razlem:

T0dd:"So your "evidence" concerning memorization in fact has nothing to do with memorization, and has no empirical content at all. Not promising."

You have to recognize the different forms. It's not that they 'have' to be, rather that they 'can' be- it can't always be predicted which order the accusative will come in. You have to prepare for the possibility that the syntax could be SOV or OSV or even OVS. With a standard order, you will always know where the direct object will be- there wouldn't be a need to mark it or to think about any other word orders.

'It must be SVO' vs. ('It can be SVO/SOV/OVS/OSV/VSO/VOS' + 'The DO must be marked')
How is this not more to memorize?

Interesting. If you are right here then this would mean that f.e. a german speaker has to use more brain power to create a sentence or to understand a sentence than an english speaker.
Scientist are now exploring the way the brain works, I think they now have the means to prove or to refute your assumption.

horsto:

razlem:]'It must be SVO' vs. ('It can be SVO/SOV/OVS/OSV/VSO/VOS' + 'The DO must be marked')
How is this not more to memorize?

Interesting. If you are right here then this would mean that f.e. a german speaker has to use more brain power to create a sentence or to understand a sentence than an english speaker.

I think what he's saying is more that the Esperantist must be prepared and able to accept and understand fluently any word order because Espreanto has no fixed word order, e.g. "Malbonan bildon ne desegni rapide mi", and then go "ok, what are the different components in this sentence and what do they all mean together?"

As Bartlett said before though it's a trade off. The average English speaker probably doesn't think much about the meaning of a sentence, where as an Esperantist has to pay more attention. In practice though an Esperantist too can be lazy, since most of the time word order is SVO. But whether it's good or bad, meh.

As for Germans using more brain power over English speakers, I would definitely agree, you guys are pretty smart compared to us .

razlem:So is Esperanto a cat-person language?

I just made that up as an analogy. I could have chosen any two household pets. Esperanto speakers have certain lifestyle needs and Esperanto meets those needs. If you like/want/need something else in a language, that's fine, pick the language suitable for you. But it isn't fair to criticize Esperanto speakers for their choice, or to criticize them for being happy with what they have and not wanting to change it. The bottom line is, it works for us. I can think of no other language with the kind of hospitality culture that Esperanto has, where you can just call someone up and they'll show you around their city, or let you crash on their couch. It works because we are a small language yet we are widespread; you can do it in a lot of cities all over the world. The language works. So this is why people are against changes; why mess with what works? And why switch to something new that may only be a marginal improvement on the language, but which lacks the culture, the community, the network of nice people all over the world? We have everything to lose by changing the language, and very little to gain.

I want the world to have an auxiliary language. RiotNrrd said that this was no longer the opinion of Esperanto speakers, that this was the vision of one man and no speaker today shares this idea.

I don't recall his exact words but there are still some Esperanto speakers who believe in that. I would go so far as to say that most Esperanto speakers believe that the auxiliary language thing is a good idea but will probably never happen -- and they're ok with that, because they think Esperanto does a great job at what it has been doing for the past 100 years (facilitating international friendship, in short)

If I am mistaken, then correct me- why did you learn Esperanto?

This previous forum thread gives a wide range of answers that I think will answer your question. But in summary, the major reasons are (a) seemed like a cool language, (b) seemed like an interesting idea, (c) wanted to learn some language, any language, and others seemed too hard, (d) wanted to meet people abroad. And if I had to summarize experiences, I would say that most people came for the language but stuck with it for the friendship. And also that most people didn't shop around for "the best" international language before picking Esperanto; they just heard about Esperanto and decided to learn it, often unaware that there are even other options.

What Zamenhof wanted was an international language, and for the most part, he got one. He just overestimated its influence.

If you read his writings you'll quickly conclude that Zamenhof was hopelessly idealistic. He had plans for a "world religion" that never took off like Esperanto. And he honestly thought that if people could talk to each other easily, they wouldn't fight (which of course hasn't prevented loads of civil wars, or wars between countries with the same language). At any rate, Esperanto's goals haven't met his (unreasonable) aims but I think it has been very successful nonetheless.

erinja:

What Zamenhof wanted was an international language, and for the most part, he got one. He just overestimated its influence.

If you read his writings you'll quickly conclude that Zamenhof was hopelessly idealistic. He had plans for a "world religion" that never took off like Esperanto. And he honestly thought that if people could talk to each other easily, they wouldn't fight (which of course hasn't prevented loads of civil wars, or wars between countries with the same language). At any rate, Esperanto's goals haven't met his (unreasonable) aims but I think it has been very successful nonetheless.

He also had interests in changing native languages too like Yiddish I believe - with an alphabet planned for the language that was essentially related to Esperanto's alphabet. The world religion part strikes me as odd though - was it so much as a unified belief system as more an infrastructure for all religions to come together somehow (Japanese Shinto beliefs come to mind)?

Very interesting though.

FWIW, I understood the sentence perfectly without having to think either about the word order or about the accusative. The only think that caught my attention was the verb used in infinitive, which I thought was probably a typo (desegni instead of desegnis). It seems pretty evident to me who draw and what was drawn, even if, compared to the other two languages I speak, the order was upside down.

Regards,

Daniel

ceigered:
I think what he's saying is more that the Esperantist must be prepared and able to accept and understand fluently any word order because Espreanto has no fixed word order, e.g. "Malbonan bildon ne desegni rapide mi", and then go "ok, what are the different components in this sentence and what do they all mean together?"

As Bartlett said before though it's a trade off. The average English speaker probably doesn't think much about the meaning of a sentence, where as an Esperantist has to pay more attention. In practice though an Esperantist too can be lazy, since most of the time word order is SVO. But whether it's good or bad, meh.

As for Germans using more brain power over English speakers, I would definitely agree, you guys are pretty smart compared to us .

I am not well acquainted with the world religion, which is called Homaranismo (that's the Esperanto wikipedia page, though the English page also has a much smaller article). From what I understand from skimming the article, Homaranismo has many common traits with Unitarian Universalism, but there are some significant differences.

Homaranismo is set out in a series of twelve "dogmas" which chart the evolution from a world of many competing and conflicting religions, to a world where everyone follows one neutral religion.

Basically it is saying that all religions teach the same core values at their root, but that each religion is accompanied by a different set of myths and mores. The process of homaranismo starts with accepting these differences between us and recognizing our similiarites. That is, we can follow whatever religion on our own time, but when we are with others, we apply only "neutral" religious principles that are acceptable to everyone, and celebrate "neutral" religious festivals. According to Homaranismo we should respect all of the various philosophical and religious leaders of the past and learn from their teachings. The precepts of Homaranismo suggest that we should attend Homanaraj temples to meet with homaranoj from various religions, but that we should work together with other homaranoj to eliminate non-neutral beliefs and develop a new neutral philosophy and way of living. And then in our homes, we should live according to those neutral precepts and pass this new religion to our children without hypocrisy (that's actually written, the part about hypocrisy). This last part (covered under the heading 'Dek-unua dogmo' in the wikipedia link I gave) is where I think Homanarismo really distinguishes itself from Unitarian Universalism. From what I gather, UU has no intention of doing away with various other faiths; it's more like, let's all live in harmony with our different ideas. It seems to me like Homaranismo sees living in harmony with different ideas as only an intermediate step, until we actually transition our lives to the new, universal religious beliefs that evolve.

I am not an adherent of UU or Homaranismo so no offense is intended to any UU believers here if I got something wrong.

And another final note, thanks for asking this question. I learned a lot looking up the answer

ceigered:

razlem:I wanted to know why there is an accusative in a self-named neutral and international language.

My wikiwalks on the Wookiepedia have been interrupted by interest on this discussion! ARGH!

Perhaps because said accusative may be neutral and international.

From my knowledge, here's a list of languages embracing the marked accusative (and giving it some of their oddities).
- Arabic (?)
- Most Indian languages, at least all descended from Sanskrit.
- All slavic languages (-u, -a, etc), although Bulgarian's unique
- Maybe the celtic languages, Irish at least plays with the innards of various words if they're accusative or not, annoyingly.
- Various african languages, which ones and how I can't remember, but they follow some pretty unique rules anyway
- All/Almost all Turkic languages (so, Turkish, Kazakh, Mongolian, Korean (if you classify it as such)) or so I've read. Turkish uses the accusative selectively at times, and sort of uses it to fulfil the role of a definite article for accusative words.
- Finnish
- Hungarian
- Some Australian aboriginal languages I believe also use it

Languages which staunchly avoid marking the accusative
- Chinese (strict word order, since most words are unmarked - Also, Mandarin (official) Chinese words are starting to become more and more multisyllabic)
- Indonesian/Malay (gets REALLY confusing when the word order changes for some reason from SVO to VSO or OVS etc).

As for the celtic languages, Welsh uses an object particle, at least on personal nouns. Hawaiian (and i'm just assuming, all the Polynesian languages) uses an object marker as well.

You don't consider the placmeent of the accusative in a specific spot in the sentence a sort of "marker"? The dog bit John. How do you know John was the one bitten? He's after the verb. The location itself is the marker for the accusative.........

danielcg:FWIW, I understood the sentence perfectly without having to think either about the word order or about the accusative. The only think that caught my attention was the verb used in infinitive, which I thought was probably a typo (desegni instead of desegnis). It seems pretty evident to me who draw and what was drawn.

Regards,

Daniel

Yeah, I suspect that any excess load on the brain must be minimal, or at least minimal to someone used to reading the language. I think technically a set word order would use less energy, since the mind now has to actively seek out word endings from anywhere along one's horizontal line of sight, but the difference in energy used must be minimal so that it's barely noticed, at least past the "enkonduka" stage.

However, since it is noticed, it can't be ruled out as being more intensive. Then again, human's aren't digital and aren't computers so perhaps sometimes a set word order can be more intensive to read or hear, especially when words are dropped, added in (e.g. extra adverbs or adjectives) or the order changes for some reason.

razlem:The reason I'm learning Esperanto is obviously different than the reason everyone else is. I see a construction that has strayed from its purpose over time and I want to fix it so it could be restored to that purpose. The thing I don't understand is why people think it isn't broken.

Esperanto hasn't strayed from its purpose, but the diaspora of speakers has diversified, both geographically and philosophically. There are still plenty of people who are committed to the "auxlang cause", but there are also plenty of others who value Esperanto for other reasons. This is best understood as growth, not straying. Those who learn any living language do not have the same goals in learning it.

The word "broken" is tendentious, since it suggests something that is flawed in such a way as to be non-functional. If you simply mean "imperfect", then as erinja has already pointed out, just about every Esperantist acknowledges that, and many have ideas about what they wish Z. had done differently. But Esperanto is fully functional, so it simply isn't broken. To remind you of a point made repeatedly in this thread, that you apparently haven't taken heed of, neither you nor anyone else has yet offered any evidence that Esperanto's failure to become "the" world's auxlang is due to its linguistic peculiarities.

I think, however, that what you're really asking is why people settle for Esperanto. There are many answers to that, but the bottom line is: it's here; it works; it has a worldwide (if sparse) speaker community; it has a culture and a literature; it has resources and content.

There are plenty of people who set out to learn Esperanto but give up. Some of them, no doubt, give up in frustration with linguistic details of the language. That's inevitable. Would these people have continued to learn Esperanto "if only" it had no accusative, or fewer European roots? Nobody knows. Would these people be happier with your language, or one of the countless other language projects? Or would they, or others, find something else to object to?

The best way to understand why people "settle for" Esperanto is from the inside. Really get to know it. It's too easy to take potshots at it, knowing only a smattering of the language, and to miss the aspects of it that people really enjoy.

My suggestion is to learn Esperanto well enough to read Claude Piron's La Bona Lingvo. The learning and the reading will give you some real understanding of what Esperanto is all about.

I think most languages that have grammatical markers also have a fairly standardized word order.

The difference is that you can use variable word order to add emphasis and impact. In languages without these grammatical markers, your ability to re-order the words in order to add impact are very limited.

Wikipedia has a nice illustration of how this works in Hungarian.