Meldinger: 44
Språk: English
Lynchie1975 (Å vise profilen) 2012 3 27 17:57:46
RiotNrrd (Å vise profilen) 2012 3 27 18:04:16
SVO only makes things easier for people who's native language is SVO. That IS a lot of languages. It also leaves a lot of languages out.
In fact, marking the accusative and not demanding SVO makes Esperanto much easier, overall. It just doesn't seem that way to many beginners. Especially if their first language is English.
So... chin out, suck it up, get used to it. The accusative isn't going anywhere. Complaining about it only makes the more advanced speakers laugh (at first) and get mightily irritated (after a while).
Seriously. Making a fuss about the accusative is pointless. Don't waste your time and irritate your neighbors. Just learn it. It doesn't take long before it's second nature.
Fenris_kcf (Å vise profilen) 2012 3 27 18:09:29
Lynchie1975:... I would have expected that a universal language would be as easy as POSSIBLE ...The thing is: There is no proper way to measure what "easy" is. Maybe not being bound to one word-order brings more benefits as not marking the accusative, especially for speakers of languages, where SVO is uncommon; Hungarian for example. And Hungary has one of the highest relative share of Esperanto-speakers (if not the highest). OK - there's more than one reason for that, but imagine Esperanto would force you to use the word-order OSV, but not to mark the accusative. Would you consider it easy?
Hyperboreus (Å vise profilen) 2012 3 27 19:46:01
darkweasel (Å vise profilen) 2012 3 27 20:27:09
Hyperboreus:SOV (e.g. German)German speakers are actually quite familiar with SVO, it’s even more common than SOV. AFAIK an actual example of an SOV language is Japanese.
Hyperboreus:For someone from an erg-abs-alignment language this is just quizzical and not at all obvious; the logic would say: from "Mi vidas lin" follows "Min kuras".So is that why some beginners say *okazas nenion (instead of okazas nenio)?!
TLDR of Hyperboreus’ posting for beginners: There has to be some way to mark different roles of a phrase. English distinguishes between "dog bites man" and "man bites dog" through word order, Esperanto does it through the -n ending - the first one can be rendered as hundo mordas viron or viron mordas hundo, the second one as viro mordas hundon or hundon mordas viro (in both cases it is of course also possible to have the verb at the first or last position).
I do not think either of these ways is inherently easier, it’s just that one is familiar to you from your first language and the other isn’t. However, Esperanto was not designed only for people whose first language is English.
sudanglo (Å vise profilen) 2012 3 27 20:41:40
Lynchie1975:No, I wouldn't expect for it not to have some difficulties, but I would have expected that a universal language would be as easy as POSSIBLE.This is a very tricky idea, if you are constructing an international language.
Should we make all words like Birdo, which is easy for an English speaker? But then we make it more difficult for the French and Germans.
But in any case, it is not just the speed with which the language can be acquired, that is the only important factor.
Given that users will come with different language habits, avoiding miscomprehension is important.
Hyperboreus (Å vise profilen) 2012 3 27 20:45:32
sudanglo (Å vise profilen) 2012 3 27 20:58:57
Homo sum, nil humani a me alienum puto.Is this a football match score Homo some: Humani nil or a cryptic comment about an extra-terrestrial hooker (alienum putino)
By the way, HB, people don't bother learning Latin - it died out years ago, just like Esperanto!
Korwinisto (Å vise profilen) 2012 3 27 21:02:37
Hyperboreus (Å vise profilen) 2012 3 27 21:03:28