Roch:Esperanto doesn't invent words but borrows them...

From French est, Ancient Greek ἐστί (estí), German ist, and Latin est.

I am aware of that. (I did study latin when I was young)
It's not about replacing "esti", it's about an abbreviation for conversations. But there were some good arguments why not to do it. Need to think about it more. I certainly won't use it "just like that" because indeed, I would look like an idiot

seriously people, I didn't expect these kind of (semi violent) answers on an esperanto forum.

attempt to write this in esperanto:

Mi scias tion. (Mi studis la latina kiam me junulis)
Mi ne volis anstataŭi "esti", mi proponis mallongigi ĝin por konversaciojn. Sed estas argumentoj pro ne fari tion. Mi devas pensi pli de tion. Mi certe ne uzos ĝin ĉar homoj min rigardos kiel stulto.

dnaleor:seriously people, I didn't expect these kind of (semi violent) answers on an esperanto forum.

Some Lernu denizens reserve a special ferocity for anyone that dares suggest any "reforms" to their holy tongue.
For a recent example go back a few pages to the thread titled "Duolingo will help with Esperanto reform".

In fact the proposal is one of the more interesting ones (not like "get rid of the accusative" etc.), and similar forms have shown up in the literature.
But there are, however, two problems and an easy workaround:

1) If you conceptualize 'as as an abbreviation of estas etc., it is clearly against the norm (§16 Fundamenta Gramatiko gives the two exceptions which can be abbreviated). This holds true for 'stas, too.

2) If you however see it as a single word as, which is defined in the Universala Vortaro as following:
as marque le présent d’un verbe | ending of the present tense in verbs | bezeichnet das Präsens | означаетъ настоящее время глагола | oznacza czas teraźniejszy
you could argue that it is used according to the principles of the language, which allow the independent use of endings as words.
But: It is not clear, whether the rule which allows ino also allows as, as the former is common, the latter hardly used (and the English definition has "ending" ); and, more important, this as wouldn't have the same meaning as estas - it just says that something is going on now, so "la majstro as fore" could also be "agas iel", "faras ion", "trafiĝas de io", not only "estas".

3) It is much easier simply to verbalize adjectives and other words: "la majstro foras" etc.

----

And I agree with erinja: Such questions should be discussed in Esperanto.

Bemused:

dnaleor:seriously people, I didn't expect these kind of (semi violent) answers on an esperanto forum.

Some Lernu denizens reserve a special ferocity for anyone that dares suggest any "reforms" to their holy tongue.

It's not even that. It's just that it's particularly aggravating to have a newbie who barely speaks the language (IF they speak it at all) to come swooping in and saying (basically) "hey, everybody! you've been doing this all wrong all these 100+ years and I, despite just barely being able to speak it, know way better than you do! Here lemme correct you: blah blah blah"

As Erinja (and our original poster) said earlier, how Esperanto "should" work is up to the speakers of the language. Note: the speakers, NOT the learners.

The problem is that we (as a group) have heard these same tired "improvements" be suggested over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over............it grates on the nerves after a few gazillion times.

Don't get me wrong; probably every Esperantist out there probably had such a list of "improvements" when they started. My personal list included an "imperfect tense" marker "-es" (which by the way, Zamenhof had in his "proto-Esperanto" but he discarded it later {probably when he came up with the -es series of correlatives; he deemed the correlative use as more, well, useful})which also would be used on nouns as a sort of generalized genitive (modeled after the "-es" series of correlatives).......and here is an example of why newbies should not be doing this. At the time I had this list, I was not aware of the feature of Esperanto wherein a noun or adjective can take the verbal endings to denote a verbal idea of the noun (biciklo, bicycle; mi biciklas, I (go by) bicycle....), so "-es" doing both imperfect and genitive would set up the ambiguity of "now is bicikles the genitive of bicycle here or is it the imperfect of 'to go by bike'?". I quickly put to bed my brilliant idea of introducing "-es".

dnaleor:I would say there is a big difference between barging into a french forum and an esperanto forum: Esperanto is a constructed and much younger language.

But see, there is NOT a difference here. Yes, Esperanto was "constructed" and is a much younger language but if you look at it the right way, ALL languages are "constructed" the only difference is Esperanto was constructed by one man instead of the "committee of the whole" of the speakers of the other languages out there. And as for "younger", in a sense, Spanish, Italian and the other Romance languages are "younger" than Latin but that doesn't mean people are free to go changing them to suit their preferences. Heck, I'd love to "regularize" all the irregular verbs in Spanish but the minute one starts doing that, one runs into other problems ("hacer" in the yo form "should" be <'a.so> but how to spell it? Spanish spells the "s/soft c" sound with an "s" or a "c/z" so to make "hacer" regular, we have to spell the yo form "hazo"...oops! not regular any more! so then one would have to make "hacer" change to "haser" to avoid the spelling irregularity. Pretty soon it's not Spanish anymore)

dnaleor:It's really up to the users to decide how to use the language.

And here, amiko, is the crux of the matter. I don't mean any offence but thee is a newbie. Thee is merely a learner at this stage, not a seasoned user, no matter how well thee can use what thee has learned thus far

I would say there is a big difference between barging into a french forum and an esperanto forum: Esperanto is a constructed and much younger language. It's really up to the users to decide how to use the language.

Well, what about a forum on the Afrikaans language (which is about as young as Esperanto) or a Modern Hebrew forum (which was revived from its status as ceremonial-only, near-dead language in the late 19th century)?

Age does not matter so much; rather, the status of "living language" is what matters. When a language is living and demonstrably evolving, you do not get to toy around with it in a self-willed fashion. Other people will just look at you weird and perhaps not even understand you, because there is an established precedent which dictates how people talk. This precedent is present in all living languages, including Esperanto - with a (comparatively) large literature, substantial speaker base, and big Internet presence. If the language changes, it will only be in an organic fashion, i.e. evolutionarily.

It's this kind of attitude that "tinkering is possible" that really irks me, especially when done by a beginner. Frankly, I find it arrogant - kind of like a foreigner coming into a new culture and loudly complaining about various aspects about that culture. I'm sure you mean well, but I think you need to reconsider your attitude. After seeing reform proposal after reform proposal, I tend to lose my patience.

Bemused:

dnaleor:seriously people, I didn't expect these kind of (semi violent) answers on an esperanto forum.

Some Lernu denizens reserve a special ferocity for anyone that dares suggest any "reforms" to their holy tongue.
For a recent example go back a few pages to the thread titled "Duolingo will help with Esperanto reform".

This has nothing to do with holiness or ferocity, but only with desiring a little respect, the same that is given to other living languages. I don't think that's too much to ask.

Honestly? I don't really care if someone proposes a reform to Esperanto, because the odds of it being vastly implemented are about as high as one person suggesting a major reform to English - i.e. nil. Hey, I got a great idea, let's make all English verbs regular for the simple past ... This is because (living) languages have a "soul" of their own, and a "mind" of their own. I do, however, take a little offense at the attitude that comes with the proposals.

All you have to do is look at the plethora of reform proposals made to Esperanto in the past, and you will see that they have all failed (the least unsuccessful, Ido, is moribund, the various Esperantidos are totally defunct). This suggests that the speakers are unable to change the language in the self-willed way you describe.

I shouldn't have used the word "proposal" (Notice that I used quotation marks in my first post) .
I didn't mean to offend you guys. But clearly I did.
I wasn't planning on "forcing" anything (I repeat, I didn't even vote 'Ni faru tion' ).

I was just wondering, why it wasn't used like this (at least in conversations) because it seems natural to me. I'll just shut up about it now. I found it interesting that it is used before and is documented. That was really the thing that interested me. Adding the poll was maybe over the top.

dnaleor:Hi people,

I know, again, a komencinto that proposes something "contrafundamento"
But I was wondering, did people already propose this and if yes, is it adopted somewhat or just rejected?

I think (mostly when speaking) that the verb "esti" i pretty long.
Why not abbreviate it to the verb "i" ?

Some examples:

I am - Mi 'as
You were - Vi 'is
He will be - Li 'os
Be brave - 'U brava
Let us be quiet - Ni 'u kvieta
They would go - Ili 'us iri

Thoughts?

Haha now this is getting ridiculous. So many people are treating this language like it is some kind of plaything.

vikungen:
Haha now this is getting ridiculous. So many people are treating this language like it is some kind of plaything.

first of all, read the discussion. It's far more relevant than you think:

Esti ofte ne montras multe da signifo, sed servas preskaŭ nur kiel tenilo de verba finaĵo. Tial oni ofte proponis uzadon de nuda verba finaĵo anstataŭ esti: En kastel’ ’as vestiblo. Mastro ’as fore. Stelo ’as turnita. Por li la mond’ ’as malfermita. Tiuj ekzemploj estas de K. Kalocsay en Lingvo Stilo Formo. Aliaj uzas simplan as (is, os...) sen apostrofo. Tiaj eksperimentoj tamen neniam fariĝis popularaj. Nur en poezio oni povas renkonti tiajn memstarajn finaĵojn. Verŝajne la risko de konfuzo estas tro granda, ĉar oni povas aŭdi la nudan finaĵon kiel parton de la antaŭa vorto. En kastel’ ’as vestiblo povas soni kiel “en kastelas vestiblo”. Stelo ’as turnita povas soni kiel “stelas turnita”.

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]http://bertilow.com/pmeg/gramatiko/gravaj_verboj/e...
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and secondly, I think "playing" with a language isn't that bad. If it brings more users to Esperanto, that's a good thing imho.

Let's just stop this useless discussion. Everyone made his point. (i'm starting to become annoyed by the attacks)