Interesting points. The correlative table is one of the things that attracted me to Esperanto.

I'm not looking to reform the language. I do think that if it grows large enough changes would come, but that would happen from the "ground up" rather than from the top down. At this point, I doubt any top down proposal would work.

Many of the reforms are pretty close to each other. It's not very difficult to remember that the infinitive in Esperanto is -i and in Ido it is -ar. It's effortless to learn EsF. Learning the various proposals reinforces ones knowledge of Esperanto, assuming that person does not leave the "movement" altogether.

Regarding reforms, I have not read of many people that want to remove the accusative and not also the plural. I think it has something to do with how the language is sold to them. For example, I've introduced a couple friends to Esperanto. One of them is about to start college, and has an incredibly high verbal IQ. He speaks English, Russian, and Hebrew fluently, and can speak some Spanish. At first, he questioned the value of Esperanto. Why not just learn another national language? I noted how easy it was to learn, the propaedeutic effect for learning another language, etc. So, he took a look at it and was impressed. But, within a single conversation, he locked onto the plural and accusative cases. He asked something to the effect of, "if the point of the language is to increase communication by being easy to learn, then why not go all the way?" I actually defended the accusative, pointing out that it allowed you to change word order, and that allows you to emphasize one word over another.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I think for many people it's just a natural reaction. Changes to the vocabulary (as in Ido) worry me more than changes to the grammar. The grammars of Esperanto and Esperantidoj are so simple, it's easy to switch between the two, so long as they are using common words.

My 2 cents. Once again, it's been an interesting discussion.

p.s. I'm not sure that Esperanto would best be changed by really smart people that know the language completely. I suppose it could work if those really smart people recognized the needs of and adapted the language to those with less of an aptitude for languages (basically what Mr. Z did by creating Esperanto).

p.s.s. If I did have a reform to propose, it would be to just allow different "levels" of Esperanto all fly under the same banner. -j and -n are beautiful tools but I would not jump on someone for not using them anymore than I would jump on someone "irl" for not using standard English. Not that I've seen anyone in this forum do that, but I have seen it in other places.

bagatelo:If I remember correctly, didn't Zamenhof bind Esperanto's followers to the present state of the language until some state should adopt it officially (or something like that)?

That seems pretty reasonable.

erinja:I think that what the reformists are saying is that you should remove every portion of the language that someone has to try a little harder to overcome, due to difficulty.

Unfortunately this would practically involve greatly decreasing the expressive power of the language, and removing most of the language (since nearly every aspect of the language will seem difficult to someone, depending on what native language they come from)

I was thinking this the other day, that the difference I found between languages like Indonesian and chinese compared with Esperanto is that in such more simply wielded languages, you have to force yourself to think from an Indonesian/Chinese perspective and change the way you view the world. Esperanto however sort of makes it so you still have to think about what you want to say and how that truly translates into Esperanto, but you can also relax and speak relatively natively without the other person going "hej/oj/ah, via vort-ordo/aranĝo estas malĝusta/malbona/ktp".

It's a trade off - either you must introduce learners to a new way of thinking, or you must introduce learners to being more attentive about what they want to say so they add the right word classifiers (e.g. o, a, i, is, as, -n and so forth).

Perhaps one day EO will evolve to the point where both ways are native to it, but we will see.

SDG:

My perspective is that of a special education teacher. The easiness and consistency of Esperanto is what attracted me to the language. Particularly, the springboard to languages website inspired me. At the same time, some students will never get the accusative. I'm not saying not to teach it. What I am saying is, if Esperanto hopes to be international, it has to be ready to include everyone.

Re: The accusative; I have a friend who studied Russian with me. He started in Esperanto (he's one of those "beginner/reformer" guys) by lamblasting the accusative, saying he couldn't "get" it and will never be able to use it correctly. why don't we just get rid of it, I mean, English doesn't have it? (yeah, he seems to be one of "those" as well!). I then pointed out to him not only the accusative of English pronouns but also the fact that he almost never makes a mistake with the "-u form" of Russian feminine nouns (aka, the (gasp!) ACCUSATIVE!). I have a feeling that the reason why some who "don't get the accusative" are such because they still look at Esperanto as a "fake" language. I must admit, i was the same way with the "ne X-inte" idiom............until I learned the exact same usage in Russian. Then it made perfect sense.

SDG:Learning the various proposals reinforces ones knowledge of Esperanto

Only if you have a solid knowledge of Esperanto. Otherwise you are likely to be confused over what is "real" Esperanto and what is only a reform proposal.

He speaks English, Russian, and Hebrew fluently, and can speak some Spanish. At first, he questioned the value of Esperanto. Why not just learn another national language?

Speakers of several languages are less likely to be interested in Esperanto. If they speak several languages they are likely to have a talent for languages, so learning a new language doesn't seem like a big deal to them. Esperanto is much less useful to them than to the person who has failed miserably at learning even one foreign language. To this person, learning a foreign language can seem like an insurmountable hurdle - but Esperanto can make it possible for this person.

The grammars of Esperanto and Esperantidoj are so simple, it's easy to switch between the two, so long as they are using common words.

You find it easy to switch between grammars when you speak? I don't.

I'm not sure that Esperanto would best be changed by really smart people that know the language completely.

Who are the "really smart people"? You don't have to be smart or talented at languages to speak Esperanto well. I know people who have tried and failed miserably to learn any foreign language, but who speak flawless Esperanto. (there's one of them on the lernu team, and he wrote several of the courses on this site). Are you disqualifying him because he is "smart", since he speaks Esperanto fluently? (it's a moot point since he isn't a reformist, but we are speaking hypothetically)

If I did have a reform to propose, it would be to just allow different "levels" of Esperanto all fly under the same banner. -j and -n are beautiful tools but I would not jump on someone for not using them anymore than I would jump on someone "irl" for not using standard English.

You buried this in a postscript but it's the most interesting part of your whole message.

What constitutes jumping all over someone? Correcting them? The thing is, as Esperanto speakers, we run into people who speak poor Esperanto all the time. Most of them are beginners who just haven't gotten the hang of it yet. Some of them have been speaking for years; we call them "eternal beginners", and I'm not sure why they speak so poorly.

But it seems that you are conflating colloquial grammar with bad grammar. They aren't the same. I don't care how colloquial and informal your English is, you don't go around saying "My two dog see him in park". It's bad grammar, and if someone said it, you would assume they didn't speak English well.

We treat poor speakers of Esperanto the same way we treat poor speakers of English.

If someone is obviously an English learner with poor fluency, you help them along when they are struggling to say something but can't quite work it out. If someone is a poor speaker but you don't want to correct them, you just talk to them correctly and hope they pick up on it. You don't criticize them for not speaking well.

Therefore we don't criticize beginners for dropping grammatical endings. But we do attempt to help them do it right. Some beginners actively ask to be corrected when they make a mistake, others don't like it. Esperanto speakers who correct beginners without asking first are usually only trying to be helpful. But if someone corrects you and you'd rather not be corrected, just tell them so (nicely).

So no, we don't accept bad grammar as being "just another acceptable variant" of Esperanto. If we did that it'd be like saying that "I see she" is acceptable colloquial English. Colloquial English and written English don't differ much in grammar. And there are also a few differences between colloquial and written Esperanto (fewer than English has.) But dropping -n in Esperanto is the equivalent of saying in English "I see she", which isn't ever considered correct.

Nearly all of us were beginners once and we understand what it is to work through these difficulties. It is understood that beginners make errors and that's ok. And most people are incredibly nice and helpful to beginners, no matter how many j's and n's they drop. But there is also the expectation that the beginner is making these mistakes while attempting to speak correctly, so we do our best to help the beginner reach fluency. The eternal beginners - it's too late for them. Usually no one tries to correct them anymore, once it becomes clear that they are "eternal" and not normal beginners. They probably don't want help or they would speak better by now. To me that comes close to your suggestion of allowing people to speak however they want to.

erinja:
The eternal beginners - it's too late for them. Usually no one tries to correct them anymore, once it becomes clear that they are "eternal" and not normal beginners. They probably don't want help or they would speak better by now. To me that comes close to your suggestion of allowing people to speak however they want to.

I don't understand why it should be absolute (to late) to stay at the level of an "eternal beginner". In my opinion that "eternal beginners" only lacks of the proper motivation to improve their language skills. And in my opinion that motivation can enable all time from one situation to another one. I understand that "eternal beginners" term that way that they find their way around with their poor language skills therefore they don't feel internal motivation to improve their language skills.

If they're happy with a low level of competence, it isn't my place to tell them to improve their skills, and it isn't my job to give someone else motivation. If they are active in the Esperanto community and I harass them to improve their language skills, what purpose am I serving? Presumably they know that their language skills are bad, and presumably they don't care or they would have done something about it (such as asking questions of other people who speak correctly).

Some of these people have leadership roles in the Esperanto community. I have occasionally been astonished to discover that someone is not only not a beginner, but they have been speaking for ten years and are the leader of their local Esperanto society, and they still sound like someone who has been studying for only a month, struggling to communicate even basic thoughts.

This is excluding those speakers who speak "fluently" and can express any thought clearly, but with bad grammar. I know some of those too, and I have been surprised to learn that they managed to speak Esperanto so long and so frequently, and still be messing up basic grammar elements. Although no one says anything to them about it.

...though to be completely honest it will sometimes get discussed behind their backs. (Is X's Esperanto really that bad? I never noticed until I got an e-mail from him/her!)

RE This accusative, I think IT MUST BE TAUGHT to students regardless of what language they're doing. How hard is it, really? They use it in English anyway.

A kid should be able to get the accusative quite simply: "If I hit jerry, jerry is in the accusative. If I eat cake with my friends, my cake is in the accusative. If I give a spoon to someone who needs to stir their tea, the spoon is in the accusative. The accusative word is the one that is having something done to them."

And if needed add in "if you give something to someone, you're not doing anything to someone, as they're the ones that need to accept your gift" and so forth.

Case is overrated in English speaking countries because we use big tricky words or don't put it literally enough when dealing with a populace that can be very dumb when it comes to grammar.

There, rant over *phew*

ceigered:
There, rant over *phew*

Wow. That was one of your shorter rants
As a native English speaker I have found the accusative to be one of the more difficult parts of Esperanto to wrap my head around because it is not explicit in English. There was nothing that really helped except exposure. Now feel pretty confident in my use of -n in writing, but I still miss it in speech sometimes.

That being said. I have to agree that the -n is an important part of the language and it should be taught and expected.

The point is, we do have an accusative case in English. It has only survived, for the most part, in personal pronouns (him/her) and in a few relative pronouns (whom). And yes the rules for doing it in English are a little different; we mark both direct and indirect objects with the endings. But it's far from an unknown idea to English speakers. The problem is that grammar simply isn't taught in most schools anymore. When you don't know grammar, it makes learning a foreign language needlessly difficult.

This is probably why your first foreign language is the most difficult to learn. You're learning grammar of both your language and the foreign language.