讯息： 80
语言: English
Hispanio (显示个人资料) 2011年10月30日下午11:20:22
BlackOtaku:How do you all explain Esperanto to the people in your life? How do people usually react to the idea of it?I explain Esperanto saying that it's a language created to join the humanity or to make easier the understanding among people or such things. In fact, Esperanto was made for that purpose, ĉu ne?
And the people's reaction, I don't care anything they say, I just speak it and from time to time I talk about it, and if someone seems to be interested in Esperanto, good.
robbkvasnak (显示个人资料) 2011年10月30日下午11:31:37
Zamenhof did not create Esperanto as we know it today. He created a baby named Esperanto who didn't yet know maldecaj vortoj and knew but few metaphores and technical terms. Martin Luther created modern German. but nobody calls it an artifical language. Just as with German, Esperantists have taken up baby Esperanto and have help it grow into a young adult. At 125, Esperanto is still a young language. Just look at how non-European language speakers use Esperanto. Yet, I understand everything they write. That is absolutely mojosa!
Kristal (显示个人资料) 2011年10月31日上午12:38:52
RiotNrrd:When people ask me why I learned it, I ... wanted to be bilingual, but after trying ... and ... why NOT learn it?I first heard about Esperanto when I was young and watching "Gilligan's Island" on television. One of the characters spoke "every language in the world except Esperanto," because that would be redundant. I found the Stainless Steel Rat books and I read them, that is when I found a mail-order course of lessons to learn Esperanto. This was in the ancient days before Internet existed. When I heard that Linux would have Esperanto as one of its languages, well, that was one more reason to think of it as special and good. It looks like computer access to ordinary people is the reason that I am putting in a little more time to go back to my dictionaries and access the word of the day feature from Lernu! and learn this. It seems more useful than Apache sign language (I once knew someone who "spoke" that).
If the people you are talking to are science fiction fans, you can mention ... Harry Harrison's "Stainless Steel Rat" series of books. If they're not SF fans, though, I wouldn't bother.
razlem (显示个人资料) 2011年10月31日上午1:39:18
sudanglo:Chinese babies and French babies don't learn Language, they learn Chinese or French.This is actually a topic of great debate (not Chinese or French, but language in general). Ours is the only species that uses the combinations of grammar, pragmatics, and syntax. But it has been shown that positive contact with another human is required for language to develop, suggesting that it is innate as long as there is someone to talk to.
Spider webs I think are bad examples. Bird nests would be better. Birds know how to build nests instinctively, but they can learn more efficient methods and pass those methods down to their chicks. So you can have variations of nests among a species, but they all serve the same purpose and the basic idea is innate to all of that species.
I would also say: Certainly culture influences language, but it is not because of culture that the ability to form grammar, pragmatics, and syntax exists.
ceigered (显示个人资料) 2011年10月31日上午1:52:31
Kristal:One of the characters spoke "every language in the world except Esperanto," because that would be redundant.Haha, that is brilliant!
@ Razlem:
Indeed, the good ol' topic of learnt culture vs. instinct
If I may, it seems like communication in general is more or less instinctual, but the grammar and actual use of spoken words are learnt, and that the reason they seem to follow patterns or universal rules seemingly, in my judgement, is more due to logical restraints affecting any intelligent being, physical, digital, or of another realm, and human physiology/mental prowess.
Problem is then, why don't animals learn language when taught, which I believe is due to their lack of physiology for it - humans seem to be physically built for making all sorts of sounds, and just happen to have a brain that grows fast enough in the right areas. Other than that, I think the rest sort of pops up impromptu.
This being my totally un-check unscientific view on it
Could be an interesting avenue of research. 
sudanglo (显示个人资料) 2011年10月31日上午10:14:41
On the other hand if languages are cultural artefacts then you are free to make up any grammar you please (within the capacity of average human intelligence).
Pinker makes much of the fact that a bash on the head, or brain damage resulting from some other cause, can disrupt one's language ability.
I wonder if he knew that spiders, in their turn, produce chaotic webs if their diet is laced with caffeine.
ceigered (显示个人资料) 2011年10月31日上午10:47:46
sudanglo:I wonder if he knew that spiders, in their turn, produce chaotic webs if their diet is laced with caffeine.Ah, so I take it you've seen the pictures of spiders drugged under certain conditions too? Funny stuff isn't it!
@ Razlem: This Angos? Looks sorta cool, reminds me in the written form of something related to Miskito, but only superficially. Dare I say that while I can see where you've gotten words from, you've done a good job of avoiding the "Lidepla" effect
.(I'm working on a little conlang idea myself atm, no where near complete, but the idea is that rather than adding on inflectional endings to words, and things like copulas that get attached to the end of a word (He's going to town), instead those inflections mutate the letter or fuse with it, with exceptions (the fire wolf loves the (other) wolf = fuŝ luk lum s'lung (sø-pur-s luk lupN sø-lukN), and in addition some experimentation with vowel changes due to stress related to the PIE ablaut function
. Might have to show you if it ever matures enough to say non-stupid things that sound like an excerpt of Schleyer's fable).-----
Anyway, I think Esperanto with regards to our "webspinning ability" would be to some degree just compatible with logic in general rather than our brains necessarily. I mean, Esperanto's fairly explicit and there's only some occasions where the person has to make a judgement call on a strange grammatical function, or learn it of by heart. It's a balanced language to a degree.
razlem (显示个人资料) 2011年11月1日上午12:13:56
ceigered:Dare I say that while I can see where you've gotten words from, you've done a good job of avoiding the "Lidepla" effectLidepla effect?
ceigered:(I'm working on a little conlang idea myself atm, no where near complete, but the idea is that rather than adding on inflectional endings to words, and things like copulas that get attached to the end of a word (He's going to town), instead those inflections mutate the letter or fuse with it, with exceptions (the fire wolf loves the (other) wolf = fuŝ luk lum s'lung (sø-pur-s luk lupN sø-lukN), and in addition some experimentation with vowel changes due to stress related to the PIE ablaut functionSounds cool, I want to see it when you're done
ceigered (显示个人资料) 2011年11月1日上午7:04:03
razlem:Lidepla.ceigered:Dare I say that while I can see where you've gotten words from, you've done a good job of avoiding the "Lidepla" effectLidepla effect?
Lidepla effect: when a language is made using roots from multiple languages, and looks somewhat unconvincing
Actually, rereading about it it seems more tolerable, but when I see things like
Lidepla thingy:Walaa daftas. Sey-las es fo skribi e toy-las es fo rasmi.I sorta cringe a little and go "where's the underlying phonetic rules? How does this language adopt this foreign words into it?!"
It sorta seems more like a hodge-podge pidgin for polyglots or amateur polyglots like myself, rather than a properly cultivated language with its own personality.
Now, I need to stop writing essays here and write my actual Indonesian music essay
