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How could we have missed this?

от sudanglo, 08 юни 2013

Съобщения: 22

Език: English

sudanglo (Покажи профила) 08 юни 2013, 10:19:43

Mark Pagel studies linguistic evolution at the University of Reading (UK). And in an article in this week's New Scientist about the plethora of programming languages his opinion is referred to thus:

Pagel draws parallels with Esperanto, the prototype universal human language. The reason it has never caught on is that it simply isn't needed.


Now to be fair, it is not absolutely clear in context whether the 'it' refers to Esperanto or to a universal programming language. But the implication is fairly clear. Mark Pagel has spotted the reason for the world shunning Esperanto.

How could we have missed such a simple explanation?

Evildela (Покажи профила) 08 юни 2013, 10:28:05

Oh... I knew there was a reason! *slaps forehead* well, it was lovely meeting you all, I guess I wasted the last three years of my life cya around. Also thank you Mr Mark Pagel for opening my eyes to the truth, you've been such a blessing....

efilzeo (Покажи профила) 08 юни 2013, 10:36:05

After the "Esperanto is not a language" by Chomsky, nothing can impress me any longer in this field.

fari_teon (Покажи профила) 08 юни 2013, 11:02:40

But esperanto isn't 'needed'. This is coming from someone who has invested a lot of time in Esperanto. But only as a hobby.
Surely the vast majority of people on lernu are here for the enjoyment, not because it is needed.
This is not to take away from those who genuinely try to raise it up the reality of being a worldwide international language but it's far from being there just yet.

pdenisowski (Покажи профила) 08 юни 2013, 13:18:21

efilzeo:After the "Esperanto is not a language" by Chomsky, nothing can impress me any longer in this field.
Reference here

Frankly, Noam Chomsky's biggest fan is Noam Chomsky. Admittedly he made some somewhat useful contributions to the field of Linguistics a few decades ago, but now he seems to spend most of his time making statements about things he apparently hasn't researched at all (e.g. his political viewpoints).

“How it is we have so much information, but know so little?”
― Noam Chomsky

Ain't that the truth ...

Amike,

Paul

darkweasel (Покажи профила) 08 юни 2013, 14:24:56

sudanglo:
that it is simply isn't needed.
[sic] or not?

efilzeo (Покажи профила) 08 юни 2013, 15:00:20

pdenisowski:
efilzeo:After the "Esperanto is not a language" by Chomsky, nothing can impress me any longer in this field.
Reference here

Frankly, Noam Chomsky's biggest fan is Noam Chomsky. Admittedly he made some somewhat useful contributions to the field of Linguistics a few decades ago, but now he seems to spend most of his time making statements about things he apparently hasn't researched at all (e.g. his political viewpoints).

“How it is we have so much information, but know so little?”
― Noam Chomsky

Ain't that the truth ...

Amike,

Paul
About Chomsky I found out that part of his theory was proved false by a missionary who discovered a tribe [the url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirah%C3%A3_people]Piraha[/url]] with a language without past and future tenses nor recursion. Chomsky's response to this missionary, mister Everett was "he is a charlatan".
There's even a documentary about this man and the tribe but I forgot to take a deeper look.

Miland (Покажи профила) 08 юни 2013, 18:26:11

Zamenhof's answer might have been that an international language is needed for world peace, though he might have added to the language, an outlook inspired by his interna ideo, which however he was prevailed on not to make too much of. If he had stuck to his guns, I wonder how things might have developed.

RiotNrrd (Покажи профила) 08 юни 2013, 18:49:36

Noam Chomsky:... And the same is true about the nature of Esperanto, or Spanish, on which it’s based, and so on...
Oh, Noam. If you're going to publicly talk smack about something, at least try to hide your ignorance of basic facts about it. Otherwise you undermine your own credibility just a little bit.

(For the uninitiated - a group to which Chomsky appears to belong - Spanish is not officially counted amongst the source languages of Esperanto. As a large number of European languages have, I expect that it's contributed at least some roots, but it's still not a major source in any meaningful sense.)

darkweasel (Покажи профила) 08 юни 2013, 20:10:33

RiotNrrd:
Noam Chomsky:... And the same is true about the nature of Esperanto, or Spanish, on which it’s based, and so on...
Oh, Noam. If you're going to publicly talk smack about something, at least try to hide your ignorance of basic facts about it. Otherwise you undermine your own credibility just a little bit.

(For the uninitiated - a group to which Chomsky appears to belong - Spanish is not officially counted amongst the source languages of Esperanto. As a large number of European languages have, I expect that it's contributed at least some roots, but it's still not a major source in any meaningful sense.)
But hey, Esperanto and español sound so similar that they have to be related!!!!!!1111

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