Well first of all, hello. My name is Razlem and I enjoy studying different languages

I was wondering if there is a specific forum post for arguing for/against Esperanto. I do not wish to start a flame war, but rather introduce legitimate linguistic arguments about Esperanto's position as an international language proper and showcase particular irregularities.

If such a page does not yet exist, I would like to make one. Is this permissible?

I'm a member of the core team that runs this site.

There's no rule saying that you can't create such a forum thread. It's not against forum rules or the site's terms of service.

However, I am suggesting that you do not create such a thread. It's not really on topic. The lernu website is for people who want to learn Esperanto - not for people who are deciding whether Esperanto is the solution to the international language problem, and not for exploring possible fixes to the language, and not for discovering all of the language's weak points. The site is for people who are interested in learning the language as it is, not how someone wishes it might be. You will generally find that the readers of this forum are not too interested in exploring in depth all of Esperanto's flaws. We are all aware that it has flaws, but for most of us, that doesn't bother us, because Esperanto is useful and valuable to us as it is.

These topics do come up from time to time (perceived problems with Esperanto, and Esperanto's suitability as an international language) but they usually die a relatively quick death because as I said, it's not really on topic for this website.

I am sure you have the best of intentions, and these forums are generally very friendy even on topics that generate flame wars elsewhere.

However, this really isn't the right place for your proposed topic. Just as a forum for learners of French isn't really the right place for a thread about all of French's many flaws, or whether Spanish is the more useful language to learn, and whether French should be an international language or not. Right?

If you want to discuss Esperanto's deficiencies, I think you'll find receptive audiences at the Auxlang listserv, or if you want an online forum, perhaps one of the forums at Unilang.

Best of luck to you, and I hope you have a nice discussion on this topic - in the appropriate venue.

Alright, I'll try one of those sites.

Thank You

Razlem, Erinja is quite right.

However, if you decide to learn Esperanto and find difficulty in expressing a certain idea in Esperanto, then Forum members will generally be able to help you, or at least give their views.

Threads on such topics are not uncommon here.

Esperanto is actually very easy for me to learn, I just haven't invested time into learning more vocabulary.

You must understand that I have nothing against Esperanto. I have begun to learn it, and I encourage others to learn it. I only wish to contribute my thoughts/suggestions after studying interlinguistics.

If it's discussing the features of Esperanto and how things come into play and what things are easier/harder/stranger/etc, sort of to consolidate and confirm ones understanding of Esperanto with those whom you can talk about such with (I'm assuming that if you're lacking vocab you probably won't be willing to confirm stuff and discuss stuff about linguistic features with non-english speakers), I'm sure you'll be welcome to share such an analysis with the various members of the boards here.

razlem:Esperanto is actually very easy for me to learn, I just haven't invested time into learning more vocabulary.

You must understand that I have nothing against Esperanto. I have begun to learn it, and I encourage others to learn it. I only wish to contribute my thoughts/suggestions after studying interlinguistics.

There was recently another thread about "suggestions for improvement". While this sort of thing may seem harmless enough in itself, on a site where there are new learners it can give the impression that Esperanto is still "in beta", as it were.

Todd

I'm sure it wouldn't be a problem for you to share your thoughts.

But you mentioned making "suggestions". Suggestions for what, if I may ask?

If you are referring to suggestions for ways to improve the language (sorry if this isn't what you meant at all, but this is a very common thing for beginners to come up with) Esperanto evolves as all languages evolve, but it is not up for changes and editing.

Bringing back my example of French, French also evolves, and we may like or dislike certain aspects of it, but we accept it for what it is. If a learner of French had a proposal for reforming French to make it much better so that more people will want to learn it, you can understand why speakers of French would find this ridiculous. I submit to you that speakers of Esperanto find it equally ridiculous to float a list of proposed changes or improvements. French has its strong and weak points and so does Esperanto, and I'm sure that if any of us were creating the French language, we'd have plenty of ideas of things that we'd do differently. But French is a living language so even though it has aspects we might not like too much, we leave it as it is, and it evolves naturally. It's the same with Esperanto.

You are welcome to share your thoughts but I encourage you to consider Esperanto as an language equal to French or any other language - a living language with a community that speaks it, a body of literature, and an associated culture. It isn't a game, a proposal to be edited, or a project to be tinkered with and improved upon. For better or for worse, it has evolved to where it is today over the past 100 years, and it's too late to be making changes. You can certainly talk about "wouldn't it be great if..." but please keep in mind that this would have to stay theoretical - the same as if you were to say "Wouldn't it be great if French had no irregular verbs?" Maybe it would be great and maybe it wouldn't be great, but the point is that French DOES have irregular verbs, so if you don't like it, there isn't much point in complaining about it, because you have to learn the irregular verbs if you want to talk to someone in French. It's really the same in Esperanto.

I know I'm being overly verbose here but I was once a beginner myself, and I have met a lot of beginners through my work on this site. I am very familiar with that feeling of seeing all of the things that could be improved and made better, and the idea that if only Esperanto were to do XYZ it would be able to gain more speakers, etc. The point I'm trying to get across is that it doesn't matter whether these things are true or not, because the language is a living language and we can't just go changing it now.

Having said all of that, Esperanto is fabulously flexible and an excellent way to exercise your creativity while meeting some really cool people.

Razlem - just to add a little to what Erinja has said - there are many misconceptions about Esperanto.

Some of these arise through plain ignorance, some from a too uncritical acceptance of Esperanto-propaganda, However in part these come from the difficulty of classifying Esperanto, which I suspect is unique in the history of the planet.

In so much as a language is more than a set of rules and some vocabulary - it involves a social consensus among the users about meaning/connotation/asociation - then you can say that Esperanto is a language and clearly distinguished from the schema or projects (of which there have been many) of conlang enthusiasts.

Studying Esperanto from the point of view language design may overlook many of the essential characteristics of Esperanto.

On the other hand Esperanto is not like the natural languages in that from the very early days the Esperantists have been self-policing in their use of Esperanto and there is a strong tradition of the preservation of systemacity, regularity, clarity and the avoidance of opaque idiom.

Thus Esperanto is an unusual subject for study by linguists who delight in just those features of language that Esperantists strive to avoid.

I sometimes think that the efforts of 'students' of natural languages and their desire to create laws of language are rather comic.

Imagine someone who has spent their life in the analysis of the streets, mews, courts lanes, alleys, avenues, passages and boulevards of cities like London, Paris and Berlin and then tries to produce sweeping generalisations about cities without any knowledge of the regular layout of New York.

If there are any laws of language to be discovered that arise from our neurons, rather than our human freedom to create any cultural institutions we so desire, then perhaps the place to look is in the psychological and medical laboratories and not in the higgledy-piggledy arrangements of the historically burdened natural languages.