I don't see anying criticising, from a linguistic perspective, Modern Hebrew, for being revived by essentially one person after being dormant or dead for many centuries.

And nobody laughs off American Sign Language, despite originating from a very small user base in the 19th century and not undergoing the long-term gradual evolution most national languages are subjected to.

So why is it OK to laugh off Esperanto, despite the fact that its origins broadly resemble Modern Hebrew and ASL? Certainly the analogy only goes so far, but the common charge of "artificiality" as in, "not naturally evolved", is quite applicable to many other cases, which are never questioned on their linguistic merits.

Tempodivalse:I don't see anying criticising, from a linguistic perspective, Modern Hebrew, for being revived by essentially one person after being dormant or dead for many centuries.

People would accuse you of being anti-Semitic.

And nobody laughs off American Sign Language, despite originating from a very small user base in the 19th century and not undergoing the long-term gradual evolution most national languages are subjected to.

People would accuse you of not having any sympathy for the handicapped.

Just like if you made fun of the Arabic or Chinese language. People would think you don't like that ethnic group. Because Esperanto doesn't belong to any group, people can make fun of it without being labelled as a hater.

I doubt that very many people even realize that Modern Hebrew is an artificial reconstruction. What they do see is a country using it. I imagine very little additional thought is given it.

Again, with ASL, people can see it being used in a useful manner (i.e., as a means of communication among deaf people). When watching a televised speech, I see someone signing the speech often included in a little bubble off to the side of the screen. Which means that most people have at least some exposure to ASL, even if they can't understand it. They can recognize it as a language that is used.

No one sees a country using Esperanto. For the most part, no one sees anyone using Esperanto. So I think to most people (who even know about it) its usefulness remains to be seen. And they aren't seeing it. Which makes it easy to laugh off.

Since you're mentioning artificial languages which nobody remembers, that are artificial, then you may also look at the history of Czech language. It was pretty much lost during German occupation and then restored as a result of the Czech National Revival movement.

As English Wikipedia puts it: “The Czechs became serfs; Bohemia's printing industry (and its linguistic and political rights) were dismembered, removing official regulation and support from its language. German quickly became the dominant language in Bohemia. The consensus among linguists is that modern, standard Czech originated during the eighteenth century.”

Alkanadi:People would accuse you of not having any sympathy for the handicapped.

I think it goes beyond a mere "political correctness" - surely there aren't many people who secretly believe Modern Hebrew or sign languages are "fake" but hide it to avoid appearing bigoted.

For the general public, and also for linguists, there isn't any question that ASL etc. are real languages - that assumption is made at the very outset. Yet no amount of evidence about Esperanto's use and functionality can make it worthy of that kind of respect.

I once took a college linguistics class. On the first day, we went around the room saying what languages we spoke. I still remember the little smirk on the professor's face when I mentioned Esperanto, as if to say "oh, that's so quaintly naive". (I was also told in that class that I can't have two native languages. I beg to differ...)

And then we have Chomsky, who betrays a total ignorance of Esperanto when he claims it is based on Spanish (a language Zamenhof didn't even know!). I'm sure he would never be careless enough to make a fundamental factual error about any other language, e.g. calling Hungarian Indo-European.

I don't understand what exactly is the source of this severe bias, even among highly intelligent people who, it would seem, are less susceptible to such crass reactions.

I think most people aren't aware of Hebrew being revived, although frankly if you speak modern Hebrew you can understand Torah Hebrew with relative ease. Hebrew has been used continuously to write religious responsa, so it never fell out of use. What was "revived" is mainly terminology and usage for modern-day secular life. The revival of Hebrew has some similarities with the development of Esperanto, and it happened at a similar time, but it's still a very different story.

Tempodivalse:And then we have Chomsky, who betrays a total ignorance of Esperanto when he claims it is based on Spanish (a language Zamenhof didn't even know!). I'm sure he would never be careless enough to make a fundamental factual error about any other language, e.g. calling Hungarian Indo-European.

He would not make that error about Hungarian, because in his world Hungarian is a language. Esperanto is not.

Although I think Chomsky ought to at least learn a little about a subject before spouting off about it, his refusal to recognize Esperanto as a real language does make some sense from where he is sitting, in the same sense that an archaeologist might not consider the versions of Ancient Egyptian statues manufactured today for sale to be anything worth studying (I even have one myself; a statue of Bast). My statue of Bast is definitely a statue, but in no way is it "real" in the sense that an archaeologist would care about. No ones archaeology PhD dissertation is going to ever make any conclusions based on the kind of statue I own, which is probably no more than ten years old. I think Esperanto is essentially the same way for Chomsky.

Chomsky is interested in languages that came about "naturally", as they may (or do, as far as he is concerned) tell us something very fundamental about how humans minds work. Esperanto came about through an entirely different path that doesn't remotely fit what he cares about; as far as he is concerned, Esperanto is at best a parody of a language. But that's because he's looking at language differently than most of us do.

RiotNrrd:

Tempodivalse:And then we have Chomsky, who betrays a total ignorance of Esperanto when he claims it is based on Spanish (a language Zamenhof didn't even know!). I'm sure he would never be careless enough to make a fundamental factual error about any other language, e.g. calling Hungarian Indo-European.

He would not make that error about Hungarian, because in his world Hungarian is a language. Esperanto is not.

Although I think Chomsky ought to at least learn a little about a subject before spouting off about it, his refusal to recognize Esperanto as a real language does make some sense from where he is sitting, in the same sense that an archaeologist might not consider the versions of Ancient Egyptian statues manufactured today for sale to be anything worth studying (I even have one myself; a statue of Bast). My statue of Bast is definitely a statue, but in no way is it "real" in the sense that an archaeologist would care about. No ones archaeology PhD dissertation is going to ever make any conclusions based on the kind of statue I own, which is probably no more than ten years old. I think Esperanto is essentially the same way for Chomsky.

Chomsky is interested in languages that came about "naturally", as they may (or do, as far as he is concerned) tell us something very fundamental about how humans minds work. Esperanto came about through an entirely different path that doesn't remotely fit what he cares about; as far as he is concerned, Esperanto is at best a parody of a language. But that's because he's looking at language differently than most of us do.

I don't understand why someone who is interested in language and how it relates to the mind would ignore any potential sources of information. While modern statues may not be useful to study in and of themselves they may still be useful in another light. For example, they have studied the methods and tools used to carve the stone blocks of the pyramids by actually cutting new blocks with various tools of the era until the tool marks match. Just to name a few, I feel that Esperanto could answer questions about the usefulness of irregularities and redundancies in grammar, or to explore the effects of communicating largely without idioms or fixed expressions.

I would expect a Professor Emeritus to at least be bothered to read a short encyclopedia entry before commenting on something.

@RiotNrrd, I'd never considered the issue from that perspective. I think the lack of historicity may be part of the reason Esperanto is taken less seriously.

On the other hand, it seems odd that nobody would even be interested in the unique linguistic situation of Esperanto (supported primarily by L2 speakers, no concrete geographical base. etc.) as it applies to evolution (which EO has certainly been subjected to). How long does a language have to be in existence before it will be considered such?

Perhaps Modern Hebrew was not a great example - I think the analogy with ASL is a little better. It didn't exist per se, as I understand, before the mid-19th century, and started with a very small user base.

And then there's the theme of highly intelligent people not even caring to check basic facts before spouting off about Esperanto, in a way they'd never do with other subjects - a simply immature reaction.

Tempodivalse:
And then there's the theme of highly intelligent people not even caring to check basic facts before spouting off about Esperanto, in a way they'd never do with other subjects - a simply immature reaction.

Yeah, I would say that even if they choose not to study Esperanto/the Esperanto movement they ought to hold themselves to higher standards before making ignorant comments. I only just "know of" Chomsky, but if I didn't already know that Esperanto wasn't based on Spanish I would be inclined to believe the statement when it comes from someone in his position.