There is, Geo, of course, an argument for not unproductively duplicating words by thoughtless borrowing. Though Rule 15. of the famous 16 built in much borrowing into the language from the very beginning.

But 'astronomio' is an unfortunate example for your argument. Search the Tekstaro to see how entrenched this word is in the language compared to 'stelscienco'.

As regard the vocabulary of English, I heard recently that 500,000 words of English's much vaunted million word vocabulary have come into the language in the last 100 years (some new software development has permitted this analysis).

What a mania the English must have for collecting words - or perhaps they have found these words really useful, and actually use quite a few of them.

Esperanto's wordbuilding system is indeed a powerful feature of the language, but by no means a universal solution to all vocabulary needs. In the case of the proposed alternative 'stelscienco' one can quickly see how compounds can carry a limiting specificity not borne by a borrowed root.

Furthermore when a root is borrowed we can benefit overnight from a whole complex of association and connotations which a compound can only laboriously generate through much usage.

This is a very interesting discussion. I side with Piron and the "skemistoj", for the most part. That is, I don't like the proliferation of cognates from other languages, when compound words can readily be used. I recognize, however, that some compounds are clumsy, and sometimes that's reason enough to want a new root.

"Blogo" is certainly easier to use than "rettaglibro". I use it, in fact, but not without a pang of remorse. Am I really too lazy to say "rettaglibro"?

Some redundancies go way back, and it's hard to see what purpose they ever served, apart from the convenience of Europeans. We have, for example, "poemo", "poeto", and "poezio". We could do just as well with "poemo", "poemisto" and "poemarto". For that matter, we could dispense with "poem-" and use "verso", "versaro", "versisto", and "versarto". In this case, one cannot say that the compounds are too long and clumsy.

We have "filozofio" and "filozofo", but "filozofiisto" does the job of the latter just as well.

I see this as an issue of fairness and true international spirit. It's a fact that the basic radikaro of Esperanto is almost entirely European in origin. This is a huge advantage for native speakers of European languages, and a disadvantage for everyone else. It is, if you will, an example of "European privilege." Those who come to Esperanto from other linguistic backgrounds accept this as an unchangeable fact about the language. The piling on of more and more Euro-cognates, driven by nothing more than the convenience of Europeans, begins to send a message that Esperanto is only for the speakers of European languages.

The fact that some of these redundant cognates are in the Fundamento, or are nearly that old, doesn't mean that we should use them. Moreover, we certainly don't need a word like "astronomio" just so that we can use it in cliché metaphors, such as "astronomical debt." Are no other metaphors available? Is "stelgranda" not good enough, if we are wedded to this metaphor?

Todd

T0dd:We have, for example, "poemo", "poeto", and "poezio". We could do just as well with "poemo", "poemisto" and "poemarto".

Todd

Fortunately, this is one thing we can change. We just need to use poemo/poemisto/poemarto often enough, that poeto/poezio will look archaic

Or you can write a book/article/dictionary/blog stating that poeto is already archaic and hope people buy it (buy the argument, that is).

danielcg:..tien, kien..

I'm convinced about kien here, and have modified my own translation - dankon.