Kwekubo:In reality, people don't overdo the nonce-words; just read through the average article in LMD or Libera Folio. We're talking about Esperanto here, not Esperant'!

Yes. I looked up the links. Quite a lof of it I can just simply read. It is understandable.

However, I take a look at the E-o forum here, and I see posted today, for example, "gramatikscion plifleksibliĝi!" What???!!!! The first word is a compound of two others that needn't have been compounded and the second isn't even readable. The vortaro says there is no such word and the computer program behind the vortaro can't decipher its pieces either.

Yes, I can do better than the program. After pausing to parse this construction, it seems to be "more flexible become", which sort of communicates in the context. But how you pronounce such a jumble of word pieces, I don't know. And parsing it would have been quicker if the various components had not been compounded.

I rest my case. Colloquial E-o is a dialect. Furthermore, it is not taught. One has to sort of absorb it.

Esperantists joke about English compound tenses, German gendered nouns and such like. The house at home should be put in order before mocking other languages.

Nick

I think we're talking about the difference between conversational and written language. It has nothing to do with dialects, I think. If you read a newspaper, the articles are written in a more formal tone than a person would use to tell a friend the exact same information. It tends to be more formal grammatically. In online forums, people tend to use spoken language to communicate, even though it's written, because the atmosphere is conversational.

Nick, it sounds like you're doing quite well on the written form of the language, the formal writing - this is what you would find in websites like Libera Folio and Wikipedia, which are intended to be newsy and formal rather than conversational. So now it's time for the next step - the informal language. In blogs, in conversations with people, the language will be less formal. Plus Esperanto speakers love word games and they love saying things in creative ways. With a friend, for fun, you might intentionally say something in a difficult way. Occasionally I'll say "Jenas la miec'" instead of "jen mi", just because it's more playful (though I would not do this with a beginner)

But honestly I think it is just a stylistic difference. The gossip page of a newspaper will be written very differently, with very different language, than the front page news articles. And in turn, the opinion page where readers write in will be very different as well. Does that mean a newspaper contains three dialects? Not really; it's just three levels of formality, each with a certain grammar and vocabulary appropriate to the purpose of the writing. The basic English grammar remains the same; the differences lie in the vocabulary and word usage (for instance, the word "newsy" that I used above - can you imagine this word being used in a serious news article? I think not. For that matter, "I think not" would also not appear in a news article, except as part of someone's quote.)

nw2394:I cannot see a link about "Franko-tekstoj". Using that phrase on Google gives one page on the entire net:

http://vikio.lernu.net/Planoj/NovaStrukturo

That seems to mention such a thing, but no link to any content.

Here's the intro page.

Oops Kwekubo, I think you accidentally posted the wrong link for the Franko texts. Here they are:

http://en.lernu.net/biblioteko/franko/index.php

erinja:Oops Kwekubo, I think you accidentally posted the wrong link for the Franko texts. Here they are:

http://en.lernu.net/biblioteko/franko/index.php

Quite right erinja, apparently I corrected my link just before you posted yours!

Novico Dektri:The constrution in question here (gramatikscio plifleksebligxi), Nw2394, came from my mind.

There have been many times before in that forum where I have wished to post a query here in the English forum about the meaning of a construction. However, until now, I have always refrained as it would inevitably personalise things.

In this instance I felt I had no choice but to drag up an actual example of what I meant. I wasn't intended in any way as a dig at you personally as I could have found many other examples. It just happened to be the first one I saw.

First of all, I was not aware that it is a standard expectation on the E-o forum to comment in simple Esperanto so that komencantoj can read it...

No, neither you nor anyone else in this or any other language has an obligation to speak or write in a particular way.

However, Esperanto purports to be an International Auxilliary Language. As such, if it ever really becomes that, it will be used by a great many people sporadically. A huge proportion of its speakers will not be 100% fluent and, indeed, have no wish to be so.

Therefore, if the Esperanto community actually wishes to support that notion, then it is incumbent on that community not just to be sceptical about neologisms (which it seems to actually be), but also to resist trends in the usage which new people will not generally find easy to cope with.

If the Esperanto community does not do that, it will drift into its own idioms (and I suggest it is doing exactly that) and become no easier than any other language.

It is not up to me, you or any individual what the answer to that conundrum is. However, if the Esperanto community as whole chooses the latter path, don't be surprised if the language remains the secret language of the elite few and never realises Zammenhof's hopes for it.

Personally, I am interested in Esperanto as an IAL and being able to achieve a level, personally, of basic fluency and competence. The literature, songs and sense of community are nice, but they are not why I am here.

Nick

Kwekubo:

erinja:Oops Kwekubo, I think you accidentally posted the wrong link for the Franko texts. Here they are:

http://en.lernu.net/biblioteko/franko/index.php

Quite right erinja, apparently I corrected my link just before you posted yours!

My Russian is not what it used to be, but when I went to the given link and searched for Eo (эсперанто) all I could find was the following: (http://www.multikulti.ru/Esperanto/info/Esperanto_...

Can anyone help, it may be of use to a novice like me.

Kwekubo:Here's the intro page.

Thanks, but that is an intro page. It has no "next" button or any means of navigation to any material. Not that I can see anyway. Perhaps I am going blind.

It has a link to a Russian site, but я говарю по Русский язык очень плохо (I speak the Russian language very bad - should be "badly" I guess and probably at least one incorrect grammatical case, but I did decline the verb correctly I think. However my memory of that language is a bit thin now).

Nick

Ah, I see the problem; the course is still under development, so it hasn't been fully incorporated into the "Library" section yet (I had to log out of my translator account to check this). I'll try a couple of direct links to the stories available so far:

Karlo

Pippi Longstocking

It has the standard tiny arrow leading you to the next site. Or if you look at the title of the page, it says "Franko" (the large green title letters) and underneith "Introduction" "Pipi Ŝtrumpolonga" and "Karlo". The latter two are what you should click on to get to the texts.

Regarding words you find difficult, I would encourage you to post to the English language forum when you don't understand something. I think that people are generally happy to help. My understanding of the situation was that the problem wasn't that you happened to pick Novico Dektri's word, but the perceived tone with which you asked your question. I think if you had worded your question as something like "I'm really having trouble understanding constructions like 'gramatikscion plifleksebligxi'", without further comment about the construction's legibility etc, that no one would have had a problem with you asking about it - including Novico Dektri.

Regarding people being willing to learn a language like Esperanto, whose speakers sometimes speak in a way not easily understandable to beginners - this is true with any language, isn't it? At this point in history, many people regard English as being the international language. Millions of people all over the world study English, not because they are interested in it as a language (and not because it's easy, because it isn't), but because it is a useful language to know. I think these people would have difficulty understanding the slangy English found on blogs etc. So why do they learn it? They can still understand English used in a more formal setting (newspapers, books). Plus, if they need to use English in person, the English speaker talking to them would instantly understand that this is a person with limited English capability, and adjust their speech accordingly. I think it happens the same way in the Esperanto world. I don't think you've attended an Esperanto event yet, have you? In my experience, when there is a beginner present, people will go out of their way to help that person understand. It doesn't mean that the entire group's conversation will be free of the interesting constructions that Esperanto speakers like to use. It means that when speaking directly to the beginner, people will use easier language. People will try to help the beginner understand by distilling the gist of the conversation into easier language, so the beginner doesn't feel completely left out.

Esperanto was designed as a compromise between ease and flexibility. It could have been designed far to be far easier to learn than it actually is, but this would have made it less flexible and expressive. Zamenhof wanted us to be able to express the whole range of human experience, including having literature, including songs, including community. I don't personally see Esperanto splitting off into dialects, or changing drastically, simply because the community is largely linked by the written word, and when people try to go too far with the changes, there tends to be a backlash against it (how successful have the riistoj been? Google riismo.) Plus the Esperanto speaking community has a lot of people who never do become fluent, who stay involved with Esperanto but never immerse themselves in it long enough to get fluent, just perpetually dabble. I have found that people fluent enough to come up with difficult to understand constructions are a minority in the community.

In addition these complicated constructions are not really a new thing. I have recently been reading an Esperanto translation of "Princess of Mars" by Edgar Rice Burroughs. The translator's note at the beginning of the text is dated 1938. I do not find the language used in the dialogue of the book, or in the prose, to be appreciably different from today's usage. The page where I currently have my bookmark contains the words "sengxena", "forlasitaj", "civitlimo", "alproksimigxi", "samspeculoj", and "seniluziigos". Flipping through a little, I find "vizagxesprimo", "servsoldato", "pormomente", "batalsxirata", "aeresploranta", "rekonsciigxante", etc. So while Novico Dektri's use of two compound constructions in a row, full of prefixes/suffixes may be somewhat unusual, the words themselves are nothing new. I think if you look through Esperanto poetry you will find far more of these constructions than most of us would ever consider using in our lifetimes!

In any case, give yourself a break! You've only been studying for a couple of months! If in a year's time you still have so much trouble understanding these constructions, and you've been continuously spending this much time with Esperanto, *then* it's time to worry about it; not now, I think.