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Philosophical debate

从 Islander, 2007年2月7日

讯息： 69

语言: English

Islander (显示个人资料) 2007年3月5日下午5:44:01

As it was said, natural languages evolve. So the French verb hell comes from somewhere and as much as one may wonder what's the point, it is French. Changing it would make it become something else.

Since Eo was planned, we could wonder then why did Zamenhoff choose to use letters not found in another alphabet or why such rules instead of another or even why end all words in -o, why not in -a or anything else? The point is it is what it is and that's it.

What languages are 1) easy to learn, 2) NOT native to any country in the world not to assimilate other cultures and 3) structured enough to serve as a fully functional auxiliary language? There's 2 answer: Esperanto and Interligua. Now add 4) already has an actual community supporting it and promoting it?

Esperanto is not perfect, it's utopic to think anything could be. Even if it was perfect I'm sure we would found someone to criticise that it is.

T0dd (显示个人资料) 2007年3月5日下午7:50:20

One of the most often heard and strident criticisms of Esperanto is its accusative case. I've heard this criticism so many times it's mind-boggling. It's "redundant," "unnecessary," and so on. I've heard critics say that nobody designing a language now would dare to use it, because it's so "Western" and classical.

Truth be told, virtually all of the constructed language projects seem to come from people in the Western world, but a notable exception is Noxilo, from Japan. You can read about it here, but the irony, to me, is that this language also has an accusative case--for just the same reasons that Zamenhof put it in Esperanto: So that people could use the world order most familiar to them.

Islander (显示个人资料) 2007年3月5日下午9:45:17

I guess those didn't learn Latin then... Rosa, Rosa, Rosam, Rosae, Rosae, Rosas... rido.gif

erinja (显示个人资料) 2007年3月6日上午2:35:59

T0dd:Truth be told, virtually all of the constructed language projects seem to come from people in the Western world, but a notable exception is Noxilo, from Japan. You can read about it here, but the irony, to me, is that this language also has an accusative case--for just the same reasons that Zamenhof put it in Esperanto: So that people could use the world order most familiar to them.
Funny! Actually, if I remember correctly, Japanese has an accusative ending and also a dative ending (so both direct object and indirect object). Hebrew also has a form of accusative (but it is a preposition rather than a suffix, and it indicates a definite direct object), and it's in a completely different language family (Semitic). Actually I think that some form of accusative is not uncommon in world grammar.

pastorant (显示个人资料) 2007年3月6日上午3:15:25

That is true. The accusative is almost universal. Japanese has particles, not word endings, but the idea is still there. I find it hard to understand a language w/o some sort of accusative. While American Indian languages have enough grammatical acrobatics to make a grown man cry, it interestingly doesn't have an accusative. Maybe because each verb has 120 possible forms ridulo.gif

Islander (显示个人资料) 2007年3月6日下午3:46:27

Maybe because each verb has 120 possible forms
And everybody was thinking that French was hell! rideto.gif

erinja (显示个人资料) 2007年3月6日下午4:44:48

pastorant:While American Indian languages have enough grammatical acrobatics to make a grown man cry, it interestingly doesn't have an accusative. Maybe because each verb has 120 possible forms ridulo.gif
Are you that grown man? lango.gif

Do any Native American languages at all have some form of accusative, or just not the ones you've studied?

Actually I find it amusing that even languages like Ido that make a big deal of getting rid of the accusative still have it in some form (for when you use a non-standard word order), so in fact, even Ido speakers need to learn to use it correctly. Funny how its creators felt the accusative was difficult and unnecessary... yet ended up including it anyway, at least in some form.

T0dd (显示个人资料) 2007年3月6日下午6:12:37

This page from the Occidental/Interlingue web site summarizes most of the criticisms of Esperanto that one hears: Why not Esperanto? The complaint about the accusative comes second only to the complaint about the hats, and of course the "unsightly" plural marker.

erinja (显示个人资料) 2007年3月6日下午8:10:53

T0dd:This page from the Occidental/Interlingue web site summarizes most of the criticisms of Esperanto that one hears: Why not Esperanto? The complaint about the accusative comes second only to the complaint about the hats, and of course the "unsightly" plural marker.
Wow. This website is Esperanto detractors in a nutshell. It's strange to me, though. It seems like criticisms of Esperanto being "unsightly" is like code meaning "not looking Western European", and Esperanto being "not international enough" really means "not being similar enough to Romance languages".

It contains "invented words" yet has an "artificially limited" vocabulary (how can both of these be true?) and is "unable to form internationally known words" (evidently the writer has never heard of the east vs west debate among Esperanto speakers, for words like "biologio" versus "vivscienco")

Esperanto has so many different things to complain about, yet the criticisms I see about it are usually either flat-out untrue, or personal opinions masquerading as objective truth. Most criticisms of Esperanto do not even touch on what I consider to be the language's major flaws. Those who criticise the derivative system as being restrictive evidently do not understand that it gives you much more freedom than most languages do, as far as creating new words that every speaker will understand.

pastorant (显示个人资料) 2007年3月6日下午11:34:20

erinja:

Do any Native American languages at all have some form of accusative, or just not the ones you've studied?
I was speaking specifically of Cherokee. While most American Indian languages have an accusatve, Cherokee is pretty free form. Eskimo has the grammar of Georgian (an ergative language), and make me ponder how they lived so long speaking a language like that ridulo.gif

An Examnple of the 120 forms of a Cherokee verb:
I'm tying you up: guyalvhi'a
I'm tying you(pl) up: deguyalvhi'a
I'm tying him up: jiyalvhi'a
I'm tying her up: galvhi'a
He's tying you up: jatlviha

etc..
That's just for the transitive verbs ridulo.gif

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