This is an interesting discussion.

I learned about the preposition na in the book Nia Fundamento sub lupeo, a brilliant analysis by the late G F Makkink, which I can only recommend to anyone.

This was back in 2001, at the first UK I ever attended; I embraced the preposition and have been using it ever since, so I can say I have been experimenting with naismo for more than 14 years.

These days, na is just an everyday thing for me: several times a day I would utter sentences as tiu instalado na Linukso daŭros ankoraŭ na iom da tempo, would normally speak about la akcepto na la urbestro ne estis tre bona (clearly, it was the mayor who wasn't accepted very well, and not them accepting somebody else), how I malfidas na Royal Mail and so on.

I can hear people saying that na is "unnecessary", but aren't there also people who are saying this about the whole Esperanto? It doesn't mean you have to agree with them

Some people might like it, some people might not, but na has been here for quite a while and it seems to be gaining more ground in the last couple of years. A Secretary General of TEJO used na in an official report published in TEJO Tutmonde. A TEJO Chairman used na in their official address. (These happened in "my time" i.e. some years ago.) The acting Chairman of UEA wrote positively about naismo (in a way which can be viewed as an encouragement of its usage) in the official magazine of UEA, la revuo Esperanto. (This is of a more recent date.) As I am typing this, there are two members of the Akademio de Esperanto (only that I know of) who are naistoj, although, obviously, they cannot promote naismo within the Academy. And there are others, who, for obvious reasons, will not "come out" as naistoj but do use the preposition in private.

For if there is one thing I learned during my long experimenting, it is this: in some situations you can go ahead fiercely using your na and just stick your tongue to those who seem to be annoyed by it; and in some situations you are not going to get away with it.

As, indeed, language has layers, or, if you want, registers. And I have experienced that while na can live within the slang language (yes, there is such a thing as Esperanto slang!) spoken by a group of pals, in the official situations it will not be suffered and it will be expelled with utmost severity, that means, crossed out with the ruĝa krajono of the korektisto.

For the time being, that is. As another thing we know from linguistics is that these "layers" do not live as separate universes but they constantly influence one another. Did you know there were days when you were being told that you cannot say far (as in akcepto far la urbestro) as there is no such word! you can only say fare de; fast forward a couple of decades, and far is being used and accepted on the highest levels of the language system palace of Esperanto!

Currently it feels that more than "experimenting with naismo" I am "experimenting with sennaismo", the dialect of Esperanto where you have to use ambiguous and cumbersome expressions only to be able to avoid the simplest, clearest and most efficient solution that offers itself.

Sure, I use "na" as English slang for "no".

Do I use "na" in Esperanto? Na.

mateno: you can only say fare de; fast forward a couple of decades, and far is being used and accepted on the highest levels of the language system palace of Esperanto!

In my opinion you are overstating the general acceptability of "far" in Esperanto society.

Altebrilas:In this case, I just wanted to suggest a way to test innovations such as "na", "ri", "Bau", etc. , while demonstrating one's respect for the Fundamento and specially for the reasoned dogmatism Zamenhof advocates in his Antauxparolo.

The "Sandbox" part of the forum might be suitable for that.

Altebrilas:Personnally, I would prefer debate about it in the esperanto forum, but it seems to be more and more dedicated to political topics...

It is a lot of politics there but it is not meant to be only about politics. You should start some more non-political threads in that forum, it would be a nice change.

I think this video will explain everything clearly and end the debate about na once and for all

https://youtu.be/yKR0l7odlVI

Tempodivalse:I think this difference in attitude has much to do that people view Esperanto, even if only subconsciously, as a "toy" of sorts, or somehow deficient compared to other languages

Imagine you have a constructed building (Esperanto) and you have a naturally occurring mountain (some natural language). Which is more acceptable to change?

Nobody will go to the top of a mountain and complain if the ground is uneven. But, lots of people will complain if the floor in a constructed building is uneven.

Nobody will complain that the entrance of a cave is too narrow. Lots of people will complain if a doorway is too narrow.

RiotNrrd:

Alkanadi:Maybe, when someone talks about reforms, we should tell them that they have to be fluent in Esperanto first or they won't be taken seriously.

We do. We generally ask that they post reform related posts in one of the Esperanto language forums (sometimes as a last resort). It's funny how often reform-minded types don't post anything there. It's almost like they don't have a good command of the language (although how could we tell?).

As if experienced speakers advocating reform-proposals would be taken serious ... sure.

Fenris_kcf:As if experienced speakers advocating reform-proposals would be taken serious ... sure.

When an experienced speaker puts forth some kind of change in the language (like mateno's use of "na", he is pretty much the only experienced speaker I know who uses it), people might not agree but you won't get the same dismissive reaction. The conversation tends to be more polite. The experienced person has a more realistic idea of what this change accomplishes (for example: being a little more succinct in how to say something, removing some level of doubt as to the meaning of an expression, etc). The experienced speaker knows that their ideas aren't currently well-accepted and knows that their proposed change will happen either not at all, or slowly over the course of decades, but that putting forward a great idea on a learner's forum simply isn't going to change the whole language. When an experienced speaker discusses their reformist ideas in Esperanto, it generally doesn't end with the reform-proposer storming off because they are angry that these mean Esperanto people are being so dismissive of all of his/her great ideas and refusing to listen about how much better their language could be if only they would listen.

Taken seriously? I don't know. People might not be any more likely to take on their ideas but the ideas are at least discussed seriously in Esperanto, rather than devolving into hysterical accusations. For sure, I am more willing to have a reasoned discussion with someone on a topic who knows what they're talking about than a person who has just entered a field. If you're an expert medical researcher in a fatal disease, would you be more interested in discussing an idea for curing this disease from another researcher who has studied the disease for a long time (but has wildly different ideas than yours for what will work best), or would you be more interested in discussing it with a person who has just entered university with the intent of becoming a researcher to study that fatal disease, who has read an article on those wildly different ideas, and wants to explain to you why you're wrong with your ideas that are based on years of research?

Mateno, just exactly (in your mind) what problem does 'na' solve in tiu instalado na Linukso daŭros ankoraŭ na iom da tempo?

Or to put it another way what do you see in tiu instalado de Linukso daŭros ankoraŭ iom da tempo that stops you understanding that phrase?

sudanglo:Or to put it another way what do you see in tiu instalado de Linukso daŭros ankoraŭ iom da tempo that stops you understanding that phrase?

I kind of brushed over the examples before but now that I think of it, I am not really sure I understand this example sentence.

I understood "na" to be a substitute for the -n ending, for use when we can't use -n for whatever reason.

But in the above sentence, if we substitute "programo", a word that accepts -n with no problems for "Linukso", I still wouldn't use -n. It would be "Tiu instalado de programo dauxros ankoraux iom da tempo". Or if you were saying this sentence with "programo", would you really say "Tiu instalado programon dauxros..."? You occasionally see constructions like that in very old Esperanto but it's so rare nowadays. I wonder whether you speak that way nonetheless?

If you felt strongly about the second "na" being necessary to show time, you could certainly say "...dauxros ankoraux dum iom da tempo", same number of syllables even, still grammatical.

I used "na" for a short time as a beginner. I stopped using it when I saw that it did not add any extra clarity about 99% of the time, and that it was an unnecessary innovation.

I do find it funny, however, that just as some reformists would like to do away with accusative markers altogether, that other reformists want to add more accusative markers. It just goes to show that you can't please everyone, so you might as well just pick something and stick with it; the language will never reach "perfection" since each person has a different idea of what constitutes perfection.

I fail to understand what benefit na provides. As I have said many times (here and in other threads), in 98+% of cases it will still be readily apparent when a non-Esperantised substantive is meant to be in the accusative case. In the other (rare) cases, where 1) both object and subject are non-Esperanticised, and 2) there is no modifier which could betray the overt marker, one reverts to SVO word order.

So na is just redundant. And it seems na-supporters are inconsistent in its usage. If the idea is to remove any doubt about where the accusative is, why don't I see na-supporters use the preposition as follows:

*La katastrofo kauzis na multe da malfelichoj*, or
*Multe da malfelichoj kauzis na multe da larmoj*

The response would be, presumably, that you don't need na here because both context and word order make it abundantly clear what the intended meaning is. But the same can be said of non-Esperanticised names, which have the same inability to overtly indicate accusativity as nominalised adverbials (multe da, tiom da, etc).

Please consider that if we were talking about some arcane, obscure reform in another language like English with no track record in serious, fluent usage, we would not be having this conversation. Instead, we would simply dismiss the reform as irrelevant, at least for the purposes of using the language in a normal, everyday fashion. (Theoretical conversations might well be interesting.)