Повідомлення: 216
Мова: English
sudanglo (Переглянути профіль) 1 червня 2011 р. 17:06:17
However, it seems to me that Zamehof's original conception of Esperanto put forward at a very early stage (was it in the Unua Libro?) has proved remarkably durable and practical in the crucible of international usage.
You will recall that he conceived of the language as the putting together of changeless words, where even 'o', 'í', 'a' and all the other grammatical terminations were considered also to be 'words'.
So the test of whether a word like 'senĉapelulino' is acceptable, is in principle no different to the test of whether a word like 'birdi' is acceptable.
Does it serve to convey meaning to other speakers of the language.
And this ultimately depends on what exists in the world of things and ideas, or, if you like, what reference the word will be perceived as having.
Combinations that don't work to convey a meaning, don't work, and they do not gain acceptance.
But that is not immutable for all time. As the world changes, so a prevously unintelligible 'kunmetaĵo' may come to have meaning, or a word may have its reference expanded.
ceigered (Переглянути профіль) 1 червня 2011 р. 17:14:23
Altebrilas (Переглянути профіль) 1 червня 2011 р. 23:16:43
If somebody says you something you don't understand, you may ask him to repeat.
If he says you something you misunderstand, it can be sometimes dangerous.
One argument often put forward by esperantists is that esperanto could help to avoid plane crashes...
ceigered (Переглянути профіль) 2 червня 2011 р. 09:14:26
Altebrilas:Sorry if my post is not worth the time both of you used to answer, but the main point is not kunmetajxoj with no meaning, but kunmetajxoj with too many meanings.Oh that, well that's completely removed from the subject of Newspeak. The newspeak made me think of something else
If somebody says you something you don't understand, you may ask him to repeat.
If he says you something you misunderstand, it can be sometimes dangerous.
One argument often put forward by esperantists is that esperanto could help to avoid plane crashes...
.I agree that loading too much meaning on one word is silly if you can avoid doing so.
As for plan crash avoiding, I think we might have to use "liva" a lot more otherwise "maldekstra" might cause problems
. (luckily they use "degrees" and "NESW" in aviation!) sudanglo (Переглянути профіль) 2 червня 2011 р. 09:23:11
However it is possible also to be vague or imprecise in Esperanto.
I don't think we need worry about the use of Esperanto in ground-air communications being a problem. Should Esperanto ever be put to this use,I am sure that the communication will be highly conventionalised, as I believe it is in English today.
Altebrilas (Переглянути профіль) 2 червня 2011 р. 13:19:09
But anyway it is great to communicate in a language whose features you can debate about with others users.
My initial intention was to look carefully at the linguist's objections to esperanto to see if it is possible to answer them with consistent arguments.
The weakness of their position is that most of them aren't interested in esperanto, but do not hesitate to say authoritatively anything about it.
I'm citing myself:
So it would be honest for them to say: "I don't care about esperanto. I didn't take the time to look at it. So I can't tell at all if esperanto is a good solution or not. Maybe it is. But at first view -and I'm not speaking as a linguist- it seems not serious, although this may be wrong. I'm still waiting for more evidence about the credibility of this solution"
geo63 (Переглянути профіль) 2 червня 2011 р. 13:43:50
Altebrilas:One argument often put forward by esperantists is that esperanto could help to avoid plane crashes...Perhaps English has something to do with some plane crushes, but if esperanto was used instead, then we would be talking of it as the guilty one. If we want have no plane crushes, let us simply do not use planes. When there were no cars, people were killed by horses. When there were no horses, then ... (and so on).
Chainy (Переглянути профіль) 2 червня 2011 р. 13:54:55
geo63:I fully agree with you, geo63. The whole 'prevention of plane crash' argument is rather weak, to say the least. I wish this one could just be forgotten about.Altebrilas:One argument often put forward by esperantists is that esperanto could help to avoid plane crashes...Perhaps English has something to do with some plane crushes, but if esperanto was used instead, then we would be talking of it as the guilty one. If we want have no plane crushes, let us simply do not use planes. When there were no cars, people were killed by horses. When there were no horses, then ... (and so on).
T0dd (Переглянути профіль) 2 червня 2011 р. 14:38:42
Altebrilas:This, of course, is something we all do. We have and express strong opinions on matters about which we know very little. I don't think linguists are any more prone to this than anyone else, nor do I think they are more likely to have opinions about Esperanto. It's just that when they do express such opinions, we notice them. We don't notice all the linguists who have nothing to say about Esperanto one way or the other.
My initial intention was to look carefully at the linguist's objections to esperanto to see if it is possible to answer them with consistent arguments.
The weakness of their position is that most of them aren't interested in esperanto, but do not hesitate to say authoritatively anything about it.
Moreover, Esperantists have been known to be pests. So linguists get a certain amount of crank mail from people demanding that they pay more attention to Esperanto, or some other language project, just as physicists get mail from people about their perpetual motion machines. This doesn't give them a warm feeling about the language.
Linguists, like other academics, tend to have narrowly focused research interests. The ones I've known simply aren't interested in Esperanto. One's general area of research interest tends to be acquired in grad school, from one's mentors. In this way, research programs get reproduced in successive generations.
The best way to get linguists to take Esperanto more seriously is to become a linguist and do some serious research on Esperanto! Show that there are things going on in Esperanto that linguists might want to take another look at. Work on a generative grammar. Study phonemic and phonological issues. There are plenty of possibilities.
Altebrilas (Переглянути профіль) 2 червня 2011 р. 20:17:56
They just have to say that they simply don't know.