Forigite

Hyperboreus:But simplicity and especially predictability are not exactely Esperanto's main features: The morphosyntactical module is surely not very simple (parsing words like "malplibonigeco" or is "pomaĉeto" a small ugly apple or the purchase of apples). The predictability is also limited, cf. the discussions about "vestejo" or "vidigi".

It is true, that there are no irregular plural forms or verbal tense/aspect forms, but there are a lot of natural languages that have this nice feature, too.

Not making more good
Not-more-good mak-ing
Mal-pli-bon-ig-eco

Is the single word really more complex than the phrase?

As to "vestejo" etc, the problem is vagueness rather than predictability. Is a cloakroom a place where you store cloaks, or where you put them on? If you misunderstand, does that mean English is hopelessly flawed?

But there is much more to irregularity than just the standard points of grammar. Every natural language, no matter how apparently simple its grammar, contains all sorts of unwritten rules about how anything you have to say must be said. For example, in English, you can say "I am hot" but in German you must say "Mir ist warm", and this is something you just have to know from experience. In English you get ON the bus, but IN the car. You are AT the racetrack, not BY the racetrack, even if you are physically beside it. You can go mad, or go pale, but you cannot go tired, or go angry. If you disobey these thousands of mysterious invisible rules, you will be understood, but what you have written is "wrong". But Esperanto permits any logical expression. That is why Esperanto is easier: because it permits. Not because every noun ends with -o.

opalo: For example, in English, you can say "I am hot" but in German you must say "Mir ist warm", and this is something you just have to know from experience.

Yes, but in my (surely biased) opinion it’s actually more logical to say it like in German - after all, it’s not you (your body) that is hot (unless you are sick), but the hotness is outside your body and affects you (→ dative case).

darkweasel:Yes, but in my (surely biased) opinion it’s actually more logical to say it like in German - after all, it’s not you (your body) that is hot (unless you are sick), but the hotness is outside your body and affects you (→ dative case).

I never said one was more logical. (I'd be more likely to say "I feel hot." ) My point is that natural languages don't let you choose. I'm "not allowed" to say "I entered the train." Why not? No reason — I just "can't".

Esperanto is for people in countries with a reasonable standard of living who want to communicate internationally.

It's not for some aboriginal person scratching a living in an isolated tribe in the Amazon jungle.

This is not elitist, Robb - just true. Such an individual has far more pressing needs than communicating with someone half-way round the world, won't have a computer and couldn't afford to travel anyway. Even in the industrialised world there would be many for whom Esperanto is not relevant.

opalo:

darkweasel:Yes, but in my (surely biased) opinion it’s actually more logical to say it like in German - after all, it’s not you (your body) that is hot (unless you are sick), but the hotness is outside your body and affects you (→ dative case).

I never said one was more logical. (I'd be more likely to say "I feel hot." ) My point is that natural languages don't let you choose. I'm "not allowed" to say "I entered the train." Why not? No reason — I just "can't".

As far as I'm aware, you can't directly translate the English phrase "I'm hot" as "Mi estas varma" - that sounds a bit odd. To be correctly understood, you'd have to go for the method that Darkweasel pointed out (Al mi estas varme) or, as you say, mention the word 'to feel': Mi sentas min varme.

sudanglo:

Esperanto is for people in countries with a reasonable standard of living who want to communicate internationally.

It's not for some aboriginal person scratching a living in an isolated tribe in the Amazon jungle.

This is not elitist, Robb - just true. Such an individual has far more pressing needs than communicating with someone half-way round the world

Communicating with people halfway round the world could easily turn out to be their most pressing need! With all due respect, that's an ignorant remark.

As far as I'm aware, you can't directly translate the English phrase "I'm hot" as "Mi estas varma"

Yes you can!

opalo:

As far as I'm aware, you can't directly translate the English phrase "I'm hot" as "Mi estas varma"

Yes you can!

source? if somebody said "mi estas varma" i would answer "ho, ĉu vi havas febron?"

opalo:

sudanglo:

Esperanto is for people in countries with a reasonable standard of living who want to communicate internationally.

It's not for some aboriginal person scratching a living in an isolated tribe in the Amazon jungle.

Communicating with people halfway round the world could easily turn out to be their most pressing need! With all due respect, that's an ignorant remark.

We're not talking about a person of aboriginal ethnicity who lives in an apartment in a city somewhere, with city services. We're talking about someone living in the forest, in an isolated tribe. We are talking about a person with a subsistence lifestyle - no telephone or postal service, no electricity, no sanitation, no computers. If you lack the means to talk to any person who speaks a language (Esperanto, in this case, but this point is equally valid for English), why would you learn it? Your time is taken up with the basic needs of life - finding water, growing, foraging, or hunting food. Are you serious in proposing that this person's need to talk with people halfway around the world is more important than their need to feed, clothe, and house their family? Would you say that this person's time is better spent going out to collect food to feed the family, or to write back to little Anoushka in Moscow, to tell her what you had for breakfast?

If this person wishes to learn a language, their time would be better spent learning the language of a neighboring tribe, or learning the language of traders who can bring supplies (probably Portuguese if we are talking about the Amazon).

darkweasel:if somebody said "mi estas varma" i would answer "ho, ĉu vi havas febron?"

Yes, exactly.

varma = Entenanta aŭ produktanta varmon...