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Idioma: English
Miland (Mostrar o perfil) 12 de janeiro de 2011 15:35:22
razlem:..everyone is totally dismissing my language..This website is primarily for learning, practising and discussing Esperanto, not some other language. You are welcome to set up a website for your own invention, if you wish.
erinja (Mostrar o perfil) 12 de janeiro de 2011 16:13:29
Yes, Ido's principle of reversibility does make their affixes very complex.
As others have noted, it's important to distinguish between Ido (de Beaufront & Couturat's language) and ido (Esperanto word meaning "offspring", which is generally used to refer to all new conlangs based on Esperanto).
I think that linguists have valuable insight on how languages work.
But Zamenhof spent a long time testing and modifying Esperanto before he came out with the final version. He wasn't a trained linguist but he used his various drafts of his language in translations, conversations with friends, etc. to determine what worked well and what didn't. His final result was a compromise between an a priori language and a naturalistic language. You could disagree with his final choices; you can say that if you were him, you would do things differently. That's no problem, you're well within your rights to disagree. I think most committed Esperantists can name at least one thing they'd have done differently if they were Zamenhof.
But his language has had staying power. Many other languages created at the same time are dead or have miniscule populations of speakers, yet Esperanto has a thriving community. Early Esperanto speakers saw languages being killed off by successive reform proposals. Who wants to learn a language that isn't finished yet? Call me when it's done and then I'll learn it, right? Languages splinter into fragments and die when speakers of a language disagree on reforms, and decide to back different proposals.
Few constructed languages manage to outlive their founders at all, and Esperanto has outlived its founder by nearly 100 years. You may not agree with Zamenhof linguistically, but give the man some credit. He was an ethnic minority living in the provinces of an empire, an eye doctor (not even a very good one, or so I hear) and he had no money, no connections, and no special background. Yet his name and his creation live on with (at a minimum) hundreds of thousands of speakers worldwide.
Esperanto's stability has contributed to its success. We are still here because those who came before us were determined to adhere to the Fundamento.
So yes, we're dismissing your language as an improvement to Esperanto. Even if it much better than Esperanto, most of us aren't really interested. We learn Esperanto not because it's perfect, but because we value the language as it is, and the community that has been formed around the language.
But don't let me discourage you. I have no problem at all with people creating new languages based on Esperanto. Lots of people enjoy creating a language as a hobby or as a thought experiment. It isn't a waste of time if you enjoy it, and I have nothing to criticize in that. I know more than a few Esperanto speakers who have made their own created languages, just for fun.
But it's too late to change Esperanto. Just as it's too late to change English. Even if someone wished to turn back the clock and speak English as if the Norman French had never conquered England, it's too late to do it now (though it can be fun to try as a thought experiment)
As others have noted, it's important to distinguish between Ido (de Beaufront & Couturat's language) and ido (Esperanto word meaning "offspring", which is generally used to refer to all new conlangs based on Esperanto).
I think that linguists have valuable insight on how languages work.
But Zamenhof spent a long time testing and modifying Esperanto before he came out with the final version. He wasn't a trained linguist but he used his various drafts of his language in translations, conversations with friends, etc. to determine what worked well and what didn't. His final result was a compromise between an a priori language and a naturalistic language. You could disagree with his final choices; you can say that if you were him, you would do things differently. That's no problem, you're well within your rights to disagree. I think most committed Esperantists can name at least one thing they'd have done differently if they were Zamenhof.
But his language has had staying power. Many other languages created at the same time are dead or have miniscule populations of speakers, yet Esperanto has a thriving community. Early Esperanto speakers saw languages being killed off by successive reform proposals. Who wants to learn a language that isn't finished yet? Call me when it's done and then I'll learn it, right? Languages splinter into fragments and die when speakers of a language disagree on reforms, and decide to back different proposals.
Few constructed languages manage to outlive their founders at all, and Esperanto has outlived its founder by nearly 100 years. You may not agree with Zamenhof linguistically, but give the man some credit. He was an ethnic minority living in the provinces of an empire, an eye doctor (not even a very good one, or so I hear) and he had no money, no connections, and no special background. Yet his name and his creation live on with (at a minimum) hundreds of thousands of speakers worldwide.
Esperanto's stability has contributed to its success. We are still here because those who came before us were determined to adhere to the Fundamento.
So yes, we're dismissing your language as an improvement to Esperanto. Even if it much better than Esperanto, most of us aren't really interested. We learn Esperanto not because it's perfect, but because we value the language as it is, and the community that has been formed around the language.
But don't let me discourage you. I have no problem at all with people creating new languages based on Esperanto. Lots of people enjoy creating a language as a hobby or as a thought experiment. It isn't a waste of time if you enjoy it, and I have nothing to criticize in that. I know more than a few Esperanto speakers who have made their own created languages, just for fun.
But it's too late to change Esperanto. Just as it's too late to change English. Even if someone wished to turn back the clock and speak English as if the Norman French had never conquered England, it's too late to do it now (though it can be fun to try as a thought experiment)
razlem (Mostrar o perfil) 12 de janeiro de 2011 17:12:22
@trojo
Yes, the world of semantics is very irregular. My method of fixing this involves assigning every meaning to a root noun, because the semantics of a noun are the most consistent in each language.
You'd get "to eat" from "food" or "to walk" from "foot."
In addition, each verb is flexible in context. I have one verb that means: take, have, get, understand, and know. The root noun is a "grasp." The adjectives are flexible as well. You can get "hot" from "oven" or "fire" or "volcano." Any noun that is inherently "hot" can be used as that adjective. But I digress.
The fundamento won't allow the changes, so I had to create a new language inspired by Esperanto. I went ahead and built it from the ground up, using Esperanto grammar mechanics but also introducing some of my own mechanics.
Yes, the world of semantics is very irregular. My method of fixing this involves assigning every meaning to a root noun, because the semantics of a noun are the most consistent in each language.
You'd get "to eat" from "food" or "to walk" from "foot."
In addition, each verb is flexible in context. I have one verb that means: take, have, get, understand, and know. The root noun is a "grasp." The adjectives are flexible as well. You can get "hot" from "oven" or "fire" or "volcano." Any noun that is inherently "hot" can be used as that adjective. But I digress.
The fundamento won't allow the changes, so I had to create a new language inspired by Esperanto. I went ahead and built it from the ground up, using Esperanto grammar mechanics but also introducing some of my own mechanics.
razlem (Mostrar o perfil) 12 de janeiro de 2011 17:16:22
sudanglo: And as regards 'interlinguistics' what sort of serious subject is that."The study of international communication, focused especially on planned international auxiliary languages"
ceigered (Mostrar o perfil) 12 de janeiro de 2011 17:20:15
I think this thread has had many hyperboles and exaggerations thrown left right and centre, which doesn't help much.
Essentially Razlem, whether Esperanto can be improved is not something we're awefully concerned about, since we all know it's possible. We may appear unmotivated but we're rather just happy with the way things are. I personally would not mind viewing your language and talking about it in private messages - I'm on holidays now and bored out of my socks and will be until March.
It's just general concerns though, as one can expect with a topic of this nature (whatever the topic is now haha!).
Anyway, feel free to send in a link to people who are willing and I'm sure thoughts will be shared, but don't feel as if you have to make a languaeg more perfect than Esperanto or what not, since I honestly don't think that any artificial language will easily become a publicly acceptable global lingua franca (zonal languages are a different story though). They'll evolve naturally, they'll die naturally, inequalities and misuses abound by nature, or so I feel. It's probably inevitable that any lingua franca will be elitist and not very universal since not everyone's going to be using it to talk to everyone else.
Alas, my head's been emptied of this topic really. Feel free to let me know how the conlang's going if you want, since I'm curious what direction you've taken, and it's better by private message because we avoid topic-distracting threads like this one
And as for Balto - yay, my memory's not entirely shot!
===
Off topic, but I really, really do wish Anglish becomes fashionable.
As for your (previous) frains and askings, Razlem, which I sorrily missed trying to keep up with this sore fast talking (I'll stop with the Anglish now since this is annoying even me), I haven't read the Unua Libro, indeed I'm just going off of whatever I'm being told here in this thread.
Essentially Razlem, whether Esperanto can be improved is not something we're awefully concerned about, since we all know it's possible. We may appear unmotivated but we're rather just happy with the way things are. I personally would not mind viewing your language and talking about it in private messages - I'm on holidays now and bored out of my socks and will be until March.
It's just general concerns though, as one can expect with a topic of this nature (whatever the topic is now haha!).
Anyway, feel free to send in a link to people who are willing and I'm sure thoughts will be shared, but don't feel as if you have to make a languaeg more perfect than Esperanto or what not, since I honestly don't think that any artificial language will easily become a publicly acceptable global lingua franca (zonal languages are a different story though). They'll evolve naturally, they'll die naturally, inequalities and misuses abound by nature, or so I feel. It's probably inevitable that any lingua franca will be elitist and not very universal since not everyone's going to be using it to talk to everyone else.
Alas, my head's been emptied of this topic really. Feel free to let me know how the conlang's going if you want, since I'm curious what direction you've taken, and it's better by private message because we avoid topic-distracting threads like this one
And as for Balto - yay, my memory's not entirely shot!
===
Off topic, but I really, really do wish Anglish becomes fashionable.
As for your (previous) frains and askings, Razlem, which I sorrily missed trying to keep up with this sore fast talking (I'll stop with the Anglish now since this is annoying even me
), I haven't read the Unua Libro, indeed I'm just going off of whatever I'm being told here in this thread. razlem (Mostrar o perfil) 12 de janeiro de 2011 17:32:10
@erinja
I think that's the big block here. Initially I wanted to study Esperanto because I wanted to learn (what I thought to be) the next lingua franca. I didn't particularly care about the poetry or how it sounded. It made sense to me.
And you've seen how my stances have changed. When it comes to international auxiliary languages, I care more about function than aesthetics.
That being said, I love creating different alphabets, a guilty pleasure of mine
I think that's the big block here. Initially I wanted to study Esperanto because I wanted to learn (what I thought to be) the next lingua franca. I didn't particularly care about the poetry or how it sounded. It made sense to me.
And you've seen how my stances have changed. When it comes to international auxiliary languages, I care more about function than aesthetics.
That being said, I love creating different alphabets, a guilty pleasure of mine
razlem (Mostrar o perfil) 12 de janeiro de 2011 18:03:12
ceigered:I have no objection to that. I just wanted to make my thoughts known and to discuss them with people who actually know the language.
Essentially Razlem, whether Esperanto can be improved is not something we're awefully concerned about, since we all know it's possible. We may appear unmotivated but we're rather just happy with the way things are.
===
What is Anglish exactly?
bartlett22183 (Mostrar o perfil) 12 de janeiro de 2011 18:37:33
razlem:(Anglish I don't know about.) Your interests are legitimate as far as they go. I myself have been around the constructed international auxiliary language (conIAL) scene for many years. I am the listowner of the AUXLANG mailing list (subscribe directly and not through the Yahoo mirror if you want to post), and I wrote the article on "Artificial Languages" in the "Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Second Edition" from Elsevier.ceigered:I have no objection to that. I just wanted to make my thoughts known and to discuss them with people who actually know the language.
Essentially Razlem, whether Esperanto can be improved is not something we're awefully concerned about, since we all know it's possible. We may appear unmotivated but we're rather just happy with the way things are.
===
What is Anglish exactly?
However, I agree with erinja that lernu! is basically about Esperanto, not other languages. I do not actually consider myself an Esperantist, although I can read most of it, and have done more with other conIALs than with E-o. There certainly aspects of E-o that I honestly think are inferior compared to corresponding features of other languages. Nevertheless, E-o works and as far as I can tell, has worked well for 123 years, whereas, as erinja said, most conIALs rarely survive their creators. (I know of only two partial exceptions.) There are numerous factors as to why a conIAL may or may not succeed. (At the risk of blowing my own horn, see my essay "Thoughts on IAL Success" at
http://www.panix.com/~bartlett/thoughts.html .
For most conIALs, one or more of those factors are simply lacking.
erinja (Mostrar o perfil) 12 de janeiro de 2011 19:16:47
@bartlett, thanks for linking to your article, very interesting topic. I'm no longer very much interested in the IAL idea but I think you have it mostly right in terms of factors of success or failure in IAL projects.
Anglish - English without the Latin-derived vocabulary, to put it briefly. Purely Germanic vocabulary, or as close as you can get. So instead of "dictionary", you might say "wordbook"; instead of "vocabulary", you might say "wordhoard".
Esperanto has many, many imperfections. But if I want to visit another country and meet up with Esperanto speakers who will show me around, I can do that in most major cities around the world, in most countries. It's imperfect - very imperfect, even. But it's functional. [and in most places in the world, English speakers won't feed you, show you around their city, and let you stay at their house, just because you speak English - but Esperanto speakers will do this because it's part of our culture]
I think a lot of Esperantists are interested in language design and design of different alphabets. I think they are more likely than the average person to know how to write in multiple alphabets and to have spent some time studying small or unusual languages. And as I mentioned before it isn't unusual to meet an Esperantist who has at some point designed their own language. But those languages are usually intended to be more of a game, not a serious replacement to Esperanto.
[I'm excluding from this the obvious "play" versions of Esperanto that people make up, which are language games that are designed to adhere to the strict rules of the fundamento, while speaking in an unusual way. Esperanto without using any circumflexed letters, for example; avoiding all words with circumflexes! Or the venerable url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperantido#Esperant.E2.80.99]Esperant'[/url] ]
Anglish - English without the Latin-derived vocabulary, to put it briefly. Purely Germanic vocabulary, or as close as you can get. So instead of "dictionary", you might say "wordbook"; instead of "vocabulary", you might say "wordhoard".
razlem:When it comes to international auxiliary languages, I care more about function than aesthetics.I guess it depends on how you define "function", then! If something functions perfectly but no-one uses it, then how "functional" is it really? If you write your own perfect, ideal language, and no one else learns it (or even if only one or two other people learn it), then how useful is it?
Esperanto has many, many imperfections. But if I want to visit another country and meet up with Esperanto speakers who will show me around, I can do that in most major cities around the world, in most countries. It's imperfect - very imperfect, even. But it's functional. [and in most places in the world, English speakers won't feed you, show you around their city, and let you stay at their house, just because you speak English - but Esperanto speakers will do this because it's part of our culture]
I think a lot of Esperantists are interested in language design and design of different alphabets. I think they are more likely than the average person to know how to write in multiple alphabets and to have spent some time studying small or unusual languages. And as I mentioned before it isn't unusual to meet an Esperantist who has at some point designed their own language. But those languages are usually intended to be more of a game, not a serious replacement to Esperanto.
[I'm excluding from this the obvious "play" versions of Esperanto that people make up, which are language games that are designed to adhere to the strict rules of the fundamento, while speaking in an unusual way. Esperanto without using any circumflexed letters, for example; avoiding all words with circumflexes! Or the venerable url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperantido#Esperant.E2.80.99]Esperant'[/url] ]
T0dd (Mostrar o perfil) 12 de janeiro de 2011 19:20:40
bartlett22183:There are numerous factors as to why a conIAL may or may not succeed. (At the risk of blowing my own horn, see my essay "Thoughts on IAL Success" atIt's a good essay. We've discussed this on AUXLANG (I've been pretty inactive there lately, however), but I'll repeat a point that I made there: People are not just language users; they are language consumers, and for that reason content needs to be added to your list of Contributors to IAL Success. In the contemporary world, content means multimedia. Books, articles, music, video, podcasts, and so on. The language needs to be extensively tokened outside of people's heads. Zamenhof intuitively understood this, and he and his early followers dug in and got a lot of work done.
http://www.panix.com/~bartlett/thoughts.html .
For most conIALs, one or more of those factors are simply lacking.
Critics of Esperanto sometimes comment on the stubbornness of Esperantists, in resisting reform. They overlook the fact that this is a completely rational response to anything that jeopardizes what is in fact a huge investment of human effort--not just the effort of learning the language, but the effort that has produced all the content. Any significant change to the language nullifies all that effort overnight.
Todd