Estonian is a small, yet fully functional language. It may have roughly the same amount of speakers than Esperanto - one million against 0.1...2 million speakers. Normative written Estonian was established only by the beginning of the 20th century and got fully accepted as a standard by speakers during following 40 years (though dialects, luckily, did not vanish completely). By that time Estonian was already fully established in universities as well. EKI, the Institute of the Estonian language,

is a research and development institution whose mission is to contribute to the survival and good health of Estonian by the cultivation and advancement of standard Estonian, ...

Some twenty years ago or so, EKI suggested that 'pension' (means the same in English) should be written as 'pensjon' (this is how we actually pronounce the word) - but this is not so up to now, in general the change was not accepted. An older suggested change - to fuse 'ma oleksin teinud' into '(ma) teinuksin' (meaning 'I would have done') finds some usage (in high-style written texts) - but in general, again is not accepted. And here I am talking about the language, speakers of which nearly all live in a single small state...

erinja:A minor spelling reform is do-able for languages that have a government behind them and an enforcement apparatus (i.e. the new spelling must be taught in schools). It doesn't change the way anyone talks, it just changes the way some things are written. Even those reforms, however, don't always take hold.

You couldn't be more right!

Chainy:

Vestitor:Maybe fluent Esperantists are not the best judge of this...

You mentioned reforms made to the Dutch language. I presume they were made by adult native speakers of Dutch, were they not?

In my view, only fluent Esperantists have the required knowledge to even consider making any changes.

If you are still in the learning process, then it is quite possible that you have just misunderstood something, perhaps not fully grasped a particular area of the language etc.

Of course they were made by adult speakers of Dutch (what an absurd question), but not without wide-ranging research.

Obviously it would be experts making reforms or changes, but also based upon observations from people who are learning.
This is how all reforms work, educational, political, whatever. Perceptions from all areas are considered. It's not just a top-down affair

While recognising the importance of observing the way that Esperanto is actually used by ordinary people, we should also say that reform is not a purely democratic affair. It was at the same first World Congress, at which Zamenhof turned ownership of the language to the community of users, that there came into being the Lingva Komitato to monitor changes, that would eventually become the Akademio.

Thus, monitoring the evolution of Esperanto is not a matter about which all users should be given equal weight.

erinja:
The simple answer is that Esperanto's grammar and alphabet are the part of its foundational documents, and that if you were to change basic aspects of these things, the language would no longer be Esperanto.

Forgive my bluntness, but that's just untrue. I already showed that fundamental reforms occur without destroying the nature of the language. It only becomes something else if a group declares itself something else; Ido was/is just Esperanto with tweaks.

erinja:A minor spelling reform is do-able for languages that have a government behind them and an enforcement apparatus (i.e. the new spelling must be taught in schools). It doesn't change the way anyone talks, it just changes the way some things are written.

So which government proposed the original reforms that led to Ido? It needs no government, only some level of agreement and openness to change. Change is uncomfortable, but that doesn't mean it's erroneous.

erinja:But you aren't talking about a spelling reform; you're talking about changes to the grammar. I can't imagine the Academie Francaise suddenly saying "From now on, adjectives will be invariable; they will no longer agree with nouns in gender and number".

The Académie Française already dictates changes and the French language has been deliberately altered, and no strikes! In fact Esperanto is itself a prime example of this sort of grammatical and orthographic simplification for the purpose of ease and clarity, so to resist it in Esperanto itself is hypocrisy.

erinja:It sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? But who is going to force people to speak with the "new French" with simpler adjectives?

These are changes that happen over time, and they wouldn't go over well if you tried to force them on people. Some of it might take hold, but not all.
As far as Esperanto is concerned, many people believe that it is more open to reform than 'natural' languages, because someone created it. But early Esperantists learned that once you get on the "reform train" it's hard to get off.

No, it doesn't sound ridiculous. This is not the case at all. Modern French has changed because of official alterations. Obviously people still use the oral language creatively, but this has nothing to do with logically altering the fundamentals. You underestimate how much people adopt official changes. The move to the Roman alphabet for Turkish had a positive effect for learning written Turkish. Simplifying the Dutch cases to two had the same effect. England complained about metric conversion. The natural Luddite tendency to change is not a sufficient argument against change.

Esperanto exists more as a written than a spoken language, in contrast all natural languages have oral over the written language. So change is much more difficult, yet there are more examples of simplification!

cFlat7:And perhaps they shouldn't think too about a small bunch of trolls.

+1

Especially when the troll has rather a bad knowledge of Esperanto.

Vestitor:Of course they were made by adult speakers of Dutch (what an absurd question)..

It was a rhetorical question. I think that was quite obvious.

Vestitor:I already showed that fundamental reforms occur without destroying the nature of the language.

Those other languages are not Esperanto; they lack a foundational document that clearly sets out the basis of the language. Esperanto isn't Esperanto without the Fundamento. The Esperanto-speaking community has agreed upon this.

Anyone who decides that the Fundamento is no longer binding, and changes the language, will no longer be considered by Esperanto speakers to be a speaker of Esperanto. We as Esperanto speakers have all agreed to this, or else we would have gone looking for another language more open to reforms. Esperanto speakers generally believe that the linguistic stability that the Fundamento has given our language is the reason that our language still exists today. Therefore you may consider us very rigid and dogmatic about it, but this is how it is. If you don't agree to hold by the Fundamento, then I suggest you go study another language. The Esperanto-speaking community is not flexible on this matter.

It only becomes something else if a group declares itself something else; Ido was/is just Esperanto with tweaks.

Esperanto speakers do not consider a language to be Esperanto if it goes against the Fundamento. Therefore if the entire community speaking a language says "that is not our language", I'd call it "not that language"

So which government proposed the original reforms that led to Ido?

It was a committee; it was one of the great scandals in Esperanto history. You could make a movie about it, and people would watch it, with all of the betrayals and intrigue! You can read a summary of the situation here

It needs no government, only some level of agreement and openness to change. Change is uncomfortable, but that doesn't mean it's erroneous.

The Esperanto community is not open to changes that go against the Fundamento. So if you disagree, I suggest you find another language more open to changes. I'm sorry to be blunt but that's how it is. All the arguing and logic in the world won't change that.

The Académie Française already dictates changes and the French language has been deliberately altered

Do you sincerely believe, in your heart, that if the Academie Francaise were to revise French orthography so that French were spelled like English and change French grammar to remove grammatical gender, noun/adjective agreement, and irregular verbs, that French people would be happy to speak this language? Sincerely, do you truly believe this?

I don't.

And Esperanto speakers wouldn't want that done to Esperanto, either (though we do not have grammatical gender or irregular verbs, you can substitute similarly fundamental aspects of Esperanto grammar there).

Vestitor:Of course they were made by adult speakers of Dutch (what an absurd question), but not without wide-ranging research.

Did the committee also contain students of Dutch who hadn't even mastered the basics of the language yet?

erinja:

Vestitor:Of course they were made by adult speakers of Dutch (what an absurd question), but not without wide-ranging research.

Did the committee also contain students of Dutch who hadn't even mastered the basics of the language yet?

Obviously not. How does that apply? I do know the basics of Esperanto, I'm just not at your level. Does this mean I can't possibly understand how language reform works? Or is Esperanto a special case?

Obviously I am not in a position to make any reform. And are/were the Ido supporters all Esperanto novices as well? Last time I looked it contained advanced Esperantists, so that argument hardly affects them.

erinja:
Those other languages are not Esperanto; they lack a foundational document that clearly sets out the basis of the language. Esperanto isn't Esperanto without the Fundamento. The Esperanto-speaking community has agreed upon this.

This is very reminiscent of people who think the US constitution is a divine document that MUST not be altered. Well it was and it worked and the founding fathers didn't even have to be resurrected to do it either.

erinja:I suggest you go study another language. The Esperanto-speaking community is not flexible on this matter.

Why should I? I can still study it as it is and have an opinion at the same time.

erinja:Esperanto speakers do not consider a language to be Esperanto if it goes against the Fundamento. Therefore if the entire community speaking a language says "that is not our language", I'd call it "not that language"

Similarly then, the French, Dutch and Germans will have will have to think of a new name for their changed languages. Two of them are by now about 100 years overdue .

erinja:The Esperanto community is not open to changes that go against the Fundamento. So if you disagree, I suggest you find another language more open to changes. I'm sorry to be blunt but that's how it is. All the arguing and logic in the world won't change that.

I see, so it's just reaction rather than logic. Not a good position for a language based on trying to be logical and straightforward is it?

erinja:Do you sincerely believe, in your heart, that if the Academie Francaise were to revise French orthography so that French were spelled like English and change French grammar to remove grammatical gender, noun/adjective agreement, and irregular verbs, that French people would be happy to speak this language? Sincerely, do you truly believe this?

It's already been proposed and done. And obviously not made to be like English, but clearer French. You don't improve a bicycle by making it into a car, but work within the nature of what it is.
You said in your initial remarks that Esperanto is not like natural language so the deep historical oral attachment doesn't exist in the same way. And a document isn't set in stone, it can be revised according to circumstances and change. Whether some people think it needs no change is a different matter.