RiotNrrd:

razlem:I didn't suspect so

Yeah. I mean, while there ARE people here who are interested in conlangs in general, I would hazard that the majority of people here are here because they're interested in just Esperanto. Other conlangs may or may not be interesting to some degree or another, but are essentially irrelevant to the focus of Lernu.

As some prior users' messages have shown (including my own) - moderation is key when it comes to conlanging on this forum!

Also razlem (as long as you avoid mentioning any themes that might point out your language as being a competitor to EO and just pretend that it's all casual and for fun to avoid any comments from an EO diehard or someone misunderstanding), I'm not sure if you're continuing with EO or not but if you end up fluent enough or are now, you can discuss these sorts of things in the EO-langauge fora.

Now that's the place to be offtopic, if all those Catalonian independence conversations are indicative of anything

Come on then, what is the structure which is simpler than the compounding of unchanging roots - which structure embraces both the 'grammar' (role marking in the sentence) and the construction of purely lexical items.

sudanglo, there's not much point in having this debate.

razlem is convinced that his language does something in an easier way than Esperanto. If he wants to think that, then that's fine. Who cares what he thinks? And at any rate, OF COURSE it's easier for him, because he made it up himself. Anything that you make up yourself will by default seem much easier than something that someone else made up, that you never bothered learning properly.

This is turning into a "measuring contest" so how about we return to our regularly scheduled Esperanto programming. It's already abundantly clear that Razlem isn't ever so interested in learning the finer details of Esperanto grammar, so I think there's little point in trying to convince him, or of him trying to convince us that his sight-unseen IAL is the solution to all of the world's problems.

erinja:how about we return to our regularly scheduled Esperanto programming.

No one's stopping you not replying to this thread and hence not bumping it. Just ignore it instead of trying to organise a boycott. Every reply you make, makes you more invested in the thread. That you're replying so emotionally compared to the others indicates you feel investment (likely to stop the commonplace ignorance/FUD), but no matter how many posts you make, the whole thing really is just endlessly circular & pointless. Why waste your valuable time? Don't post here again.

razlem:"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."

Comparing it to my own IAL, I find the system in my language to be more intuitive, working from the brain's remarkable pattern-finding abilities. This is while it maintains an Esperanto-esque compounding system, to allow the conjunction of different roots. I'm biased towards it of course

Well, sure. Everyone's own conlang seems perfectly natural and intuitive to THEM. Where many have gone wrong though, including you apparently, is generalizing that what seems intuitive to them must be intuitive to all humanity.

Also, some of your biggest complaints about Esperanto are already evident in your own language project, e.g. irregular derivational morphology, non-internationalness of roots, etc. Making a language is harder than it looks, eh?

Genjix:That you're replying so emotionally compared to the others indicates you feel investment

I'm actually not emotional on this topic at all. FYI. I really don't care one way or the other, what razlem thinks about Esperanto grammar. However I do normally like to promote accurate understanding of Esperanto grammar, which is why I've bothered participating in the first place. At any rate I don't regret having followed the thread, and I'm not emotionally invested in Razlem's decisions regarding his language (I'm assuming he's going to make a language that is nothing like Esperanto, and he's going to believe that his language is much "better" than Esperanto and easier to learn, and he'll mess with it for a year or two and then move on to other things in his life. Which is fine, if he wants to make his language and believe certain things about it, it doesn't really affect me at all)

Giving razlem the benefit of the doubt and assuming he's not just trolling, I think some of his questions deserve answers. And he has received plenty of good answers. There are some things about Esperanto that can be understood from "outside", so to speak, i.e., without having that much familiarity with the language itself. For example, one can get a lot of information about the state of Esperanto literature without being able to read much of it. And one can pick up isolated details of grammar, as razlem has done, although it's likely that one will miss the interconnectedness of those details.

When it comes to understanding what it is about Esperanto that keeps us all interested, and why talented people choose to write literary works in it, and why we find it so satisfying to use Esperanto--those things have to be understood from inside. That's why I suggested Piron's La Bona Lingvo. To be able to read it at all, you have to attain a decent level of competence in the language; and Piron explains the power and appeal of the language as well as anyone ever has.

erinja:I'm actually not emotional on this topic at all. FYI. I really don't care one way or the other, what razlem thinks about Esperanto grammar. However I do normally like to promote accurate understanding of Esperanto grammar, which is why I've bothered participating in the first place. At any rate I don't regret having followed the thread, and I'm not emotionally invested in Razlem's decisions regarding his language (I'm assuming he's going to make a language that is nothing like Esperanto, and he's going to believe that his language is much "better" than Esperanto and easier to learn, and he'll mess with it for a year or two and then move on to other things in his life. Which is fine, if he wants to make his language and believe certain things about it, it doesn't really affect me at all)

I haven't been following this thread at all. But, I just found myself reading this one message from Erinja. I don't really like the tone of it, to be honest. I mean, come on, who on earth hasn't had thoughts about ways to improve Esperanto?! - it's a natural part of the process of learning it!

I haven't read through the suggestions of razlem, but I'm not against anyone tinkering with the language. I'm certainly not going to belittle his efforts. Being open-minded is always a good thing. If there's merit to something, then time will tell. But, I think it's more effective for a person to first learn Esperanto as it is to a very high level first of all, and then possibly make suggestions about its development. This way, your opinion carries much more weight.

For me personally, I have considered various 'improvements', but I have so far decided against many so far. I still dwell on certain things, but I won't go into that here! The point is, I'm still focussing on learning the traditionally accepted form of the language!

One thing I've definitely come to believe though, is that any language requires a certain 'muddle' element to it. I remember reading somewhere that this is a fundamental aspect to any language capable of expressing human thoughts etc - we're not machines, absolute perfection in the form of a language is not compatible with our brains! Esperanto, for me, takes order to it's limit, thus enabling it to be much easier to learn than other languages, but it still has a nice element of fuzziness around the edges for it to be usable by humans!

I suppose when a person first starts learning Esperanto, he/she is dazzled by the beauty of the order to the language. And so it's easy to forget the importance of the fuzzy element. This can cause a person to feel disappointment that the perfect order is then broken by something or other - but this is necessary in order for the language to incorporate all aspects to human thought etc... This is how I see it anyway.

Chainy:I mean, come on, who on earth hasn't had thoughts about ways to improve Esperanto?! - it's a natural part of the process of learning it!

Definitely this is the case. Almost everyone has had these thoughts as a beginner, including me. I am pretty sure I mentioned it at least once earlier in the thread. I know you said you didn't read the whole thread so you probably missed it.

I haven't read through the suggestions of razlem, but I'm not against anyone tinkering with the language. I'm certainly not going to belittle his efforts. Being open-minded is always a good thing. If there's merit to something, then time will tell.

I agree with you partially. I am against tinkering with the language and calling it Esperanto. But if someone wants to tinker with Esperanto and create a new language based on Esperanto and call it by a new name, I don't have a problem with that. My earlier comments in this thread reflect that. However if the person who made an "improved Esperanto" gets frustrated and upset at Esperanto speakers for not being interested in their creation, as is sometimes the case, then that is a bit annoying. If I am happy with my language (Esperanto) and you are happy with your language (Whatever-anto), then I have no interest in convincing you to learn Esperanto. Since you [not you specifically, but "oni"] are an open-minded person, I expect that you [oni] should equally respect my right to be happy with Esperanto, and not get annoyed with me for not being interested in learning about your reforms. Lots of people earlier in the thread explained the reasons why most Esperanto speakers aren't interested in reforms; I expect that you (you specifically, Chainy) already know these reasons, since it is a topic that has been discussed before on these forums, and you seem to be a regular reader.

But, I think it's more effective for a person to first learn Esperanto as it is to a very high level first of all, and then possibly make suggestions about its development. This way, your opinion carries much more weight.

This is basically what several people, including me, suggested earlier in the thread. Several times it was suggested that Razlem learn the language well before proposing changes to it, and Razlem seemed unwilling to learn the language beyond what he could glean from reading a grammar.

I got to page 15 of this thread, but where the hell is razlem's suggested new language?! There are loads of musings about this or that grammatical function, but no end result. Any chance of cutting through the cr@p and clearly stating what this newly created language is? Something along the lines of a Fundamento?!