Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site spp2.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!trwrb!trwspp!spp2!urban From: urban@spp2.UUCP Newsgroups: net.nlang Subject: Re: Problems with Esperanto Message-ID: <363@spp2.UUCP> Date: Tue, 15-Jan-85 13:33:06 EST Article-I.D.: spp2.363 Posted: Tue Jan 15 13:33:06 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 18-Jan-85 01:20:35 EST References: <37@osu-eddie.UUCP> Reply-To: urban@spp2.UUCP (Mike urban) Organization: TRW, Redondo Beach CA Lines: 76 Summary: In article <37@osu-eddie.UUCP> allen@osu-eddie.UUCP (John Allen) writes: > > I object to Esperanto for several reasons. The first and most important >of these is that Esperanto is not as easy as they would have you believe. > . . . > anyone who is not a native speaker of any of these (indo-european) languages >would have a lot of trouble. This is because the vocabulary is almost >entirely, if not entirely, based on Indo-European. Not only that, but the >syntax is based on Indo-European syntax. > ... (discussion of properties of non-IE languages) But this argument simply says that "no international language is possible", not that "Esperanto is not the best candidate" for an international language. Any grammar you can devise will be somehow "alien" to a large segment of people, according to this argument. In fact, the large bulk of international business is now conducted in European languages anyway. The Chinese have found Esperanto useful as a regularized and simple introduction to European language structure and vocabulary. > Another major problem with Esperanto as a world wide language, is that >MOST people don't go to the trouble of learning something unless they need >it for some reason. The reason that the languages that have come closest to >being universal have done so is that they were important for some reason. >... (citing political examples of the past) ... >Other reasons for learning a second language are to read the literature or >the scientific works written in that language. As of this moment, Esperanto >doesn't have enough of literary or scientific publications of enough >importance to prompt people to learn it. Also there is no government that >uses Esperanto, so that other people would be prompted to learn Esperanto in >order to improve trade relations with that government. The argument here is "it isn't in official use, so there's no reason to put it into official use", or "when enough OTHER people learn it, then *I* will". Presumably, the only suitable international language is therefore some already-existing national language. See your own argument 1, if you're suggesting this is the case. Do you think that English is easier for a Japanese speaker to learn than Esperanto? > Thirdly, even if Esperanto did become a world-wide language, there is a >tendency for languages to change, and eventually dialects would eventually >emerge and continue to grow apart until they became mutually unintelligible, >and we would be back where we started. This has not happened with Esperanto. Since it is intended specifically for international communication, it doesn't seem to break into population clusters that develop their own dialects. Once again, you're not saying anything about Esperanto itself, but about any international language. > Finally, speaking totally as a linguist, if there was a world-wide >language, then the regional languages would die out, until it was the only >language being spoken. Now how much fun would linguistics be if you could >only get data from one language. This is a misunderstanding of the function of an international language. The people who used Latin as an IL in Europe in the Middle Ages and Renaissance didn't stop speaking their own language! Esperanto and all the less successful interlanguage projects are intended as international *auxiliary* languages. The idea is: to go to an international science conference with delegates from twenty nations, everybody doesn't have to learn 19 other languages, they only have to learn one (regularized, and [one hopes] easy) second language -- and no single country has the cultural domination implied by "everyone will speak English [French/Latin/Japanese/Arabic], and all papers will be presented in that language." Evidently, you don't believe that an international language is necessary, desirable, nor even possible. As a linguist, what solution do you propose to ease the problem of international communication? Or do you see no problem? Mike Urban trwrb!trwspp!spp2!urban