First off: I'm responding to Psittakos' critique of Esperanto even though he is a troll according to antoniomoya. I do not want beginners to read his posts without any counter-arguments.

Psittakos:

darkweasel:
No, we don't say we have one letter for each sound, but one sound for each letter.

It's the same thing with no difference depending the order you use... and lie alike.

No, because "one sound for each letter" (let aside slight assimilation) is actually the case in Esperanto.

Psittakos:

No rule says that there may not be an alternative to the word with mal-.

If I create a regular-easy-to-learn language and create a prefix to express the opposite meaning with some words, why not to use it for every case? I take that as an irregularity.

Look, in theory we'd need just like ten roots and we could form all other terms by explaining them using these roots. There is no irregularity in a shorter form (after all, the form with mal- is still allowed), which does not mean that it's good to add new forms like kurta.

Psittakos:

Libero is an absolutely fine word, just as saneco is!

Neither "libero" nor "libereco" apears in any of my three dictionaries.

Dictionaries don't list every combination of words that Esperanto grammar allows because in effect there's an infinite number of them.

Psittakos:

universa = related to the universe
universala = universal
... not quite the same thing.

Universal things are those that are related to the universe... whom are you try to cheat?

According to Wiktionary, this is one of the meanings of English "universal":

1. Of or pertaining to the universe.
2. Common to all members of a group or class.
3. Common to all society; world-wide

She achieved universal fame.

4. Cosmic; unlimited; vast; infinite
5. Useful for many purposes, e.g., universal wrench.

Psittakos:

Esperanto is less western than it may seem on first glance. I won't repeat everything that Claude Piron said in Some Comments on Ignorance About Esperanto now, just read it yourself.

I read that and, honestly, I read more ignorance in the answers than in the questions... When try to persuade us that a Esperanto, in spite of was created for Europeans and based on European languages, is actualy an Asian language...

No it doesn't. Of course the vocabulary is largely Indo-European, but the grammar allows for things that no Indo-European language would ever allow.

Psittakos:

You're confusing the concepts of "international" and "widespread".

Oh, yeah? Then please help me in that doubt I have: McDonald's company in an "international interprise" or a "widespread interprise"? English is international because it's widespread, Esperanto is not because it isn't widespread.

Uh, McDonald's is both international and widespread.
A fast food company with one restaurant in Australia and one in China is also international because it resides in different countries although only few people have ever eaten there, so it's not "widespread".
On the other hand, a fast food company with 1000 restaurants in only one city is very widespread but it cannot be called international because it doesn't reside in different countries.

English is not really international for one simple reason: the standards of the language are made only by the native speakers - that's the British and the inhabitants of their ex-colonies. Things that many these native speakers see as grammatical, are generally considered as grammatical. In Esperanto it's different, everybody who has learned the language makes a contribution to the standard.

English is a national language that many use for international communication.

(I'm going to double post because otherwise I'm running out of allowed characters.)

Psittakos:

tommjames:

I agree that Esperanto is easier to learn for some people than for others (something that is almost completely inevitable for any language and therefore not something to be taken seriously as a critique of Esperanto, as long as we're not talking about complex languages like Lojban that are equally difficult to everyone and hence pointless as an IAL), but to extrapolate from this that Esperanto is not significantly easier for people of the east than English, is frankly absurd.

It's not, a so-called neutral language must be alike difficult for all, if not, is not a real neutral one.

... which is an absolute impossibility.

Psittakos:

Even if we accept that Esperanto (...)The productive root/affix system and morphology (which actually has some striking similarities with some eastern languages) makes it vastly easier to comprehend and express ideas on the fly than it is in English. And on it goes.

The regularity of Esperanto is totally overrated... or the real languages' irregularities demonized (or both). When you can understand the simple and irregularities-free grammar of Esperanto, you have to learn still a completely different and numerous european vocabulary... As same as you if learn chinese: chinese grammar is also totally regular.

You do have to learn new vocabulary in every language. There's no point to have a language that nobody can learn easily. It's better if at least some can learn it easily - and it's a fact that European languages are today extremely widespread in the world.

Psittakos:And the irregularities are always kept in real languages just in the most used words and expressions, so in a little time to learn are all dominated by the learners.

Not really. Look at any list of irregular English or German verbs and you'll see what frequent words these are, partly.

Well heres the general gist of what antoniomoya wrote:

Psittakos is a conflicted Spaniard whose presented the same problems in the Spanish forums as he has here (check out: "Fernando Savater ataca el Esperanto")

It is useless trying to discuss this with him, or try to convince him otherwise. He loves a good dispute.

Now my two cents:

If Esperanto was such a problem for the Asians then why are they even bothering to learn it? After all it’s generally accepted within the Esperanto community that China is one of the most active proponents of Esperanto.

http://esperanto.china.org.cn/
A chinese goverment website available in Esperanto.

and heres a video of a chinese girl speaking esperanto, I just thinks its so cute.
Super cute girl

philodice:
I would fain postulate the opinion that if he would like to persue this discussion....
For if indeed his reasons be the sowing of loathsome discord, may Psittako find the complexities that a native speaker of English may navigate safely as though the north star of grammar hangeth over her head to be pleasant like unto the downy pelt of the hare.

lol!

to antoniomoya, thank you.

In regards to Eo difficulty:

There is one good ol' catch all rule: No language is excessively hard if you wanna learn it, and language difficulty is overrated.

Some Esperantists might not like that statement, but even if it is a little deceptive, it does the trick, since the biggest blocks to language learning are our presuppositions that learning any language is "hard".

As for not thinking EO is perfect, that's fine, I'm in total agreement, but for heavens sake it's impossible to change the language, it is what it is, if you want to make something better feel free but there's no point in trying to convince people that a particular concept of "better" is in actual fact better if you're not demonstrating that, or if they're not interested - for example, I totally hate the mal- rule, but as we can see, Darkweasel and tonnes of others love it - this is totally illogical to me why they'd prefer primary use of "mal-" instead of unbiased opposite pairs (bias being how we have longa but mallonga), but the fact that they like it is not a crime and can't be changed - instead, appreciation for eachother's likes and dislikes with EO is a bonus (for example, I can see that while the mal- suffix can be illogical, it is very nifty and a great tool in the language, and a blessing for beginners who are afraid of learning 10000000 words when they could learn 1000).

I see, I try to remove your baseless faith in your mesiah-language, notice that is but an absurd and decades ago failed experiment, and your angry and insults begings...

I'm pretty sure Esperanto is not a language, but a cult. You got your faith, your symbols, your will to impose you project to an apathic world...

You try to cheat more people talking about Esperanto is regular and perfect, but when someone show cleary that is not like that, that it haven't any genuinely new thing and the same problems that the real language, as you mean a threat for the cult, then they attack, they have no more arguments, so just can attack.

OK, If you can admit all that is pointless, follow waste your time... I see here people only is accepted if follow the only nerdy-geeky-freeky idea... When people from over the world end up living together in peace thanks to Esperanto, I'll retract myself I call you masters, in the meanwhile you're just frickingers...

No language is excessively hard if you wanna learn it, and language difficulty is overrated.

Oh really! Try learning French verbs. Bloody nightmare.

And not even the French know which words are feminine and which masculine. There are frequent questions on French Game Shows on their television on this topic.

Most staggering example that I ever saw was a question worth 20.000 Euros about how many of four words were feminine.

The contestant got the right number but, by chance, because in the later discussion it came out that he had reversed the gender of some. The host got them wrong too. And worst of all the question setters had included a word (the French word for thermos flask) that according to two dictionaries could be either feminine or masculine.

Psittakos : oh my god... No-one claims Eo is any perfect. They're just replying to your arguments in an objective way.

You're entitled to disagreeing though, but we don't have to carry on this discussion forever either.

Personally, I don't understand your points. I think you should re-read ours carefully, and keep in mind : we are not blindless Eo advocates only because we disagree with you.

Also, the fact that we disagree with you doesn't mean you're wrong

sudanglo:
Oh really! Try learning French verbs. Bloody nightmare.

And not even the French know which words are feminine and which masculine. There are frequent questions on French Game Shows on their television on this topic.

Hehe, we French people definitely make tons of spelling / grammar mistakes. I usually make few of them, but I still have to look up words in the dictionary every now and then, and there are still some grammar rules that I don't master, etc.

The feminine / masculine issue is definitely far from being the most prominent one though, except for really rare words. (I guess that they were very uncommon words, in the game you mentioned).

But spelling in general, grammar, conjugation, etc. is very difficult to master, on the other hand.

Psittakos:I see, I try to remove your baseless faith in your mesiah-language...

Psittakos, if you do not want to be an Esperantist, no-one is compelling you to stay in the movement. Goodbye!