I like a language that is interesting, beautiful and useful. Just about every language, real or constructed, is interesting to me, but the other two criteria are a little harder to satisfy. Esperanto, imho is the only constructed language that is both beautiful and fairly useful.

So I doubt I will ever learn Interlingua, Ido, Lojban, etc. Still, I am very much open to learning and/or exploring new languages. Toki Pona, for example, has something oddly attractive about it. I could see myself dipping into it over the summer.

Also, are you guys aware of this book,In the Land of Invented Languages? I am dimly aware of a few books sort of like it but this seems to be the most recent and mainstream. I've been wondering what's it going to be like for months now.

@IronChef & Ceifered

I think you don't have to hide yourself. Waht your doing is not criminal and a large part of esperantists would be interested (me included).

Ironchef:
Maybe there is a more applicable forum somewhere for this? There used to a newsgroup for alt.conlang but I don't know how active that is anymore.

Oh jes, and it's far from letargy.

In fact, there are two lists because of the flow. If you want to fill in your mailbox, then subscribe

I subscribed to an other group named wordlangs but it seems it disapeared...

Personally, I have no objection to discussions about conlangs in general here. If there is a worry that some people won't care, then confine it to just one thread - people don't have to read every word posted to the entire forum; they can skip the ones that bore them.

Besides, how many threads have we had about Ido, Interlingua, Novial, Toki Pona, and so on and so forth? Quite a few. I haven't heard too many complaints.

double post

Speaking of which, anyone checked out the "Pri aliaj lingvoj" (about other languages) section lately? Seems to be an bit of a buzz about Lingua Franca Nova cropping up. But seriously, there are about 1000+ different Latin-based IAL's, what is it that makes Latin conlangs so attractive compared to Slavic, German and Chinese ones? (especially with Chinese's chic factor at the moment)

Especially when everyone knows that French is the only true Latin-based IAL - viva la france! (Jan, je suis très désolé, si j'ai ravagé votre langue )

ceigered:Speaking of which, anyone checked out the "Pri aliaj lingvoj" (about other languages) section lately? Seems to be an bit of a buzz about Lingua Franca Nova cropping up. But seriously, there are about 1000+ different Latin-based IAL's, what is it that makes Latin conlangs so attractive compared to Slavic, German and Chinese ones?

Especially when everyone knows that French is the only true Latin-based IAL - viva la france! (Jan, je suis très désolé, si j'ai ravagé votre langue )

no problem ^^.

To answer the question "why so much latin based IAL" the main reason should be the geographic spread. Latin based language are spread all other the world. And maybe there is a kind of prestige (?). Hmm... maybe there is something else...

But I would add that, in a way, english is much more an IAL compared to french, because of both germanic and Latin roots. Maybe this features had helped the spread of english as an international language.

Current debates on "pri aliaj lingvoj" are indeed very active. But the issue is more the ligitimity of esperanto than it's qualities. We should admit that esperanto is not perfect, and most probably not the best IAL ever made (because at the time of Zamenhof, linguistic science didn't exist). The problem that people try to defend is the unity of the movement opposed to the rest of the world.

but I think it's a mistake. As Esperanto is (I think) not the best langage ever made, we should at least admit pragmatic debates.

jan aleksan:...As Esperanto is (I think) not the best langage ever made, we should at least admit pragmatic debates.

Thank you Alek for your support of what I've said before. You're right, Ceigered and I should not hide this topic. My comment was only because I did not want to appear to be selfish and filling a thread with something maybe only one or two people wanted to read.

Back on track, I do not think the perfect language exists. The thing about languages is that they develop and evolve based on the environment in which they are spoken. (see also Sapir–Whorf hypothesis). That is why you get words in Inuit that can describe exactly certain types of snow, or words in Australian languages that describe exact color of rocks only found in one place. But those languages lack original concepts to express broader scientific or other "western" ideas.

Esperanto aims to be the world's 2nd language and so it has to cater for all people whatever their language backgrounds. I think if any of use went away to create that "middle-ground" language, we'd all end up with something not unlike Esperanto.

Ironchef:That is why you get words in Inuit that can describe exactly certain types of snow...

This is just a restatement of the "Inuit has more words for snow than English does" myth. But it isn't strictly true.

At a "basic term" level, English appears to have around the same number of words for snow that Inuit does. But, like Esperanto, Inuit is better at sticking roots together than English is, which gives the impression of having more terms. "Whitesnow", "muddysnow", "wetsnow", and "powderysnow" don't count as single words in English, whereas they would in Inuit.

Actually Ironchef I'm going to have to disagree with you there, like RiotNrrd.
The Australian Aboriginal languages appear (like many others) to not be able to express western ideas, but in actual fact they are just as capable. The problem is, especially for English speakers (and I think this links to the Saphir Worf hypothesis, in that your language shapes your mind), that we are so used to having 'special' terminology for things that are 'western', like 'information', 'data', etc etc (anything else, those two aren't the best examples because they aren't strictly limited to Western culture). When really, that terminilogy is just borrowed from latin, e.g. 'information' essentially is 'inform' and 'ation', more or less like 'letting-it-be-known-ing'. And languages like Aboriginal Australian (or Inuit, Indonesian, any stricly non-western language) is capable of creating native terms for these things (and they do).

The problem with Western Scientific culture, IMHO, is that we think that it's the only true scientific culture, and that would apply on a linguistic level as well. Personally, I would rather say 'knowings' that 'information', but it would be considered 'dumb' even though it means the exact same thing (in a way, using neologisms like the word 'information' could be seen as 'dumber' because the person using it isn't able to translate it into his own language ).

But yeah, that was a tad of a rant, but the point I was trying make is that with less-western, less documented or well known languages there is this belief that they simply aren't capable of expressing Western ideas, when in actual fact this could be reversed and said that Westerners aren't capable of expresing our own ideas therefore we use silly terminology derived from latin

(sorry I can't actualy give examples of Aboriginal versions of western concepts as the only language I know even a word of (which I have forgotten the meaning of anyway) is Kaurna, which has no substantial learning resources on the net anyway at the moment)

EDIT: Rhetorical Question: why hasn't anyone chosen "Because they are irregular and crazy" yet?

ceigered:Actually Ironchef I'm going to have to disagree with you there, like RiotNrrd.

My examples may have been apocryphal and not well researched -- and I certainly don't want to labor this topic -- but the point I was simply trying to get across is that Inuits and Aboriginal Australians (and Mayans, and Zulus etc) would have had (before English/Spanish/French involvement) a localized need to have certain words that other languages did not need. It has nothing to do with what can or cannot be expressed, but about what vocabulary exists to do that and why local vocab evolved how it did.

Inuits needed to say "hey, that snow is [soft-wet-slushy], don't walk there!" more than someone in Spain. An Aboriginal Australian would need to say "There's good berries to be found by the [red-rock-that's-not-quite-orange]" more than a German would. It's survival and adaptation to one's surroundings.

A Greenlandic Eskimo lawyer might be able to express what a subpoena is to his client in Inuit, but I am sure there are lots of workarounds in the language to make it translate accurately. However he could tell you how to butcher a walrus in maybe 50% less "technical" words than in English because maybe he has a word (for my silly example we'll say "Nuknuk") that could possibly mean "remove the spine of a large walrus by cutting the meat from the ribs first".

I've found that I can have 2-3 words in English that translate to one in Spanish, for example, where shades of difference are not seen as important or relevant.

But because Esperanto is trying to be a level table for all people it has to make concessions, therefore the argument of it being an "imperfect language" is justified. It cannot, by definition, be perfect for everyone but until someone comes up with one that is, Esperanto does an extremely good job, no?