Hi, Erinja, you are describing pretty well my experience with English (foreign language for me) and Esperanto.

Not that I speak English that fluently, but for a non-native I think my usage is acceptable, however, I feel more free to express myself in Esperanto. BTW, I dedicated to the latter about a tenth of the time I dedicated to the former. In my case, I can say the common assertion that Esperanto is ten times easier than other languages has been true.

Regards,

Daniel

erinja:
A lot of people who speak their native language, plus a foreign language, plus Esperanto, feel that even if they speak the other foreign language very fluently, they still feel more free to express themselves in Esperanto. They feel that even with a good mastery of the other foreign language, Esperanto comes closest to giving them the expressive power they have in their native language.

Glauro:If 1/20 of the world has never heard of Esperanto, and this group would face problems with a particular rule, let's say, this rule should be revisited, and, if fit, changed, why not?

Proposed changes to Esperanto are generally taken exactly as seriously as proposed changes to standard Portuguese are, and for basically the same reasons.

Glauro:Now, I also know some English speakers that just forfeited learning Portuguese, because it's "difficult" (IMO on the top 10 of most difficult langs); and yes, these are difficult languages!(relatively)

English speakers think anything's difficult if it isn't English with a couple of different words. I've found Portuguese to be one of the easier romance languages to learn a bit of (I've forgotten it all now, but had I continued I don' think I'd have trouble speaking it today).

Hélas, these may be just a bunch of beginner-born insignificant words, right?
Right, but adaptation does not only come from experienced.

Your words are wise, in that we should always take a look at the language and where it's heading. But I think any change is impossible to the language right now. At least, you would have to contact every esperantist and force them to change the way they speak Esperanto, which is impossible at the moment, and would leave to the Esperanto community splitting up. So there is limited power to what we can do.

Esperanto, after all, lacks an equivalent to an all powerful language comittee with government sway like the Académie Française (tell me if I've spelt that wrong), and even then things like l'Academie lack power to make such major changes.

The Academie can say whatever it wants to say. It won't change the way French people talk colloquially to one another.

I am sure no one is suggesting changing Chinese to make it easier for the foreigners to learn, so I am not sure why someone would think it would be more acceptable to change Esperanto.

On the idea of beginners versus experienced speakers - which one has the better idea of the expressive power of a certain form? Remember that we are not talking about NATIVE speakers, like a national language. Almost every single Esperanto speaker was once a beginner, and understands exactly the troubles that beginners encounter. Yet most of us still come to the conclusion that the language shouldn't be edited. There should be no "beginners versus experienced" - we are all the same; we experienced speakers ARE beginners, only in the future.

It's very similar to how parents send their children to school. The children might not like all of their classes and they might think some of these classes are boring and useless and too difficult and they will never use this information. But the parents have been to school and they know how they use (or don't use) what they learned in school. They send their kids to school rather than letting the kids play at home all day because they know it will be beneficial for the kids' future. They have experienced this, and they know better than the kids know.

Well, look at another field.

If a new development in physics comes along (the electron cloud model, for example), entire textbooks are rendered obsolete, and new ones must be printed and distributed with the new information. Everything about the fixed electron model must be changed and forgotten.

The same occurs in other fields like psychology, sociology, biology, economics, and even linguistics itself. New linguistic knowledge and receiving information almost instantaneously are challenging the old methods- most languages spread because of acts of aggression or oppression (Norman Invasion, Spaniards and South America, Britain and the claiming of India/Pakistan, America and the Native Americans). This can no longer happen in the developed world. Most people will cling to their old ways until they're forced to make a change. I'm not saying that we should force Esperanto onto others, but passive integration is an inefficient use of time. Zamenhof knew this and encouraged people reading Unua Libro to make "promises" to tell others about Esperanto in the form of little pamphlets. He wanted people to make an effort to push others to learn the language. Though it may seem slightly overbearing, it's the most effective, non-aggressive way to share a language.

But as far as changing the language, remember that Esperanto claims to be the international language. It obviously does not to live up to that reputation, despite being easy to learn. Chinese is for China, not for the world- it should not be changed. French is for France, not for the world- it should not be changed. Esperanto, however, is for the world and should be changed if it is to maintain the idea of the international lingua franca.

razlem:...remember that Esperanto claims to be the international language

Esperanto makes no claims whatsoever. Esperanto is not a person; it does not think, it does not have any opinions. It is a tool, and nothing more. A cool tool. A flexible tool. But still only a tool.

People make claims, languages don't, and no one speaks for the entire population of Esperantists. Some people claim that Esperanto should be the international language. Some people don't. The Raŭmists don't, and there's a lot of them around. Zamenhof wanted it to be, but he was just one man (the creator, yes, but NOT the owner - even he made clear that Esperanto was the property of all Esperantists, and should be guided by them, not him).

There is no single goal of Esperanto. There is just a multitude of Esperantists, each with their own ideas.

razlem:But as far as changing the language, remember that Esperanto claims to be the international language.
(...)
Esperanto, however, is for the world and should be changed if it is to maintain the idea of the international lingua franca.

I disagree, and it is a game of semantics, but to me international merely means "between nations". It does not need to represent various nations nor every individual who speaks it. Esperanto has essentially fulfilled its role in existing here for people from different nations to use an bridge between such nations.

As for a language that represents all people or attempts to, I'd almost create a new term for them, something meaning "all-human" but being a bit more concise and less ugly (and less remniscent of the Alamans ).

Perhaps this can seed a new change in (inter)linguistics by looking at the way we categorise the way languages do or don't represent the people concerned.

Ah, also, I know Europe is a small part of the world, but I don't think European contributions to the world are small. I'd carefully say that so someone doesn't take those words and go "oh Europe did everything worth knowing and the middle east or native americans did squat", but the world now is effectively bathed in the descendent of European international culture, in turn a descendant of the imperialistic culture of the Roman Empire (which I'd call less an empire by the fair end of it and more a Kulturbund of sorts).

Most important to the world I think are several languages:
Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, Chinese, Arabic (modern world specific terms hold English, French, Russian among others, but there are relatively few truly modern words).
So, even from a language made to represent all of humanity, one could say that a lot of human history has revolved around a group of langauges related in various ways (Ltn/Grk/Skrt obviously are genetically related, the Semitic languages and the Indo-European languages used to be part of a Sprachbund and may have had closer relations, and Chinese represents the most remote major language of ancient times)

Such is a lot to take in. Perhaps EO will evolve in a way that includes more words from international backgrounds, but that is generally the work of poets to include new crazy words.

Now, to remember what the hell I was writing this all for.

Mmm, perhaps what should be changed or carried on to new forms and revivals is not the language, Esperanto, itself, but the spirit and intentions that brought Eo to life in the first place. Esperanto itself is pretty unchangeable without creating a new language. That much is known. Perhaps then the focus for "improving" Esperanto should not be on using Esperanto's name but it's spirit - the one calling for unity and neutrality and friendliness between various peoples.

After all, like I said before without such feelings it's easy to end up with an oedipic Esperantido. An Esperantido should abandon its will to supplant Esperanto, otherwise once it has beaten Esperanto it likely will burn out. An Esperantido thus should abandon the language itself and take on the spirit of the language to be able to survive.

razlem:Well, look at another field.

If a new development in physics comes along (the electron cloud model, for example), entire textbooks are rendered obsolete, and new ones must be printed and distributed with the new information. Everything about the fixed electron model must be changed and forgotten.

Esperanto is not a "field." It's not a body of knowledge, needing continuous revision to keep up with new discoveries. It's also not merely a language. It's a language with an associated culture. The critics of Esperanto who say that what's wrong with it is that it has "no culture" have it precisely wrong, and you're making the same mistake. Esperanto has a literature, which is one of the concrete manifestations of its culture. You may not be especially interested in this aspect, but the fact remains that there's much, much more to Esperanto than the Fundamento and a lexicon.

If you change the language, you sever the connection between it and the culture, and in the end you destroy that culture.

Furthermore, if you know anything at all about the history of Esperanto reform and auxlang projects down to the present day, you must recognize one basic fact: The likelihood that your particular reform proposals will receive a general consensus of support within and outside the Esperanto movement is precisely zero.

In the sciences, new discoveries force changes in what is known, and therefore what is taught. You believe that new discoveries in linguistics should force changes in Esperanto. But if you're going to adopt this experimental/scientific stance toward Esperanto (even though it isn't a science), then you really cannot avoid confronting the questions already raised in this thread. Where is the scientific evidence that the accusative, or the Euro-centric vocabulary, or whatever have been the cause of Esperanto's failure to achieve "its ambitions"? If your approach is truly scientific, you can't just help yourself to this premise. You cannot simply assume that changing Esperanto will make it more successful. And you especially cannot ignore the well-documented fact that every proposed reform of Esperanto so far has been spectacularly less successful than Esperanto itself.

I think that most Esperanto speakers no longer care whether Esperanto ever becomes "the international language". They see it as worthwhile for its own sake. The "fina venko" will probably never come regardless of what we do, so we should enjoy the language as it is.

I'm not saying that we should force Esperanto onto others, but passive integration is an inefficient use of time.

Some Esperanto speakers would agree with you on this one but I don't appreciate it when others try to push their views on me, so I treat others with the same respect. Sure, you could say that it isn't forcing someone, simply to hand them a pamphlet and say "Have you heard about ... ?" But it is pushy and intrusive.

If it were a religion or a political party you might get annoyed. If I had a co-worker who was a follower of John Smith, and my co-worker wanted to tell me how John Smith had changed his life and give me pamphlets about John Smith, I would be very unhappy with this co-worker, and I would get the impression that following John Smith was some kind of creepy cult. It would be better if it came up in a natural way, if he mentioned attending a John Smith event, and I asked him about his religion or political party's core beliefs. I dislike the feeling that someone is trying to convert me to something but I am definitely open to learning about different ideas.