erinja:

T0dd:So the hierarchy is word:root:derived words. It's not root:all words. I think Ido may take the latter approach, but I'm not sure.

Yeah, Ido's system is called the principle of reversibility, and it's meant to help you avoid having to memorize the grammatical part of speech of a root.

Unfortunately this principle falls into the category of "easier said than done" and the internet tells me that you still have to memorize the inherent part of speech for some types of Ido roots. Ido has many more suffixes than Esperanto, so you have to learn more rules for when to use which suffix to get which meaning.

Sounds groovy. Pity that the Ido community due to some non-linguisic related issues aint big enough that we can make a comparison between its system with esperantos...

But, due to the nature of Idos forced birth and insistance on some stranger ideas, it seems unlikely that wed eve see the good of each merge.

Ceiger, forgive me if you think I am being too harsh, but I think you are succumbing again to the temptation to give structural mechanisms an elevated status over usage.

What matters to those of us practical men who see some hope for an international constructed language to achieve its goal are practical issues.

As Waringhien says in one of his essays:

la publiko absolute ne interesiĝas pri lingvistikaj polemikoj .. ĉar ĝi ne opinias ke ili povas liveri al ĝi la kriterion de bona lingvo. .... Kun sia kruda saĝo, ĝi opinias ke lingvo estas aparato por interkompreniĝado, ne por gramatikumado. Bona Lingvo estas, por la publiko, lingvo en kiu oni povas verki kaj paroli kun la certeco esti komprenata de samlingvanoj.

Let's face it. Ido, Interlingua, Klingon and the like are just porn for linguists.

Marcus, there are two main reasons for neologisms like aperta. One is that they may facilitate further derivation (kunmetado), the other is that they may cover different semantic territority.

If aperti is just used as a synonym for malfermi, there seems little to be gained.

Although we have already the international word aperturo for an opening, you could argue that apert(aĵ)o (which could be derived from aperta) is neater - well neater than malfermitaĵo.

And there is a problem with expressions like 'la malferma tago'. Does this mean the day of opening or an open day. Make aperti the equivalent of malfermi and the problem remains.

Again when we talk about open spaces, malfermi sits uncomfortably.

In other words, those languages suck.

(OK, I was rude, I accept to be censured, but I just couldn't hold myself.)

Regards,

Daniel

sudanglo:
Let's face it. Ido, Interlingua, Klingon and the like are just porn for linguists.

sudanglo:Ceiger, forgive me if you think I am being too harsh, but I think you are succumbing again to the temptation to give structural mechanisms an elevated status over usage.

So then are you willing to say that Esperanto is not a language when it has been reduced to just 1,000+ speakers (if such a tragedy were to occur)? I'm looking at this quite holistically I assure you, since structure is an equal concern for me placed along the community of speakers and their linguistic perceptions. And quite frankly, Esperanto's not really any more special than any other language project (that's established, not something like Folkspraak which is stuck in a never ending development cycle), nor an outlier in any way.

So basically - if I'm understanding you correctly, you'd believe if EO was at the same level of community-development as say Interlingua, it wouldn't be a language yes? That back in EO's REALLY early days, it wasn't a language because it only had a ridiculously small community and barely any substantial literature. If that's what you're saying, then well that makes sense to me. But at the moment the way you seem to be describing languages seems to be that "Esperanto is a language, just because I say it is, and the rest of those conlangs aren't".

Building on what Daniel said - the language can suck, have bugger all speakers and a library the size of the draw of my bedside table. Still a language.

As far as I'm concerned this should all be about what is a *good* language (for xyz reasons), and there should never had been doubt that interlingua etc were languages when people communicate in them.

Any more doubts about interlingua being a language (the others I can't be stuffed dealing with, everyone here should know that klingon just about has as much crap in it and as many conferences about it as EO has, or at least had at one point):

Evidence of an interlingua forum discussion = evidence of use of it as a written linguistic communications system, and evidence of a community with a unique language culture - There are some interesting idiosyncracies about this "interlingua culture", especially when it comes to "interlinguafication" of a word, similar to our discussions about esperantification of words...

The actual forum home page, you guys can go through it if you want but to be honest it's pretty boring and a lot of stump-threads

Essentially, all you need are 2 people to speak/write/otherwise communicate the language (the community), the language itself, and the culture aspect comes naturally as an aggregation of the cultures of each individual. Thus, a human language.

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Otherwise, there's another way of doing this: languages, and theoretical languages, and we identify the uniqueness of Esperanto simply by calling it by name.

Jes Ceiger in the very early days of Esperanto, it was just a project. It had to prove that it had the qualities necessary to become a language.

On the separate point as to whether the Esperanto would cease to be a language if it died out, I suspect that I would think it appropriate to group it with Latin and other dead languages who at one time were living languages.

There is no guarantee, that any language project is capable of becoming a language. You would certainly assume this to be the case if you subscribed to the view that language in human beings is not entirely a cultural phenomenon, but depends on some genetically selected aspect of the human brain.

But irrespective of your theoretical position it is premature to describe any of the so called competitors to Esperanto languages yet.

It might not be easy to say just when a project has become a language. I would say, when it has a stable grammar and working vocabulary, and is capable of being used (and ideally, is used) for communication in everyday life. The publication of the Unua libro may be as good an objective landmark as any, for Esperanto.

We could possibly go back a few years. Zamenhof had spoken of a point at which he began to think in Esperanto and felt that his language had become alive.

Mi komencis evitadi laŭvortajn tradukojn .. kaj penis rekte pensi en la lingvo neŭtrala. Poste mi rimarkis, ke la lingvo ricevas sian propran spiriton, sian propran vivon, la propran difinitan kaj klare esprimitan fizionomion, ne dependantan jam de iaj influoj. La parolo fluis jam mem, flekseble, gracie kaj tute libere, kiel la viva patra lingvo.

I translate freely:
"I began to avoid word-for-word translations .. and strove to think directly in the Neutral Language. Later I noticed, that the language had acquired its own spirit and life, its own well-defined style of expression, now independent from any influence. Its speech now flowed by itself, flexibly, gracefully and altogether freely, like one's own mother tongue."

Still earlier, Zamenhof had first celebrated the beginning of his language with friends on 5th December 1878, but he admitted that the language in 1878 was appreciably different from its final form.

sudanglo:But irrespective of your theoretical position it is premature to describe any of the so called competitors to Esperanto languages yet.

You seem to have a distorted view of the now 60 year old interlingua, which has a community, culture and has a stable grammar/system of usage, at least as much as EO has.

Klingon has been around for 27 years I think too, and has a community which even has a bloody institute for the language (waste of time as far as I'm concerned but that's just my personal opinion).

Quenya is about the same age as Klingon, but that one I guess could be closer to "project status", despite the fact some people are using it.

You're talk of competitors seems as if you're instead referring to all those random idos and other conlangs out there that aren't even complete half the time (since Klingon and Interlingua aren't meant to be competing against EO, even though some of their speakers feel they should), in which case i agree that they're not really languages yet (yet being polite to half of them). However, the ones previously cited I think it is wrong to chuck into the language project bin just as much as it is wrong to say Esperanto is a mere language project.

I like Miland's position anyway, and both Interlingua and Klingon have passed that stage as has Esperanto.

Obviously Miland the transition point between language project and living language is not hard and fast, But to set it at 1887 for Esperanto is far too early.

I'd be more inclined to place it around the appearance of PAG and the Plena Vortaro.

If such things exist for Interlingua - based on analysis of actual usage - then I withdraw my contempt.

Age, Ceiger, in the sense of time lapsed since the first publication is not in itself a useful criterion. After all Volapuk is older than Esperanto.

Show me links for Interlingua that don't require a password, Ceiger. Show me a calendar of International meetings. Show me downloadable books (the Bible, and Shakespeare would be a good start).

sudanglo:.. to set it at 1887 for Esperanto is far too early.
I'd be more inclined to place it around the appearance of PAG and the Plena Vortaro..

The lingva komitato came into being in 1905 with the Fundamento, to protect a language that already existed. So i wouldn't place it later than that.
But the language was being used earlier than that. According to Majorie Boulton's biography the second Esperanto magazine commenced publication in Sofia in 1889, a few months after the first. In the same year Zamenhof brought out a small German-Esperanto dictionary. By 1891 thirty-three textbooks had already been published. Hamlet was translated in 1894, and only nine words out of over six thousand had to be coined for the purpose. The first British club was founded in 1902, the British Esperanto Association (the fore-runner of EAB) in 1904 and La Brita Esperantisto was founded in 1905, the same year as the first World Congress.

Correspondence in Esperanto commenced very early. Originala Verkaro has letters from Zamenhof from 1888, and a number of others written before the first World Congress.

As for the spoken language, it was only used among fellow-countrymen before the first World Congress. That event, however, gave evidence of its viability in an international setting. I quote from the account by W.J. Clark in International Language:

"On Saturday evening, August 5, at eight o'clock, the Boulogne Theatre was packed with a cosmopolitan audience. The unique assembly was pervaded by an indefinable feeling of expectancy.. After a few preliminaries, there was a really dramatic moment when Dr. Zamenhof stood up for the first time to address his world-audience in the world-tongue. Would they understand him? .. "Gesinjoroj" (= Ladies and gentlemen)--the great audience craned forward like one man..--"Kun granda plezuro mi akceptis la proponon..." The crowd drank in the words .. Gradually, as the clear-cut sentences poured forth .. and the audience realized that they were all listening to and all understanding a really international speech in a really international tongue..the anxiety gave way to a scene of wild enthusiasm... Zamenhof finished with a solemn declamation of one of his hymns .. When he came to the end, the fine passage beginning with the words, "Ni inter popoloj la murojn detruos"..and ending "amo kaj vero ekregos sur tero".. the whole concourse rose to their rose to their feet with prolonged cries of "Vivu Zamenhof!"

I wonder what would have been the reaction of those people if someone had said "Not so fast, kamaradoj, this is not a true language yet, only a project. It will take the appearance of a fat grammar and even fatter dictionary to make it a true language!"