Ido: the wrong language
mr bean
Ido and Esperanto are steps in the wrong direction.
What we need is a more standardized, regular form of English,
not a mish-mash of various Latin-derived languages.
English is established as the world-wide language of commerce
and it is what people are learning. Best to capitalize on that trend.
Gerard van Wilgen
"mr bean" <dflj...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:akgk62$qgq$1...@news.chatlink.com...
[en]
It is quite possible that the number one language on the Web will be Chinese
within 20 years, which is a very reasonably assumption when one realizes
that Chinese is spoken by a lot more people than English (even if you count
everyone who can utter a few words in Pidgin as "English speaking").
Besides, the most populous English speaking country are the USA, and
Americans are generally not known for their foreign language skills.
Standardizing and regularizing English would almost certainly make it
incomprehensible for the average American. It would make it effectively a
foreign language, and it is very doubtful that Americans would bother to
learn it.
By the way, would being a mish-mash of various Latin-derived languages not
exclude English as well? Technically English may be a Germanic language, but
most of its vocabulary probably comes directly or indirectly from Latin. It
is even possible that the number of Latin roots in English is much larger
than in Esperanto.
[eo]
Estas tute eble ke la unua lingvo sur la Reto estos la china en la limtempo
de 20 jaroj, kio estas tre akceptebla supozo kiam oni konscias ke la china
estas parolata de pli multege da homoj ol la angla (ech se oni nombras
chiujn
kiuj povas diri kelkajn vortojn en pidghino kiel "angleparolantojn").
Krome, la plej homplena angleparolanta lando estas Usono, kaj usonanoj
ghenerale ne estas konataj pro siaj fremdlingvaj kapabloj. Normigo kaj
reguligo de la angla farus ghin preskau certe nekomprenebla lingvo por la
averagha usonano. Tio farus ghin fakte fremdalingvo, kaj estas tre dubinde
ke usonanoj klopodus lerni ghin.
Parenteze, chu esti miksajho de diversaj latindevenaj lingvoj ne ekskludus
la anglan ankau? Teknike la angla estas eble ghermana lingvo, sed la
plejmulton da ghia vorttrezoro vershajne venas rekte au nerekte el la
latino. Ech eblas ke la nombro da latinaj radikoj en la angla estas pli
grandega ol en la esperanto.
Gerard van Wilgen
salvete
> Besides, the most populous English speaking country are the USA, and
> Americans are generally not known for their foreign language skills.
> Standardizing and regularizing English would almost certainly make it
> incomprehensible for the average American. >
Given the quantum force that Americans have for English worldwide, isn't it
logical (or even "standard" practice) that a generalized American English
would indeed be comprehensible for the "average" (= English-speaking,
presumably) American?
Your argument implicitly assumes that American English (in any and all
forms) is nonstandard and irregular. As with any variety of any language,
some Americans speak a more-or-less standard dialect and others don't, yet
(barring physiological limitations) all native speakers -- and plenty of L2
learners too -- can comprehend the nightly news broadcast, the lead article
in the newspaper, and a set of appliance instructions (even when written by
a non-native).
Since millions of native speakers and even more foreign speakers throughout
the world understand English as it now is -- irregularities and all -- why
do we need to worry about regularizing it anyway? As sci.lang has discussed
before, irregularities are typically very common items in the language, so
it's either quixotic or just plain silly to *try* to change them.
Whatever the actual number of English speakers is, those speakers already
have a lingua franca in which to communicate; why ruin a good thing?
Note, please, that I am a strong advocate of *everyone* learning at least
one foreign language, so it's not that I'm advocating anything so parochial
as English-only. Rather, it seems logical to let the real world decide what
works and what doesn't as an international medium of communication.
--Salvete
John Smith
It's been tried ("Basic English"). Doesn't work. It turns out that
English is too uninflected, which makes it too hard to learn.
\\P. Schultz
Daniel Seriff
(in message <akgk62$qgq$1...@news.chatlink.com>):
I know this is stinky bait, but:
What's the point in coming up with some new artificial auxlang when everyone
uses English already?
--
Daniel Seriff
La musique est un langage qui se signifie soi-même.
- Jean-Jacques Nattiez
Klaus Scholl
>
>Ido and Esperanto are steps in the wrong direction.
>
>What we need is a more standardized, regular form of English,
>not a mish-mash of various Latin-derived languages.
*applause*
That's why i developed and still develop the Philosophy, and new
science of Modlanging: the planful-controlled modification of natural
language toward a more regular (and more expressive!) language, by
using MOD's, each MOD represents a single "rule" for modifications,
but they are nor prescriptive nor descriptive.
The future is neither, but standardizing by
guidelines/recommendations/norms, very similar to all the ISO
norms/standards.
>English is established as the world-wide language of commerce
>and it is what people are learning. Best to capitalize on that trend.
>
You can modlang each natlang you like, you only need good ideas and
goog marketing to draw followers on your side, which apply them ("to
modlang" is transitive verb).
It is very much more easy to find followers for MOD's than for a
complete auxlang. because an auxlang is a complete new language which
has to be learned many months. A MOD is simple, you learn it in
perhaps 2-4 minutes, and you can apply it immediently.
I predict you that in 20 years Modlanging will be a new hype and your
children will modlang (transitive verb!) because as new "cool hobby".
Most humans have not the timenor th education to 1) understand why
modlanging so important 2) to create MOD's.
I dont moan about them. But the tragedy is that the humans whose JOB
is to research language, are still as blind as the others who have no
clue about linguistics, that means, they dont shape language.
In 50 years there will be a science called "neosemantics",
the bakers bake still bread, and the neosemanticians bake neoterms
then (new meanings systematically created).
Greet,
Klaus
scuse me
wrote:
>On Tue, 27 Aug 2002 14:33:24 -0500, mr bean wrote
>(in message <akgk62$qgq$1...@news.chatlink.com>):
>
>> Ido and Esperanto are steps in the wrong direction.
>>
>> What we need is a more standardized, regular form of English,
>> not a mish-mash of various Latin-derived languages.
>>
>> English is established as the world-wide language of commerce
>> and it is what people are learning. Best to capitalize on that trend.
>
>I know this is stinky bait, but:
>
>What's the point in coming up with some new artificial auxlang when everyone
>uses English already?
Because everyone doesn't use english, and English is a difficult
language to learn. An auxiliary language would have simple
constructions, making the learning curve steep. Even if such an
auxlang were based on a western language, people from other language
groups could learn it more easily than any preexiting language.
Zsigri Gyula
to turn our beautiful multicultural world into a plain gray globe.
Lee Sau Dan
Daniel> What's the point in coming up with some new artificial
Daniel> auxlang when everyone uses English already?
I'm disappointed that you don't consider my mom and many of my aunts
and uncles to be a member of "everyone". I feel offended if you mean
by "everyone" actually "every homo sapien".
--
Lee Sau Dan 李守敦(Big5) ~{@nJX6X~}(HZ)
E-mail: dan...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de
Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee
Lee Sau Dan
Jugoslav Dujic
This is a rather old joke (probably read by most of you), but I couldn't
resist:
EuroEnglish
The European Union commissioners have announced that agreement has
been
reached to adopt English as the preferred language for European
communications, rather than German, which was the other possibility.
As
part of negotiations, her Majesty Government conceded that English
spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five-year
phased plan for what will be known as EuroEnglish (Euro for short).
In the first year, "s" will be used instead of the soft "c".
Sertainly,
sivil servants will reseive this news with joy. Also, the hard "c"
will
be replased with "k". Not only will this klear up konfusion, but
typewriters kan have one less letter.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the
troublesome "ph" will be replased by "f". This will make words like
"fotograf" 20 per sent shorter.
In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be
expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are
possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters,
which have always been a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil
agre
that the horible mes of silent "e"s in the languag is disgraful, and
they would go.
By the forth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing
"th" by "z" and "w" by "v". During ze fifz year ze unesesary "o" kan
be
dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and similar changes vud of kors be
aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.
After zis fifz year, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be
no mor trobls or difikultis and evrivum vil find it ezi tu understand
ech ozer. Ze drem vil finali kum tru.
--
Jugoslav
___________
www.geocities.com/jdujic
Gerard van Wilgen
"Daniel Seriff" <micro...@what.zzz> wrote in message
news:01HW.B991725E0...@news-server.austin.rr.com...
> On Tue, 27 Aug 2002 14:33:24 -0500, mr bean wrote
> (in message <akgk62$qgq$1...@news.chatlink.com>):
>
> > Ido and Esperanto are steps in the wrong direction.
> >
> > What we need is a more standardized, regular form of English,
> > not a mish-mash of various Latin-derived languages.
> >
> > English is established as the world-wide language of commerce
> > and it is what people are learning. Best to capitalize on that trend.
>
> I know this is stinky bait, but:
>
> What's the point in coming up with some new artificial auxlang when
everyone
> uses English already?
[en]
I think that that is a false assumption, caused by the fact that the
milliards of foreigners who do not (or hardly) speak English, simply cannot
communicate with you.
Anyway, you are right in that we do not need a new artificial auxiliary
language, because there has been one in continuous use for more than a
century that is perfectly adequate.
[eo]
Mi opinias ke tio estas falsa supozo, kauzita de la fakto ke la miliardoj da
fremduloj kiuj ne (au apenau) povas paroli la anglan, simple ne povas
interkomunikighi kun vi.
Chiuokaze, vi pravas pri la aserto ke ni ne bezonas novan artefaritan
helplingvon, char tia estas konstante uzata dum longe ol jarcento, kiu estas
tute adekvata.
Gerard van Wilgen
Gerard van Wilgen
"salvete" <lev...@cox.net> wrote in message
news:M2Ta9.19324$Or1.1...@news2.east.cox.net...
> <snip>
> > Besides, the most populous English speaking country are the USA, and
> > Americans are generally not known for their foreign language skills.
> > Standardizing and regularizing English would almost certainly make it
> > incomprehensible for the average American. >
>
> Given the quantum force that Americans have for English worldwide, isn't
it
> logical (or even "standard" practice) that a generalized American English
> would indeed be comprehensible for the "average" (= English-speaking,
> presumably) American?
It depends on how one would standardize it. If you would simply adopt
Standard American English as Standard International English, most Americans
would have little difficulty in understanding it. I do not know though
whether that is what the original poster meant.
> Your argument implicitly assumes that American English (in any and all
> forms) is nonstandard and irregular. As with any variety of any language,
> some Americans speak a more-or-less standard dialect and others don't, yet
> (barring physiological limitations) all native speakers -- and plenty of
L2
> learners too -- can comprehend the nightly news broadcast, the lead
article
> in the newspaper, and a set of appliance instructions (even when written
by
> a non-native).
>
> Since millions of native speakers and even more foreign speakers
throughout
> the world understand English as it now is -- irregularities and all -- why
> do we need to worry about regularizing it anyway? As sci.lang has
discussed
> before, irregularities are typically very common items in the language, so
> it's either quixotic or just plain silly to *try* to change them.
>
Apart from the irregularities in the grammar, English has of course the
additional disadvantage of having a writing system that is so irregular that
people generally find it easier to learn the spelling of each individual
word than to try to learn the rules (and the exceptions). It is actually
preposterous that in an English dictionary each word must be listed twice,
one string of characters to show its spelling and another string to show its
pronunciation!
Taking into account the very conservative nature of American society, I
think that it is inconceivable that a radical spelling reform would be
accepted by the Americans in the foreseeable future, so if the world accepts
English as its lingua franca, it must also accept its extremely complicated
writing system.
(I do actually like English spelling, because I have a taste for the bizarre
and should not want to have it changed. But from a practical viewpoint
English orthography is totally unsuitable).
> Whatever the actual number of English speakers is, those speakers already
> have a lingua franca in which to communicate; why ruin a good thing?
Because every new generation of new non-native English speakers has to spend
(or rather waste) a large part of their precious time in school on learning
English.
> Note, please, that I am a strong advocate of *everyone* learning at least
> one foreign language,
How then would you convince an English speaking American that it might be a
good idea to spend a lot of time and effort on learning a foreign language
that he will never need to use?
> so it's not that I'm advocating anything so parochial
> as English-only. Rather, it seems logical to let the real world decide
what
> works and what doesn't as an international medium of communication.
Good idea! And since I am a part of the real world too (and not the least
important part, even if I say so myself :-) I shall do everything I can to
promote the use of Esperanto.
Gerard van Wilgen
Robert Gordon
> Taking into account the very conservative nature of American society, I
> think that it is inconceivable that a radical spelling reform would be
> accepted by the Americans in the foreseeable future, so if the world accepts
> English as its lingua franca, it must also accept its extremely complicated
> writing system.
>
> (I do actually like English spelling, because I have a taste for the bizarre
> and should not want to have it changed. But from a practical viewpoint
> English orthography is totally unsuitable).
I'd like to defend English spelling, at least partially. The reason English
spelling is so strange is that English became a standardized written language
relatively early in its history, and then went through major sound changes. So
the spelling of English preserves obsolete pronunciation. (The same is true of
French, whose spelling also used to be more phonetic than it is now -- all those
silent letters, which were once pronounced.)
As a result, the history of the English language is preserved in the spelling
system. Languages that have had modern spelling reform always engage in some
historical/linguistic amnesia. I am glad that "night" is spelled the way it is,
the better to recognize the relationship to German "Nacht". (I am also glad for
"Aoűt", as otherwise the relationship to "August" would be completely
invisible.)
The history of English is intensely interesting to many people (including me),
and historical spelling tends to feed this interest. I find it notable that
English dictionaries routinely include etymologies, whereas dictionaries of
other European languages do not. I don't believe that English etymology is
necessarily more interesting than that of other languages, but English speakers
are more interested.
-- Rob Gordon
fat...@attglobal.net
considered. If we were to change over to a phonetic-based system, imagine
how much trouble someone from (say) Oregon would have trying to read
something written in South Africa. I have a hard enough time understanding
many English speakers when they are speaking, but semi-formal English
writing is universal in the English-speaking world. Remember that it's not
just America and England, but thrown in Scotland, India, Jamaica, New
Zealand, etc. and you start getting some very divergent varieties of
English. My prediction (though I doubt I'll be around to see if it comes
true) is that English as is is spoken and as it is written will continue to
diverge, to the point where a diglossia as with Arabic has evolved. Today,
Arabic is written in an older form that is generally learned at school. The
written form is comprehensible all over the Arabic-speaking world, while the
spoken forms have diverged considerably. And what's next after that? It's
too early to tell.
Just my two cents.
Joe Fatula
--
"Robert Gordon" <srgo...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:3D6D27CF...@earthlink.net...
> "Août", as otherwise the relationship to "August" would be completely
Hans Stuifbergen
news:umq6gr1...@corp.supernews.com...
> Anyway, you are right in that we do not need a new artificial auxiliary
> language, because there has been one in continuous use for more than a
> century that is perfectly adequate.
Ido es de 1907. Ne tante nova.
Saluti amikala,
Hans St.
--
nova: ARTHUR RIMBAUD, biografio, 75 pag., 3,50 euri
http://www.angelfire.com/id/Avance/TiaListo1.html
IDO, LA LINGUO INTERNACIONA
http://members.tripod.com/~avancigado
http://www.idolinguo.com/
Ido, linguo neutra inter diferanta kulturi
Daniel Seriff
(in message <akhvm0$8tl$1...@hermes.cc.u-szeged.hu>):
> "Daniel Seriff" <micro...@what.zzz> writes:
>
>> What's the point in coming up with some new artificial auxlang when
>> everyone uses English already?
>
> An artificial language without a background culture is less likely
> to turn our beautiful multicultural world into a plain gray globe.
And exactly how would that be prevented by everyone using the same artificial
language for everything? Seems like it would be even *more* of a plain gray
globe.
Barcode tatoos soon to follow.
Daniel Seriff
(in message <m38z2r5...@mika.informatik.uni-freiburg.de>):
>>>>>> "Daniel" == Daniel Seriff <micro...@what.zzz> writes:
>
> Daniel> What's the point in coming up with some new artificial
> Daniel> auxlang when everyone uses English already?
>
> I'm disappointed that you don't consider my mom and many of my aunts
> and uncles to be a member of "everyone". I feel offended if you mean
> by "everyone" actually "every homo sapien".
Perhaps it should be revised to "...when everyone who needs to use an
international common language uses English already"
If your family has no need for a common international language of any kind,
natural or artificial, there's not much point in them even worrying about it.
Daniel Seriff
(in message <umq6gr1...@corp.supernews.com>):
>> What's the point in coming up with some new artificial auxlang when
>> everyone uses English already?
>
> I think that that is a false assumption, caused by the fact that the
> milliards of foreigners who do not (or hardly) speak English, simply cannot
> communicate with you.
If they don't need to know English, it doesn't really matter if they can't
speak English. I certainly wouldn't expect a bunch of Hungarian farmers to
know anything but Hungarian. If I'm going to go visit them in their homeland,
I'll take the effort to learn as much of their language as I can.
I'm certainly not claiming that everyone should learn English so that they
can become just like Americans. In fact, I think that is one of the least
admirable attitudes of my countrymen.
We've already got a fairly well established system of business and politics
in which just about everyone who needs to communicate with the global
community is able to speak at least passable English. In many cases, it's the
only common language that two parties share.
This is also not to detract from other such "trade language" communities
encompassed by Swahili, Arabic, or Standard Chinese (among others). Those
communities have the same requirements and conditions that the generally
English-speaking international business/politics community does.
But whenever this English vs. auxlang-du-jour issue comes up, I have to ask
"why fix something that isn't broken?"
> Anyway, you are right in that we do not need a new artificial auxiliary
> language, because there has been one in continuous use for more than a
> century that is perfectly adequate.
I was under the impression that no one really used Esperanto outside of
Esperanto societies. English is certainly used far more frequently in
international business and politics than Esperanto.
--
Daniel Seriff
I never worry that all hell will break loose. My concern is that only part of
hell will break loose and be much harder to detect.
-Carlin
Ruud Harmsen
<Ger...@gvwilgen.demon.nl>: in sci.lang:
>Apart from the irregularities in the grammar, English has of course the
>additional disadvantage of having a writing system that is so irregular that
>people generally find it easier to learn the spelling of each individual
>word than to try to learn the rules (and the exceptions).
Not as true as it seems: http://www.zompist.com/spell.html
This shows how a computer program can derive the pronunciation from
the spelling of very many words. So humans can too, and not just by
memorising.
My own http://rudhar.com/lingtics/englspel.htm is based on that fact
too.
>It is actually
>preposterous that in an English dictionary each word must be listed twice,
>one string of characters to show its spelling and another string to show its
>pronunciation!
Many other languages (French for example) could do with phonemic
transcriptions in dictionaries as well, only it idn't usually done.
--
Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.com>
Last update 23 augustus 2002 http://rudhar.com/index/whatsnew.htm
John Smith
>
> <...> I certainly wouldn't expect a bunch of Hungarian farmers to
> know anything but Hungarian. <...>
Well... And maybe Latin.
\\P. Schultz
mb
> There's also another benefit to English spelling that most people haven't
> considered. If we were to change over to a phonetic-based system, imagine
> how much trouble someone from (say) Oregon would have trying to read
> something written in South Africa. I have a hard enough time understanding
> many English speakers when they are speaking, but semi-formal English
> writing is universal in the English-speaking world. Remember that it's not
> just America and England, but thrown in Scotland, India, Jamaica, New
> Zealand, etc. and you start getting some very divergent varieties of
> English. My prediction (though I doubt I'll be around to see if it comes
> true) is that English as is is spoken and as it is written will continue to
> diverge, to the point where a diglossia as with Arabic has evolved
> Just my two cents.
Two cents that are worth more than two hundred years of bilge about
"phonetic" spelling. It seems impossible to call the zealots'
attention to the fact that any language that has been written for a
long time will diverge from the original (OK, some less than others)
and any standard language has (moving) geographic phonetic variations.
So what do we want to do? Make writing understandable only in a
vernacular area, and call for a new spelling reform every so many
years (and of course discard or rewrite existing texts)?
If making life simple and painless is the main objective, let's then
propose a more effective reform. It is already in course among a
substantial part of the population. Back to total orality. Let's stop
teaching the 2 Rs. For a good many people it won't make a big
difference, as they are entirely oral anyway, do not read except if
forced and acquire their entire culture through their immediate oral
environment and their television. Why torture them at school? We're
already sliding back to the old days where only the privileged read
and wrote.
Zsigri Gyula
"Ruud Harmsen" <r...@rudhar.com> writes:
>
> Not as true as it seems: http://www.zompist.com/spell.html
> This shows how a computer program can derive the pronunciation from
> the spelling of very many words. So humans can too, and not just by
> memorising.
> My own http://rudhar.com/lingtics/englspel.htm is based on that fact
> too.
But not the other way round. It's much more difficult to
guess the spelling of a word from its pronunciation.
Gyula
Daniel Seriff
(in message <9cc8f152.0208...@posting.google.com>):
> If making life simple and painless is the main objective, let's then
> propose a more effective reform. It is already in course among a
> substantial part of the population. Back to total orality. Let's stop
> teaching the 2 Rs. For a good many people it won't make a big
> difference, as they are entirely oral anyway, do not read except if
> forced and acquire their entire culture through their immediate oral
> environment and their television. Why torture them at school? We're
> already sliding back to the old days where only the privileged read
> and wrote.
But then they woonte get too reed this heer wunderfol chatrum.
--
Daniel Seriff
Email allows people thousands of miles apart to instantaneously demonstrate
their inability to spell.
-Mil
Nils Zonneveld
??
What has a Hungarian farmer to do with Latin?
Nils
Nils Zonneveld
mb wrote:
>
> <fat...@attglobal.net> wrote in message news:<3d6d3...@news1.prserv.net>...
> > There's also another benefit to English spelling that most people haven't
> > considered. If we were to change over to a phonetic-based system, imagine
> > how much trouble someone from (say) Oregon would have trying to read
> > something written in South Africa. I have a hard enough time understanding
> > many English speakers when they are speaking, but semi-formal English
> > writing is universal in the English-speaking world. Remember that it's not
> > just America and England, but thrown in Scotland, India, Jamaica, New
> > Zealand, etc. and you start getting some very divergent varieties of
> > English. My prediction (though I doubt I'll be around to see if it comes
> > true) is that English as is is spoken and as it is written will continue to
> > diverge, to the point where a diglossia as with Arabic has evolved
> ...
> > Just my two cents.
>
> Two cents that are worth more than two hundred years of bilge about
> "phonetic" spelling. It seems impossible to call the zealots'
> attention to the fact that any language that has been written for a
> long time will diverge from the original (OK, some less than others)
> and any standard language has (moving) geographic phonetic variations.
> So what do we want to do? Make writing understandable only in a
> vernacular area, and call for a new spelling reform every so many
> years (and of course discard or rewrite existing texts)?
>
Why not? It's the way it works with Dutch too.
> If making life simple and painless is the main objective, let's then
> propose a more effective reform. It is already in course among a
> substantial part of the population.
The vast majority of the world population doesn't speak english at all.
Nils
Nils Zonneveld
Ruud Harmsen wrote:
>
> Wed, 28 Aug 2002 20:49:31 +0200: "Gerard van Wilgen"
> <Ger...@gvwilgen.demon.nl>: in sci.lang:
>
> >Apart from the irregularities in the grammar, English has of course the
> >additional disadvantage of having a writing system that is so irregular that
> >people generally find it easier to learn the spelling of each individual
> >word than to try to learn the rules (and the exceptions).
>
> Not as true as it seems: http://www.zompist.com/spell.html
> This shows how a computer program can derive the pronunciation from
> the spelling of very many words. So humans can too, and not just by
> memorising.
> My own http://rudhar.com/lingtics/englspel.htm is based on that fact
> too.
>
How then should you derive the correct pronunciation from the written
words "four hour tour" for instance, other than just learning the
pronunciation for each individual word?
Nils
Daniel Seriff
(in message <3D6DC954...@yahoo.com>):
They teach intensive Latin in the Hungarian Farmer School.
--
Daniel Seriff
Torah! Torah! Torah!
- War cry of the kamikaze Rabbis
Nils Zonneveld
Daniel Seriff wrote:
>
> On Wed, 28 Aug 2002 23:20:45 -0500, mb wrote
> (in message <9cc8f152.0208...@posting.google.com>):
>
> > If making life simple and painless is the main objective, let's then
> > propose a more effective reform. It is already in course among a
> > substantial part of the population. Back to total orality. Let's stop
> > teaching the 2 Rs. For a good many people it won't make a big
> > difference, as they are entirely oral anyway, do not read except if
> > forced and acquire their entire culture through their immediate oral
> > environment and their television. Why torture them at school? We're
> > already sliding back to the old days where only the privileged read
> > and wrote.
>
> But then they woonte get too reed this heer wunderfol chatrum.
>
If aai woet spel inglisj fonettiklie, it woet loek laaik somving laaik
dis.
Nils
Zsigri Gyula
"Nils Zonneveld" <nilszo...@yahoo.com> writes:
> > But then they woonte get too reed this heer wunderfol chatrum.
> >
>
> If aai woet spel inglisj fonettiklie, it woet loek laaik somving laaik
> dis.
>
Nat igzektli. It vud ráder luk lájk disz.
Lee Sau Dan
Daniel> What's the point in coming up with some new artificial
Daniel> auxlang when everyone uses English already?
>> I'm disappointed that you don't consider my mom and many of my
>> aunts and uncles to be a member of "everyone". I feel offended
>> if you mean by "everyone" actually "every homo sapien".
Daniel> Perhaps it should be revised to "...when everyone who
Daniel> needs to use an international common language uses English
Daniel> already"
What do you mean "who needs ...."? My mum and aunt are going to have
a trip in the US. Do they "need" English? But they can't afford the
time, energy and money to learn it.
Daniel> If your family has no need for a common international
Daniel> language of any kind, natural or artificial, there's not
Daniel> much point in them even worrying about it.
They do. It's be more fun for them to watch Hollywood films in
English, rather than in a dubbed version or reading subtitles.
dmitri
>in which just about everyone who needs to communicate with the global
>community is able to speak at least passable English.
But why should it be English? Why not Japanese, or German, or Spanish, or
Russian?
>But whenever this English vs. auxlang-du-jour issue comes up, I have to ask
>"why fix something that isn't broken?"
You're operating on the false assumption that "it" isn't broken. It is broken
when an unfair advantage is given to one group of people over another.
Dmitri Mosier
dmitri
>spelling is so strange is that English became a standardized written language
>relatively early in its history, and then went through major sound changes.
>So
>the spelling of English preserves obsolete pronunciation.
You meant, of course, obsolete *spelling*.......but why do that? what is the
advantage of an obsolete spelling system for people who just want to learn how
to speak the language and not it's history?
(The same is true
>of
>French, whose spelling also used to be more phonetic than it is now -- all
>those
>silent letters, which were once pronounced.)
>
>As a result, the history of the English language is preserved in the spelling
>system.
As I already said, that is not a concern for people who just want to learn to
talk to English speakers.
Languages that have had modern spelling reform always engage in some
>historical/linguistic amnesia. I am glad that "night" is spelled the way it
>is,
>the better to recognize the relationship to German "Nacht".
But why is that important for you? Are you studying German? That's the only
reason why the spelling "night" would be of any use.
(I am also glad
>for
>"Aoűt", as otherwise the relationship to "August" would be completely
>invisible.)
Again, why is this important (unless, of course, you're learning
French.......but then of course, when you hear it.........)
>
>The history of English is intensely interesting to many people (including
>me),
>and historical spelling tends to feed this interest.
but it is not necessary in order to learn to speak English.
I find it notable that
>English dictionaries routinely include etymologies, whereas dictionaries of
>other European languages do not. I don't believe that English etymology is
>necessarily more interesting than that of other languages, but English
>speakers
>are more interested.
Maybe the native ones........foreign learners of the language have more than
enough to capture their interest without etymologies.
Dmitri Mosier
dmitri
>
>language for everything?
Who said anything about using the artlang for everything???
you only use the artlang/interlang when you come across someone who is a native
speaker of a language not your own. (or something written in a language not
your own......i.e. two editions of everything.....native and artlang)
Dmitri Mosier
Ruud Harmsen
>>me),
>>and historical spelling tends to feed this interest.
29 Aug 2002 13:54:39 GMT: lingua...@aol.comorzinio (dmitri): in
sci.lang:
>but it is not necessary in order to learn to speak English.
But it may help. It helps me.
http://rudhar.com/lingtics/rentesen.htm
Of course, everybody learns their own way.
Michael Dix
More so in French - that's why even native speakers have to
transcribe dictation in school.
Chergarj
>Russian?
>
That brings up a point I would like to make:
That an educated person should be able to earn a special college degree
requiring that he study 3 foreign languages to the intermediate level.
thoughts of a madman?
Daniel Seriff
(in message <20020829094713...@mb-cj.aol.com>):
>> We've already got a fairly well established system of business and
>> politics
>> in which just about everyone who needs to communicate with the global
>> community is able to speak at least passable English.
>
> But why should it be English? Why not Japanese, or German, or Spanish, or
> Russian?
Because England had a global empire, and now English is a global language. If
another nation had built such an empire, we'd probably be speaking their
language, not English. We use English as a global language because of the
incidence of history, and no other reason. No one language is "better" than
any other, not even artificial ones (which are hopelessly and unavoidably
subject to the biases of their individual creators, unlike natlangs).
>> But whenever this English vs. auxlang-du-jour issue comes up, I have to
>> ask "why fix something that isn't broken?"
>
> You're operating on the false assumption that "it" isn't broken.
I think it is you who is operating under the false assuption that it is.
Using English works just fine for people who need to use English. For those
who don't, it's a non-issue. The people you claim to be at an "unfair
disadvantage" because they don't know English are no more disadvantaged than
I am for not knowing Swahili or Arabic.
> It is
> broken when an unfair advantage is given to one group of people over
> another.
Welcome to human existence. Hope you enjoy your stay.
Daniel Seriff
(in message <m38z2qn...@mika.informatik.uni-freiburg.de>):
>>>>>> "Daniel" == Daniel Seriff <micro...@what.zzz> writes:
>
> Daniel> What's the point in coming up with some new artificial
> Daniel> auxlang when everyone uses English already?
> >> I'm disappointed that you don't consider my mom and many of my
> >> aunts and uncles to be a member of "everyone". I feel offended
> >> if you mean by "everyone" actually "every homo sapien".
>
> Daniel> Perhaps it should be revised to "...when everyone who
> Daniel> needs to use an international common language uses English
> Daniel> already"
>
> What do you mean "who needs ...."? My mum and aunt are going to have
> a trip in the US. Do they "need" English? But they can't afford the
> time, energy and money to learn it.
They don't "need" to learn English, but they might find it very difficult to
get along by themselves in America without at least basic knowledge of
English, or a translator (I presume that you would fill this role yourself).
However, the issue here is not tourists, however nice your family might be.
It is the international business and political arena in which people need to
be able to communicate with each other *every* *day*. English is already
overwhelmingly in use for this purpose, and has been for quite a while.
Society may be crashing down around our ears, but I guarantee you that it's
not because people are pissed off that they find English difficult to learn.
> Daniel> If your family has no need for a common international
> Daniel> language of any kind, natural or artificial, there's not
> Daniel> much point in them even worrying about it.
>
> They do. It's be more fun for them to watch Hollywood films in
> English, rather than in a dubbed version or reading subtitles.
If they want to watch movies in English, then they should learn English. I
would learn Chinese if I wanted to watch movies in Chinese.
Daniel Seriff
(in message <20020829095905...@mb-cj.aol.com>):
So you want to force everyone on the globe to learn a new language? I can
guarantee you with absolute certainty that I'll never have the need to talk
to more than an infintesimal percentage of the people on this planet. Why do
we all need to speak the same language? Just in case?
It all sounds like way more trouble than it's worth, especially when you
consider that humans have been communicating perfectly well outside of their
language groups for tens of thousands of years without feeling the need to
create an artificial language.
John Smith
Haven't you heard of the "Latin farmers"? Europeans are very cultured.
Agri- and otherwise.
\\P. Schultz
John Smith
> <...>
> an educated person should be able to earn a special college degree
> requiring that he study 3 foreign languages to the intermediate level.
> thoughts of a madman?
Why a college degree? A certificate would be more appropriate.
Language knowledge is a technical skill, like typing or truck-driving.
Children do it. There are children who know 4 languages at the
intermediate level who have never been to college.
\\P. Schultz
mb
...
> > Two cents that are worth more than two hundred years of bilge about
> > "phonetic" spelling. It seems impossible to call the zealots'
> > attention to the fact that any language that has been written for a
> > long time will diverge from the original (OK, some less than others)
> > and any standard language has (moving) geographic phonetic variations.
> > So what do we want to do? Make writing understandable only in a
> > vernacular area, and call for a new spelling reform every so many
> > years (and of course discard or rewrite existing texts)?
> Why not? It's the way it works with Dutch too.
Because the point, with writing, is that it now (also) has the
function of making the records available over more than one's little
vernacular area and one's little time slot.
> > If making life simple and painless is the main objective, let's then
> > propose a more effective reform. It is already in course among a
> > substantial part of the population.
>
> The vast majority of the world population doesn't speak english at all.
That's right. That was about spelling reform, not 2nd L instruction.
Now to L2: people who read and write in any language have to put up
with a writing-to-sound interface, not only when learning to r&w in
any second language, but already in their 1st L. And any 2nd L R&W,
including E, will have its own quirks, not mentioning a possible new
alphabet. Not to mention morphology, vocab, syntax etc. So-called
spelling simplification and basic-englishing have repeatedly been
shown not to really change the difficulty grade. That's what anyone
but with a reform axe to grind would logically expect, too. With logic
and madness, one might propose a "reform" that would transform the 2nd
language into a set of languages made into something approaching Thai
for the Thai, Arabic for Arabs, etc., in fact producing local pidgins;
this has a good chance to be effective as demonstrated by ongoing
history. With the result that this L2 would be understood by locals
only.
Toony7600
> additional disadvantage of having a writing system that is so irregular that
> people generally find it easier to learn the spelling of each individual
> preposterous that in an English dictionary each word must be listed twice,
> one string of characters to show its spelling and another string to show its
> pronunciation!
The problem is those that want to reform English spelling can't agree
on what reform English should look like, so it's better to stick with
the status quo. Should the vowel letters be based on Italian/Spanish
vowels, but English has lax or tense, that means vowel digraphs or
accent marks. Accent marks would be untolerable because of the
keyboard. It's just a pity that the edh and thorn letters were thrown
out when the Norman French conquered the English.
> Taking into account the very conservative nature of American society, I
> think that it is inconceivable that a radical spelling reform would be
> accepted by the Americans in the foreseeable future, so if the world accepts
> English as its lingua franca, it must also accept its extremely complicated
> writing system.
America won't even get a new electoral system, then it won't get a new
reformed English. Thinking about reforming written languages and
electoral systems, you either have got to have none from the offset
with the case of writing. In the case of electoral system been a
dictatorship that has some strange electoral rules going to transition
which creates some new rules which makes them a democracy after free
and fair elections.
> (I do actually like English spelling, because I have a taste for the bizarre
> and should not want to have it changed. But from a practical viewpoint
> English orthography is totally unsuitable).
The problem with English spelling is that their are so many varieties
of English. English could never be perfectly phonetic, but at least
come as close as Spanish perhaps. Some Spanish dialects pronouce Ll
combination differently and C after i and e and Z are the th sound in
Castilian Spanish in Spain wheras in Latin America, it is an s sound.
The problem is you need extra letters with accents or use some
strange vowel digraphs. Can any one explain the English vowel system?
People say it's long and short, but it isn't by length as in Finnish.
The vowels are lax and tense, what does that mean?
The vowels are the problems with English and some consonants would
have to change like in name Grace for example. It would have to be
spelled Greis. It couldn't be Gras which be to much like Mardi Gras or
Grass. Would proper and last names have to change as a result of the
new rules or be extemp? Everything would change if we went from
writing English in the Latin Alphabet to Cyrillic. Writing it in
Cyrillic would be better than the Latin Alphabet because Cyrillic
provides more letters such syllabants that Latin didn't have plus the
extra letters that Cyrillic created for languages that didn't have
writting systems. I am sure every proper name in Azeri is spelled
somewhat differently in it's new Latin Alphabet over the Cyrillic. I
am sure a reform on English could be done if their was a lot of given
and taken within the reformers and those that oppose it and compromise
within the dialects of English. America can't even go to metric, it
would take forever to phase in English spelling. English speaking
countries are just too darn conservative to change even basic things
although New Zealand did recently change it's electoral system.
I am only changing the vowels and not the consonants. Australians
pronouced The Rain in Spain falls on the Plain is spelled write
according to Italian vowel rules, but in American English, it would
have to be spelled The Rein in Spein falls on the Plein. It is also
good that Latin vowel rules give us a wide flexiblity. The word eye/I
would be spelled as ai, ae, or ay. We use ae as a compromise, The Raen
in Spaen falls on the Plaen. One thing that reformers of English
spelling should remember is that English spelling will never be
perfect. The important thing is too make it better, not worse.
Chergarj
>
It's a partially formed idea; certificate, degree, either is understandable.
The precise requirements of such a certificate or degree should result from
examining the idea of such an education further.
>Language knowledge is a technical skill, like typing or truck-driving.
>Children do it. There are children who know 4 languages at the
>intermediate level who have never been to college.
>
>\\P. Schultz
Too many educated people remain rigidly monolingual (probably depends on what
country they live in). One may understand some value in pushing oneself to
become multilingual, to be able to do the four skills in maybe three different
foreign languages.
You cerainly brought up the opposing point, that some people become
knowledgable in more than three languages without receiving a formal education
to be so well skilled at such languages; often it is the culture or environment
in which that person lives that pushes him/her to become so skilled.
G C
dmitri
>
>another nation had built such an empire, we'd probably be speaking their
>language, not English. We use English as a global language because of the
>incidence of history, and no other reason.
Yes, and the incidence of history may decide in a couple years that English's
turn is over...........like it did to French early in the last century.
No one language is "better" than
>any other, not even artificial ones (which are hopelessly and unavoidably
>subject to the biases of their individual creators, unlike natlangs).
>
>>> But whenever this English vs. auxlang-du-jour issue comes up, I have to
>>> ask "why fix something that isn't broken?"
>>
>> You're operating on the false assumption that "it" isn't broken.
>
>I think it is you who is operating under the false assuption that it is.
>Using English works just fine for people who need to use English. For those
>who don't, it's a non-issue. The people you claim to be at an "unfair
>disadvantage" because they don't know English are no more disadvantaged than
>I am for not knowing Swahili or Arabic.
No, the unfair advantage is with the people who do not speak English natively
when they are speaking wtih an English-native person.......the non-native is at
a disadvantage.
>
>> It is
>> broken when an unfair advantage is given to one group of people over
>> another.
>
>Welcome to human existence. Hope you enjoy your stay.
>
>--
>Daniel Seriff
>
>Email allows people thousands of miles apart to instantaneously demonstrate
>their inability to spell.
> -Mil
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
Dmitri Mosier
dmitri
>guarantee you with absolute certainty that I'll never have the need to talk
>to more than an infintesimal percentage of the people on this planet. Why do
>we all need to speak the same language? Just in case?
The world is not the insular planet that it used to be.........
Dmitri Mosier
Michael Dix
> The problem is you need extra letters with accents or use some
> strange vowel digraphs. Can any one explain the English vowel system?
> People say it's long and short, but it isn't by length as in Finnish.
> The vowels are lax and tense, what does that mean?
The long vowels in English are diphthongs. German speakers can
hear the difference between their long o and a and English
long o and a.
Daniel Seriff
(in message <20020830003251...@mb-ce.aol.com>):
>> Because England had a global empire, and now English is a global language.
>> If
>>
>> another nation had built such an empire, we'd probably be speaking their
>> language, not English. We use English as a global language because of the
>> incidence of history, and no other reason.
>
> Yes, and the incidence of history may decide in a couple years that English's
> turn is over...........like it did to French early in the last century.
I've got no problem with that. That's the way linguistic history works.
>>>> But whenever this English vs. auxlang-du-jour issue comes up, I have to
>>>> ask "why fix something that isn't broken?"
>>>
>>> You're operating on the false assumption that "it" isn't broken.
>>
>> I think it is you who is operating under the false assuption that it is.
>> Using English works just fine for people who need to use English. For
>> those
>> who don't, it's a non-issue. The people you claim to be at an "unfair
>> disadvantage" because they don't know English are no more disadvantaged
>> than I am for not knowing Swahili or Arabic.
>
> No, the unfair advantage is with the people who do not speak English natively
> when they are speaking wtih an English-native person.......the non-native is
> at a disadvantage.
Why is English somehow a special case? I, a native English speaker, am at
just as much of a disadvantage when speaking German to a native German
speaker.
A non-native speaker of language X is *always* at a disadvantage when
speaking to a native speaker of that language. English is not special in this
regard.
Daniel Seriff
(in message <20020830003602...@mb-ce.aol.com>):
That is less true than it might appear to be, I think. Our perceptions are
somewhat skewed because we live in a community that projects internationality
as a matter of course. But I'd be willing to estimate that a full third of
the people currently living on Earth have never even *heard* English spoken,
much less are able to speak it themselves.
Zsigri Gyula
> Why is English somehow a special case? I, a native English speaker, am at
> just as much of a disadvantage when speaking German to a native German
> speaker.
Yo got it. No matter what *natural* language is used, the
native speaker will be at an advantage. However, if both
speakers use an artificial language then none of them will
be at an advantage.
Gyula
Lee Sau Dan
Zsigri> Yo got it. No matter what *natural* language is used, the
Zsigri> native speaker will be at an advantage. However, if both
Zsigri> speakers use an artificial language then none of them will
Zsigri> be at an advantage.
Only if that artificial language is not much more similar to one of
their languages than the other's. Esperanto and Ido are not suitable
candidates: they resemble the West-European languages so much more
than other languages. As a Chinese speaking Cantonese, English, and
Mandarin, I find Esperanto Eurocentric. It gives speakers of French,
Italian, English and marginally German much more advantage than a
Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, Malaysian, Singaporean,
Indonesian, Cambodian, Laos, ... Just look at the Esperanto
vocabulary is enough to conclude that it is Eurocentric.
Lee Sau Dan
Daniel> Why is English somehow a special case? I, a native English
Daniel> speaker, am at just as much of a disadvantage when
Daniel> speaking German to a native German speaker.
Daniel> A non-native speaker of language X is *always* at a
Daniel> disadvantage when speaking to a native speaker of that
Daniel> language. English is not special in this regard.
It depends! I was once quite surprised that when I --a non-native
speaker-- used the word "invaluable", many native speakers thought it
was an antonym of "valuable". They simply said (wrongly) that I was
using the wrong word. I told them to look up the dictionary first. I
had to explain to them what that word actually mean, and the logic
behind it explaining why "invaluable" is more precious than
"valuable".
And... how many native speakers of English in the US can write a piece
of text without spelling errors? It appears to me that many people in
China, Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong can do a much better job here,
although these people usually cannot speak English fluently. (Could
this be related to their writing system? Forgetting about the {no
longer valid} assumption that spelling corresponds precisely with
spelling, and you'd be better of. English spelling is now *mnemonic*,
no longer phonetic.)
Lee Sau Dan
>> What do you mean "who needs ...."? My mum and aunt are going
>> to have a trip in the US. Do they "need" English? But they
>> can't afford the time, energy and money to learn it.
Daniel> They don't "need" to learn English, but they might find it
Daniel> very difficult to get along by themselves in America
Daniel> without at least basic knowledge of English,
Isn't that a _need_?
Daniel> or a translator (I presume that you would fill this role
Daniel> yourself).
If they _need_ a translator, they do have a _need_.
No. I have to work. My Dad speaks English.
Daniel> However, the issue here is not tourists, however nice your
Daniel> family might be. It is the international business and
Daniel> political arena in which people need to be able to
Daniel> communicate with each other *every* *day*.
What makes a tourist's _needs_ not legimitate _needs_?
Daniel> English is already overwhelmingly in use for this purpose,
Daniel> and has been for quite a while.
English is also useful for tourism. Who works in the tourism industry
nowadays does not HAVE TO know English?
>> They do. It's be more fun for them to watch Hollywood films
>> in English, rather than in a dubbed version or reading
>> subtitles.
Daniel> If they want to watch movies in English, then they should
Daniel> learn English.
Should != could.
Yes they would, if they could!
Daniel> I would learn Chinese if I wanted to watch movies in
Daniel> Chinese.
Yeah, you SHOULD learn Mandarin -- the most spoken language in the world.
But movies? If you want to enjoy HK movies, you'd better learn
Cantonese. That would grant you access to Chinatowns, too!
Zsigri Gyula
less advantage to Europeans than English to its native
speakers. And AFAIK, Esperanto is quite popular in China,
contrary to its being Euro-centric.
Gyula
Lee Sau Dan <dan...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de> írja:
>
> > Yo got it. No matter what *natural* language is used, the
> > native speaker will be at an advantage. However, if both
> > speakers use an artificial language then none of them will
> > be at an advantage.
>
> Only if that artificial language is not much more similar
> to one of their languages than the other's. Esperanto and
> Ido are not suitable candidates: they resemble the West-
> European languages so much more than other
> languages. As a Chinese speaking Cantonese, English,
> and Mandarin, I find Esperanto Eurocentric. It gives
> speakers of French, Italian, English and marginally
> German much more advantage than a Chinese,
> Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, Malaysian,
> Singaporean, Indonesian, Cambodian, Laos, ... Just
> look at the Esperanto vocabulary is enough to conclude
> that it is Eurocentric.
>
[...]
>
> Lee Sau Dan
Lee Sau Dan
Toony7600> The problem is those that want to reform English
Toony7600> spelling can't agree on what reform English should look
Toony7600> like, so it's better to stick with the status
Toony7600> quo. Should the vowel letters be based on
Toony7600> Italian/Spanish vowels, but English has lax or tense,
Toony7600> that means vowel digraphs or accent marks. Accent marks
Toony7600> would be untolerable because of the keyboard.
Why? I have been typing French and German (and Chinese, too) with a
standard US keyboard without troubles.
Toony7600> It's just
Toony7600> a pity that the edh and thorn letters were thrown out
Toony7600> when the Norman French conquered the English.
True! I hate the diagraphs "th", etc. when I learnt that in Old
English, there were standalone letters for those phonemes.
>> (I do actually like English spelling, because I have a taste
>> for the bizarre and should not want to have it changed. But
>> from a practical viewpoint English orthography is totally
>> unsuitable).
I don't agree on this last point. English spelling as it is now is
very practical in transcending the differences between the various
major accents: US, Canada, UK, AU, NZ, Indian, Pakistani, ...
Why says writing systems HAVE TO be phonemic? English spelling is now
a *mnemonic* system, and as such, it works well!
Toony7600> Some Spanish dialects pronouce Ll combination
Toony7600> differently
"ll" is always different from "l" in Spanish. Sometimes, it is the
palateral lateral sound. Sometimes, it is just a [j].
Toony7600> and C after i and e and Z are the th sound in Castilian
Toony7600> Spanish in Spain wheras in Latin America, it is an s
Toony7600> sound.
So, you see the problem. As time passes, more divergence will evolve.
Toony7600> The problem is you need extra letters with accents or
Toony7600> use some strange vowel digraphs. Can any one explain
Toony7600> the English vowel system? People say it's long and
Toony7600> short, but it isn't by length as in Finnish. The
Toony7600> vowels are lax and tense, what does that mean?
You can treat it like it is long vs. short. However, the long vowels
have gone through some sound changes that makes them not corresponding
very well with the short counterparts. E.g. a long [i] has become
[aj] instead of [i]. (The same change happened to Dutch and German in
some cases.) The long [a] is no longer [a:], but [ei]. etc.
Toony7600> The vowels are the problems with English and some
Toony7600> consonants would have to change like in name Grace for
Toony7600> example. It would have to be spelled Greis.
No. English uses a final "e" to mark "longness". So, "Grace" has one
syllable with the vowel being a long [a]. So, it ought to be [gra:s].
But due to the sound change, it is now [greis]. It's so easy. Most
English speakers have this rule in mind _subconciously_. They just
acquire this rule by example. I, speaking English as L2, have also
acquired this rule through exposure. Why can't you?
Toony7600> I am only changing the vowels and not the
Toony7600> consonants. Australians pronouced The Rain in Spain
Toony7600> falls on the Plain is spelled write according to
Toony7600> Italian vowel rules,
In their case, the old long [a] (now [ei] in US, UK accents) has
changed to [@j]. I don't think that is the same as the Italian
sounds. It would be [ai] instead of [@j].
Toony7600> The word eye/I would be spelled as ai,
Toony7600> ae, or ay.
"I": long [i], which ought to be [i:]. But owing to the historical
sound change, long [i] is now [aj]. Remember this rule, and you'll
understand wh_y_ it is "fly", "cry", "b_i_c_y_cle", "d_y_namite",
"c_i_der", etc. It's quite logical and consistent.
Remember, the long versions of the vowels [a], [e], [i], [o], [u] can
be easily remember if you know the names of the letters "A", "E", "I",
"O", "U". Have you ever wondered why letter "A" is called [ei], not
[a:] (as in German, French, Italian, etc.)? The answer is the sound
change!
Toony7600> We use ae as a compromise, The Raen in Spaen
Toony7600> falls on the Plaen. One thing that reformers of English
Toony7600> spelling should remember is that English spelling will
Toony7600> never be perfect. The important thing is too make it
Toony7600> better, not worse.
But you aren't making it better!
Lee Sau Dan
Zsigri> Yes, you are right that Esperanto is Euro-centric but it
Zsigri> gives less advantage to Europeans than English to its
Zsigri> native speakers. And AFAIK, Esperanto is quite popular in
Zsigri> China, contrary to its being Euro-centric.
What do you mean by "popular" here?
If less than 0.4% of the total Chinese population know Esperanto, do
you still say it is "popular"?
Daniel Seriff
(in message <akn71g$ks6$1...@hermes.cc.u-szeged.hu>):
Then they will both speak that language equally poorly. It takes a *loooong*
time to build up enough fluency in a language to facilitate unfettered
communication.
I don't like the "lowest common denominator" approach to sociology and
education. That's what the whole auxlang movement seems like to me. We've
already got enough of that attitude in the States, we don't need the rest of
the planet to start in on it, too.
But, then again, y'all won't be able to call us stupid anymore, because
you'll be stupid, too. ;)
--
Daniel Seriff
Bears are crazy. They'll bite your head if you're wearing steak on it.
- SG
scuse me
wrote:
Ha ! "Latin farmers" I had never heard of. Here are a couple of
articles with links...
http://www.watertownhistory.org/Articles/LatinFarmers.htm
The year 1848, with its revolutionary movements in Europe, increased
the emigration to America, especially in Germany, to a large extent as
compared to earlier years. Watertown also received its share of new
arrivals from the old homeland. Many so-called Latin farmers
particularly came in that year. Intelligent men such as civil
servants, pastors, professors, etc., who, because of their ignorance
of the English language could not make use of their intelligence,
bought farmland with the money they had saved from the German chaos,
built a house on it and worked the farm without any practical
knowledge of farming, sometimes in a rather laughable manner, which
>earned them the title "Latin farmers." There were also such farms
near Watertown, however not to such an extent as further east. Later
the farms were usually sold to real farmers, and the so-called Latin
farmers came, after acquiring the English language and proper
understanding of American conditions, into their proper environment
where they could better utilize the knowledge they had acquired from
German schools. But those circumstances are to be regarded more as an
interjection brought about by the memory of the year 1848, and have
little to do with the history of Watertown.
http://www.burgoo.org/history.htm#Latin
Among the early emigrants from Germany, were many who had been
accustomed to good society, and had enjoyed the advantages of superior
education. Some held diplomas from colleges and universities. As most
Germans, they were lovers of music, and some could play on one or more
musical instruments. The pioneer lives in a new country, where hard
labor, coupled with innumerable privations, without amusements of any
kind, necessarily drew that class together, who could not bring
themselves to the belief that the only aim and object in life should
henceforth be devoted to hard work only, for which they at best could
>only get board and clothing. They were generally called the "Latin
>farmers."
Daniel Seriff
(in message <m3y9aok...@mika.informatik.uni-freiburg.de>):
>>>>>> "Daniel" == Daniel Seriff <micro...@what.zzz> writes:
>
> Daniel> Why is English somehow a special case? I, a native English
> Daniel> speaker, am at just as much of a disadvantage when
> Daniel> speaking German to a native German speaker.
>
> Daniel> A non-native speaker of language X is *always* at a
> Daniel> disadvantage when speaking to a native speaker of that
> Daniel> language. English is not special in this regard.
>
> It depends! I was once quite surprised that when I --a non-native
> speaker-- used the word "invaluable", many native speakers thought it
> was an antonym of "valuable". They simply said (wrongly) that I was
> using the wrong word. I told them to look up the dictionary first. I
> had to explain to them what that word actually mean, and the logic
> behind it explaining why "invaluable" is more precious than
> "valuable".
AFACT, those "in-privative" (for lack of a better term) words like
"invaluable" and "infamous" are falling out of American usage but are still
common in British English, so it's not surprising that you (who I presume
learned primarily British English) would use them where an American would use
something else. Things get a little muddy when you start taking dialect
differences into account.
For example, most Americans laugh the first time they hear a Brit say "lift",
"water closet" or "bonnet", and I still get shivers up my spine whenever
someone says "pop" instead of "soda". Even worse is when you go to Atlanta,
where they call all carbonated soft drinks "Coke", regardless of the actual
brand name.
I had a friend in college who would say "I'm going to get a Coke", and then
would come back with a Dr. Pepper. Needless to say, we made fun of her
mercilessly.
> And... how many native speakers of English in the US can write a piece
> of text without spelling errors? It appears to me that many people in
> China, Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong can do a much better job here,
> although these people usually cannot speak English fluently. (Could
> this be related to their writing system? Forgetting about the {no
> longer valid} assumption that spelling corresponds precisely with
> spelling, and you'd be better of. English spelling is now *mnemonic*,
> no longer phonetic.)
Well, this really has more to do with the American educational system, which,
like I said in a post just a moment ago, is becoming increasingly organized
around the "lowest common denominator" philosophy of education, at least in
public schools. We teach everyone only what the dumbest person in the class
can understand. Most of the non-native English speakers I know are better
spellers than many native speakers. I was fortunate in that I grew up in one
of the best public school districts in the country, so I think I've got a
fairly strong general education. I try very hard not to use words I don't
know how to spell, and if I absolutely must, I look them up before
proceeding.
--
Daniel Seriff
La musique est un langage qui se signifie soi-même.
- Jean-Jacques Nattiez
Javier BF
> > to turn our beautiful multicultural world into a plain gray globe.
>
> And exactly how would that be prevented by everyone using the same artificial
> globe.
Because simply the common IAL wouldn't be used "for everything",
as we aren't now using English for everything either (at least
here in Spain). The common neutral IAL would only be used in
contexts where people from different linguistic backgrounds need
to communicate with each other (as tourism, air navigation, etc.).
> Barcode tatoos soon to follow.
May I know what on Earth does that have to do with the previous??
Adding such a remark which in fact has no relation to the matter
of a common IAL is an ill-intentioned way of trying to make
others think of the possibility of an IAL as an alarming danger.
Has that 90% of the world that already uses the common metric
system become plain gray and "barcoded"? No. Instead, the pride
and stubbornness of the USA to continue using the unmanageble
system of inches, feet, miles, gallons, etc. has already caused
important scientific missions to be aborted and billions to be
wasted when a spacecraft crashed on Mars because in Houston they
mixed up miles and kilometers.
Cheers,
Javier
Javier BF
> language, because there has been one in continuous use for more than a
> century that is perfectly adequate.
I wouldn't say that Esperanto or Ido are "perfectly adequate".
They're hard to learn for non-Europeans, and feature numerous
idiomatic usages, such as that "junedzo" (lit. "young spouse")
for "just married spouse", or that uncomprehensible use of
an adverb instead of an adjective to qualify an infinitive,
an idiom Zamenhof copy-and-pasted from Slavic languages, or
that unnecessary bloating of the stock of basic roots, something
that is even against the rules of the Fundamento.
Cheers,
Javier
Daniel Seriff
(in message <m3ptw0k...@mika.informatik.uni-freiburg.de>):
>>>>>> "Daniel" == Daniel Seriff <micro...@what.zzz> writes:
>
> >> What do you mean "who needs ...."? My mum and aunt are going
> >> to have a trip in the US. Do they "need" English? But they
> >> can't afford the time, energy and money to learn it.
>
> Daniel> They don't "need" to learn English, but they might find it
> Daniel> very difficult to get along by themselves in America
> Daniel> without at least basic knowledge of English,
>
> Isn't that a _need_?
Yes, but they don't have to come to the States (although I'm sure they want
to visit you). Speaking English isn't a requirement in their daily lives,
only in special circumstances.
I am in a similar situation with German. My stepfather is a born Münchner, so
we occasionally go to Germany to visit his family, or they come visit us. I
don't *need* to speak German for this, but I have chosen to learn it because
I thought it might be useful.
Now, I do have a *professional* need to speak and read German (a lot of
musicological scholarship is written in German), but that is quite
independent (at least to my mind) of my familial issues.
> Daniel> or a translator (I presume that you would fill this role
> Daniel> yourself).
>
> If they _need_ a translator, they do have a _need_.
>
> No. I have to work. My Dad speaks English.
That's good.
> Daniel> However, the issue here is not tourists, however nice your
> Daniel> family might be. It is the international business and
> Daniel> political arena in which people need to be able to
> Daniel> communicate with each other *every* *day*.
>
> What makes a tourist's _needs_ not legimitate _needs_?
I'm not saying that they're not legitimate, I'm saying that they're
different. If I go to China, I need to learn Mandarin, not English. Tourism
isn't a "common arena" like business and politics. You go someplace to
interact with the people who live there. In business and politics, you're
potentially meeting with people from several different linguistic
backgrounds, and thus you need a single common language.
> Daniel> English is already overwhelmingly in use for this purpose,
> Daniel> and has been for quite a while.
>
> English is also useful for tourism. Who works in the tourism industry
> nowadays does not HAVE TO know English?
Being the cynical fellow that I am, I think this has more to do with
Americans not wanting to learn foreign languages than with anything else.
But the tourism *business* is different from the tourists themselves.
> >> They do. It's be more fun for them to watch Hollywood films
> >> in English, rather than in a dubbed version or reading
> >> subtitles.
>
> Daniel> If they want to watch movies in English, then they should
> Daniel> learn English.
>
> Should != could.
>
> Yes they would, if they could!
Well, of course. I'd learn as many languages as possible if I had the time.
> Daniel> I would learn Chinese if I wanted to watch movies in
> Daniel> Chinese.
>
> Yeah, you SHOULD learn Mandarin -- the most spoken language in the world.
I'd love to. It's a beautiful language. But there are a few languages that
are above Mandarin on my personal "languages to learn" list, and I don't have
time to learn *them*, much less to go three or four down the list.
> But movies? If you want to enjoy HK movies, you'd better learn
> Cantonese.
Well, I'm OK with subtitling, so it's not a big deal.
> That would grant you access to Chinatowns, too!
There's a Chinatown here in Austin, but not the kind I think you mean. It's a
very good Chinese restaurant on the upper floor of a very good sushi bar. ;)
You want a real Chinatown (in central Texas, at any rate), go to Houston.
Ruud Harmsen
<nilszo...@yahoo.com>: in sci.lang:
>How then should you derive the correct pronunciation from the written
>words "four hour tour" for instance, other than just learning the
>pronunciation for each individual word?
Good point. Looks like you're right.
--
Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.com>
Last update 23 augustus 2002 http://rudhar.com/index/whatsnew.htm
Lee Sau Dan
Daniel> They don't "need" to learn English, but they might find it
Daniel> very difficult to get along by themselves in America
Daniel> without at least basic knowledge of English,
>> Isn't that a _need_?
Daniel> Yes, but they don't have to come to the States (although
Daniel> I'm sure they want to visit you).
"although"?
Well... my parents have come to visit me, not in the States though.
If you have the brain cells to carefully examine my e-mail address,
you should know where I am now residing.
It's so nice that they don't need a visa to come here as tourists,
whereas they need to apply a visa for the States. The application
procedure for a US visa is very unfriendly!!!
Daniel> I'm not saying that they're not legitimate, I'm saying
Daniel> that they're different. If I go to China, I need to learn
Daniel> Mandarin, not English.
It depends on which part of China you're visiting. Come to Hong Kong,
and you'll find that knowledge of Mandarin is basically useless.
Daniel> Being the cynical fellow that I am, I think this has more
Daniel> to do with Americans not wanting to learn foreign
Daniel> languages than with anything else.
Absolutely!
>> But movies? If you want to enjoy HK movies, you'd better learn
>> Cantonese.
Daniel> Well, I'm OK with subtitling, so it's not a big deal.
Subtitles do not match exactly the dialogues.
Daniel> You want a real Chinatown (in central Texas, at any rate),
Daniel> go to Houston.
No. You should go to San Francisco, Vancouver or Toronto. (No
comment on the Chinatown in NYC, as I've never been there.)
Lee Sau Dan
Javier> I wouldn't say that Esperanto or Ido are "perfectly
Javier> adequate". They're hard to learn for non-Europeans, and
Javier> feature numerous idiomatic usages, such as that "junedzo"
Javier> (lit. "young spouse") for "just married spouse",
Well... one of the first words an Esperanto speaker would learn is
"vortaro", which is illogically the word for "dictionary", although
the composition "vort-ar-o" would suggest "vocabulary" or "lexicon"
instead. Given this is a very frequently used word among new
learners, I can't find any excuse for the designer of this language.
Brion VIBBER
> I wouldn't say that Esperanto or Ido are "perfectly adequate".
> They're hard to learn for non-Europeans, and feature numerous
> idiomatic usages, such as that "junedzo" (lit. "young spouse")
> for "just married spouse",
Never heard it. "Novedzo" (new spouse) seems to be much more common.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
Hans Stuifbergen
"Javier BF" <uaxu...@hotmail.com> skribis en mesajo
news:b0461a9.02083...@posting.google.com...
> I wouldn't say that Esperanto or Ido are "perfectly adequate".
> They're hard to learn for non-Europeans, and feature numerous
> idiomatic usages, such as that "junedzo" (lit. "young spouse")
> for "just married spouse", or that uncomprehensible use of
> an adverb instead of an adjective to qualify an infinitive,
> an idiom Zamenhof copy-and-pasted from Slavic languages, or
> that unnecessary bloating of the stock of basic roots, something
> that is even against the rules of the Fundamento.
Me pensas ke Ido es 'adequata', ma 'perfekta', no. En mea opiniono nula
linguo es perfekta. Tamen, me preferas Ido plu kam altra lingui.
Voluntez notar ke "junedzo" es vorto Esperantal. L' equivalanto en Ido es:
yuna spozo (yuna spozulo / yuna spozino). "Just married spouse", jus
mariajita spozo, ka? Ne omna spozo jus mariajita es yuna.
Saluti amikala,
Hans St.
Amsterdam
--
nova: ARTHUR RIMBAUD, biografio, 75 pag., 3,50 euri
http://www.angelfire.com/id/Avance/TiaListo1.html
IDO, LA LINGUO INTERNACIONA
http://members.tripod.com/~avancigado
http://www.idolinguo.com/
Ido, linguo neutra inter diferanta kulturi
Toony7600
> standard US keyboard without troubles.
I don't mind accents, but I am sure most Americans probaly wouldn't
like accent marks.
> True! I hate the diagraphs "th", etc. when I learnt that in Old
> English, there were standalone letters for those phonemes.
Could these letters be reintroduced? Along with the æ combination
letter. In Icelandic, it is the [aj] sound.
> I don't agree on this last point. English spelling as it is now is
> very practical in transcending the differences between the various
> major accents: US, Canada, UK, AU, NZ, Indian, Pakistani, ...
That true and that's the praticality of English.
> Why says writing systems HAVE TO be phonemic? English spelling is now
> a *mnemonic* system, and as such, it works well!
That's true, but it's harder to learn. The dialects of English aren't
as far a part as the Chinese languages are.
>
> "ll" is always different from "l" in Spanish. Sometimes, it is the
> palateral lateral sound. Sometimes, it is just a [j].
I meant the Ll is different in the different accents of Spanish. It
can be an English J sound or Y sound or a Sh sound depending on
dialect.
> So, you see the problem. As time passes, more divergence will evolve.
That's true, too. A written always needs to be reformed and
maintained. The problem with English. It has never had a reform wheras
other languages do. A written language should be reformed probaly at
least every 100 years. It's better than doing radical reforms after
500 years.
> No. English uses a final "e" to mark "longness". So, "Grace" has one
> syllable with the vowel being a long [a]. So, it ought to be [gra:s].
> But due to the sound change, it is now [greis]. It's so easy. Most
> English speakers have this rule in mind _subconciously_. They just
> acquire this rule by example. I, speaking English as L2, have also
> acquired this rule through exposure. Why can't you?
It can be removed if their is a reform of English spelling. What about
words like Cafe and Latte and that's if the accent is written on the
final e's or what about résumé ( could be spelled rezumei) or resume
(rizum)? English does have a short e sound on the end of it's words.
Cafe is pronouced Cafei.
> In their case, the old long [a] (now [ei] in US, UK accents) has
> changed to [@j]. I don't think that is the same as the Italian
> sounds. It would be [ai] instead of [@j].
Yes, that's true. In Spanish, ai is very much like I. It's the same
digraph sound in both languages.
> "I": long [i], which ought to be [i:]. But owing to the historical
> sound change, long [i] is now [aj]. Remember this rule, and you'll
> understand wh_y_ it is "fly", "cry", "b_i_c_y_cle", "d_y_namite",
> "c_i_der", etc. It's quite logical and consistent.
How do you pronouced the y in bicycle? I pronouced that y as the i in
bit. All the others are correct, then fly would be flai, cry would be
crai, bicylcle would be baisikl, dynamite as dainamait, cider as
saider.
> Remember, the long versions of the vowels [a], [e], [i], [o], [u] can
> be easily remember if you know the names of the letters "A", "E", "I",
> "O", "U". Have you ever wondered why letter "A" is called [ei], not
> [a:] (as in German, French, Italian, etc.)? The answer is the sound
> change!
Yes, I wonder that before and it's because of the vowel shift. That
means the vowel letters in English would have to be renamed.
Daniel Seriff
(in message <b0461a9.02083...@posting.google.com>):
>>> An artificial language without a background culture is less likely
>>> to turn our beautiful multicultural world into a plain gray globe.
>>
>> And exactly how would that be prevented by everyone using the same
>> artificial
>> language for everything? Seems like it would be even *more* of a plain
>> gray globe.
>
> Because simply the common IAL wouldn't be used "for everything",
> as we aren't now using English for everything either (at least
> here in Spain). The common neutral IAL would only be used in
> contexts where people from different linguistic backgrounds need
> to communicate with each other (as tourism, air navigation, etc.).
But you must admit that you *are*, for the most part, using English to do
many of the things for which you propose using an IAL. I don't see the
purpose in forcing people to learn a whole new language just because a
handful of people are biased, for whatever reason, against English.
It's difficult to learn *any* language. English does not corner that market
by any stretch of the imagination. English may have spelling issues, but have
you ever tried to learn Arabic or Mandarin? Both have their own quirks that
non-native learners find exceedingly difficult. I find German to be a very
easy language, but some people just don't get grammatical cases, and so are
completely lost. I just don't find the "difficulty" argument to be compelling
at all.
And anyhow, I don't know about how things are on the ground in Europe, but I
haven't heard a massed call for removing English from the international stage
from anyone besides the French. And we all know how *they* are about
language, just as we all know that only the literati are complaining.
>> Barcode tatoos soon to follow.
>
> May I know what on Earth does that have to do with the previous??
> Adding such a remark which in fact has no relation to the matter
> of a common IAL is an ill-intentioned way of trying to make
> others think of the possibility of an IAL as an alarming danger.
I don't think it's an alarming danger, I just think it's rather unnecessary,
and not a little goofy. IAL homers claim that an IAL would fill a role that's
never really been empty at any point in human history.
> Has that 90% of the world that already uses the common metric
> system become plain gray and "barcoded"? No. Instead, the pride
> and stubbornness of the USA to continue using the unmanageble
> system of inches, feet, miles, gallons, etc.
Don't blame it all on us. Britain still uses it, too. Personally, I'd rather
use metric, but my country(wo)men aren't smart enough.
> has already caused
> important scientific missions to be aborted and billions to be
> wasted when a spacecraft crashed on Mars because in Houston they
> mixed up miles and kilometers.
That's because NASA gets about $5 and a bag of stale chips annually from the
US government.
Daniel Seriff
(in message <m3y9aoi...@mika.informatik.uni-freiburg.de>):
>>>>>> "Daniel" == Daniel Seriff <micro...@what.zzz> writes:
>
> Daniel> They don't "need" to learn English, but they might find it
> Daniel> very difficult to get along by themselves in America
> Daniel> without at least basic knowledge of English,
> >> Isn't that a _need_?
>
> Daniel> Yes, but they don't have to come to the States (although
> Daniel> I'm sure they want to visit you).
>
> "although"?
>
> Well... my parents have come to visit me, not in the States though.
> If you have the brain cells to carefully examine my e-mail address,
> you should know where I am now residing.
Sorry, I tend not to look at email addresses on newsgroups. They're so often
faked (like mine) that I've found it to be a waste of effort. For some
reason, reading previous messages led me to believe that you lived somewhere
on the west coast of the States. Don't know why.
> It's so nice that they don't need a visa to come here as tourists,
> whereas they need to apply a visa for the States. The application
> procedure for a US visa is very unfriendly!!!
I believe you. For all of our talk about "give me your tired, your hungry,
blah, blah", we (exclusive, not inclusive) really seem to hate foreigners
with a passion. Yet another reason I'd like to move abroad as soon as
possible. I like foreigners. Even more so when I am one myself.
> Daniel> I'm not saying that they're not legitimate, I'm saying
> Daniel> that they're different. If I go to China, I need to learn
> Daniel> Mandarin, not English.
>
> It depends on which part of China you're visiting. Come to Hong Kong,
> and you'll find that knowledge of Mandarin is basically useless.
Of course. I'm not so familiar with the dialect/language map of the East. But
I'm sure you got what I mean.
> Daniel> Being the cynical fellow that I am, I think this has more
> Daniel> to do with Americans not wanting to learn foreign
> Daniel> languages than with anything else.
>
> Absolutely!
Frankly, I just don't understand that attitude. Languages are cool.
> >> But movies? If you want to enjoy HK movies, you'd better learn
> >> Cantonese.
>
> Daniel> Well, I'm OK with subtitling, so it's not a big deal.
>
> Subtitles do not match exactly the dialogues.
Yeah, I know, but it's better than giving myself an aneurism watching the
lips not match up with the voices. Gives me a frigging headache.
> Daniel> You want a real Chinatown (in central Texas, at any rate),
> Daniel> go to Houston.
>
> No. You should go to San Francisco, Vancouver or Toronto. (No
> comment on the Chinatown in NYC, as I've never been there.)
Well, I did qualify myself by saying "in central Texas, at any rate". :)
John Smith
>
> >>>>> "Zsigri" == Zsigri Gyula <zsi...@hung.u-szeged.hu> writes:
>
> Zsigri> Yes, you are right that Esperanto is Euro-centric but it
> Zsigri> gives less advantage to Europeans than English to its
> Zsigri> native speakers. And AFAIK, Esperanto is quite popular in
> Zsigri> China, contrary to its being Euro-centric.
>
> What do you mean by "popular" here?
>
> If less than 0.4% of the total Chinese population know Esperanto, do
> you still say it is "popular"?
Ok, Japanese, then. Whatever.
\\P. Schultz
John Smith
> <...>
> Voluntez notar ke "junedzo" es vorto Esperantal. L' equivalanto en Ido es:
Ha! I THOUGHT the word "Ido" sounded Italian, and there you are. It IS
Italian!
\\P. Schultz
rosignol
uaxu...@hotmail.com (Javier BF) wrote:
[zap]
> > Barcode tatoos soon to follow.
>
> May I know what on Earth does that have to do with the previous??
'cuz Microsoft will require them in the terms and conditions of the
Windows Licence. You'll have to wave it under the scanner, otherwise the
computer won't let you log in.
Some people (such as the writers employed by Ziff-Davis publications)
will declare this is a wonderfully convienient alternative to
remembering all those complicated passwords.
[tounge firmly in cheek, except for the bit about Ziff-Davis]
> Adding such a remark which in fact has no relation to the matter
> of a common IAL is an ill-intentioned way of trying to make
> others think of the possibility of an IAL as an alarming danger.
> Has that 90% of the world that already uses the common metric
> system become plain gray and "barcoded"? No. Instead, the pride
> and stubbornness of the USA to continue using the unmanageble
> system of inches, feet, miles, gallons, etc. has already caused
> important scientific missions to be aborted and billions to be
> wasted when a spacecraft crashed on Mars because in Houston they
> mixed up miles and kilometers.
Just doing our bit to keep this planet from turning into a plain,
boring, grey globe. Remember, to err is human.
<g>
--
al Qaeda delenda est
dmitri
>
>>> If
>>>
>>> another nation had built such an empire, we'd probably be speaking their
>>> language, not English. We use English as a global language because of the
>>> incidence of history, and no other reason.
>>
>> Yes, and the incidence of history may decide in a couple years that
>English's
>> turn is over...........like it did to French early in the last century.
>
>I've got no problem with that. That's the way linguistic history works.
So people all over the world will have wasted all the time they took to learn
it.
>Why is English somehow a special case? I
because of everyone wanting English to be "the" IAL..........if the proposal
were German, I'd have said German, etc.
>a native English speaker, am at
>just as much of a disadvantage when speaking German to a native German
>speaker.
true, but German is not the "hotshot" IAL everyone is rooting for, is it?
>A non-native speaker of language X is *always* at a disadvantage when
>speaking to a native speaker of that language. English is not special in this
>
>regard.
Exactly, so why not adopt a language that is native to practically nobody
instead of a quarter of the world's population?
Dmitri Mosier
David Barnsdale
<toon...@my-deja.com> writes
>
>The problem is those that want to reform English spelling can't agree
>on what reform English should look like, so it's better to stick with
>the status quo.
If there was a serious movement for reform there would be no
problem in agreeing on the appropriate graphemes. That
you can trawl the web and find 100 different proposals
is a symptom of the fact that at the present moment there
is no serious movement for reform.
>Should the vowel letters be based on Italian/Spanish
>vowels, but English has lax or tense, that means vowel digraphs or
>accent marks. Accent marks would be untolerable because of the
>keyboard.
There is no problem in finding graphemes for all the English
vowels. The problem is to reduce the ways of showing
vowels. The long e of concede could be rendered
conceed, conceid, concead.
Accent marks? Goodness me, we're spoilt for choice without them.
>It's just a pity that the edh and thorn letters were thrown
>out when the Norman French conquered the English.
The thorn and eth survived up to the time of printing but
printing came to England via the Netherlands. They didn't
hav the letters hence tried a few work a rounds. One was
to use "y" because it looks a bit like an eth. Hence the
"Ye Olde Shope" that some tourist shops stick outside themselves.
Settling for <th> was one of their better decisions.
(I agree eths and thorns look pretty but as a spelling
system English can manage fine without them)
David
--
David Barnsdale
Gerard van Wilgen
"Lee Sau Dan" <dan...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de> wrote in message
news:m33cswj...@mika.informatik.uni-freiburg.de...
> >>>>> "Javier" == Javier BF <uaxu...@hotmail.com> writes:
>
> Javier> I wouldn't say that Esperanto or Ido are "perfectly
> Javier> adequate". They're hard to learn for non-Europeans, and
> Javier> feature numerous idiomatic usages, such as that "junedzo"
> Javier> (lit. "young spouse") for "just married spouse",
>
> Well... one of the first words an Esperanto speaker would learn is
> "vortaro", which is illogically the word for "dictionary", although
> the composition "vort-ar-o" would suggest "vocabulary" or "lexicon"
> instead. Given this is a very frequently used word among new
> learners, I can't find any excuse for the designer of this language.
"Vortaro" is indeed an unfortunate choice for "dictionary". Personally I
should prefer "vortlibro". But the fault is not in the language itself,
since it allows for other words to be used instead of "vortaro". The problem
is of course that it is impossible to design a language with rules that make
the creation of illogical compounds impossible, since its users can always
ignore any rule they want to.
Your problem is that you want your auxiliary language to be "perfect", which
will guarantee that it will never exist. For me "adequate" is enough.
Gerard van Wilgen
Gerard van Wilgen
Gerard van Wilgen
news:b0461a9.02083...@posting.google.com...
> > Anyway, you are right in that we do not need a new artificial auxiliary
> > language, because there has been one in continuous use for more than a
> > century that is perfectly adequate.
>
> I wouldn't say that Esperanto or Ido are "perfectly adequate".
> They're hard to learn for non-Europeans, and feature numerous
> idiomatic usages, such as that "junedzo" (lit. "young spouse")
> for "just married spouse",
Idiomatic usage is not a fault of the language but of the users. Anyway, I
have never seen or heard the word "junedzo". I should use "novedzo" instead.
> or that uncomprehensible use of
> an adverb instead of an adjective to qualify an infinitive,
> an idiom Zamenhof copy-and-pasted from Slavic languages, or
It is not incomprehensible because one of the functions of an adverb is to
qualify a verb. It is English that behaves rather illogical with "to err is
human" instead of "to err is humanly". But if this feature bothers you you
can always "substantivize" the infinitive and say for instance "ridado estas
saniga" instead of "ridi estas sanige" for "laughing is healthy"
> that unnecessary bloating of the stock of basic roots, something
> that is even against the rules of the Fundamento.
>
Again, this is a fault of the users, not of the language. On the other hand,
many people criticize Esperanto just for the opposite, i.e. using compounds
where natural languages tend to use roots, such as "mallonga" for "short"
and "malricha" for "poor" (I think Ido has replaced these with "kurta" and
"povra" respectively). Well, I suppose you can never please everybody!
Javier BF
> less advantage to Europeans than English to its native
> speakers. And AFAIK, Esperanto is quite popular in China,
> contrary to its being Euro-centric.
If so, that would be just the result of choosing the less bad
of two evils:
a darn-hard-to-the-extreme-of-tears-even-for-other-Westerners
Western language which symbolizes more clearly than anything
else the supremacy of the USA over the world
vs.
a hard-for-non-Westerners-but-with-a-higher-degree-of-logicity-
and-regularity-than-any-natlang Western-biased auxiliary language
Cheers,
Javier
Javier BF
> > native speaker will be at an advantage. However, if both
> > speakers use an artificial language then none of them will
> > be at an advantage.
>
> Then they will both speak that language equally poorly. It takes a *loooong*
> time to build up enough fluency in a language to facilitate unfettered
> communication.
But if the language in which you need to acquire fluency
is an artificial one which features a
higher-to-the-point-of-no-reasonable-comparison-anymore
degree of regularity and logicity than that of English,
then it will take *faaaaaar* less time to become fluent in
that artificial language than the time even decades' long
of constant hard pains it may well be necessary for a
foreigner to become fluent in English.
Though, of course, as a native you're already a fluent English
speaker, so you'll never face yourself with the need of
becoming fluent in a different language to be able to
communicate in most international situations (like e.g. in
this newsgroups). That's why English is so fine being THE
international language so far as you are concerned.
Cheers,
Javier
Javier BF
> many of the things for which you propose using an IAL. I don't see the
> purpose in forcing people to learn a whole new language just because a
> handful of people are biased, for whatever reason, against English.
>
> It's difficult to learn *any* language. English does not corner that market
> by any stretch of the imagination. English may have spelling issues, but have
> you ever tried to learn Arabic or Mandarin? Both have their own quirks that
> non-native learners find exceedingly difficult. I find German to be a very
> easy language, but some people just don't get grammatical cases, and so are
> completely lost. I just don't find the "difficulty" argument to be compelling
> at all.
The reason for a whole new language is that, before I became
fluent enough to use English, I had to undergo through long
years of unending unspeakable pains, "fighting" against its
crazy orthography, its too subtle phonology, its innumerable
grammatical inconsistencies, those impossible phrasal verbs,
etc. etc. etc. I simply don't want other people having to
undergo those same pains I know how hard they are because I've
suffered them myself just because they need to communicate in
international situations. A whole new logical and regular
language is the only way to save them those pains. Of course,
using Arabic or Mandarin would make no difference with using
English, as they're equally hard-to-learn.
Cheers,
Javier
Wiktor S.
> > >> Cantonese.
> >
> > Daniel> Well, I'm OK with subtitling, so it's not a big deal.
> >
> > Subtitles do not match exactly the dialogues.
>
> Yeah, I know, but it's better than giving myself an aneurism watching the
> lips not match up with the voices. Gives me a frigging headache.
What about a lector that reads the entire dialogue list (original voices are
heard in the background)?
--
Azarien
VENI, VIDI, NIHIL NOVI
Daniel Seriff
(in message <b0461a9.02083...@posting.google.com>):
>>> Yo got it. No matter what *natural* language is used, the
>>> native speaker will be at an advantage. However, if both
>>> speakers use an artificial language then none of them will
>>> be at an advantage.
>> Then they will both speak that language equally poorly. It takes a
>> *loooong*
>> time to build up enough fluency in a language to facilitate unfettered
>> communication.
> But if the language in which you need to acquire fluency
> is an artificial one which features a
> higher-to-the-point-of-no-reasonable-comparison-anymore
> degree of regularity and logicity than that of English,
> then it will take *faaaaaar* less time to become fluent in
> that artificial language than the time even decades' long
> of constant hard pains it may well be necessary for a
> foreigner to become fluent in English.
Personally, I don't find "logical" languages to be very learnable. Total
regularity simply isn't natural. Nor is it, dare I say, "logical".
Not only that, but they are, unless invented completely _a posteriori_,
reliant on one particular language or another as a substrate. What's the
difference between learning English and learning funny-looking Latin? Both
will be equally unfamiliar to a monolingual Mandarin speaker.
> Though, of course, as a native you're already a fluent English
> speaker, so you'll never face yourself with the need of
> becoming fluent in a different language to be able to
> communicate in most international situations (like e.g. in
> this newsgroups). That's why English is so fine being THE
> international language so far as you are concerned.
Stop assuming I'm a stupid American. When I travel to Germany, I end up
speaking significantly more German than English.
I don't see international businessmen and politicians climbing all over each
other to convert all of their communication to Esperanto or whatever. If the
people who are actually *using* English to communicate with each other on a
daily basis aren't complaining about using English, why would you want to
force them to change?
The only people that seem to care at all about teaching everyone an IAL are
the people who design IALs.
Daniel Seriff
(in message <20020831021540...@mb-fh.aol.com>):
>>>> Because England had a global empire, and now English is a global
>>>> language. If another nation had built such an empire, we'd probably be
>>>> speaking their language, not English. We use English as a global
>>>> language because of the incidence of history, and no other reason.
>>> Yes, and the incidence of history may decide in a couple years that
>>> English's
>>> turn is over...........like it did to French early in the last century.
>> I've got no problem with that. That's the way linguistic history works.
> So people all over the world will have wasted all the time they took to learn
> it.
Then you must admit, by logical extension, that learning any particular
foreign language is a waste of time, because an incidence of history *might*,
at some undetermined point in the future, potentially cause people to stop
using that language.
And since when is learning *any* foreign language a waste of time?
>> Why is English somehow a special case? I
> because of everyone wanting English to be "the" IAL..........if the proposal
> were German, I'd have said German, etc.
I couldn't care less about which language "becomes" "the" IAL. It is an
indisputable fact that English *is*, for all intents and purposes, "the" IAL,
right now. Personally, I think that most of the driving force behind the
entire IAL movement is bias against the English language. AFAICT, most IAL
homers are European.
>> a native English speaker, am at
>> just as much of a disadvantage when speaking German to a native German
>> speaker.
> true, but German is not the "hotshot" IAL everyone is rooting for, is it?
Nor is English. You don't seem to understand that, for the most part, English
is already in use for this purpose. I'm not advocating anything but keeping
your nose out of places it isn't wanted or needed.
>> A non-native speaker of language X is *always* at a disadvantage when
>> speaking to a native speaker of that language. English is not special in
>> this regard.
> Exactly, so why not adopt a language that is native to practically nobody
> instead of a quarter of the world's population?
Because people *want* to learn the prestige language, which English
indubitably is in the global community. That may piss you off (and, if you're
like many other hardcore IAL homers, it probably does), but you must admit
that people wouldn't keep learning English in droves if they actually had a
problem with doing so.
Daniel Seriff
(in message <b0461a9.02083...@posting.google.com>):
>> But you must admit that you *are*, for the most part, using English to do
How do you account for the fact that, despite the existence of many "logical"
artificial languages, people are still learning English by the millions?
If nobody cares, do you really have a point?
Herman Rubin
mb <azy...@mail.com> wrote:
><fat...@attglobal.net> wrote in message news:<3d6d3...@news1.prserv.net>...
<> There's also another benefit to English spelling that most people haven't
<> considered. If we were to change over to a phonetic-based system, imagine
<> how much trouble someone from (say) Oregon would have trying to read
<> something written in South Africa. I have a hard enough time understanding
<> many English speakers when they are speaking, but semi-formal English
<> writing is universal in the English-speaking world. Remember that it's not
<> just America and England, but thrown in Scotland, India, Jamaica, New
<> Zealand, etc. and you start getting some very divergent varieties of
<> English. My prediction (though I doubt I'll be around to see if it comes
<> true) is that English as is is spoken and as it is written will continue to
<> diverge, to the point where a diglossia as with Arabic has evolved
>...
<> Just my two cents.
>Two cents that are worth more than two hundred years of bilge about
>"phonetic" spelling. It seems impossible to call the zealots'
>attention to the fact that any language that has been written for a
>long time will diverge from the original (OK, some less than others)
>and any standard language has (moving) geographic phonetic variations.
>So what do we want to do? Make writing understandable only in a
>vernacular area, and call for a new spelling reform every so many
>years (and of course discard or rewrite existing texts)?
>If making life simple and painless is the main objective, let's then
>propose a more effective reform. It is already in course among a
>substantial part of the population. Back to total orality. Let's stop
>teaching the 2 Rs. For a good many people it won't make a big
>difference, as they are entirely oral anyway, do not read except if
>forced and acquire their entire culture through their immediate oral
>environment and their television. Why torture them at school? We're
>already sliding back to the old days where only the privileged read
>and wrote.
I would take a different tack; we should consider the
written language as primary, and work through that. To
a considerable extent, this was the situation in the
sciences in the Renaissance, when communication was in
Latin, and even much later.
We have this now in much of mathematical and scientific
terminology. I can pick up a paper of Gauss or Euler in
Latin, which I do not know well, and read it, as there is
enough mathematical notation. I have even done this with
some papers in Russian, of which I know very poorly, when
there is enough notation.
It is the spoken language which gets confusing, not the
written one. Those brought up on spoken languages can
be very difficult to understand when they misuse the
structure, as they often do not know it. This even
holds for native speakers.
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
hru...@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
Herman Rubin
Zsigri Gyula <zsi...@hung.u-szeged.hu> wrote:
>"Ruud Harmsen" <r...@rudhar.com> writes:
>> Not as true as it seems: http://www.zompist.com/spell.html
>> This shows how a computer program can derive the pronunciation from
>> the spelling of very many words. So humans can too, and not just by
>> memorising.
>> My own http://rudhar.com/lingtics/englspel.htm is based on that fact
>> too.
>But not the other way round. It's much more difficult to
>guess the spelling of a word from its pronunciation.
>Gyula
Agreed. But this means the written language should be the
basic one, not the spoken language.
John Smith
> <...>
> basic one, not the spoken language.
Yes, and the world should be constantly at peace. But neither of those
desiderata is the way things actually are by their natures.
Written languages are concocted, arbitrary, imperfect codes, and have
only existed for a fraction of a percent of the lifespan of human
language on earth.
\\P. Schultz
David Barnsdale
<nilszo...@yahoo.com> writes
>
>If aai woet spel inglisj fonettiklie, it woet loek laaik somving laaik
>dis.
I'm a little sceptical that this really reflects how you speak.
There are those who say v and f for th (myself for one). There
are others (Irish for example) who say th as t or d. However
you hav both <dis> and <somving>.
David
--
David Barnsdale
Javier BF
> only existed for a fraction of a percent of the lifespan of human
> language on earth.
What do you mean by attributing arbitrariness and imperfection
to written language? Do I have to remind you that the majority
of the most sublime human creations based on language were
created in written form ("Don Quixote", etc., etc.).
OTOH, it may be true that, taking into account the "lifespan"
of human language on earth, written language has only existed
for a fraction of a percent of it. But what really matters is
not that (we only know it because archaeologists have told
us so after long research), but the fact that written language
has been existing during ALL the lifespan of every human being
existing on earth TODAY, and during all the preceding centuries
that in a way "affect" us who are alive at this moment. Written
language was invented so long ago that even the oldest among the
elders can't anymore recall the time when it didn't exist (;-P).
Cheers,
Javier
Zsigri Gyula
Javier BF <uaxu...@hotmail.com> írja:
[Snip]
Peter T. Daniels
>
> Sorry, what is "OTOH"? I am not familiar with all English acronyms.
On The Other Hand,
--
Peter T. Daniels gram...@att.net
Javier BF
> artificial languages, people are still learning English by the millions?
Politics, economics and some thousand hydrogen bombs
on stock are the reasons for that.
> If nobody cares, do you really have a point?
It's not true that nobody cares. Maybe nobody cares there,
in the USA where everybody already speaks the de facto
international language, but be sure many people here in Spain
do care and would celebrate that our politicians had the
courage to promote a logical easy-to-learn auxlang instead of
that "horrible" English many people I know have come to hate
both because of its hardness and because of its American
imperialist connotations. Just the same as most people here
are celebrating the decision of the European authorities to
introduce the euro and save us that lot of wasted money in
exchanges between our old currencies. And the same as we
celebrate the metric system to have been introduced long
ago; I'd shiver just to think of going back to the time when
instead of the metric system we used all that mess of
"millas", "varas", "pulgadas", etc.
The real problem lies in the fact that nobody really believes
our sold-themselves-to-the-devil politicians will ever have
the courage to displease Americans and not to promote their
language as the international language.
Cheers,
Javier
Zsigri Gyula
http://www.loganact.com/tips/afaik.html
Gyula
Zsigri Gyula <zsi...@hung.u-szeged.hu> írja
Javier BF
> > an adverb instead of an adjective to qualify an infinitive,
> > an idiom Zamenhof copy-and-pasted from Slavic languages, or
>
> It is not incomprehensible because one of the functions of an adverb is to
> qualify a verb. It is English that behaves rather illogical with "to err is
> human" instead of "to err is humanly". But if this feature bothers you you
> can always "substantivize" the infinitive and say for instance "ridado estas
> saniga" instead of "ridi estas sanige" for "laughing is healthy"
Exactly the other way round. "To err is humanly" makes no sense
because "humanly" states the way the act of erring is carried
out; it doesn't qualify the very essence of erring. Adverbs
refer to the circumstances surrounding the verbal realization,
not to its conceptual part, and infinitives refer specifically
to the conceptual part of the verb. Qualifying essences o
concepts, and thus qualifying infinitives, is the task of
adjectives, not of adverbs. Compare:
"To err is human"
"To err is natural"
"To err humanly" = "To err in a human way"
"To err naturally" = "To err in a natural way"
"He erred humanly" = "He erred in a human way"
"He erred naturally" = "He erred in a natural way"
"To err naturally is human" = "To err in a natural way is human"
"To err humanly is natural" = "To err in a human way is natural"
"To err is humanly" = "To err is in human way" (!!)
"To err is naturally" = "To err is in a natural way" (!!)
"To err humanly is naturally"
= "To err in a human way is in a natural way" (!!)
"To err naturally is humanly"
= "To err in a natural way is in a human way" (!!)
Now look at Esperanto's usage:
"saniga" = "healthy"
"sanige" = "healthily" = "in a healthy way"
"ridinda" = "laughable"
"ridinde" = "laughably" = "in a laughable way"
"esti saniga" = "to be healthy"
"esti ridinda" = "to be laughable"
"ridi sanige" = "to laugh in a healthy way"
"ridi ridinde" = "to laugh in a laughable way"
"ridas sanige" = "laughs in a healthy way"
"ridas ridinde" = "laughs in a laughable way"
"estas ridinda sanige" = "is laughable in a healthy way"
"estas saniga ridinde" = "is healthy in a laughable way"
Now, let's qualify the essence of laughing (and not the
way the act of laughing is carried out) in Esperanto:
"ridi estas saniga" ("to laugh is healthy")
Zamenhof stated as a rule that this is _incorrect_ to mean
that laughing is healthy
"ridi estas sanige" ("to laugh is in a healthy way")
Zamenhof copy-and-pasted this Slavic idiom as the _correct_
way to mean that laughing is healthy, instead of what it
means from a literal and logical point of view: "ridi estas
[ridinda] sanige" = "to laugh is [laughable] in a healthy way"
> > that unnecessary bloating of the stock of basic roots, something
> > that is even against the rules of the Fundamento.
>
> Again, this is a fault of the users, not of the language. On the other hand,
> many people criticize Esperanto just for the opposite, i.e. using compounds
> where natural languages tend to use roots, such as "mallonga" for "short"
> and "malricha" for "poor" (I think Ido has replaced these with "kurta" and
> "povra" respectively). Well, I suppose you can never please everybody!
I suppose you meant: "where some natural languages use roots".
In Spanish, e.g., we have independent roots for "pig" (cerdo)
and "wild-boar" (jabalí), but not for "boar" (cerdo macho)
nor "sow" (cerda). Which independent roots should an IAL
have there: the ones of Spanish ("cerd-" and "jabalí"), the
ones of English ("pig", "boar" and "sow") or some other option?
My answer: we can perfectly do with just one for "cerd-/jabalí"
("pig/wildboar") and derive "boar" (cerdo) and "sow" (cerda) as
in Spanish (adding sex markers) and "jabalí" (wildboar) as in
English (adding the specification "wild").
Then, for which pairs of antonyms should the IAL have independent
roots? For every possible one? For the most common ones? For none?
I suppose your answer here will be: "For the most common ones".
O.K. The question now is: which are those "most common ones"?
The common ones in English? The common ones in Spanish? The
common ones in Arabic? The common ones in Chinese?
Cheers,
Javier
Javier BF
> regularity simply isn't natural. Nor is it, dare I say, "logical".
Tell that to the speakers of modern Turkish, which only have
one irregular verb (to be). Is Turkish then less learnable
than English? I'd rather say the opposite.
You may find some regularity "unnatural" if your native language
happens not to use a regular form in that case. But the speakers
of a language in which they do use a regular form for your
irregular one, will say you're language is "crazy" and
that irregularity will cause them serious problems when faced
with the task of learning your tongue. English, e.g., has
irregular plurals for "children" and "oxen"; the Spanish
equivalents "niños" ("childs") and "bueyes" ("oxes"), on the
contrary, are perfectly regular.
> Not only that, but they are, unless invented completely _a posteriori_,
> reliant on one particular language or another as a substrate.
I suppose you meant "_a priori_".
> What's the
> difference between learning English and learning funny-looking Latin? Both
> will be equally unfamiliar to a monolingual Mandarin speaker.
Because a logical IAL would be far from being a simple
"funny-looking Latin". And be sure Mandarin speakers would
have far less problems learning an equally-unfamiliar-
-looking-as-English but logical and regular language than
the ones they have learning English, because what makes a
language really difficult to learn is not is "familiar look"
but its degree of irregularity and its amount of illogical
idiomatic usages, two things that English features to the
point of insanity and that, on the contrary, would be absent
from a well-designed logical and regular IAL.
> Stop assuming I'm a stupid American. When I travel to Germany, I end up
> speaking significantly more German than English.
My apologies. But you're a rare exception out of those millions
of your countrymen who can't even locate Germany in the map.
> I don't see international businessmen and politicians climbing all over each
> other to convert all of their communication to Esperanto or whatever. If the
> people who are actually *using* English to communicate with each other on a
> daily basis aren't complaining about using English, why would you want to
> force them to change?
>
> The only people that seem to care at all about teaching everyone an IAL are
> the people who design IALs.
You seem to forget about all the political and economic
interests that are involved behind the choice of using
English. Maybe you don't know that several decades ago, a
document signed by some 70 million people (by they themselves
or by organizations that represented them) was sent to the
UN asking for Esperanto to be used as the international
language. Then, some bureaucrats (I suppose you'll guess its
nationality) managed to make those millions of supporting
signatures not to be even looked at but instead get dusty
forever after lying inside some lost file in some lost
archives in the most remote room of the UN building. A similar
proposal had undergone more or less the same fate some decades
before, that time thanks to the then-ruling French, who of
course wanted their French and not Esperanto to be used and
promoted as the international language.
Cheers,
Javier
Herman Rubin
In fact, there is little we know about the spoken languages of
ancient times other than what we can deduce from the present
languages and from writings. I believe that there are a few
ancient dictionaries which did describe pronunciation of one
language in another; in fact, I have been told that Sumerian
characters are communicated by the Babylonian character in an
Assyrian dictionary, and its position on the line in that
dictionary. The preservation of writing is ancient, while
that of sound is quite recent.
Javier BF
> entire IAL movement is bias against the English language. AFAICT, most IAL
> homers are European.
Not about the English language itself, but against what
it nowadays represents and symbolizes better than anything
else: the submission to the imperialism and rule of the USA
over the world.
Most of us are Western Europeans maybe because we have enough
money and power and the "pride" of having been the world
rulers until not so long ago not to be willing to kneel
before your arrogant country without complaint. Most
Asians and Africans, for their part, are nowadays too
busy working like slaves for Western multinational
companies to afford caring about such matters. And also,
to many of them (unlike to Western Europeans), English
and the USA symbolizes the material prosperity lacking
in their country (and not lacking here in Western Europe).
Cheers,
Javier
Javier BF
> will guarantee that it will never exist. For me "adequate" is enough.
I don't seek perfection, which is of course unattainable.
But illogicities such as "vortaro" for dictionary are very
easy to avoid.
OTOH, of course nobody can stop speakers to break the rules
of the language if they will. But if they do so, they would
be speaking the language incorrectly and the other speakers
should ask them to speak correctly. The problem is that it
is not considered incorrect to use "vortaro" for "dictionary".
Nobody in the Esperanto community will tell you: "Vortaro?
Tio ne estas vortaro, sed vortlibro. Bonvolu paroli korekte"
(Vocabulary? That's not a vocabulary, but a dictionary. Please
speak correctly), because Zamenhof himself chose "vortaro" as
the Esperanto word for dictionary, thus throwing logicity to
the dustbin and prompting others to introduce further similar
illogicities.
Cheers,
Javie
dmitri
>> > an adverb instead of an adjective to qualify an infinitive,
>> > an idiom Zamenhof copy-and-pasted from Slavic languages, or
(possible explaination for the above snipped)
Acutally, I would say that if this suprenajhonskribinta person saw what he says
he saw (adverb modifying an infinitive apparently being used as a noun), he saw
a mistake. I seem to remember that in this case "Xado" would be the preferred
construction, in which case the compliment would rightly be an adjective.
>
>Exactly the other way round. "To err is humanly" makes no sense
>because "humanly" states the way the act of erring is carried
>out; it doesn't qualify the very essence of erring.
Exactly, therefore I would say that the translation would be "Erarado estas
homa"
Adverbs
>refer to the circumstances surrounding the verbal realization,
>not to its conceptual part, and infinitives refer specifically
>to the conceptual part of the verb.
In English. Infinitives in Esperanto do not. Hence the "-ado" form.
But you are using "esti" as a verb here, and not a noun (with the adjective, it
is the subject compliment).
>
>Now, let's qualify the essence of laughing (and not the
>way the act of laughing is carried out) in Esperanto:
>
>"ridi estas saniga" ("to laugh is healthy")
And here is where you go wrong. It should be "ridado estas saniga."
>
>Zamenhof stated as a rule that this is _incorrect_ to mean
>that laughing is healthy
If you can find an instance in any of D-ro Z's writings where he uses a
construction such as "ridi estas sanige," I will recant.
>
>"ridi estas sanige" ("to laugh is in a healthy way")
>
>Zamenhof copy-and-pasted this Slavic idiom as the _correct_
>way to mean that laughing is healthy, instead of what it
hmmmm.....the problem here is that this is not a slavic idiom. IN russian we
would use a verbal noun "X-anie/enie", not the infinitive.
Dmitri Mosier