Kwekubo:Ah, I see the problem; the course is still under development...

Thanks Kwekubo.

Nick

erinja:It has the standard tiny arrow leading you to the next site.

It might do for you as a member of the team. I do not get a next button, nor any large green title. Kwekubo has provided a couple of more direct links into the material, however.

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.

Forgive me, but I was not trying to have a go at N.D. I was (and am) having a real big dig about the frequency of these artificial constructions in general.

I am, frankly, quite appalled at this community for justifying these phrases all in one word things. You (collectively) do not seem to see a problem and Piron even defends this "evolution" as a good thing.

(I might add that Hungarian, so I am told, does this concatenation of semantemes thing a lot. It is widely regarded as one of the most difficult languages anyone can possibly learn with school children (so I am told by a Hungarian) still having difficulty in speaking at age 7. Do you really want E-o to be like Hungarian?????!!!!!)

You seem to have lost sight of the fact that this is intended to be an easy to learn IAL (and was so intended by the language's creator).

The comparison with English is not valid. English is not an IAL. It is being forced on the world as if it were an IAL, but it simply isn't and doesn't even have the required ethos (unnecessarily huge vocabulary, tolerance of irregular verbs, terrible spelling, lingering use of the accusative and dative cases despite the fact that these are not really necessary in the modern language, somewhat irregular genitive case and was never constructed to be an IAL in the first place etc).

I am sorry, very sorry in fact, if I seem to be at war. Maybe others don't have these problems.

Or.... maybe many others do not even get to my limited level of fluency before giving up....

Or maybe others simply don't object as loudly as I do, but accept the increasing difficulty as "normal". Politicians generally reckon that for every letter they get there are many other people with the same views who simply don't bother to write.

I don't know. I know that I find them difficult and even your own vortaro program cannot so much as parse many of them. So, it not just my problem. It is yours too.

Nick

Piron is quite right to defend this aspect of the language, its expressive power. It's one of the things that keeps people interested, beyond the point of being able to read and write and speak simple sentences. The language has a very high "ceiling" that allows people to do creative things with it. If it weren't so, I'm sure it would have failed to flourish.

You will, of course, run into bad Esperanto and awkward constructions, as you will in any other language you study. And yes, some people will speak in long complex sentences that are barely comprehensible--as they do in every other language. A pedant is a pedant in any language.

Shocking as it may be, some "established" compounds are indeed virtually idiomatic, in that their meaning would be hard to guess. "Eldoni" for "publish" is a good example. I'm happy to see other terms taking its place, but it's still out there. But as a general thing, the Esperanto speech community has tended to exert a self-correcting effect, and the wilder forms either don't get picked up or get dropped. But it takes time, because it's a living language.

The extensive and creative use of adverbs in Esperanto is just how the language, *in actual international use* has evolved. This is because as speakers increase their understanding of the language, their appreciation of its creative use also increases.

nw2394:
It might do for you as a member of the team. I do not get a next button, nor any large green title. Kwekubo has provided a couple of more direct links into the material, however.

I'll have to look into that. Those texts have been around forever. I remember doing those English translations more than a year ago, possibly even two years ago; probably someone forgot to change the permissions to make them visible to everyone.

Forgive me, but I was not trying to have a go at N.D. I was (and am) having a real big dig about the frequency of these artificial constructions in general.

I know that it wasn't meant to be personal, but it came off sounding that way.

I am, frankly, quite appalled at this community for justifying these phrases all in one word things. You (collectively) do not seem to see a problem and Piron even defends this "evolution" as a good thing.

Esperanto is a democratic language. If you don't like these sorts of words, then feel free not to use them! You can certainly express yourself without these constructions, though not as succinctly. I think Piron's point was not "Let's make things difficult for beginners just because we can" but "Natural languages evolve to suit the needs of their speakers and Esperanto also evolves"

(I might add that Hungarian, so I am told, does this concatenation of semantemes thing a lot. It is widely regarded as one of the most difficult languages anyone can possibly learn with school children

I believe you, but Hungarian certainly isn't the only language that does it, although most languages do it on a more limited scale. German does it, English (carwash, hairnet, etc), tons of language. I regard it as something to make it easier for the learner not to have to learn extra roots. I can look at an Italian word like "asciugamano" and understand it based on its roots ("dries hand" = handtowel!) and not have to memorize a separate word. I can look at "portacandela" and know that it means "candleholder" ("carries candle"). Or let's combine lots of these for a nice long word - portasciugamano - handtowelrack (yep, it's a valid Italian word)

My point is that to a beginning Italian speaker, "portasciugamano" is not likely to be a clearer word than "zxyzylo", but once they have learned some Italian, and learned that Italian tends to start off words with porta- if it's a holder of any type, and learned the verb "asciugare" and the noun "mano", they are likely to be able to guess that portasciugamano describes some sort of holder for something that dries your hands. I suspect that it would take a learner of Italian more than 2 months to have this derivation become clear.

Esperanto does this, only more so.

You seem to have lost sight of the fact that this is intended to be an easy to learn IAL (and was so intended by the language's creator).

I think you're being unnecessarily hard on the language. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but you've only been studying for a couple months. I would hardly expect someone who had been studying *any* language for a couple of months to find the meanings of all compound words to be instantly clear.

Or maybe others simply don't object as loudly as I do, but accept the increasing difficulty as "normal". Politicians generally reckon that for every letter they get there are many other people with the same views who simply don't bother to write.

I don't doubt that there are others who share your views. I'm not sure what you mean by the increasing difficulty - are you referring to how the language becomes more difficult the more you get into it, or to the language becoming more difficult to learn, the longer it exists?

I do think you have an idealized version of how the language was spoken, even by Zamenhof. I found in his writings the word "diverslingveco" - surely he could have said this with multiple words? "Multepeza", "kiamaniere", "elpensadi", "ellernadi", "alradikiĝi", "sensukiĝi".

I don't know. I know that I find them difficult and even your own vortaro program cannot so much as parse many of them. So, it not just my problem. It is yours too.

This is a programming error in the dictionary's word parser. If you input a completely nonsensical compound word like eksmalsenciĝado, it parses out just fine. We currently have someone working on a fix to the parser, because although the user can't see it, the word parser functions somewhat independently from the dictionary itself, so that new words added to the dictionary don't get parsed as they should; the parser works off its own internal dictionary.

So, it not just my problem. It is yours too.

Sorry to disappoint you, but I don't seem to have the problems nor the negative attitude that you do. Neither does anyone with whom I speak.

Look, on the one hand Esperanto is supposed to be an IAL. Therefore it must be as easy as it is reasonably possible to make a language.

On the other hand words are being bandied about that are not in a dictionary, indeed cannot be in a dictionary because they are coined on the spot and which the bespoke Esperanto word parsing program on this site cannot make head nor tail of.

Someone has got to be pulling someone's leg.

To defend this as "expressive" is a sick joke. Expressive for the expressor maybe, not necessarily for the recipient.

I will not further argue the point. Anyone who thinks these "word" formations are a good idea and at the same time pretends that Esperanto is a serious contender as an IAL is plain bonkers. I mean, for God's sake - a language whose words are not in dictionaries being used in negotiations by the UN or EU - the notion is ridiculous.

Nick

Let's not go insulting people or their work...

One decent point that I've seen made before is that Esperantists could do with sticking more hyphens in their words, particularly when dealing with learners. Would pli-fleks-ebl-iĝi (or even just pli-fleksebliĝi) sit better with you?

waxle:Sorry to disappoint you, but I don't seem to have the problems nor the negative attitude that you do. Neither does anyone with whom I speak.

Furthermore, my "attitude" as you put it is in favour of making the language plain.

If you think that is negative then you have your head where the sun doesn't shine pal.

Nick

Kwekubo:Let's not go insulting people or their work...

I notice that you do not criticise others for saying that I have a negative attitude, when I would argue that the boot is on the other foot.

One decent point that I've seen made before is that Esperantists could do with sticking more hyphens in their words, particularly when dealing with learners. Would pli-fleks-ebl-iĝi (or even just pli-fleksebliĝi) sit better with you?

Frankly, nothing sits well with me at the moment. I am cross. Very cross and wondering whether my effort in learning what I hoped was a serious IAL is, in fact, worth it.

Esperantists rightly (in my view) claim that the Fundamento and its rigid rules are what makes Esperanto strong. It makes clear to the learner that the rules don't change.

But then I find that all manner of other changes that are built on top of the Fundamento are all OK. Anything goes. And yet Esperantists think that anyone who complains about such things have a "negative attitude". Well, I am sorry. That simply isn't good enough.

Nick

nw2394:I notice that you do not criticise others for saying that I have a negative attitude, when I would argue that the boot is on the other foot.

My message was intended to do that as well; perhaps I should have spelt that out more.

Frankly, I like your attitude: you seem to be taking going to the bother of learning an IAL seriously! And it's far better to look for answers to things rather than to sit there quietly hoping the answers will come out of nowhere eventually.

I think someone mentioned this earlier, but IMHO you should now try to move into practising the conversational language, in person if possible. Once you get some practice in using words in ways you hadn't thought of before, things just start to click! Is there an Esperanto group near where you live?

Esperantists love to argue about changes to the language. Witness the bitter debates we have had even on this forum regarding gender neutral language!

But word building is something built into the language. The core rules don't change, true. But the compound words were built into the language, and I don't see the use of compound words as being something that was added to the language at some later date. It's all part of the same strategy of having to memorize fewer vocabulary words. I don't see the language as being less "serious" for the use of compound words.

I find it hard to understand where you're coming from. I can understand that you're in favor of language that parses out simply; I encourage you to speak in that manner, if that's what you prefer. I encourage you to start your own organization, "Esperantistoj por klara uzado de vortoj"

I don't really understand your argument about languages with words that aren't in dictionaries being used in international negotiations. As things stand now, there are plenty of international discussions in English. These might make use of words like "rewiring" that aren't found in dictionaries, but we understand that it comes from the root "wire", and the prefix re- and suffix -ing have set meanings, so the word is understood, though it is not found in a dictionary. Presumably words of indeterminate meaning would be avoided (or intentionally used!) in organizations like the EU or the UN.

And truthfully when it comes to driving away prospective Esperanto speakers due to the difficulty, I think we would drive away just as many as we would gain, if not more, by taking away the flexibility that the language has. I find speaking Esperanto to be a joy. Having said this, I think any fluent Esperanto speaker who is not either on drugs or seriously deceiving themselves has a few ideas of elements of the language that they would have done differently if they were Zamenhof. I know I can think of a couple.

I know you're at a difficult point in your studies. I regret that at the moment, it must seem to be all pain, no gain. But when your level is high enough for you to be able to understand these sorts of constructions, I think you'll understand why others see them as an asset rather than a liability, even if you personally choose not to use those sorts of words. You're still early in your studies. Languages are hard, and you're not going to reach a very high level overnight. Our language learning ability starts to decline when we're still at a young age. I think anyone learning any language has a few points when they think "You've got to be kidding me, I have to learn that?" or "I can't believe that your languages does that in that way, that makes no sense whatsoever". In most cases we get over the hurdle, then in retrospect it doesn't seem like such a big deal (though we may internally still think it's pretty stupid!). I encourage you to just give it some time - it'll come. Ask for help with things you don't understand and I'm sure people will be happy to give it to you (though, a friendly reminder - suggesting that people insert their heads into places where the sun doesn't shine isn't the greatest way to make friends!). If it's helpful to you, perhaps you should just avoid the Esperanto-language forums for a while, since they seem to upset you. Read some classic Esperanto literature, avoid the poetry - there's plenty of it available online. Relax. Breathe. Rediscover what led you to the language in the first place.