Hi, ceigered.

So you speak Spanish? Congratulations! Isn't it a beautiful language? (Truth be said, the three languages I know are beautiful when flowing from a capable pen or tongue.)

You are right that "has" in this context is "tiene". Mind you, in "he has gone" it would be translated differently.

"Acusativo" is masculine in Spanish, so the article would be "el" instead of "la". So the phrase would be:

"Ni el primero ni el segundo tiene(n) el acusativo".

I am almost certain I have heard it both ways.

BTW, Spanish is not very logical with regard to denial, since a double denial (which in logic means an affirmation, since the second denial cancels the first one), is correct and means a simple denial.

E.g.: "No vino nadie", literally "Nobody didn't come" which logically means "Someone came", in Spanish means "Nobody came". (BTW, I think I've heard or read things like "I don't have nothing" in English, meaning "I have nothing", but AFAIK it is not correct, am I right?)

Even more surprising, "Nadie vino" (only one denial) in Spanish is equivalent to "no vino nadie" (two denials), with the meaning "Nobody came".

Like the addict who finds it difficult to function when his drug is suppressed, Spanish speakers who are learning Esperanto, usually find it difficult to express denials in a simple and logical way, since they tend to say "Ne venis neniu" instead of "Venis neniu" and similar phrases. Something that didn't happen to me when I learnt Esperanto, for the simple reason that it had already happened to me when I learnt English (prior to Esperanto).

Regards,

Daniel

ceigered:Has/tiene, no? The "or" means that only one of those singular noun phrases is the subject, so I guess "have/tener" declines to "has/tiene".

"Neither (the first) nor the second one has the accusative"
"Ni el primero ni el segundo (no?) tiene la acusativo."
Do they feel correct?

danielcg:Hi, ceigered.

So you speak Spanish? Congratulations! Isn't it a beautiful language?

Cheers, but I'm not very deserving of a congratulation - I speak very little of it and with the grace of an woodlice stuck upside down, but it is a beautiful language from what I have been able to learn .

"Acusativo" is masculine in Spanish, so the article would be "el" instead of "la". So the phrase would be:

"Ni el primero ni el segundo tiene(n) el acusativo".

I am almost certain I have heard it both ways.

BTW, Spanish is not very logical with regard to denial, since a double denial (which in logic means an affirmation, since the second denial cancels the first one), is correct and means a simple denial.

Ah, thanks for that - like I said, my Spanish is very bad and most of it I learnt from Livemocha and a picture dictionary, so anything like what you've said is very helpful to me .

(BTW, I think I've heard or read things like "I don't have nothing" in English, meaning "I have nothing", but AFAIK it is not correct, am I right?)

It's regarded as "incorrect" by those who speak more official dialects, but whether you use it or don't use it can be indicative of what sort of culture you're from. Sometimes entire phrases like "ain't" can be used as emphatic negative markers too, which makes it increasingly hard to say whether it's commonplace enough or not to be universally understood.

I now know why people find Spanish and Esperanto hard to study at the same time, and I'm not studying either very seriously!

"most of it I learnt from Livemocha"

Great site, used it for Russian for a while. They have an Esperanto course if I'm not mistaken.

razlem:"most of it I learnt from Livemocha"

Great site, used it for Russian for a while. They have an Esperanto course if I'm not mistaken.

They do indeed, I was gonna do it to see how far I could get without hassle, but after you've used that site a certain amount it can get a bit boring if you already know all the beginner stuff. "Mi. estas. homo" "OH DEAR GOD IF I HEAR THAT ONE MORE TIME....."

I am not sure that I am happy with the ready admission in this thread that Esperanto is flawed, nor the classification of Esperanto by comparison with non-constructed languages.

The most fundamental comment you can make about the structure of Esperanto is that it works by the opportunistic stringing together of roots (which themselves do not change in form). Some of the roots are purely semantic and some have a varying mix of semantic and grammatical function.

Now it seems to me, that, firstly, it is diiffcult to imagine a simpler construction and that, secondly, the appropriate assessment is by comparison with other structural possibilities (a question of pure form) rather than by comparison with national languages.

No limit is placed on the numbers of these wordbuilding blocks (the roots) and thoretically further roots with largely grammatical function could evolve without undermining the basic structure of Esperanto.

That the evolution of Esperanto has largely, though not exclusively, been in the addition of lexical roots, rather shows that the initial stock of the less lexical roots was fairly adequate.

Instead of arguing about whether Esperanto should or should not have an 'accusative', it seems to me that one should say that Esperanto has a root 'n' which is used in this and that way. If you want to speak Esperanto you need to know how this root is used by the Esperantists, just as you need to learn how 'ven' or 'per' or 'as' or any other root is used.

A word like 'hejmen' (meaning to at home) arises through a practical and opportunistic stringing together of 'hejm', 'e' and 'n'. And 'France' (meaning in French - li parolis france) is another example of a practical economical compound.

Restrictions on the order of combinations of roots (eg knabojn rather than knabjno) and the orders of words in a sentence is partly what was given by Zamenhof but also is what has proved practical in the crucible of communication among people who don't share a mother tongue.

It is difficult therefore to apply the notion of 'flawed' in this field.

Thus, in summary the underlying structure of Esperanto (purely a formal characteristic) is unchanged from the early days and had built into it the possibility of evolution according to the needs of its speakers without deviation from this structure.

This doesn't seem in any way worth characterizing as 'flawed'

ceigered:"Mi. estas. homo" .. IF I HEAR THAT ONE MORE TIME....."

Brace yourself!

sudanglo, it's not so much important to say that Esperanto "isn't perfect", but that no language is "perfect". Perfect is a subjective measure, and everyone has a different idea of what "perfect" means with regard to a language. Every language will have a feature that someone doesn't like, or that someone else finds unnecessary. Including Esperanto, of course.

Esperanto works perfectly for our language needs but there are also other languages that I'm sure would work perfectly, and I'm sure that if things had been done slightly differently in Esperanto, it would still work just as well for our purposes (though this may no longer be true if a major overhaul were made of Esperanto - in my opinion Zamenhof did a great job and made excellent choices in a situation where tradeoffs were inevitable)

sudanglo:I am not sure that I am happy with the ready admission in this thread that Esperanto is flawed, nor the classification of Esperanto by comparison with non-constructed languages.

razlem is arguing that because Esperanto is not as easy to learn as it could be, it's not as successful as it could be. I dispute the logic of that position. I don't think he has any basis at all for the inference that Esperanto is less successful because it's not maximally easy to learn. I don't dispute the claim that Esperanto isn't as easy to learn as it could be (although I don't think the -N has much to do with it).

Indeed, the fact that English, which is much harder to learn than Esperanto, is wildly more successful than Esperanto as an international language, is proof that non-linguistic factors outweigh the linguistic ones. People around the world don't learn English because it's easy. They learn it because either they need to or because of what it has to offer.

The potential risks involved in reforming Esperanto far outweigh the potential benefits, in my view. The benefits are, after all, entirely speculative, whereas the risks are real and demonstrable. History shows us that reforms cannot be imposed on the language without damage to the entire speech community. The lesson we should learn from the Ido phenomenon is not that Esperanto is "better than Ido"; it's that Esperanto cannot be "improved" except by its own internal organic growth.

The only risk in starting over with a new language, as razlem is doing, is wasted time and effort. If one is really serious about the auxlang cause, then that's a significant risk.

"razlem is arguing that because Esperanto is not as easy to learn as it could be, it's not as successful as it could be."

This is one of the many contributing factors, but it's not the only reason. Earlier in the thread we discussed cultural transmission like movies and music.

"The only risk in starting over with a new language, as razlem is doing, is wasted time and effort."

I don't think my time has been wasted at all. I knew close to nothing about linguistics when I started making this IAL about a year ago. I learned enough on my own to test out of one of my university courses- hardly a wasted effort, even if the language doesn't pull through.

razlem:"The only risk in starting over with a new language, as razlem is doing, is wasted time and effort."

I don't think my time has been wasted at all. I knew close to nothing about linguistics when I started making this IAL about a year ago. I learned enough on my own to test out of one of my university courses- hardly a wasted effort, even if the language doesn't pull through.

Fair enough, but then you really haven't done much yet beyond sketching the language. We all understand that there's more to it than that. To actually launch a language, as Zamenhof did, is a life's work. You'll need to spend years and years generating content, promoting it, fighting with the people who want to change it to something you don't like at all, and so on. That's why I say, if you're serious about the auxlang cause, and you really believe you have a language that can be more successful than Esperanto, you'll need to devote the better part of your life to it.

If you think that all you need to do is unveil your language, set up a web site, and the people of the world will hungrily learn it and do the work for you, and they will admire every detail of it and not want to change anything, you might as well quit now.