sudanglo:In any case, it is quite unfair to compare command of one's mother tongue with mastery of Esperanto. Esperanto does not exist to play the same role. Its purpose is not to function as a surrogate national language, but to facilitate communication on an international stage.

That's a bit confusing. Surely it is fair to compare it since effective communication implies the ability to say everything you want/need to say.

And if this:

sudanglo:Furthermore many a learner of Esperanto will quickly become aware that Esperanto's word-building system permits the expression of different shades of meaning in connection with the same concept and can be used to achieve a precision which requires circumlocution in his own language.

is the case, then it should compare favourably. Isn't that so?

Well Vestitor, there are some Esperantists who want to see Esperanto as just another language like the national languages, but I think this misses the point.

But, in any case, the criteria appropriate for mastery of Esperanto aren't the same as would be applied to measure mastery of a national language, where native speaker competence casts its shadow over any assessment.

That is not to say that a great deal of subtlety in communication cannot be achieved in Esperanto. It most certainly can.

But the reference framework must surely be different.

In Esperanto you would not be expected to know ten different words for a policeman, or for money, or for leaving quickly - all of which would be necessary to appreciate a gritty police drama on French TV, and your knowledge of which is appropriate to a measure of your mastery of French.

Someone who has mastered English can be expected to appreciate the humour in What is the meaning of life - to get to the other side which involves knowing the classic explanation of the motivation of chickens crossing roads.

Such things are not relevant to Esperanto.

You're obviously quite right in that regard. That the pared-down nature of Esperanto isn't meant to compete with the accrued cultural baggage that natural languages carry.

I wonder what you think about original fiction as against translated fiction in Esperanto? As I see it the 'ten words for policeman' sort of thing, is what makes for the richness of fiction. The abilty to imply rather than say exactly what you mean.

I have also read your post in another thread about beginners thinking they can overhaul Esperanto in a day, so I'm now being careful not to make an arse of myself

Vestitor:I wonder what you think about original fiction as against translated fiction in Esperanto? As I see it the 'ten words for policeman' sort of thing, is what makes for the richness of fiction. The abilty to imply rather than say exactly what you mean.

Translated fiction can be just as rich as original fiction. But that's not really what you were wondering about.

It's hard to explain but I would say that the richness of Esperanto is found in the grammar and usage, rather than in the vocabulary itself. Esperanto's richness isn't found in using 10 words for policeman. It's in the language's characteristic ability for words to move between the grammatical forms - noun becomes verb, etc.

Let me give you an example. One of Esperanto's greatest poets was William Auld, whose masterwork was the epic poem "La infana raso" (English translation, in rhyme, plus some interesting discussion of the content, found here)

On the first page of the original Esperanto version (for example, here), we find the phrase: "kaj dek bastardojn patris, el kiuj unu iris milite al Polujo, kaj tie vaste viris", meaning "And fathered ten bastards, of which one went militarily to Poland, and there, vastly 'man'-ed"

So instead of saying that someone fought in Poland, Auld says 'went militarily' (iris milite). He then uses the word "viro", man, as a verb. And 'vaste' - vastly, on a wide scale, extensively. That's quite evocative, isn't it, and not easy to translate into English. "vastly man-ed" doesn't really cut it. You could say that he cut a vast swath across Poland in a "manly" way; whatever men are thought to do, he did that, on a vast scale!

Later in the text, as discussed in that English document I linked to, Auld uses a word "polatakistoj". It's a perfectly good compound word, though not a common construction, pol/atak/ist/oj, Polish attackers. But it sounds very similar to "politikistoj"; it is changed by only two letters, turning two i's into a's. Therefore the literal meaning of the word says that "Polish attackers" did something (because the text is describing a war in Poland), but there is a subtext that somehow, politicians are behind this all. I wouldn't want to be the one to translate this into English. It wouldn't be easy.

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Incidentally I've never read the poem all the way through in Esperanto or in English. But as I took a look at the poem's first page in Esperanto and in English, one thing that really struck me was that although the poem had some Esperanto words that I don't know, I generally found it readable without loads of big vocabulary. I find it easier to read in Esperanto than in English (plus with a better rhythm - unsurprising, since it was originally written in Esperanto)

Very interesting.

So would it be fair to say that Esperanto sometimes doesn't always mean exactly what it says? That's a good thing in terms of literary richness, but probably not so good for the cause of widespread communicative clarity.

Some very interesting stuff in this thread - I am enjoying it.

I just wanted to chip and say that it is much easier as a beginner to use the grammar of Esperanto with a dictionary and communicate meaningfully, without being caught out by obscurities or irregularities, as there are none.

It is also a much rarer thing to find forms in Esperanto that one cannot parse or explain.

Vestitor:So would it be fair to say that Esperanto sometimes doesn't always mean exactly what it says? That's a good thing in terms of literary richness, but probably not so good for the cause of widespread communicative clarity.

There is a difference between literary language and everyday communication - in any language, including Esperanto.

Esperanto means what it says in everyday communication. Literature, like in any language, will contain more figurative language.

In fact, Esperanto means what it says more than 'natural' languages do, because we tend to say what we mean rather than using an idiomatic construction.

If I asked a learner of English, "Can you put me up next weekend?", the learner couldn't guess the meaning of that sentence without specifically learning the idiomatic meaning of "to put [someone] up". And of course "put me up" has a totally different meaning than "Could you put this up, please?", and another meaning than "Can you put up with me?"

In the first instance I'm looking for overnight accommodation. In the second instance I'm looking to post something on a wall or surface. In the third, I'm asking if you can tolerate my presence or actions.

In Esperanto, we say what mean. "Ĉu vi povas gastigi min venont-semajnfine?" ("Could you host me next weekend?"). "Ĉu vi povus pendigi/afiŝi ĉi tion?" (Can you hang/post this?) "Ĉu vi povas toleri min?" (Can you tolerate me?)

Of course in English, we are able to give these expressions in a less idiomatic way, by saying what we mean rather than using an idiom. But in Esperanto we simply say what we mean rather than choosing between idiom and direct speech. You would surely not make a strange literary allusion or use some unusual grammatical construction in an everyday interaction with another person.

erinja:

Vestitor:This is probably a good case for why this thread might have worked better in Esperanto. National language misunderstandings can lead to unwitting conflict.

You need a common language to have effective communication and a lack of misunderstandings. If someone speaks Esperanto poorly, then it leads to just as many misunderstandings as national language communication.
...

It looks like I have started a lively discussion. When I started the thread, I had thought of starting it on one of the Esperanto forums, but it might have taken me a long time to have composed the original post, and in any case, the blog post to which I was referring was in English to begin with.

As is so with many people, I suppose, I found long ago that whatever passive reading knowledge I have of Esperanto or any other auxiliary language far exceeds any active use I have of it/them. There is nothing mysterious here. The whole point in bringing the issue up is that there are those advocates of E-o (or whatever is your constructed auxiliary language of choice) who seem to claim that one can learn it with relatively little effort (at least compared to "natural" languages). People differ, obviously, in their innate capabilities as adults for languages, as well as other factors. Given my age and personal circumstances and characteristics, I doubt that I myself will ever achieve much active competence in E-o or any other language. I just am fascinated by the whole concept of auxiliary languages (and language in general), although my reading knowledge of E-o has improved somewhat by being here.

erinja:
In Esperanto, we say what mean. "Ĉu vi povas gastigi min venont-semajnfine?" ("Could you host me next weekend?"). "Ĉu vi povus pendigi/afiŝi ĉi tion?" (Can you hang/post this?) "Ĉu vi povas toleri min?" (Can you tolerate me?)

That's not really so different though is it? People still have to agree on and learn the meanings of words and how they're used. And many words in Esperanto as they stand, and as they are transliterated, and the patterns they form (and there are patterns), have to be known before they can be used. Once you learn either Esperanto or English, you know the codes and the meanings.

"Could you host me next weekend" seems just as opaque to me; as if asking someone to put me in a stage revue.

I'd contend that in any language the most common idioms are learned quite rapidly since they tend to be used a lot. Just a cursory glance around this very forum demonstrates that folk have trouble formulating patterned sentences. The discussion about "et cetera" threw up a few variants and two common set phrases. Is that so different than using the common set phrases in natural language and also other attempts to say the same thing in a perfectly acceptable, yet less common, way?

First you might say to e.g. a learner of English., that you "can't put up" with someone. He looks at you quizzically, and then you say "oh...I can't tolerate him". The problem dissolves. That's not confusion, just choice of expression.

Vestitor:words in Esperanto as they stand, and as they are transliterated, and the patterns they form (and there are patterns), have to be known before they can be used. Once you learn either Esperanto or English, you know the codes and the meanings.

You seem to be making a false equivalence between languages, as if all languages are equally as easy to learn because all you have to do is learn the codes and the meanings.

The point is that Esperanto's patterns, or whatever you like to call them, can be learned much more quickly than those of another language. They are based on logic and on expressions that can be easily understood by anyone who knows the root words. You don't have to learn a hundred different expressions for the same idea. You have almost no situations at all where someone says something like "Don't break my boxes" and you have to ask for clarification. But those situations occur all the time in other languages.

I'd contend that in any language the most common idioms are learned quite rapidly since they tend to be used a lot.

It doesn't even matter if you can learn them quickly; the point is that you have to learn them at all. You're doubling your load of things to be learned, because you have to learn both the straightforward way of saying something, using vocabulary words that you will find useful in other realms of life, PLUS an idiomatic way of saying something. Then you have to learn the circumstances where it's appropriate to say each one.

Just a cursory glance around this very forum demonstrates that folk have trouble formulating patterned sentences.

People don't have trouble forming patterned sentences. "kaj tiel plu" is pretty much the fixed translation for "et cetera". But one language isn't an exact translation of another. For one idiomatic pattern in English, there might be three different ways of rendering that in Spanish, depending on circumstances; for one Spanish idiomatic pattern, there may be three ways of rendering that in English. Frankly the discussions I see here aren't incredibly different from the ones I see at forums for other languages, like wordreference.com. Newbie comes and says "How do I say ... in ...?" and the forum's readers give them a couple of different suggestions, which the newbie can choose from depending on preference or circumstance. Shall I accuse native French speakers of having difficulty forming patterned sentences in their own language, simply because they couldn't give me a single straightforward answer if I ask them how to translate a simple English sentence?

He looks at you quizzically, and then you say "oh...I can't tolerate him". The problem dissolves. That's not confusion, just choice of expression.

In Esperanto there would be no need to ask. The speaker would have chosen an expression that could be understood instantly. Even if the person speaking used a different expression than I'd use, there would be no need to explain.

I call a filling station a "benzinejo" (petrol place). I visited friends who called it a "ĉerpejo" ("drawing up a liquid" place). When they used the word, there was no need to ask, because I understood the meaning.

Sometimes it's easier to talk with Esperanto speakers from different countries than to talk with English speakers from different countries. Words are more straightforward. There's no need to ask about the meaning, because the words carry a clear meaning. Every single time I visit my relatives in the UK, something catches me, some word I don't understand, or some word that seems "the same" as US English but turns out to have some nuance or meaning I didn't expect. It doesn't matter that I watch a lot of British television and I've spent a decent amount of time in the UK, and I have a good deal of UK vocabulary under my belt. Every single time, something catches me. That doesn't happen to me in Esperanto.