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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