_, not just a _language model_) constructed them?
>> THe sentence structure is based on Western European languages.
The sentence structure is to be based on SOMETHING. BTW, the base
sentence structure in e.g. Mandarin (Subj - Pred - Obj) resembles
that of English, German, French, Italian, Russian and many others
very much, so why not use it.
>>
It's overly complicated with verb conjugations and all sorts of
suffixes.
<<
Are 3 (three) basic tenses, 1 Conditional, 1 Imperative (=5) TOO
many ?
As for the suffixes, they aren't that many. And they give Eo the
flexibility and power which is no doubt one of the reasons of its
popularity.
What would YOU propose, instead of all this ?
>>
Maybe, just maybe Esperanto helps East Europeans a little, but
that's it.
<<
A _very_ bold assumption. Strange enough, Eo really DOES help.
4X., I'm an East European. I contacted persons from Denmark,
Norwegia, Sweden, Netherlands, USA, China, Japan, Poland, New
Zealand, UK, France ... in Esperanto !
And the last (but not the least rational) consideration. IMHO, it
would be wise of yet unexperienced IAL-creators, before creating
something really smashing, to learn PRACTICALLY at least 2 foreign
languages, - just to understand that there are things MORE important
than, say, considering whether the IAL has not enough roots from
{Swahili, Turkish, Yukagir, [any other language]...}, a grammar not
enough clear for those who speak {Tatar, Hausa, Hawaiian, Yukagir,
[any other language]...}, etc.
Seems like Zamenhof understood it very well a 100 years ago.
--
Uzulo <ty...@cile.msk.su>
Marc Bonnaud
Robert Moldenhauer wrote:
> It would be possible to take English (one in five people speak some
>
> English)
Are there only 3 billion (I mean the U.S. billion not the British one)
people on planet Earth ?
--
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Marc Bonnaud - courrier : mbon...@francenet.fr ;
page frontispice sur la Toile : http://PersoWeb.francenet.fr/~mbonnaud/
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
John Fisher
In article <4u9nfd$c...@mordred.cc.jyu.fi>, Jorma Kypp|
<jo...@jytko.jyu.fi> writes
>
>I've seen 2 different aims in this thread.
>1. what is the best international language?
>2. what could be the best possible "lingua franca" for EU?
Can I do something which may seem a bir rude? It isn't intended to be.
Jorma is using a foreign language, and he's obviously good at it, good
enough to post confidently on an international newsgroup.
All the same, he isn't using the language as a native speaker would, and
that's important for several reasons. Let's have alook at what he says.
>
>Sort answers:
I don't know what this means. `Sort' is not an adjective. Perhaps he's
thinking of `sort of', and he means `partial, tentative and approximate
answers'. But that isn't what he says.
>1. this question is endless and seems to lead to never-ending
> discussion mixed by personal ambitions depending what is
> the person's native language or what artificial language
> he/she has already started to study.
Probably that should be `mixed with'; that would mean that the ambitions
are combined with the discussion. `Mixed by' implies that the ambitions
are mixing the discussion. That might be what he means, but if so, the
idea is odd enough to require making more forcefully. `Depending what
is the person's native language' - should be `depending on'. But that
part of the sentence is really odd in English, and it's not clear
*exactly* what it means. You can get a vague idea, but which of these
is it?
- The persons all have different ambitions, and the ambition each
person has depends on their native language
- The extent of each person's ambition depends on their native language
- The way in which the ambitions are mixed into the discussion depends
on each person's native language...
In addition, this is an unusual use of the word `ambition' and as a
result I'm not sure that I understand precisely what he means.
>2. I personally am against lingua franca in EU and support
> multilingualism, which is the basis of multicultularism,
> which is the basis of different kind of thinking, different
> ideas, the richness of humanity.
It feels strange to put an adverb between `I' and `am'. Not wrong, just
peculiar. `Lingua franca' here requires an `a' before it, and `EU'
generally has a `the'. `Against the idea of a lingua franca' is better.
This bit is confusing again: `which is the basis of different kind of
thinking'. I think he means one of these:
- which is the basis of a different kind of thinking from the single-
culture kind of thinking implied by the idea of a lingua franca
- which is the basis of a general diversity of thinking
I won't go on, but I want to make two points.
The first is that English is not as easy as people make out. It's easy
to use it fairly well, but extremely hard to use it very well. If you
have to use it to express complex and abstract ideas, then, unless you
can use it very well, your discourse loses precision and ambiguities
arise.
The second point follows from the first. There are now hundreds of
millions of non-native speakers of English using the language. Many use
it excellently, but many, many more do not. They are adapting English
to their needs, removing its subtleties and overcoming their lack of
precision in its use by endless, mind-numbing prolixity. They are deaf
to its rhythms and blind to its structures; they deliver their
utterances in a flat monotone, devoid of intonation, and in an accent
placed vaguely in the middle of the Atlantic.
When people talk of English as a lingua franca, this is the language
they are talking about. They want to steal the language I use for
making love, telling jokes and writing poetry and turn it into a jargon
for constructing inter-office memos for semi-literate bureaucrats. Over
my dead body.
Mind you, I wish I could write Finnish one tenth as well as Jorma writes
English...
--John
--
John Fisher jo...@drummond.demon.co.uk jo...@epcc.ed.ac.uk
Drummond is an independent site; its opinions are my own
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}
>>>>> "Marko" == Marko RAUHAMAA <ma...@centcon.com> writes:
Marko> If you speak of the grammar, I guess the speakers of
Marko> English and Chinese are among those for whom Esperanto is
Marko> hardest.
Unfortunately, English and (Mandarin) Chinese has now got the greatest
number of speakers in this world! How many Esperanto speakers are
there? I bet that it's even fewer than Cantonese Chinese.
Marko> BTW, there _are_ irregularities in Esperanto, most of which
Marko> originated during the very first years of Esperanto and
Marko> were introduced by the creator of the language. For
Marko> example, the verb "aldoni" literally means "to give to" but
Marko> has been given another meaning "to add", and "eldoni"
Marko> should means "to give out" but since the beginning has
Marko> meant "to publish". There are quite a bunch of other
Marko> similar examples. They are simply literal translations of
Marko> similar peculiar expressions of Latin, German and
Marko> Russian. Even though many of those words are still in
Marko> constant use (in the lack of better synonyms), their number
Marko> is not growing -- I would say it's slowly diminishing.
One more irregularity (or abnormalie or whatever): The conjunctive
"dum" has two different, independent, unrelated uses. Both are
translated by the English word "while". However, one of the uses
shows chronological relationship between two clauses (as in "The phone
rang *while* I was having a bath"), *while* the other use just shows
contrast (as in this sentence).
Another irregularity is the use of "hospitalo" instead of the more
logical "malsanulejo". Expect more irregularities of this type to
evolve.
The agglutinative morphology is also ambiguous. This is because it is
not trivial to separate a compound word into the component morphemes.
Should "pomarbaro" be decomposed as "po-mar-bar-o" or "pomar-bar-o" or
or "pom-arb-ar-o"? Even if I have a dictionary on hand, I would have
problems decomposing and looking up this word, if I don't know this
word beforehand.
sebastiano hartviga
S.Wendel tajpis interalie:
> Den Wed, 07 Aug 96 01:18:37 PDT skrev sebastiano hartviga
^^^ ^^^^^
Vilket språk är det? Kanske svenska?
> Einige Leute reden über Esperanto als eine internationale Sprache die alle
Einige Leute sprechen Esperanto als eine internationale Sprache.
> andere Sprachen ersetzen kann. Aber wie viele Esperantisten gibt es
> eigentlich? Wie viele leute sprechen heute Esperanto? Und geben Sie uns
> bitte, wenn möglich, die Anzahl von Esperantisten in Europa, Africa, Nord-
> und Süd-Amerika usw.
> S.Wendel
> m-6...@mailbox.swip.net
> http://www.kuai.se/%7Ewendel/
es gibt zwei grundsätzliche konzepte:
1. esperanto ersetze alle anderen sprachen auf offizieller ebene. es helfe so
eine unmittelbare verständigung zwischen menschen aus aller welt herzustellen.
2. esperanto sei eine zusätzliche sprache, die aber andere sprachen nicht
verdrängen solle. allgemein ist mensch der meinung (z.b. vigdís
finnbogadóttir), daß esperanto so zum schutze insbesondere der kleinen
sprachen beitragen könne, da es nicht so aggresiv in andere sprachen eindringe
wie z.b. englisch.
die erste meinung ist unter esperantisten heute sehr in der minderheit. die
überwiegende mehrheit stimmt wohl eher der zweiten zu.
wie viele radfahrer gibt es; wie viele klavierspieler gibt es; wie viele
journalisten gibt es; wie viele esperantisten gibt es?
ich weiß es nicht. wie sollte mensch das genau herausfinden? ab welchem grad
der sprachbeherrschung ist mensch esperantist?
dennoch gibt es schätzungen. die reichen allerdings von einigen
hunderttausenden bis zu über 20 millionen. vielleicht liegt mensch mit 3
millionen nicht ganz daneben?
vor zwei wochen fand in prag der universala kongreso statt. er ist das größte
regelmäßige treffen von esperantisten. an ihm haben ungefähr 3000
esperantisten teilgenommen.
die weitaus meisten esperantisten leben in europa. in osteuropa war esperanto
relativ stark, seit den großen veränderungen aber hat sich die zahl der
esperantisten dort verringert. in nord-amerika hat es esperanto auch nicht
leicht: wie soll man einem us-amerikaner klar machen, warum er esperanto
lernen soll, wenn er 1. der meinung ist, alle welt spreche englisch und 2. er
sowieso kaum sein land verläßt? in süd-amerika ist die stellung des esperanto
vor allem in brasilien stärker. in brasilien übertrifft sie vielleicht sogar
das europäische niveau. in asien konzentriert sich esperanto im wesentlichen
auf japan und china, in denen es sehr früh esperantisten gab, und südkorea. in
nordkorea gab es esperantisten; jetzt hört mensch nichts mehr davon. in afrika
gibt es wenige esperantisten. in den letzten jahren allerdings werden in
einigen ländern (z.b. togo) esperanto-organisationen aufgebaut, und die zahl
der esperantisten wächst zumindest in einigen ländern.
das sind keine "offiziel erstellten" und leider sehr ungenaue daten.
vielleicht geben sie aber doch einen eindruck. auch sehr nützlich ist es, sich
das jahrbuch der uea (=universala esperanto-asocio) anzusehen, in denen die
mitglieder nach ländern geordnet aufgeführt sind, oder den pasporta servo. der
pasporta servo ist eine liste von esperanto-sprechern in der ganzen welt, die
reisende esperantisten bei sich für einige zeit aufzunehmen bereit sind. aus
beiden adreßbüchern kann man zumindest ersehen, in welchen ländern
verhältnismäßig viele oder wenige esperantisten sind.
sebastiano
___________________
menefe bal püki bal
sebastiano hartviga
In Article<7fd912o...@wisdom.cs.hku.hk>, <sd...@cs.hku.hk> write:
> I don't agree with you on this. To me, the case system,
> noun-adjective agreement and the tense system of Esperanto are
> *unnatural*. I don't do thinking that way! I cannot see how more
> natural it is when compared to any other natural languages.
> Lee Sau Dan
of course it is not *more* natural.
esperanto is an agglunative language with certain isolating features.
esperanto estas aglutina lingvo kun kelkaj isolaj trajtoj.
"konjugacio":
mi amis
mi amas
mi amos
kelkiuj nomas tion "konjugacio". fakte tio ne estas tute ghusta. same
gramatike ghuste eblas:
some name that "tense system". in fact this is not quite right. but it is
possible to say:
mi ami is (kompreneble la vortordo estas libera: mi is ami; is mi ami , ...)
mi ami as
mi ami os
"flekcio":
singularo pluralo
nom. sako sakoj
ak. sakon sakojn
kelkiuj nomas tion "flekcio". fakte tio ne estas tute ghusta. same gramatike
ghuste eblas:
some name that "case system". in fact this is not quite right. but it is
possible to say:
singularo pluralo
nom. sako ja sako
ak. na sako na ja sako
kompreneble la vortordo ne estas tute libera: la nominativa kaj la akuzativa
partoj de la frazo devas esti distingeblaj.
"akordo inter substantivo kaj adjektivo"
se oni montras la akuzativecon per la adjektivo "na" kaj la pluralecon per la
adjektivo "ja", lauforme ne plu ekzistas tiu fenomeno, kiun vi nomas "akordo
inter s-vo kaj a-vo.":
if the accusative is expressed by the adjective "na" and the plural by the
adjective "ja", the phenomenon you name "noun-adjective agreement" do not
exist any more:
mi kolektas multajn florojn.
mi kolektas na ja multa floro.
M.G. Rison
[Nur al s.c.e.]
En la artikolo <7f7mr99...@wisdom.cs.hku.hk>,
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~} <sd...@cs.hku.hk> skribis:
> One more irregularity (or abnormalie or whatever): The conjunctive
> "dum" has two different, independent, unrelated uses. Both are
> translated by the English word "while". However, one of the uses
> shows chronological relationship between two clauses (as in "The phone
> rang *while* I was having a bath"), *while* the other use just shows
> contrast (as in this sentence).
Atentu! Anta^u ne tro longe mi mem plendis pri tio ^ci tie,
kaj proponis, ke oni uzu `dum' por la unua kaj `dum ke' por la
dua, kaj la lingvaj fundamentistoj tute ne ^satis!
[Alia fu^so estas `anta^u ol *i' kaj `anta^u *is'/`post kiam *is'.
Mi mem klopodas diri simple `anta^u *i' kaj `anta^u/post ke *is'.]
> Another irregularity is the use of "hospitalo" instead of the more
> logical "malsanulejo". Expect more irregularities of this type to
> evolve.
Ta^ugaj homoj kompreneble plu uzas `malsanulejo'!
> The agglutinative morphology is also ambiguous. This is because it is
> not trivial to separate a compound word into the component morphemes.
> Should "pomarbaro" be decomposed as "po-mar-bar-o" or "pomar-bar-o" or
> or "pom-arb-ar-o"? Even if I have a dictionary on hand, I would have
> problems decomposing and looking up this word, if I don't know this
> word beforehand.
^Cu tiu problemo vere ofte okazas al vi? Ja de tempo al tempo
mi stumblas ^ce iu vorto, sed ne okazas ofte.
Boris Rajek
Igor GAZDIK (igor....@mailbox.swipnet.se) wrote:
: #In article <4tvrf4$3...@sjx-ixn3.ix.netcom.com>, sjz...@ix.netcom.co
: #says...
: #>
He, he!! :-) :-)
When I started with Esperanto, (1962?) it took me
approx. 3 hours (one evening) to get familiar
with the Esperanto grammar.
That is not to say that the next morning I remembered
everything.
However, in approx. one week (joining the Esperanto
club in Bratislava), the grammar was not problem
at all any more.
On the other hand, it is only my experience, and,
I guess, of another 80%+ of beginner students
of Esperanto. (If they want to learn).
I admit, however, that in your specific case,
the estimate of 3 years seems reasonable. :-)
Boris
ra...@netcom.com
Sylvan Joel Zaft
In <4ud87j$3...@mn5.swip.net> igor....@mailbox.swipnet.se (Igor
GAZDIK) writes:
>
>#In article <4tvrf4$3...@sjx-ixn3.ix.netcom.com>, sjz...@ix.netcom.co
>#says...
>#>
>
>#>What are some of the specific ways in which the grammar of
Interlingua
>#>is many times simpler than the grammar of Esperanto?
>#>
>
> the interlingua grammar can be learned in 30 minutes.
> the esperanto grammar: maybe in 3 years, or so...
>
(a) This does not answer the question.
(b) The comment about learning the grammar of Esperanto in three years
or so is ridiculously incorrect. My own experience is that after three
months of self-study I was able to use the language in international
correspondence saying anything I could have said in English, my native
language.
More recently a multilingual student of mine, a teacher and translator
of his native Spanish, studied Esperanto for 50 hours and was able to
effectively communicate in the ELNA-Congress (the U.S. annual
get-together of Esperantists). He did not speak rapidly but he was able
to communicate effectively, and his experience during two days at this
congress made him considerably more fluent. He has studied many
languages including Italian and French and German and Latin and was
amazed at how quickly he progressed in Esperanto.
I was asking for *specific* features of Interlingua, a language which I
have not studied, which make it easier than Esperanto. I asked
politely. I suspect there are some features but so far nobody has
listed any.
Sylvan Zaft
Farmington, Michigan
USA
7106...@compuserve.com
Lee Sau Dan: "Unfortunately, English and (Mandarin) Chinese now have "
the largest numbers of speakers in the world.
Why is it unfortunate? It's just a fact, which may continue to be the
case, and may not.
Incidentally, the best figure we have for the number of
Esperanto-speakers in the world is 1.6 million, based on field research
by Dr. Sidney Culbert of the University of Washington. This is
number of speakers at a certain level of competence, I believe
Level 3 in the scheme the U.S. State Dept. uses. There are
certainly lots more who have some smattering of the language,
but including them would be rather like basing an estimate of the
number of English speakers on a count of people who can say "O.K."
and "CocaCola" (not that some estimates of the spread of English
that I've seen put forward in <sci.lang> and elsewhere don't
appear to be so based... Esperantists aren't the only ones who are
prone to let wishful thinking (or whatever it is) cloud their judgment!)
In any case, my usual reply to the question "How many people speak
Esperanto?" is "Not enough!" (If I'm feeling more mellow, it's "Enough
for it to be useful, not enough to really make use of its potential").
I cannot for the life of me see a _rational_ objection to the use of
Esperanto, or to the efforts of its enthusiasts to spread its further
use, nor to the use of Interlingua or Glosa, or some new, improved
IAL with a lexicon more representative (to whatever degree) of the
world's major language groups, as Mark Rosenfelder has suggested,
and Mr. Lee has implied would be desireable (if I read him right). On
the other hand, I do not have unlimited time to spend learning IALs,
or propagandizing for them; I would rather spend the time building
houses, playing my guitar, improving my Russian... and using
Esperanto for my own purposes, like trying to collect funds for
Spomenka Sxtimec's project to repair the houses in Petrinja
(a Croatian village about 60km south of Zagreb, trashed during the
war). Presumably, others also have their own priorities...
Mi petas pardonon pro tiom da anglalingvo, tamen la cxi-rilataj afisxoj
estis en tiu lingvo.
George Partlow..........Delegito de UEA en la alaska regurbo, Juneau (Usono)
retposxto cxe: <7106...@compuserve.com>...Pensu terglobe, agu surloke!
About ConLangs: <http://members.aol.com/langsource/langtop.htm>
D Gary Grady
sd...@cs.hku.hk (Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}) wrote:
>I don't agree with you on this. To me, the case system,
>noun-adjective agreement and the tense system of Esperanto are
>*unnatural*. I don't do thinking that way! I cannot see how more
>natural it is when compared to any other natural languages.
For the record, I was citing the opinion of Swiss psychologist Claude
Piron, not giving my own view. I don't happen to think that Esperanto
is optimally easy, and I think it would have been better with a
simpler grammar. Perhaps it will evolve in that direction.
>The ease is mainly contributed by the lack of irregularities and the
>agglutinative morphology of Esperanto. Another fact is that the
>Esperanto grammar resembles that of Indo-European languages well.
I don't disagree at all. My point was only that its learnability
demonstrates that it doesn't go entirely against the natural language
pathways of the brain as some radically artificial language might be
presumed to do (and as a previous poster suggested might be the case).
>It's logic is also close to the European culture. So, native speakers
>(and many second-language speakers) of IE languages find it easy.
Again, no disagreement, except that I don't think that it reflects so
much European culture as Western European language patterns. Speakers
of Finnish, Hungarian, and Estonian participate fully in European
culture despite the fact that those languages are not Indoeuropean.
Furthermore, speakers of Chinese have no more trouble than Europeans
distinguishing the future from the past or the difference between one
and more than one, despite the fact that Chinese makes no such
distinctions. The singular-plural distinction and the
past-present-future distinction -- to cite but two examples -- would
seem to be a matter of language, not of culture.
>Is Esperanto really easy for Asians or Africans? I suspect. Will
>Esperanto develop irregularities as it evolves (perhaps because of
>euphemism)? Who knows?
Esperanto is certainly not as easy for Asians and Africans as it is
for Western Europeans, and in particular speakers of Romance and
Germanic languages. (We should recall, however, that a very large
percentage of the world's population already speaks English, Spanish,
French, Portuguese, German, Italian, etc. either as a native language
or as a second language.) But Esperanto is (for the reasons you gave
earlier) easier than any other Western European language. (Those who
contend that Esperanto differs in many ways from Indoeuropean
languages, by being highly agglutinative, for example, may feel free
to read the foregoing as "any other language with a Romance or
Germanic vocabulary.") Of course, someone might eventually develop a
language markedly easier to learn than Esperanto while being just as
expressive, or such a language might already exist. I'm not saying
that Esperanto is perfect or optimal, merely that it's interesting,
useful, and relatively easy to learn.
Esperanto has some irregularities, but, as has been noted in other
threads, there is a tendency for these irregularities to decline, not
increase. Anything that has to be learned -- such as an irregularity
-- will tend to be forgotten. Such is the nature of human laziness...
Finally, as I feel compelled to say from time to time, I think the
momentum is definitely on the side of English. Although English has
many practical problems, it also offers many advantages. So I don't
think Esperanto is likely to dethrone English as the world's choice
for an international language. On the other hand, Esperanto remains
useful and interesting in its own right.
D Gary Grady
igor....@mailbox.swipnet.se (Igor GAZDIK) wrote:
> the interlingua grammar can be learned in 30 minutes.
Indeed? If I recall correctly, the rule for the plural in Interlingua
(to take but one element of the grammar) is to add -S to words ending
in a vowel and -ES to words ending in a consonant.
Test question: What are the plurals of the Interlingua words
"concerto" and "test"?
Answer: While "concertos" and "testes" are to some degree "acceptable
variants," the official plurals are concerti and tests, because some
plurals are imported from the source languages. This is part of making
Interlingua more naturalistic.
Actually, I don't think this is so bad, although learning all the
grammatical exceptions would certainly take a great deal longer than
30 minutes. I'm rather more bothered by other things.
For example, the stress accent is almost perfectly regular in French
and Polish, among other languages. Why can't it be regular in
Interligua (as it is in Esperanto)? And if it's going to be irregular,
why can't exceptions be marked in the orthography, as they are in
Spanish?
One can fairly quickly be taught to read Spanish, Finnish, or Estonian
texts aloud and, aside an accent, to pronounce what one reads
correctly, because the orthography is very phonetic. Surprisingly,
this is not the case with Interlingua.
Steve MacGregor
Sylvan Joel Zaft <sjz...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in article
<4ufc16$6...@sjx-ixn6.ix.netcom.com>...
> More recently a multilingual student of mine, a teacher and translator
> of his native Spanish, studied Esperanto for 50 hours and was able to
> effectively communicate in the ELNA-Congress (the U.S. annual
> get-together of Esperantists). He did not speak rapidly but he was able
> to communicate effectively, and his experience during two days at this
> congress made him considerably more fluent. He has studied many
> languages including Italian and French and German and Latin and was
> amazed at how quickly he progressed in Esperanto.
>
> I was asking for *specific* features of Interlingua, a language which I
> have not studied, which make it easier than Esperanto. I asked
> politely. I suspect there are some features but so far nobody has
> listed any.
Specifically, what should have been said is not that Interlingua verbs
are simpler than Esperanto's, but that the conjugation of them is more
familiar to some people, specifically, those who speak or have learned
Romance languages.
It has three conjugations, for verbs whose infinitives end with -AR, -ER,
or -IR. The three are nearly identical. There are two minor
irregularities: verbs in the -ER conjugation have an I inserted in the
gerund, and those in the -IR conjugation have the I replace by an E in
the participle. Some have complained that you can't look at such a
participle and know whether it's from the -ER or -IR set, but that's
irrelevant. Look up both possibilities in the dictionary. Only one
exists.
The three auxiliary verbs, esser = be, haber = have, and vader = go,
are optionally irregular. Regularly, these should have a present tense
of esse, habe, and vade, but the forms es (so, son), ha, and va may be
used instead.
The verb esser is the only one to have a true subjunctive form, sia.
It's used as an auxiliary to make subjunctive constructions of other
verbs.
To what I've just said, add the tables for conjugation, and you know
all Interlingua verbs, but I believe you could describe Esperanto verbs
even more briefly (modulo the itisto/atisto controversy).
[ Posted from <sci.lang>. You might want to trim irrelevant groups. ]
--
==----= Steve MacGregor
([.] [.]) Phoenix, AZ
--------------------------oOOo--(_)--oOOo--------------------------------
D Gary Grady
rmolde...@doit.wisc.edu (Robert Moldenhauer) wrote:
> Yes, the European Languages on
> which it is based are heavy studied, but the point is you are just
> exchanging one European vocabulary for another. There is no real
> gain.
Not so. Esperanto's vocabulary makes heavy use of compounding, so that
a very large vocabulary is based on a relatively small number of
roots. Developing a working vocabulary in Esperanto requires learning
far fewer words than are needed for French and even fewer than for
other compounding languages like German.
> The thing Esperanto does have going for it is a strong set of
> Missionaries, sort of the Hari Krisnas of the language crowd.
Ah, yes, more name calling. I congratulate you on the iron logic of
your argument...
> I know a lot of people that speak Klingon too, it's a hobby, what
> people do with their free time is up to them.
Yes, indeed, even if it drives some other people to distraction.
Robert Smith
robin....@lmco.lockheed.com (Robin E. Baylor) wrote:
>In article <4u9j3q$3...@newsgate.dircon.co.uk>, rik...@dircon.co.uk (Robert
>Smith) wrote:
>> No one is going to design an IAL for the simple fact that for most
>> people one exisits already. It's English. I don't say this in any
>> nationalistic way, it's simply a fact of life. I would hate to see the
>> day when everybody used it as their first languauge but across much of
>> the world it is the de facto IAL.
>Beg pardon, Robert, but you sound an awful lot like a newspaper
>article I read recently. I live near San Francisco, California,
>and there are people of all different origins here. The local
>newspaper did a story on different people perception of race
>and race relations/ race politics. The fellow who said, "I've
>never perceived a problem" was, of course, a rich white executive.
>Later in the same article he mentioned a 'mentor' who helped
>him become more successful, and never seemed to connect the
>fact that he'd needed help with the idea that maybe minority
>executive candidates aren't offered mentors.
>You and I are both native English speakers (OK, I speak American)
>in prosperous countries. To claim from our 'privileged' position that
>there is no language problem is just not credible. If some poor
>shmuck in a 3rd world country is being hurt economically because
>he does't speak "English, the REAL international language"
>and don't have the time to learn it, he's not doing it
>IN English.
>--
>Newlywed Warning: If you can't stand radiated happiness, stand back.
>Robin
Perhaps your radiated happiness is clouding your logic. People need
language to communicate, over most of the world the most common
language of communication between people who do not speak the same
language nor know each others language is English. This applies to
business, academia etc where people from one country need to
communicate with people from another. Most people learn a language
other than their own to help them communicate. It might not be the
most suitable language for this purpose if some peoples have
difficulty learning/speaking it, but to suggest that a common language
is designed which everyone would find easier to learn is just
dreamland. Do you actually think it would ever take off....just look
at esperanto.
Robert
Robert Smith
London, England, EU
rik...@dircon.co.uk
Cheradenine Zakalwe
In article <4ud87j$3...@mn5.swip.net>, Igor GAZDIK <igor.gazdik@mailbox.s
wipnet.se> writes
>
>#>What are some of the specific ways in which the grammar of Interlingua
>#>is many times simpler than the grammar of Esperanto?
>#>
>
>
It doesn't help your case to make silly claims like that.
--
Cheradenine Zakalwe
Cheradenine Zakalwe
In article <320AED...@francenet.fr>, Marc Bonnaud
<mbon...@francenet.fr> writes
>Robert Moldenhauer wrote:
>
>> It would be possible to take English (one in five people speak some
>>
>> English)
>
>Are there only 3 billion (I mean the U.S. billion not the British one)
>people on planet Earth ?
>
No. But at least 1.1 billion speak *some* English.
--
Cheradenine Zakalwe
Phil Hunt
In article <AAmYl...@cile.msk.su>, Uzulo <ty...@cile.msk.su> writes
>>> interlingua is the closest substitute.
>
> "Closest" in which sense ? Besides, the role of Latin as a means
> of international communication faded long ago, so IMHO today there
> is no need to substitute it by anything.
If people are looking for an IAL close to Latin, Latine sine Flexione is
better than Interlingua.
--
Phil Hunt
M.G. Rison
[Nur al s.c.e.]
En la artikolo <NEWTNews.8396180...@Phartwig.proxy.snafu.de>,
sebastiano hartviga <har...@berlin.snafu.de> skribis:
> In Article<7fd912o...@wisdom.cs.hku.hk>, <sd...@cs.hku.hk> write:
> > I don't agree with you on this. To me, the case system,
> > noun-adjective agreement and the tense system of Esperanto are
> > *unnatural*. I don't do thinking that way! I cannot see how more
> > natural it is when compared to any other natural languages.
> of course it is not *more* natural.
> esperanto is an agglunative language with certain isolating features.
> esperanto estas aglutina lingvo kun kelkaj isolaj trajtoj.
> "konjugacio":
> mi amis
> mi amas
> mi amos
[Kaj -us, -u kaj -i.]
> kelkiuj nomas tion "konjugacio". fakte tio ne estas tute ghusta. same
> gramatike ghuste eblas:
> some name that "tense system". in fact this is not quite right. but it is
> possible to say:
> mi ami is (kompreneble la vortordo estas libera: mi is ami; is mi ami , ...)
> mi ami as
> mi ami os
Mi pensas, ke tio estas tute MALBONSTILA kaj KONTRA^UFUNDAMENTA!
Serioze, tamen, kvankam mi ne estas lingva fundamentisto, mi pensas,
ke vi iom tro stre^cas la eblojn. Mi pensas, ke neniu uzas `is mi ami',
kaj mi pensas, ke se iu uzus, preska^u neniu komprenus.
Maksimume oni povas argumenti, ke temas pri `mi am-is'. Tamen
oni apena^u povas malkonekti la `am' kaj la `is'.
> "flekcio":
> singularo pluralo
> nom. sako sakoj
> ak. sakon sakojn
> kelkiuj nomas tion "flekcio". fakte tio ne estas tute ghusta. same gramatike
> ghuste eblas:
> some name that "case system". in fact this is not quite right. but it is
> possible to say:
> singularo pluralo
> nom. sako ja sako
> ak. na sako na ja sako
> kompreneble la vortordo ne estas tute libera: la nominativa kaj la akuzativa
> partoj de la frazo devas esti distingeblaj.
Mi pensas, ke `ja' jam havas signifon. Uzu ion alian, ekz. `jo'.
Kaj simile, mi pensas, ke `na ja sako' anst. `sakojn' povas esti pli
ol iom konfuza, kvankam mi mem ^satas la ideon de prepozicioj
uzeblaj por indiki n-fina^jecon a^u pluralecon, se oni ne volas uzi
`-n' a^u `-j'. Hm.
> "akordo inter substantivo kaj adjektivo"
> se oni montras la akuzativecon per la adjektivo "na" kaj la pluralecon per la
> adjektivo "ja", lauforme ne plu ekzistas tiu fenomeno, kiun vi nomas "akordo
> inter s-vo kaj a-vo.":
> if the accusative is expressed by the adjective "na" and the plural by the
> adjective "ja", the phenomenon you name "noun-adjective agreement" do not
> exist any more:
> mi kolektas multajn florojn.
> mi kolektas na ja multa floro.
Efektive. Kaj cetere, kiam oni lastfoje provis konvinki al mi,
ke tiu akordo estas ajke utila, oni ne sukcesis...
Manuel M Campagna
In Article 31016 jo...@jytko.jyu.fi (Jorma Kypp|) typed recently :
<<
1. this question is endless and seems to lead to never-ending
discussion mixed by personal ambitions depending what is
the person's native language or what artificial language
he/she has already started to study.
[...]
*If* there must be lingua franca, I support English,
>>
I see you have already _started_ to study English. It shows. Way to
go, kid.
<<
2. I personally am against lingua franca in EU and support
multilingualism, which is the basis of multicultularism,
which is the basis of different kind of thinking, different
ideas, the richness of humanity.
>>
Multiculturalism.
^ ^
In practice this doesn't work.
Precious few people are widely read in languages other than their own,
except for Esperanto speakers, among whom quite a number are well read
in Esperanto.
There is a good reason for that. I know personally. I studied several
languages, but am not widely read in most of them. When I was a
teenager I believed that by learning foreign languages I would reach
the world's literatures. Well... my Laval University Certificate of
Russian with straight As made me at the time capable of "getting
around". But I was never able to read a literary book with flowing
pleasure, the necessity of consulting grammars and dictionaries was
constantly an obstacle. The same story goes for German. Most people I
know who speak English as a second language do _not_ read in English
for pleasure -- they don't know it well enough. To them -- indeed to
me -- English is a chore, although I have been through the Hercules'
work of learning it so well that I can read it fluently ; but speaking
it is definitely a chore, however well I succeed.
Thanks to Esperanto I have been able to read the Kalevala, Kivi,
Erkko, and I could read more of the Finnish literature in Esperanto. I
have read the Lusiads, Mickiewicz, some of the Kalevipoeg, Ivan Vazov,
Rabindranath Tagore, Federico Garci'a Lorca, Kawabata, Elias Tegner,
Jose' Herna'ndez, and a fat lot more. I was able to reread a lot of
Shakespeare in Esperanto, and understand it better than in the
original. Thank you, Esperanto.
<<
*If* there must be lingua franca, I support English, because
of same reason, that somebody (Gadzik?) already pointed:
it is already widely used all over the world and it is common
language in North America.
>>
Just spend a couple of months in the province of Quebec, darling. You
will soon find out the extent of the resentment this provokes. If you
say there, "I support English", in the presence of separatists (half
the electorate) you risk your health.
<<
This reminds me about one thing. If we want only some kind of code to
communicate in business, etc.., there's already an international
language, that is actually quite rich. I mean the language used by
people, who can't hear!
Why not to teach this "hand-language" for everybody, in same time we
would make a great service for this group of people that can't speak
and what is best: that kind of language could never harm any living
language!
>>
Now, out of this Finnglish, I see your ignorance about sign language
as well as Esperanto.
Sign language is as cultural, and therefore as diverse, as spoken
language. In the province of Quebec and neighbouring areas they use
LSQ (Langue des Signes Que~be~coise) dialects. In the rest of Canada
and the USA they use ASL (_American_ Sign Language) dialects. In
France they have another. In England another, in Ireland another, etc.
etc. etc.
<<
I don't know if such artificial languages like Esperanto
>>
The great Swedish phonetician Bertil Malmberg showed a long time ago
that no part of the anatomy appeared for language. Language simply
made use of it. Language is cultural. Language is an _art_. Otherwise
there would have been only one language using only one medium
specially developed in biological evolution for the purpose.
<<
I don't know if such artificial languages like Esperanto has ever
been surveyed from this viewpoint. How that language supports
our "deep" thinking, how it corresponds with our brains.
>>
Psychologist and educator Claude Piron has been exploring some of
that. Since you are a proud "multilingual", no doubt you will have no
difficulty reading his masterpiece "Le De~fi des langues : du ga^chis
au bon sens" (1994), ISBN 2-7384-2432-5. Only 335 pages. Some of his
published articles also explore this topic.
<<
That's why it is important to keep your mother language.
>>
Esperanto is the only way French can be saved from being wiped out of
North America by assimilation into the dominant language. I feel safe
when I speak Esperanto with an Anglophone. I feel threatened when I
speak English with an Anglophone.
<<
And that's why it is important to save also small languages.
>>
Lapp, for instance.
<<
The Fortress Europe.
>>
Before spitting out Nazi paraphernalia, I suggest reading "Die
Gefaehrliche Sprache. Die Verfolgung der Esperantisten unter Hitler
und Stalin" (1988), by Dr Ulrich Lins. No doubt as a proud
"multilingual" you will have no difficulty reading these 326 pages.
There is a more complete Esperanto version, and if I am not mistaken,
a Russian one.
Totalitarian regimes have made it a point to persecute Esperantists
and Esperanto. Hitler was the most systematic of all, with in excess
of 100 000 Esperanto speakers finding their way into the Final
Solution.
There is no doubt in my mind that opposition to Esperanto can be based
on only two motives : 1. ignorance, and/or 2. imperialism.
Manuel M Campagna
In Article 31017 Christopher ZERVIC <zerv...@starnetinc.com> typed
recently :
<<
> Not to mention the Saphir-Worf hypothesis...
Not many people do these days.
>>
No, indeed. I am quite familiar with the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, but
as far as the Saphir-Worf one, I am not so familiar. :-)
One wishes anti-Esperantists had a clue about what they wish they were
talking about.
John Fogarty
It seems that many of the persons unhappy with using
esperanto as an international second language have the impression
that the esperanto movement is trying to force this choice on the
world community. This impression is understandable (some
esperantists in this newsgroup are more militant than ideal), but
in general I don't think it is true. I and many other esperantists
began studying esperanto simply because it seemed to have more
speakers and a more established worldwide organization than other
artificial languages. If Interlingua or any other nationality
neutral language becomes more popular than esperanto I'll be glad
to switch over - even if the the new language has more complex
grammer, or is less aesthetically pleasing.
The most important factor for any international language is
how many people speak it; all the other considerations are
secondary. Someone might point out (and I think that some already
have) that this is a good arguement for using English. But my
concern is that the widespread use of English is based almost
solely on the overpowering economic and military strength of the
United States, and that should the United States' dominance ever
begin to wane, other peoples will quickly tire of learning English
so that we have the convenience of always speaking in our native
tongue. Perhaps our country's might will never wane and those who
favour learning English are right. Time shall tell.
In any case, for me or the esperanto movement to claim that
people ought (or even worse, must) learn esperanto would be
ridiculous. But those who don't care for esperanto themselves
might at least consider being tolerant to those who do like the
language. We esperantists are idealist, maybe foolishly so, who
hope that the advantages esperanto offers will eventually bring
many persons to speak it - not by coercion, but by free will. So
far, quite a few persons have done so, over a million I understand;
the large number of Chinese esperantists in particular gives me
hope that the language can appeal across Indo-European borders. If
you don't agree, that's fine. All the same, esperanto, if not the
best, is at least not a bad language, and esperantists are not bad
people. Give it a chance.
*
*****************************************************************
Johano Fogarti /Joh...@gnn.com/Sankta Luiso, Usono
*****************************************************************
Kondutu afable, cxar cxiuj kiujn vi renkontos portas
propran sxargxon.
******************************************************************
Marko RAUHAMAA
>>>>> "Lee" == Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~} <sd...@cs.hku.hk> writes:
>>>>> "Marko" == Marko RAUHAMAA <ma...@centcon.com> writes:
Marko> If you speak of the grammar, I guess the speakers of English and
Marko> Chinese are among those for whom Esperanto is hardest.
Lee> Unfortunately, English and (Mandarin) Chinese has now got the
Lee> greatest number of speakers in this world! How many Esperanto
Lee> speakers are there? I bet that it's even fewer than Cantonese
Lee> Chinese.
Let's say a million. That's fewer than Finnish-speakers (5 million) but
more than speakers of Icelandic (200,000).
Everything has a small start (Christianity, Islam, Olympic Movement) and
probably most ideas, however good, vanish into oblivion. It may be
unlikely that Esperanto would ever become the universally accepted
auxiliary language, but I think one million speakers is a good seed.
We'll see if English eventually becomes the second language of the
world. Despite the vast numbers of people who do study English in the
world, it's still a long way from achieving that goal. English does have
a good head start but it has a few disadvantages: it's the language of
one power block (the United States) and not nearly all who study it
learn it well enough to do business in it.
Lee> One more irregularity (or abnormalie or whatever): The conjunctive
Lee> "dum" has two different, independent, unrelated uses. Both are
Lee> translated by the English word "while". However, one of the uses
Lee> shows chronological relationship between two clauses (as in "The
Lee> phone rang *while* I was having a bath"), *while* the other use
Lee> just shows contrast (as in this sentence).
Yes, those two meanings are expressed differently in Finnish, for
example.
That does show the European (French, German, Russian) roots of
Esperanto, but can't be considered irregular since both meanings are
defined in dictionaries. Even so, the direct correlation between the
meaning ranges of Esperanto words with their French counterparts shows
how naively many early European Esperantists simply translated
word by word from their own languages into Esperanto.
Lee> Another irregularity is the use of "hospitalo" instead of the more
Lee> logical "malsanulejo". Expect more irregularities of this type to
Lee> evolve.
The word "malsanulejo" (lit. "place for the sick") is probably a direct
translation of the German "Krankenhaus", but it could be an even more
direct translation of the Finnish "sairaala". "Malsanulejo" is the word
I use, but is it more logical? Most sick people don't go to the
hospital, and not only sick people go there -- babies are delivered in
hospitals and is a broken leg a sickness? And its purpose is not to
store sick people but to make them well again.
Lee> The agglutinative morphology is also ambiguous. This is because it
Lee> is not trivial to separate a compound word into the component
Lee> morphemes. Should "pomarbaro" be decomposed as "po-mar-bar-o" or
Lee> "pomar-bar-o" or or "pom-arb-ar-o"? Even if I have a dictionary on
Lee> hand, I would have problems decomposing and looking up this word,
Lee> if I don't know this word beforehand.
This I don't consider real problem in practice. The ear resolves
ambiguities efficiently. And besides, most words that people use they
don't invent. So "pomarbaro" is not analyzed on the fly, but the ear
recognizes the parts "pomarbo", "arbaro", "-aro".
Marko
Phil Hunt
In article <01bb861f$e0f0b480$0818...@indirect.indirect.com>, Steve
MacGregor <Stev...@InDirect.Com> writes
>
> Specifically, what should have been said is not that Interlingua verbs
>are simpler than Esperanto's, but that the conjugation of them is more
>familiar to some people, specifically, those who speak or have learned
>Romance languages.
True.
>It has three conjugations, for verbs whose infinitives end with -AR, -ER,
>or -IR. The three are nearly identical. There are two minor
>irregularities: verbs in the -ER conjugation have an I inserted in the
>gerund, and those in the -IR conjugation have the I replace by an E in
>the participle. Some have complained that you can't look at such a
>participle and know whether it's from the -ER or -IR set, but that's
>irrelevant. Look up both possibilities in the dictionary. Only one
>exists.
It would be very simple to change Interlingua so that there is only one
conjugation of verbs (and making the -a, -e, or -i part of the stem).
> The three auxiliary verbs, esser = be, haber = have, and vader = go,
>are optionally irregular. Regularly, these should have a present tense
>of esse, habe, and vade, but the forms es (so, son), ha, and va may be
>used instead.
Having irregular verbs in an IAL is not IMO a particularly sensible
idea.
> The verb esser is the only one to have a true subjunctive form, sia.
>It's used as an auxiliary to make subjunctive constructions of other
>verbs.
Bizarre. Why on earth did they add subjunctives? All this does is make
the verb system more complicated for *no* benefit in terms of increased
expressibility
> To what I've just said, add the tables for conjugation, and you know
>all Interlingua verbs, but I believe you could describe Esperanto verbs
>even more briefly (modulo the itisto/atisto controversy).
What's that, then?
--
Phil Hunt
Phil Hunt
In article <320b607c...@news.nando.net>, D Gary Grady
<dg...@nando.net> writes
>igor....@mailbox.swipnet.se (Igor GAZDIK) wrote:
>
>> the interlingua grammar can be learned in 30 minutes.
>
>(to take but one element of the grammar) is to add -S to words ending
>in a vowel and -ES to words ending in a consonant.
>
>Test question: What are the plurals of the Interlingua words
>"concerto" and "test"?
>
>Answer: While "concertos" and "testes" are to some degree "acceptable
>variants," the official plurals are concerti and tests, because some
>plurals are imported from the source languages. This is part of making
>Interlingua more naturalistic.
Also AFAIK Interlingua uses an irregualr form derived from the Latin
supine stem for some nouns made from verbs. (Like English has
admit/admission, move/motion, destroy/destruction etc). And forming an
adjective from a noun is totally irregular, as bad as a natural language
like English, eg:
blood bloody -y
democrat democratic -ic
comic comical -al
resource resourceful -ful
--
Phil Hunt
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}
>>>>> "sebastiano" == sebastiano hartviga <har...@berlin.snafu.de> writes:
sebastiano> se oni montras la akuzativecon per la adjektivo "na"
sebastiano> kaj la pluralecon per la adjektivo "ja", lauforme ne
sebastiano> plu ekzistas tiu fenomeno, kiun vi nomas "akordo inter
sebastiano> s-vo kaj a-vo.":
sebastiano> if the accusative is expressed by the adjective "na"
sebastiano> and the plural by the adjective "ja", the phenomenon
sebastiano> you name "noun-adjective agreement" do not exist any
sebastiano> more:
Why don't you say that "na" and "ja" are prepositions? How about
"pre" and "al"? They are used as the instrumental and dative case
markers. Are they adjectives, then?
I don't mind the use of "-n" for accusative and "-j" for plurals. I
only hate their obligatory usage. Aren't they redundant when the case
and number are already understand (from context)?
--> Mi trinkas lakton.
Even if I remove the "n" from the above sentence, it is still clear
which is the subject and which is the object. Why do it redundantly.
--> C^iuj tagoj mi lavas min.
Here, even if I drop out "j", you should know that I mean "everyday",
because of the meaning of "c^iu". Isn't "j" redundant?
Why do we need the redundant features, when they are burdens to many
learners?
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}
>>>>> "Uzulo" == Uzulo <ty...@cile.msk.su> writes:
Uzulo> Are 3 (three) basic tenses, 1 Conditional, 1 Imperative
Uzulo> (=5) TOO many ?
Sure! Comparing with Chinese and Malay-Indonesian which have NO
tenses (=0), the ratio is 5:0 --- an infinite ratio!
Uzulo> What would YOU propose, instead of all this ?
A (grammatically) tenseless, caseless and numberless language, so that
one can COPY words from sentences that one have heard and PASTE them
into one's own sentences without modification --- a WYHIWYS (What you
hear is what you say) language.
Uzulo> A _very_ bold assumption. Strange enough, Eo really DOES
Uzulo> help. 4X., I'm an East European. I contacted persons from
Uzulo> Denmark, Norwegia, Sweden, Netherlands, USA, China, Japan,
Uzulo> Poland, New Zealand, UK, France ... in Esperanto !
What's the ratio of the amount of these people to the total population
of the whole world? You're just contacting some _enthusiasts_, which
amount to a very tiny part of the world's population. Are you going
to make conclusions from such a small sample?
Uzulo> Seems like Zamenhof understood it very well a 100 years
Uzulo> ago.
Zamenhof is not the God. The language problem was realized by
Europeans as early as the 17th century. Where was Zamenhof born then?
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}
>>>>> "D" == D Gary Grady <dg...@nando.net> writes:
>> The ease is mainly contributed by the lack of irregularities
>> and the agglutinative morphology of Esperanto. Another fact is
>> that the Esperanto grammar resembles that of Indo-European
>> languages well.
D> I don't disagree at all. My point was only that its
D> learnability demonstrates that it doesn't go entirely against
D> the natural language pathways of the brain as some radically
D> artificial language might be presumed to do (and as a previous
D> poster suggested might be the case).
While the Eo grammar resembles that of Indo-European languages, it
doesn't fit the grammars of, say, Sino-Tibetan and Austronesian
languages. This makes Eo much more difficult for these people.
D> Esperanto is certainly not as easy for Asians and Africans as
D> it is for Western Europeans, and in particular speakers of
D> Romance and Germanic languages. (We should recall, however,
D> that a very large percentage of the world's population already
D> speaks English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, German, Italian,
D> etc. either as a native language or as a second language.) But
D> Esperanto is (for the reasons you gave earlier) easier than any
D> other Western European language. (Those who contend that
I agree that Eo is easier than other Western European languages. But
its grammar is more complex than some other languages, say Malay. How
large is Europe compared to the whole world?
Alan Gould
In article <WwPINIAO...@vision25.demon.co.uk>, Cheradenine Zakalwe
<zak...@vision25.demon.co.uk> writes
That is far too many people and far too few of them properly
understanding one-another.
Esperanto cannot address the first problem, it could help the second.
--
Alan Gould Life's not about what should be, it's about what is
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}
Lee> One more irregularity (or abnormalie or whatever): The
Lee> conjunctive "dum" has two different, independent, unrelated
Lee> uses. Both are translated by the English word
Lee> "while". However, one of the uses shows chronological
Lee> relationship between two clauses (as in "The phone rang
Lee> *while* I was having a bath"), *while* the other use just
Lee> shows contrast (as in this sentence).
Marko> Yes, those two meanings are expressed differently in
Marko> Finnish, for example.
That's not a reasonable excuse. For an artificial language, I would
expect a somehow "bijective" mapping between morphemes and ideas.
This should at least hold for the _closed_ categories of words
(prepositions, conjunctives, pronouns, relative pronouns, articles).
Marko> That does show the European (French, German, Russian) roots
Marko> of Esperanto, but can't be considered irregular since both
Marko> meanings are defined in dictionaries. Even so, the direct
I consider it unreasonable for a single word (esp. from a closed
category) to be overloaded to carry more than one meaning, except for
a "fallback" word like the preposition "je" in Esperanto. The
situation is as bad as the overloaded keyword "static" in the C++
computer language.
Marko> The word "malsanulejo" (lit. "place for the sick") is
Marko> probably a direct translation of the German "Krankenhaus",
Marko> but it could be an even more direct translation of the
Marko> Finnish "sairaala". "Malsanulejo" is the word I use, but is
Marko> it more logical? Most sick people don't go to the hospital,
Marko> and not only sick people go there -- babies are delivered
Marko> in hospitals and is a broken leg a sickness? And its
Marko> purpose is not to store sick people but to make them well
Marko> again.
Well? Let's not argue on whether it is logical. At least,
"malsanulejo" is immediately recognizable. "Hospitalo"? How could I
know what it means if I were an Asian or African who didn't know any
Western languages?
In Japanese, a "hospital" is really "a place for the sick". In
Chinese it is "a place for being cured". Then, isn't the Esperanto
word "sanig^iejo" even more logical?
Marko> This I don't consider real problem in practice. The ear
Marko> resolves ambiguities efficiently. And besides, most words
Marko> that people use they don't invent. So "pomarbaro" is not
Marko> analyzed on the fly, but the ear recognizes the parts
Marko> "pomarbo", "arbaro", "-aro".
Do you mean that when an Esperanto speaker utters the word
"pomarbaro", he would insert short pauses between the constituent
morphemes, like <pom#arb#ar#o> where # denotes a short pause? If not,
how can the ear (not the brain) resolve the ambiguities?
BTW, I have read from soc.culture.esperanto that some English native
speakers pronounce "mi scias ..." as <mist-si-as>, further breaking
the unfamiliar phoneme <c> into their familiar <ts> and assign them to
different syllables!
Emmanuel Verhagen
True but you musn't forget one thing... In many 2nd and 3rd world
countries people speak, besides their own regional dialect the
country's official language. This language often is based, or
astonnishing similar, to a european language (GB, F, E, P, NL,...).
The official language happens to be the same as the one of the country
to which it belonged in colonial times. And at the risk of sounding
imperialistic, it happens that the current ruling powers tend to speak
english among eachother... Therefore it is quite logic that "our"
trading partners, who are in a "lesser" position adapt themselves to
our customs...
The same story applies to all interpersonal relations. If your boss
loves playing golf and you're concerned about your job, only few
people will consider expressing a great dislike about the game.
Let's conclude by saying that english has the most potential to
profile itself as an IAL. Some other languages can be considered
runner up's (French, German,... maybe Russian in a near future).
Emmanuel <ever...@club.innet.be>
==============================================
Nothing great is achieved without enthousiasm;
Nothing lasting without system or method.
----------------------------------------------
Emmanuel Verhagen
<ever...@club.innet.be>
==============================================
Steve MacGregor
Manuel M Campagna <ah...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA> wrote in article
<4ufk6l$e...@freenet-news.carleton.ca>...
> Esperanto is the only way French can be saved from being wiped out of
> North America by assimilation into the dominant language. I feel safe
> when I speak Esperanto with an Anglophone. I feel threatened when I
> speak English with an Anglophone.
And you no doubt feel quite exasperated attempting to speak French with
an Anglophone.
Steve MacGregor
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~} <sd...@cs.hku.hk> wrote in article
<7fafw3p...@wisdom.cs.hku.hk>...
> I don't mind the use of "-n" for accusative and "-j" for plurals. I
> only hate their obligatory usage. Aren't they redundant when the case
> and number are already understand (from context)?
>
> --> Mi trinkas lakton.
>
> Even if I remove the "n" from the above sentence, it is still clear
> which is the subject and which is the object. Why do it redundantly?
Obligations are easier to understand than options. Certainly, if you
omit the accusative ending in this example, it's extremely unlikely to be
misunderstood as "the milk drinks me", but not all contexts allow for
such unambiguity. For example:
--> Vicxjon batis Johano.
Without the accusative ending, this could definitely be misunderstood
as "Willie hit John", instead of "It was Willie that John hit". As I
pointed out in a much earlier post (but possibly not in this newsgroup),
the accusative =must= be tagged in most European languages, and Esperanto
is no exception. But most languages use word-order to do the tagging,
and Esperanto's word-order has other purposes, so it is not available for
case-tagging.
Ido, a proposed improvement to Esperanto, had no obligatory
case-ending, but it had an optional one. Generally, case was marked by
word-order, and the optional case-ending allowed word-order to be used
for other purposes, as in Esperanto. However, the =option= of including
the ending means that there is one more complication in the language,
compared to Esperanto; you have to decide whether to include it or not
(though with practice, this decision becomes as automatic as the practice
of always including it).
> --> C^iuj tagoj mi lavas min.
>
> Here, even if I drop out "j", you should know that I mean "everyday",
> because of the meaning of "c^iu". Isn't "j" redundant?
Yes, but redundancy is redundant, though that doesn't mean that it's
bad. Most European languages require concord between adjective and noun
in this way, and also in gender. German requires concord of case as well
(but the case-endings are wearing off, and often there's no apparent
difference. German, Scandinavian languages, and Hebrew require accord in
definiteness as well.
However, this accord is not hard to learn; it's just part of the
pattern of putting words together that is part of the "feel" of the
language.
But =both= of the J's could be dropped, and it would mean about the
same thing: "I wash myself every day", instead of "I wash myself all
days".
> Why do we need the redundant features, when they are burdens to many
> learners?
If they were actually hard to learn, then they wouldn't exist. But
they have uses. They are there, and some people have to learn to use
them. If they were not there, some people would have to learn to use a
language that did not have them.
Every feature of a language will be a burden to speakers of a language
without that feature. And the omission of a feature will be a burden to
speakers of a language =with= the feature. For example, I've seen some
pretty bad Esperanto by beginners whose native language is English. We
want to make the distinctions in Esperanto that we make in English, such
as between the sentences "I saw the book" and "I have seen the book".
This distinction is not normally made in Esperanto (at least, not in the
tense of the verb). We have to learn to get along in a language which
does =not= make this distinction of tense.
English-speakers also have to learn to mark the accusative with the
case-ending, rather than with word-order. Speakers of languages that use
the case-marking method would have to learn how not to do so, if
Esperanto had none. There are always burdens; they are simply different
for different people.
Simon Buck
Ysgrifennodd Uzulo (ty...@cile.msk.su):
>>
The purpose of an international language is to enhance
communication amongst peoples of the world, and to that end, it
would help for "the" international language to be considerably
easier than English to learn or understand. Yes, many people
throughout the world communicate in English now (although many at
varying degrees of substandard quality), but how many more would be
communicating in "the" international language if it was easier and
more logical?
<<
::
No, it is more a question of using the tools you have rather than
inventing new ones. More like "you have a house, it's basement
leaks, do you build a new house with an unproven basement of do you
try to seal the basement of the house you have?"
(***) Why not adapt English to work, make the verbs regular
(actually an IAL probably shouldn't have verb conjugation at all),
solidify the sentence structure, fix the spelling?
::
In other words, you propose a new IAL (i.e., this "new house with
an unproven basement" you criticised so convincingly just a few
lines earlier) based on English ?.. Why do you think it would be any
better than the existing ones ?
BTW, how could (***) be implemented actually ?
And one more thing. One of the reasons of (relatively) enormous
success of Eo is undoubtedly that its basement is not wholly
artificial, so it IS proven.
May i point out that your algorithm for justifying text makes it
much harder to read by putting gaps in the wrong places, and
respectfully ask you to desist?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Simon.Buck @ Computing-Service.Cambridge.AC.UK
Gwasanaeth Cyfrifiadurol Prifysgol Caergrawnt, CB2 3QG, Y Deyrnas Unedig
Hans Kamp
Steve MacGregor wrote:
>
> Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~} <sd...@cs.hku.hk> wrote in article
> <7fafw3p...@wisdom.cs.hku.hk>...
>
> > I don't mind the use of "-n" for accusative and "-j" for plurals. I
> > only hate their obligatory usage. Aren't they redundant when the case
> > and number are already understand (from context)?
> >
> > --> Mi trinkas lakton.
> >
> > Even if I remove the "n" from the above sentence, it is still clear
> > which is the subject and which is the object. Why do it redundantly?
>
> Obligations are easier to understand than options. Certainly, if you
> omit the accusative ending in this example, it's extremely unlikely to be
> misunderstood as "the milk drinks me", but not all contexts allow for
> such unambiguity. For example:
>
> --> Vicxjon batis Johano.
>
> Without the accusative ending, this could definitely be misunderstood
> as "Willie hit John", instead of "It was Willie that John hit".
I also know something about Ido, an artificial language derived from Esperanto. You can
omit the case ending, the "akuzativo".
Esperanto Ido English Case ending obligatory
en Ido
Mi vidas homojn. Me vidas homi. I see people. No.
Homojn mi vidas. Homin me vidas. It is the Yes.
people that I
see.
Hans Kamp.
sebastiano hartviga
lee sau dan tajpis interalie:
> Lee> (pri la dusenco de "dum")
> Marko> Yes, those two meanings are expressed differently in
> Marko> Finnish, for example.
>
> That's not a reasonable excuse. For an artificial language, I would
> expect a somehow "bijective" mapping between morphemes and ideas.
> This should at least hold for the _closed_ categories of words
> (prepositions, conjunctives, pronouns, relative pronouns, articles).
mi samopinias kun vi. propono alternativan vorton. eble la esperantistaro ghin
ekuzos.
> Well? Let's not argue on whether it is logical. At least,
> "malsanulejo" is immediately recognizable. "Hospitalo"? How could I
> know what it means if I were an Asian or African who didn't know any
> Western languages?
mi mem *ne* uzas la vorton "hospitalo" pro ghuste tiu kauzo. (kulpas chiam nur
la aliuloj !) kaj cetere: la senco de "hospitalo" estas nesama al tiu de
"malsanulejo"!
> In Japanese, a "hospital" is really "a place for the sick". In
> Chinese it is "a place for being cured". Then, isn't the Esperanto
> word "sanig^iejo" even more logical?
oni povas uzi en esperanto la vorton sanigejo au sanighejo tute senprobleme.
> Do you mean that when an Esperanto speaker utters the word
> "pomarbaro", he would insert short pauses between the constituent
> morphemes, like <pom#arb#ar#o> where # denotes a short pause? If not,
> how can the ear (not the brain) resolve the ambiguities?
kelkaj esperantistoj metas pauzetojn inter la partojn de nekutimaj
vortkunmetoj. kelkaj ne.
> BTW, I have read from soc.culture.esperanto that some English native
> speakers pronounce "mi scias ..." as <mist-si-as>, further breaking
> the unfamiliar phoneme <c> into their familiar <ts> and assign them to
> different syllables!
la dismeton de "c" al "t+s" oni ne povas nomi ghusta. sed se ne estas danghero
pri miskomprenoj, tiu eraro ne gravas. esperanto estas lingvo homa, ne
komputila.
saluto(j)(n), sebastiano
___________________
menefe bal püki bal
sebastiano hartviga
lee sau dan tajpis interalie:
> Why don't you say that "na" and "ja" are prepositions? How about
> "pre" and "al"? They are used as the instrumental and dative case
> markers. Are they adjectives, then?
mi adjektivigis "n" kaj "j" per la adjektiva finajho "a". tial mi diris ke ili
estas adjektivoj. lau gramatika funkcio oni ilin eble povas nomi
"prepozicioj".
> I don't mind the use of "-n" for accusative and "-j" for plurals. I
> only hate their obligatory usage. Aren't they redundant when the case
> and number are already understand (from context)?
>
> --> Mi trinkas lakton.
>
> Even if I remove the "n" from the above sentence, it is still clear
> which is the subject and which is the object. Why do it redundantly.
mi citu zamenhofon, la iniciatinton de la lingvo:
"tushante la akuzativon mi povas al vi doni la jenan konsilon: uzu ghin chiam
"nur en tiuj okazoj, kie vi vidas ke ghi estas efektive necesa; en chiuj aliaj
"okazoj, kie vi ne scias, chu oni devas uzi la akuzativon au la nominativon --
"uzu chiam la *nominativon*. la akuzativo estas enkondukita nur el neceso,
"char sen ghi la senco ofte estus ne klara; sed ghia uzado en okazo de
"nebezono pli multe malbeligas la lingvon ol la neuzado en okazo de bezono."
el "la esperantisto", 1890, p. 27
certe tiu citajho estas diversmaniere interpretebla kaj povas pravigi ankau
vian opinion.
en la lingvo "ido" lau mia memoro (sed povas esti malghuste!) oni forigis la
akuzativan signon, se en frazo unue situas la subjekto kaj nur poste la
nominativa objekto. en la lingvo "volapuko" estas similajho: adjektivon oni ne
flekcias, se ghi senpere sekvas la substantivon.
> --> C^iuj tagoj mi lavas min.
>
> Here, even if I drop out "j", you should know that I mean "everyday",
> because of the meaning of "c^iu". Isn't "j" redundant?
vi pravas; la "j" estas nenecesa. sed tamen en "ghusta" esperanto la frazo
devus esti: "chiun tagon (au: chiujn tagojn) mi lavas min." en tiu kazo la
unua akuzativo estas anstatauo de la prepozicio "je", kiu enkondukas
tempindikojn: "je chiu tago (au: je chiuj tagoj) mi lavas min." kaj oni diras,
ke oni povas anstataui "je" per la akuzativo, char ne eblas miskomprenoj,
kvankam gramatike ne eblas distingi, chu mi lavas chiujn tagojn au chu min. :)
fakte mi dirus tiel: "chiutage mi min lavas."
> Why do we need the redundant features, when they are burdens to many
> learners?
se mi ghuste komprenis, vi pledas por tio, ke oni uzu akuzativon nur en kazo
de dubo. sed tio kondichigas, ke la parolanto scias *kaj* la regulojn de la
akuzativo *kaj* analizi fulmrapide, chu en la frazo sen ghi estas dubo au chu
ne. mi opinias, ke estas pli facile almeti la akuzativon *chiam* kaj ne devi
antaue pripensi, chu ghi necesas au chu ne. sed eble tio estas persona opinio.
ghis, sebastiano
Hans Kamp
> translation of the German "Krankenhaus", but it could be an even more
> direct translation of the Finnish "sairaala". "Malsanulejo" is the word
> I use, but is it more logical? Most sick people don't go to the
> hospital, and not only sick people go there -- babies are delivered in
> hospitals and is a broken leg a sickness? And its purpose is not to
> store sick people but to make them well again.
Reading this I do think there is a meaning difference between "malsanulejo"
and "hospitalo". I think "malsanulejo" has a broader sence than "hospital".
"malsanulejo" is not per se a building, it can also be an "not-building" place.
But "malsanulejo" is only for people that are ill. And a "hospital" is also for
babies, for revalidation of patients, whereas they are not ill at all.
> Lee> The agglutinative morphology is also ambiguous. This is because it
> Lee> is not trivial to separate a compound word into the component
> Lee> morphemes. Should "pomarbaro" be decomposed as "po-mar-bar-o" or
> Lee> "pomar-bar-o" or or "pom-arb-ar-o"? Even if I have a dictionary on
> Lee> hand, I would have problems decomposing and looking up this word,
> Lee> if I don't know this word beforehand.
>
> This I don't consider real problem in practice. The ear resolves
> ambiguities efficiently. And besides, most words that people use they
> don't invent. So "pomarbaro" is not analyzed on the fly, but the ear
> recognizes the parts "pomarbo", "arbaro", "-aro".
>
> Marko
Hans Kamp.
Don HARLOW
sd...@cs.hku.hk (Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}) lastatempe skribis:
>I don't mind the use of "-n" for accusative and "-j" for plurals. I
>only hate their obligatory usage. Aren't they redundant when the case
>and number are already understand (from context)?
>--> Mi trinkas lakton.
>Even if I remove the "n" from the above sentence, it is still clear
>which is the subject and which is the object. Why do it redundantly.
(a) If you are talking about word-order, it is _not_ clear. Esperanto
has no word-order rule for SVO. You cannot assume that the subject
precedes the object. The -N is not (grammatically) redundant.
(b) Or, if you are talking about simple fact (I drink milk, it doesn't
drink me), well, let's assume that you are generally correct ... but
"fact" can have different meanings in different contexts. I can easily
imagine at least a literary situation (e.g. Ted Thomas and Kate
Wilhelm's novel _The Clone_) in which "mi trinkas la lakto" might
actually be intended to mean "The milk drinks me".
Of course, this particular interpretation of this particular
expression is a bit hard to justify. A better one might be
Mi malestimas Respublikanoj
where the -N is absolutely necessary to understand what I'm trying to
say (and if you check out the letter column of my local newspaper,
you'll find that the two possible interpretations of this without the
-N are equally justifiable -- though both are also inaccurate to about
the same degree).
>--> C^iuj tagoj mi lavas min.
>Here, even if I drop out "j", you should know that I mean "everyday",
>because of the meaning of "c^iu". Isn't "j" redundant?
(a) Almost everybody, in this example, would actually say "c^iutage mi
lavas min".
(b) Again, you assume the existence of other grammatical rules that
don't exist in Esperanto and without which the -J is _not_ redundant.
For instance, you assume that a modifier precedes the noun it
modifies, whereas in Esperanto it doesn't even have to _adjoin_ it
(though, except in poetry, it usually does). "C^iu" used here might
just as easily (and, in Esperanto, would actually have to) be
associated with "mi" rather than "tagoj". (The general user would find
that particular construction strange, of course, and might have to
stretch for the meaning -- but the meaning is there...)
Good example that I used for a while in a .sig: "Kaj altas
montosuproj, nuba en aer'". If you assume the usual (i.e.
English-language) syntactic rules for Esperanto, then this would have
to mean "And the cloudy mountaintops are high, in air". The original,
however (poem by Matthew Arnold), reads "And high the mountaintops, in
cloudy air"*; the location of "nuba" before the preposition is
permitted in Esperanto (and not all that uncommon in poetry -- in this
case, to ensure proper scansion), and it is the lack of -J on the end
that shows that it modifies "aer'" and not "montosuproj".
>Why do we need the redundant features, when they are burdens to many
>learners?
Again, much (not all) of the redundancy attributed to Esperanto is
based on the preassumption of syntactical rules existing in the
critic's native language but not in Esperanto -- in both the
situations mentioned above, of rules having to do with word-order.
*The actual couplet reads, A and E:
And high the mountaintops, in cloudy air,
The mountaintops, where is the throne of truth...
Kaj altas montosuproj, nuba en aer',
La montosuproj, kie tronas ver'...
Don HARLOW
http://www.webcom.com/~donh/
(English version available at http://www.webcom.com/~donh/dona.html)
Don HARLOW
sd...@cs.hku.hk (Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}) lastatempe skribis:
>One more irregularity (or abnormalie or whatever): The conjunctive
>"dum" has two different, independent, unrelated uses. Both are
>translated by the English word "while". However, one of the uses
>shows chronological relationship between two clauses (as in "The phone
>rang *while* I was having a bath"), *while* the other use just shows
>contrast (as in this sentence).
Actually, the main abnormality of "dum" (as also "g^is") is that it
can be used both as a preposition and as a conjunction. But, in both
situations, it means about the same thing -- "during" or "while"
respectively. Your second use of "while" above is best translated not
by "dum" (though some English-speaking people use "dum" --
first-language interference, I believe that's called) but by "sed".
"Dum" is not correctly used to show contrast.
"Tamen, unu el la uzoj montras tempan rilaton inter du esprimoj
(ekzemple, en "Sonoris la telefono dum mi banis min"), SED la alia uzo
nur montras kontraston (ekzemple, en c^i tiu frazo)."
>Another irregularity is the use of "hospitalo" instead of the more
>logical "malsanulejo". Expect more irregularities of this type to
>evolve.
Someone else mentioned that "hospitalo" has a more limited meaning
than "malsanulejo". In any case, to the best of my knowledge,
"malsanulejo" is more commonly used in ordinary speech than
"hospitalo". That's because, if you don't know the word for
"hospital", you can invent "malsanulejo"; but you have to learn
"hospitalo"; and if the person you're speaking with doesn't know the
word for "hospital", she can figure out "malsanulejo"; but she has to
go to the library to decipher "hospitalo".
>The agglutinative morphology is also ambiguous. This is because it is
>not trivial to separate a compound word into the component morphemes.
>Should "pomarbaro" be decomposed as "po-mar-bar-o" or "pomar-bar-o" or
>or "pom-arb-ar-o"? Even if I have a dictionary on hand, I would have
>problems decomposing and looking up this word, if I don't know this
>word beforehand.
(a) This is one situation (not all that uncommon) where context is
important. And, in most cases, decisive.
(b) In the few remaining cases ... ever hear of puns?
("Lia prelego estis absolute sentema" -- "His lecture was absolutely
sensitive" ... or, perhaps more apropos, "His lecture was absolutely
devoid of a topic" ...)
sebastiano hartviga
mi tre audacis kontrau la ghisnuna lingvokutimo de esperanto. do mark
protestis:
> Mi pensas, ke tio estas tute MALBONSTILA kaj KONTRA^UFUNDAMENTA!
>
> Serioze, tamen, kvankam mi ne estas lingva fundamentisto, mi pensas,
> ke vi iom tro stre^cas la eblojn. Mi pensas, ke neniu uzas `is mi ami',
> kaj mi pensas, ke se iu uzus, preska^u neniu komprenus.
>
> Maksimume oni povas argumenti, ke temas pri `mi am-is'. Tamen
> oni apena^u povas malkonekti la `am' kaj la `is'.
> Mi pensas, ke `ja' jam havas signifon. Uzu ion alian, ekz. `jo'.
"ja" ne estas iu elpensajho sed la vorto "j" kun adjektiva finajho.
> Kaj simile, mi pensas, ke `na ja sako' anst. `sakojn' povas esti pli
> ol iom konfuza, kvankam mi mem ^satas la ideon de prepozicioj
> uzeblaj por indiki n-fina^jecon a^u pluralecon, se oni ne volas uzi
> `-n' a^u `-j'. Hm.
mi timis tiun diskuton.
mi opinias, ke mi *tre* strechis la eblojn de la lingvo.
mi opinias, ke preskau neniu esperantisto tuj komprenus.
mi opinias, ke estus *tre* malbona stilo.
mi *ne* opinias ke ghi estas kontraufundamenta, char:
"chion, kio estas skribita en la lingvo internacia esperanto, oni povas
"kompreni kun helpo de tiu chi vortaro. vortoj, kiuj formas kune unu ideon,
"estas skribataj kune, sed dividitaj unu de la alia per streketo, tiel
"ekzemple la vorto <frat'in'o>, prezentante unu ideon, estas kunmetita el tri
"vortoj, el kiuj chiujn oni devas serchi aparte."
tiu estas la antauparolo de la universala vortaro. el ghi oni rekonas, ke
zamenhofo nomis "frat", "in", "o" vortoj, aparte serchendaj. se oni uzas
"frat"on aparta vorto, neniu plendas. se oni uzas "in"on aparta vorto, neniu
plendas, se oni uzas "o"on aparta vorto, kial do plendi?
same la propono pri "as ami". tiu cetere ne estas mia invento, sed ghin
proponis rikardo *shulco*. mi opinias, ke esperanto estas aglutina (mi iam
serchos en vortaro la ghustan fakesprimon) lingvo, kiu kunmetas unuopajn
*memstarajn* erojn al pli kompleksaj vortoj.
sebastiano
____________________________________________________________
mi estas konvinkita pri tio. aliuloj bedaurinde ne. selavi'.
Don HARLOW
Cheradenine Zakalwe <zak...@vision25.demon.co.uk> lastatempe skribis:
>In article <320AED...@francenet.fr>, Marc Bonnaud
><mbon...@francenet.fr> writes
>>Robert Moldenhauer wrote:
>>
>>> It would be possible to take English (one in five people speak some
>>>
>>> English)
>>
>>Are there only 3 billion (I mean the U.S. billion not the British one)
>>people on planet Earth ?
>>
>No. But at least 1.1 billion speak *some* English.
Would somebody please quantify the word _some_? I know that I speak
_some_ Chinese (_putonghua_), and could probably be used by the
Chinese authorities as a statistic to help justify a claim that the
number of people who speak _some_ Chinese is somewhere between two and
three billion -- but that wouldn't do me personally very much good if
I were suddenly to be dumped (hopefully not nekkid) on a streetcorner
in Tianjin.
For some people, the ability to say "yes", "no", "dollars", "thank
you", and count to ten (or, after inflation, a hundred) qualifies
someone as an English speaker. For others, it may not.