It's normal to be a reformist for a language -- when you are a speaker of that language. The thing about Esperanto is that the beginners who haven't even learned the language come in believing they can change the language without even learning it first. Yes, we can suggest words and people can take it or leave it! But if we're going to use the Noah Webster analogy, Noah Webster was a native speaker of English. Esperanto has few native speakers but I think it's not unreasonable to reach a decent degree of conversational fluency befoe suggesting reforms, because otherwise how will you know what changes are really necessary? I told ASCarroll this in another thread, and I told him in private correspondence as well (we had some private correspondence while this thread was happening).

For what it's worth, I did tell him privately to feel free to ignore Novatago's advice on leaving Esperanto and to talk how he wants, but if he chooses to use a ton of reform proposals in his everyday speech, it will cause some hostile reactions (maximum) or distract from what he is trying to say (minimum). I don't think he came with the intent to troll, he seemed sincere enough, but from our correspondence I also don't get the impression that he was willing to let go of his reform proposals, so I think he would not have stuck with Esperanto regardless. This issue would likely have come up again and again for him. Walking around Esperantujo proclaiming that you have decided to use x, y, and z reform proposals (though you've been told both politely and rudely that this isn't really welcome in the Esperanto community) is a bit like putting a "kick me" sign on your own back (then wondering why people keep kicking you).

Since we do have a relatively small number of regular posters, I wonder if we can work out a standardized way of responding to these reform-minded beginners. It doesn't seem helpful to tell them "Yeah, go and speak your modified Esperanto!" because we don't want go give the impression that the Esperanto community considers it normal and ok to change the grammar and vocabulary willy-nilly. "You can speak your modified Esperanto if you want but I suggest learning Esperanto to a reasonable degree of fluency first because it is unlikely that people would listen to a reform proposal coming from someone who doesn't really speak the language. Also, you are free to speak how you want but please be aware that a reformed Esperanto, with changes to the basic vocabulary and basic affixes, is about as likely to be accepted as a reformed English with changes to the basic vocabulary and affixes, proposed by someone who has only just started to learn English"

Even a mild response like this normally leads to similar kinds of responses from the reform-minded person. "I thought Esperanto was a living language but you are making it dead and this is why no one will learn it because you refuse to let it change". Perhaps to this we should simply not respond? These things tend to turn into a big debate that will never convince the reform-minded beginner, if the usual logic (= don't try to reform a language that you don't even speak yet) doesn't work.

erinja:Obviously it's better if someone chooses to learn standard spoken Esperanto. But the truth is that if someone has an idea that they want to speak their own "reformed" Esperanto, they will not find the Esperanto community to be warm and welcoming, and their "Esperanto life" will be a constant struggle. This is what happens when someone persists in seeing Esperanto as a project up for editing and not as a living language, but unfortunately I am not aware of a foolproof way of making someone see that Esperanto is exactly as open to editing as English or French. I wish we could find such a foolproof method, maybe it would make some things easier in these forums!

In one very important way, Esperanto *is* more like Latin and Sanskrit: the vast majority (and maybe all of them in the case of Latin) are non-native speakers. And just like any "reforms" of Latin and Sanskrit are not the bailiwick of learners of these languages, "reforming" Esperanto is not up to them. It's for the speaking community as a whole. I'm sure if Latin or Sanskrit became a worldwide spoken phenomenon, "reforms" might come about but only by the people that speak them very well and use them on a regular basis.

And in one way, Esperanto is very like the Latin of today (don't know about Sanskrit): any evololution that happens is in vocabulary and Latin has lists of "modern" words that come out every so often, kind of like the old "oficialaj aldonoj" used to do.

orthohawk:In one very important way, Esperanto *is* more like Latin and Sanskrit: the vast majority (and maybe all of them in the case of Latin) are non-native speakers. And just like any "reforms" of Latin and Sanskrit are not the bailiwick of learners of these languages, "reforming" Esperanto is not up to them. It's for the speaking community as a whole. I'm sure if Latin or Sanskrit became a worldwide spoken phenomenon, "reforms" might come about but only by the people that speak them very well and use them on a regular basis.

And in one way, Esperanto is very like the Latin of today (don't know about Sanskrit): any evololution that happens is in vocabulary and Latin has lists of "modern" words that come out every so often, kind of like the old "oficialaj aldonoj" used to do.

Yes, this is all exactly right. I have heard of reforming Latin, but only insofar as someone has a proposal for making a "new Latin" that is easier.

This is an interesting issue - I think that most Esperanto speakers have no problem with reforming Esperanto's basic aspects, so long as you call the new language something other than Esperanto. That is, acknoweldging that what you are speaking is not Esperanto, but a new language based on Esperanto. I think that with Latin or Sanskrit, no one would argue that if you made arbitrary reforms to Latin, it is no longer Latin but a new language based on Latin. Somehow, because Esperanto was written by a person, people seem to have the idea that they can modify it as they see fit (and still call it Esperanto), though the idea of doing this with Latin sounds absurd. Esperanto is treated with considerably less respect than these "natural" languages.

erinja:It's normal to be a reformist for a language -- when you are a speaker of that language.

Esperanto has few native speakers but I think it's not unreasonable to reach a decent degree of conversational fluency befoe suggesting reforms, because otherwise how will you know what changes are really necessary?

You're right | Vi pravas.

> Esperanto does have grammatical gender after all,
> and just calls it "root class" instead

You confuse 2 things:

"root class" = "radika vortklaso" (substantivo, verbo, adjektivo, ...)

"grammatical gender" - absurd sex of words (FR: LE travail - LA greve | DE: DIE Arbeit - DER Streik)

> though the idea of doing this with Latin sounds absurd

Since Esperanto claims to be a living language, while Latin is dead.

Plue, Esperantistoj dauxre premas na la EU por oficialigi Esperanton, dum neniu premas na la EU por oficialigi Latinon.

Mi uzas la pronomon ri cxar gxi estas bezonata. La lauxfundamenta lingvo sennnecese disdividas grupojn de personoj. Mi ne uzas la pronomon "gxi" por personoj, cxar gxi estas evidente insultema: jen la pruvo.

Clarence666:…

By the way, this one is a troll.

I'm fairly certain ASC was using the term "gender" metaphorically, to mean "an arbitrary, unmarked, obligatory system of classification for morphemes". He's stretching the term a bit - I've heard "gender" be used to describe the systems of noun class in Bantu languages, for example, but I've never heard it applied to anything but nouns.

In any case, his point remains, and it has been one that is frequently discussed - that Esperanto, arguably contrary the purported deliverance it offers from arbitrary difficulties such as noun gender, does require learners to know, for each root word, its "default" class. I agree that in the majority of cases these classes are reasonably obvious to a speaker of any Indo-European language, but it is not without difficulty. I can recall being tripped up in assuming that if a broso is used to brosi, if I wanted to balai I would need a balao.

erinja:I don't think he came with the intent to troll, he seemed sincere enough, but from our correspondence I also don't get the impression that he was willing to let go of his reform proposals, so I think he would not have stuck with Esperanto regardless. This issue would likely have come up again and again for him. Walking around Esperantujo proclaiming that you have decided to use x, y, and z reform proposals (though you've been told both politely and rudely that this isn't really welcome in the Esperanto community) is a bit like putting a "kick me" sign on your own back (then wondering why people keep kicking you).

In my opinion the fact that he was stating matter-of-factly that he was going to use nonstandard Esperanto, and then later admitted that he was somewhat using this thread as a means of gauging our hostility toward the reforms, is evidence enough that he was trolling (at least with this part of his post). There are 1001 better ways of writing a post to get meaningful discussion on reforms, and it is a strong troll indicator when someone brings up an issue they know to be radioactive with no real intent to intelligently discuss the subject. It should also be mentioned that the "sexist Esperanto" insinuation is a direct assault on the character of current Esperantists, so the first punch of hostility wasn't exactly thrown by anyone here...

I find these change proposals no different than someone who just started watching football proposing rule changes for the NFL. Sure, some changes make sense, like allowing fouls to be called when they are caught on camera but missed by the refs IMHO, but changes in anything standard are never easy to make.

Honeste mi tute konsentas kun Novatago kaj Kaŝperanto kaj la aliaj lojalaj esperantistoj. Mi antaŭe legis ĉi tiujn mesaĝojn/mensogojn. La nur problemo estas la fiaĉuloj kiu skribis ĉi tiujn aĵojn. Se vi lernas lingvon vi lernas la veran lingvon. Mi estas komencanto, sed mi lernas la veran lingvon. Aliaj homoj ankaŭ devas. It is irritating seeing how much Idist misinformation is out there. Especially in learning materials. The last thing I need as a beginner is a bad example from an enemy of Esperanto. The way I see it, you can be loyal to the language as described in the original Fundamento, and the ideas it represents, or you shouldn't join Esperanto at all. I'm kind of surprised to see how many traitors there were in these threads though. >.>

AllenHartwell: [...]
mensogojn [...]
fiaĉuloj [...]
veran lingvon [...]
Aliaj homoj ankaŭ devas. [...]
enemy [...]
shouldn't join Esperanto at all [...]
traitors [...]

We aren't getting carried away, are we?

AllenHartwell:Honeste mi tute konsentas kun Novatago kaj Kaŝperanto kaj la aliaj lojalaj esperantistoj. Mi antaŭe legis ĉi tiujn mesaĝojn/mensogojn. La nur problemo estas la fiaĉuloj kiu skribis ĉi tiujn aĵojn. Se vi lernas lingvon vi lernas la veran lingvon. Mi estas komencanto, sed mi lernas la veran lingvon. Aliaj homoj ankaŭ devas. It is irritating seeing how much Idist misinformation is out there. Especially in learning materials. The last thing I need as a beginner is a bad example from an enemy of Esperanto. The way I see it, you can be loyal to the language as described in the original Fundamento, and the ideas it represents, or you shouldn't join Esperanto at all. I'm kind of surprised to see how many traitors there were in these threads though. >.>

I wouldn't say that the poster in question is an Idist, and I do think you judge him too harshly regarding misinformation etc. I don't think he was trying to misinform anyone. He just had his mind made up that Esperanto needed to be reformed (with different reforms than Ido proposed!) and was upset that the Esperanto community wasn't welcoming or receptive to his reforms.

Also, we in the Esperanto community, and this includes me, tend to tell people "Go to Ido if you want to reform the language". But today's Ido is presumably just as fixed as today's Esperanto. It started off as a reform proposal but you can't go on reforming forever, at some point you have to say "Right, this is our language now, so we will speak it as-is and let it evolve naturally through use by fluent speakers"