(You really cant edit, cant you?. Sorry again: I wanted to add: supposing anyone read, dont take too hard anything I say, really forgive me if sometimes I sound rude, I really just want to provoke thought, and I really dont know what I am talking about; I just write because I have noticed it helps me fight depression. If interested, you can look for cognitive approach to linguistics, for example "On fire, women and dangerous things", Lakoff. Thank you)

Lumturisto:very quickly you ll develop a nativelike feeling of the language, instead of eterna komencanto syndorme of those whose mind dont absorb much because mind refuse to absorb nefidinda production of semi-speakers.

I do have a bit of sympathy with that viewpoint. The amount of nonsense I assimilated and subsequently had to get rid of from people who frankly didn't have a clue what they were talking about was quite staggering when I first started out. But in the end I don't think that has anything to do with Esperanto the language, but more to do with which particular learning materials I availed myself of and who I spoke with. With a language like Esperanto that has very few speakers and is the native language of hardly anyone, it's inevitable that this should happen to some degree and the thing you spoke of about which preposition to use is another example of something that wouldn't even be a question in a natural language, as there would be mass consensus of the kind that isn't readily observed in Esperanto.

As far as "eterna komencanto" goes, to be honest I don't think it has anything to do with any of this at all. Probably a lot of people who tried the language out just got bored with it due to lack of real-world usage opportunities, or came to view the whole endeavour as "useless".

But I come back to my original point, which is quite a simple one: Esperanto works! You can pick the language apart with theoretical arguments all day long but the facts are there to be seen.. people are able to use it effectively and fluency is obtainable with relatively little effort in comparison to even the easiest natural languages. I really think that if all this stuff you're talking about were true then this simply would not, and could not, be the case. Yet it is.

Hi Lumturisto,

1. PIV is not such an ultimate authority as you seem to think. It's just a dictionary made by some prominent Esperantists, who are also human and have their own biases and foibles. It also has various flat-out blunders and typos, as well as many instances of francocentrism and eurocentrism for which it's received criticism. It's certainly a good and useful resource, but it's in no way an "official" dictionary or some standard norm for Esperantists.

2. You seem to be seriously underestimating how often Esperantists do on-the-fly word construction in real life. You seem to be arguing based on theories and stuff you've read, without direct practical experience. Esperanto indeed has many established words and phrases which people use atomically without paying attention to their constituent parts (e.g. "lernejo", "necesejo"), and such canned expressions are indeed useful and probably even necessary for a practical language. But Esperanto also indeed has spontaneous word construction as a real and normal and common part of the language. E.g. a friend told me "Hodiaŭ mi ekeksedziĝas". I had never seen that verb before in any dictionary - for all I know it had never been uttered before by anyone - yet it is perfectly good and valid Esperanto, and I understood exactly what he was telling me. Whenever I spend time in a group of Esperantists, I hear innumerable spontaneous constructions that are real and good Esperanto, yet they are not words printed in PIV or some other "official" list of supposedly "good / real / better / first-class / more valid / whatever" Esperanto words.

Lumturisto:Then this idea from e-o propaganda that you can speak fluently by means of compounding as you go i deem ridiculous

If you don't mind my butting in Lumturisto, I would argue against this point, because compound words are effectively lots of little words, and once you are used to compounding it is as easy as pie - also, I would take into account that our Germanic languages are based off of the before mentioned compounding, only they have slowly evolved, borrowed different neologisms etc so it's no longer as obvious.

Also, compounding is the same as constructing a sentence or a meaning out of many different words, if I said "I was going to the christianity gathering place of sunday worship" you automatically go "oh he's forgotten the word "church").

Although (sorry if I am taking what you have said the wrong way, I'm tired and don't feel like reading long posts) I do agree partially, fluency relies heavily on how used you are to something, and therefore relying solely on on-the-fly compounding can be dangerous and de-constructive in a conversation. If I said "per sabbath-christendom convergence facility" most people would be so confused they'd start throwing potatoes at me, and then eventually one go would go "oh he's talking about a church!" ("lets throw potatoes at him anyway!")

Sorry if I came on too strongly, just came back from uni and I want to sleep .

And 2 things @ Russ:
1 - does "ekeksedzigxi" mean 'to go get a divorce' or something like that? I can get "divorce" (ex-marry) out of it, but I haven't quite grasped the meaning of "ek" yet.
2 - I only speak a tad of Russian, but as your "logxlando" is poland, I was wondering if Polish has extensive construction on par with the German/Finno-Ugraic languages?

OK Russ, thank you, points taken, I'll think about it. The hopes I ve put into PIV to be something solid are dissolving right now.
Anybody interested in buying a used PIV? Just kidding.

I wonder, would you some day if you find the time and motivation, open a thread on "flaws in the PIV" or something, where you would point out some of those:

-blunders
-typos
-personal foibles
-francocentrisms
-eurocentrisms

or else link to information about it or something; I think could be interesting for many of us, I would write that on mine. Btw, whats wrong with francocentrism and eurocentrisms? Is not France the center of the world after all just kidding again.

Lumturisto:I wonder, would you some day if you find the time and motivation, open a thread on "flaws in the PIV" or something, where you would point out some of those:

-blunders
-typos
-personal foibles
-francocentrisms
-eurocentrisms

or else link to information about it or something;

Here is some info from Bertilo Wennergren:

http://bertilow.com/piv/index.html

tommjames:... the thing you spoke of about which preposition to use is another example of something that wouldn't even be a question in a natural language, as there would be mass consensus of the kind that isn't readily observed in Esperanto.

I agree with all you said, except something here. That problem with prepositions CAN happen and CAN be a question in a natural language.

When you have a language that has extended over a big part of the world, and been adopted by people who used to speak other languages, this can be a common issue, which doesn't impede good communication.

As an example: Spanish. I speak a Spanish which is different to that of Spain, even for that in Argentina or Peru (which are neighbor countries). We all use different words for some things. We also have differences in prepositions. Some examples:

In Center America, one hears usually "Voy para allá"... In Spain it is said "Voy hacia allá". More to the south in America, both forms are equally common.

In Spain (and until now, I have heard this only there) they say "voy a por mi abrigo", while in all America the use is simply "voy por mi abrigo".

When telling time, in Spain it's common to say "sobre las 3", while in America it is "a las 3".

This is not a problem... It's not "everybody speaks Spanish as s/he wants"... it's only the normal evolution of a language that is so widely extended and was learned by many different people.

Amike,

Daniel.

henma:

tommjames:... the thing you spoke of about which preposition to use is another example of something that wouldn't even be a question in a natural language, as there would be mass consensus of the kind that isn't readily observed in Esperanto.

I agree with all you said, except something here. That problem with prepositions CAN happen and CAN be a question in a natural language.

When you have a language that has extended over a big part of the world, and been adopted by people who used to speak other languages, this can be a common issue, which doesn't impede good communication.

Yes, good point!

ceigered:And 2 things @ Russ:
1 - does "ekeksedzigxi" mean 'to go get a divorce' or something like that? I can get "divorce" (ex-marry) out of it, but I haven't quite grasped the meaning of "ek" yet.
2 - I only speak a tad of Russian, but as your "logxlando" is poland, I was wondering if Polish has extensive construction on par with the German/Finno-Ugraic languages?

1 - "ek" = to start something, e.g. "start the process of getting divorced".
2 - No, Polish doesn't make compound words anywhere near as much as German does.

It seems to me that one important aspect of word building has been left out of the discussion. I think that we as English speakers see words differently than Esperanto speakers see them. And I can see this duality in my head, when I think about both languages. In English, I tend to think of words as a whole unit. Disorient and orient are two different words, independent of one another. For me, this is true even though you could say that "disorient" is simply "orient" with a prefix. In an English dictionary, therefore, I would fully expect to find "disorient" and "orient" under separate headings, since I consider them two words.

In Esperanto, I don't see bona and malbona as two words. I see only one word; the root bon/. To me, Esperanto "words" are not full words with grammatical endings; they are only roots. Therefore, if someone says a word in Esperanto and I say "I've never heard that word before", it's never because I simply haven't heard someone put those affixes on that root - it's always because someone uses a root that I haven't heard before. If someone created a new Esperanto root, I would call it "making up a word". If someone took an existing root and added affixes within Esperanto's system, to me, this is not making up a word at all, it's just an old word, nothing special (even if no one has added those particular affixes to it before!).

Regarding PIV, two brief examples of problems in the old PIV (which have been corrected in the newest edition, to be fair)

- in the old PIV, the definition of "amori" (=to have sex) was written as "seskuniĝi kun virino"

This definition includes a typo (seskuniĝi, rather than sekskuniĝi), implying that you have to be in a group of six to have sex. The meaning itself was a problem, because it limited the idea of "sex" to situations where women are present. I always said it in my head that unless there are six women present, according to PIV, it's not sex. This has all been fixed in the current edition of the PIV, though I can't tell you what the new definition is.

- in the old PIV, you found the word Vieno. First definition - a river in France. Second definition - a region of France. Third definition - the capital of Austria! This has been fixed now, the first definition now says that Vienna is the capital of Austria.

But we had fun with this last summer at SES in Slovakia; we took a day trip to Vienna. We had a joke that we're going to visit - A river in France! No! Actually, we're going to visit - A region in France! No! Really, we're going to visit - The capital of Austria!