In the Netherlands you would, because we pretty much all understand Dutch and English, and a bit of German too. Of course people might look at you with a weird face, but that's a different thing.

But I see this one more as an interesting look into the Germanic language family.

About 1981, a group of Japanese computer companies got together and said "If Commodore computers use one operating system, and Sinclair computers use another one, and Tandy/Dragon/Oric computers use yet another, why don't we make computers that all talk to each other and use the same software?" --- And so MSX was born. Then, about a year later, those companies decided it would be good if perhaps the Toshiba MSX had "N"-function and the Goldstar had "Y"-function. Suddenly, MSX users' computers could not work with each other again.

What my little anecdote is saying is that the concept of Universal Communications / Esperanto is only useful as THE International Language if everyone else doesn't try to out-do it, or redo it. Slovio would only ever appeal to Slavic speakers, and from what I've seen in the Babilejo, most Russians/Czechs/Slovenes etc are pretty good at crossing over from their own languages to others in the same family as it is, without an auxiliary. And if they do need an Auxlang, well there's Esperanto already in place, user-friendly and as much Slav-friendly as it is Anglo-friendly!

Ironchef:About 1981, a group of Japanese computer companies got together and said "If Commodore computers use one operating system, and Sinclair computers use another one, and Tandy/Dragon/Oric computers use yet another, why don't we make computers that all talk to each other and use the same software?" --- And so MSX was born. Then, about a year later, those companies decided it would be good if perhaps the Toshiba MSX had "N"-function and the Goldstar had "Y"-function. Suddenly, MSX users' computers could not work with each other again.

What my little anecdote is saying is that the concept of Universal Communications / Esperanto is only useful as THE International Language if everyone else doesn't try to out-do it, or redo it. Slovio would only ever appeal to Slavic speakers, and from what I've seen in the Babilejo, most Russians/Czechs/Slovenes etc are pretty good at crossing over from their own languages to others in the same family as it is, without an auxiliary. And if they do need an Auxlang, well there's Esperanto already in place, user-friendly and as much Slav-friendly as it is Anglo-friendly!

that's right but this kind of language (which is not for me the same as esperanto: interlingua, slovio, maybe weldsprache), have a utility.
Me, as a french, can read and understand the interlingua without problem, so as an italian and a spanish. A text dedicated to French italian and spanish can be written in interlingua instead of french italian and spanish.

Miland:
But I have a question: would the boast of Slovio regarding the Slavic world would be true of Folkspraak - would a speaker of it be readily understood by speaker of the Germanic languages other than English - say throughout Germany and Northern Europe?

I too have seen Folkspraak, and it immediately took my attention. I have tried Swedish and Dutch in the past, and I'd have to say that, considering many Germanics already know a fair bit of English or of another Germanic language (for example, the Scandinavians know enough of eachother's language - just check out the forums here at lernu! .
Combine this with the knowledge of french loan-words most north-europeans have through education or experience, and you'd find that inter-germanic communication is quite easy. The only things that stall it are the different sound-shifts and vocab changes different germanic languages experienced, which, when logically retraced, often leads to a seemingly obvious and understandable word root.

So, if I said, 'Jag jobbar i en fabrick' *slowly*, Many swedes, Norwegians, Danes, and possibly north-Germans would understand. If I said, 'Ik job in en fabrick', (also very slowly) many English people would go 'ooh I've gotcha lad!'.

Compare this with the amount german influences its neighbours' pop-culture and how many people know 'von' means 'of' and you're on your way to developing your own Germanic auxlang - all you need is a decent writing system (like Esperanto but with more Germanic lettering) and you have about 500,000,000 speakers understanding you if you hit the nail on the head!

The problem is that Folkspraak is developing slower than Slovio is. Sure, Slovio is probably going to get wiped by better Slavic auxlangs that are in development, but Folkspraak barely has any competitors and still is lagging behind, mostly because of the Yahoo group being bombarded by spam, the designers disagreeing over minor things which I'm sure won't affect much, and then you've got the fact that it's just as easy to learn German or Norwegian now as it is to learn Esperanto on lernu!!.

E.g. Ich heiße Christian und ich lange sprechen. Du kannst nicht mich für diese morden, Entschuldigung.

Actually, while we are completely off topic, you can see my dodge attempt of making a Germanic auxlang here:
http://detsj.wikispaces.com/
Say what you like about it. Flame it to damnation if you want.

ceigered:Ich heiße Christian und ich lange sprechen. Du kannst nicht mich für diese morden, Entschuldigung.

Ne gravas!

ceigered: ..you can see my dodge attempt of making a Germanic aŭlang here:
http://detsj.wikispaces.com/

'Detch' sounds interesting, but it's bit sad that you feel the need to break away from Folkspraak. Many heads tend to be better than one. So that's a reason for preferring Folkspraak to Detch, looking at it objectively.

Anyway, while other auxlangs fight it out* - good luck with Esperanto!

* As I'm sure you may have noticed, this phenomenon of infighting between rival developers of an IAL project illustrates well the advantage of the stability afforded to Esperanto by our netuŝebla 'Fundamento'.

ceigered:

PS. I note that Afrikaans isn't mentioned in your Detch webpage. Historically it arose (in South Africa) as a simplified form of Dutch, and so may be of interest as one of the potential 'resources' for IALs based on Germanic languages. Have the Folkspraakers considered Afrikaans as a possible resource?

andrew.longhofer:Auxlangs based on Slavic, Germanic, and Romance roots and grammar.... Come on people, get creative! A priori is where it's at!

I agree. Do you have some good examples?

andrew.longhofer:

jan aleksan:

andrew.longhofer:Auxlangs based on Slavic, Germanic, and Romance roots and grammar.... Come on people, get creative! A priori is where it's at!

I agree. Do you have some good examples?

I'm partial to Hildegard of Bingen's Lingua Ignota and Solresol.

well, you went a bit too far in the past^^. I think the design of an a priori language should follow some conclusion from linguistics.

andrew.longhofer:A priori is where it's at!

Edmond Privat's early biography (page 28) indicates how Zamenhof thought about this:

"Why not agree upon the shortest little words, like ba, ca .. and arbitrarily fix the precise meaning of each? He saw at once that this was impossible. He could not learn such words himself. To memorise them was beyond human power. A language must have living words if it itself to live. The solution was to draw on the common source of the European languages. A Latin-German vocabulary would be the most international."

The trouble with an a priori language is that there may be nothing in the minds of potential learners that has prepared them to learn it, making the task difficult. This is precisely the situation of people trying to learn Esperanto, who have not had any background in European languages; Esperanto is effectively an a priori language to them. To attain proficiency, they need greater determination.

Hi,

I also don't think that Slovio will be able to attract a lot of speakers. And even it it would, I think Esperanto is better in many aspects.

Anyway, I also took a look at Folkspraak several months ago and I could easily read and understand the texts. Every now and then there is a word that seems unfamiliar, but at closer look it usually is also easy to comprehend.

Gerald