Forigite

Hi again Everyone,

I just wanted to add that in case someone prefers to write in Esperanto instead of in English that is perfectly fine by me, that is - in case it is allowed in the English-speaking threads of course.

juliaH:in case it is allowed in the English-speaking treads of course.

It is, but an English translation must always be provided.

Not that it always is. But it's supposed to be.

sudanglo:Of course, I didn't want to imply that the Fundamento itself can now be re-written (it remains netuŝebla) merely that the language has moved beyond the Fundamento.

Yes, all (true) languages evolve, but with respect to constructed international auxiliary languages (yes, sudanglo, Esperanto is most definitely a conlang), there is the matter of how evolution is to take place, why, by whom, under what circumstances, and the like. Given language evolution, how is a conIAL to avoid breaking up into dialects or evolving so far, even if it does not break into dialects, that old(er) texts are no longer intelligible? I have familiarity with a number of conIALs, and I would say that the best thing that ever happened to Esperanto was the netuŝebla Fundamento. There are other conIALs with bases (I am thinking of IALA Interlingua with the IED and IG2, and Ido with the PAG), but sometimes current users do not pay sufficient attention, and again, there is the risk of breaking up into dialects. How do we (figuratively speaking) avoid this with Esperanto?

Paŭlo

I think, Bartlett, you are seeing a problem where there isn't one. Esperanto shows no sign of breaking up into dialects, and is very unlikely to do so, because among the community of speakers there is the shared notion that such evolution that does take place should not undermine the systematicity of the language.

A 2012 speaker has few problems in reading a text from the 1910's. However, a 1910 user transported by a time machine to 2012, might find some modern texts difficult to follow. The world has changed and Esperanto's vocabulary is much larger. There also have been some grammatical innovations.

The way I understand the term conlang is that this refers to language projects that have yet to acquire substantial usage and literature, resulting in shared agreement in form and meaning, supported by reference works like NPIV, PAG, PMEG etc. So Esperanto is definitely not a conlang, though its origins are artificial.

Conlangs do face the problem of how evolution is to take place, why, by whom, under what circumstances, and the like. This has ceased to be a problem for Esperanto for many, many years.

The last serious threat to the consistency of Esperanto was the the ata/ita crisis, which I think perhaps reared its head through the isolation arising from WWII. The aspectual values consistent with Zamenhofian usage are now totally accepted, and the issue is completely non-controversial.

A little digression is fine, but I just want to remind everyone that if you want to get into a big debate over a question that doesn't relate to building a computational grammar of Esperanto, I suggest you start a new thread.