qwertz:How to make a telephone call to the ISS? They should know where on earth the flags flutter in the wind.

Reference error.

Miland:The operative word is "just". Esperanto does not have the associations with colonialism that the major European languages do. To describe it as "European" may be true in some ways, but in other ways, as Claude Piron has pointed out, can be misleading.

Sort of.

For some, all that's needed to prevent any connections with colonialism is to say that the language is neutral, and all is good.

Some however will see the European vocabulary as being an unwelcome cultural invasion (like English, only with Esperanto they don't really have much monetary incentive to learn it).

I'd hope that no one dismisses something purely on colonial hate, since it's a shame to dismiss everything related to the imperialism of recent history as being bad. Many things were bad, but many things were also very good. Similarly Esperanto's European vocab I see as a benefit since it's better than a full-on blend or a language that barely anyone has a chance of recognising (Chinese for example hasn't penetrated the world as much as European languages have already, so that's not a great choice... yet).

===

sudanglo:You are so right, 3rdblade in commenting on the lack of ruthlessness in the Esperanto movement. It's pathetic, how ineffectual the promotion is. Which returns me to my idea of aggressively insisting that Globish is not satisfactory.

What will ruthless propagation of Esperanto achieve that other languages couldn't?

As far as I'm concerned, there's more pressing goals requiring ruthless persistence, like scrapping and rebuilding legal systems world wide, completely restructuring the way industry and social engineering are done, and trying to prevent wars or make weapons of war so ineffective that war itself will be rendered a pointless waste of ammunition. And scientific progress, especially in technology and health (immortality within reasonable realistic limitations would be a nice boon).

So, perhaps Esperanto's just low on the priority list.

Sudanglo:And its artificiality (read, pupose-built characteristics) puts it in a special position that no national language can occupy.

Not true at all. National languages are perfectly capable of occupying the same space, by pure chance.

Just how humans, which evolved by pure chance, are capable of making great masterpieces, while artificially intelligent robots could be programmed to do the exact same thing.

Or a (big) stick vs. a sword. Both can cause grievous harm, both have benefits over one another.

Esperanto is not just another language.

Sorry, I forgot Esperanto was divine or some fantasy like that.

It is just another language. Even if it has a unique history, so does every other bloody language.

If you insist that Esperanto is not just another language, I insist you don't treat non-Esperanto languages like "just another bunch of languages".

Of course, that might mean that Esperanto might suddenly appear (oh my gosh!) not so special after all, and that other languages might actually be worth considering or cooperating with.

Holding onto an ideal to avoid coming in contact with others seems to be a cop-out mechanism, a way of maintaining a state of false-security.

When that state of false security is shattered, what happens to the ideal? The once strong and ruthless hypothetical Esperanto movement would be without the same drive, and easy to topple.

darkweasel:

razlem:
All of those are European loanwords.

So what?

There are no culturally neutral words from the Japanese language.

razlem:

darkweasel:

razlem:
All of those are European loanwords.

So what?

There are no culturally neutral words from the Japanese language.

Anyway my list shows that there are a lot of words (these are mostly from a guide for beginners, there are surely many others) that are similar in Japanese and Esperanto, so a Japanese speaker learning Esperanto will recognize these words.

Concerning ceigered's example, a German speaker won't recognize anything else than kostas, which is not very much, in this sentence.

For some reason it's only speakers of European languages who complain about Esperanto being too European...

Miland:

razlem:It's a reasonable hypothesis.

What proportion of linguists of the calibre of Piron, that you know, would agree?

If you want, I could draw out the scenario in its entirety and show you how improbable Piron's idea is.

Miland:It is certainly an IAL made in Eastern Europe. "I" of course stands for "International".

I meant and IAL for Europe, not from it.

Miland:

razlem:I would only promote it as a European IAL.

It is certainly an IAL made in Eastern Europe. "I" of course stands for "International".

darkweasel:

Miland:"I" of course stands for "International".

Which is not necessarily the same thing as "worldwide".

darkweasel:

qwertz:How to make a telephone call to the ISS? They should know where on earth the flags flutter in the wind.

Reference error.

(joke)
The communism credo "Völker aller Länder vereinigt euch/ Peoples of the world, united each other." is obsolete. Todays the peoples mostly are connected throught the Internet.
(/joke)

That "International/ worldwide" pseudo aspect seems to be very important for members of the "movement". I assume that people who already learned a foreign language before encounting Esperanto, these folks adopted that foreign language due to outstanding fields of the culture which comes with that regarding language. IAL, number of Espo speakers, Internationalism? Who cares? I don't, because that's just stinky-boring bla, bla, bla propaganda. I'm already flushed everyday with bla, bla, bla product advertisement. I don't need any more of that stuff.

I don't see that same fascination of Internationalism todays like before the Internet-access gets cheap. Because of the Internet everyone can choose its prefered hobby. And in my opinion doing this, the critera "Internationalism" for filtering the proper sparetime hobby or culture has no high value. Today we have a competition of cultures and hobbies. And Esperanto is inside that (entertainment) cloud.

Howgh. (Does there excist an Espo word for that?)

darkweasel:For some reason it's only speakers of European languages who complain about Esperanto being too European...

Well, I don't know if this refers to me and Razlem, but I don't think either of us are complaining. Just trying to say "hey, don't overestimate Esperanto's neutrality!".

Neutrality has its own problems and benefits that might not apply to Esperanto in reality, yet if we call it neutral, we advertise a product different to what Esperanto really is.

I personally think the lack of neutrality is good, for example. If I came in contact with Esperanto say only just now, if I saw "completely neutral", I'd think two things: 1) it's a lie (or the cake is a lie ), or 2) great, something like lidepla (or a more realistic example since finding lidepla BEFORE Esperanto isn't likely: "oh great, another one of those pseudo-cultural social projects that sample heaps of cultures then puts them together in a really jarring way).

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RE This Piron thing, I don't know the specifics but if it's the article I think it is, I felt he makes both good points and points I'd call highly contestable or controversial (not in the good sense). A lot of his words also can be taken in multiple ways depending on how you read them, e.g. like when people use exaggerations and you can't tell if they're being literal.

razlem:..I could .. show you how improbable Piron's idea is.

I don't believe you could show that the majority of linguists of the calibre of Piron, that you know, would agree with you - because I think that Piron is right.

razlem:I meant and IAL for Europe..

Rest assured that Esperantists will continue to promote it as a language for the world, not just Europe.

Miland, how many languages (do you speak/have you tried to learn)?

Let's review Piron's scenario:

"Let us suppose that centuries after a catastrophe has destroyed our civilization, archaeologists from a new culture little by little rediscover documents written in the languages of the present time, which had vanished till then. One of them uncovers texts in Esperanto and asks him-self how this language is situated relative to the others."

First let's look at how improbable this scenario is. "A catastrophe" is undefined. A flood would not wipe us out, nor an earthquake, not even a nuclear holocaust. This civilization is spread around the world, stretching into the most remote locations. In addition, we have the sum of human knowledge (the internet) accessible anywhere on the planet.

To wipe out this civilization would require a catastrophe of literally astronomical proportions, one that isn't likely to happen, and if it did, would not allow life on this planet to continue in the same way. There would be no archeologists to discover our languages (assuming physical evidence still exists after the catastrophe, which is also unlikely since paper degrades relatively quickly).

It's just impossible for this to happen in the manner that Prion describes. If there are no present languages, then no one survived the catastrophe. But if no one survived the catastrophe, how can there be archeologists? (Or humans, for that matter).

razlem:Miland, how many languages (do you speak/have you tried to learn)?

I don't claim to be a linguist like Piron. Languages apart from Esperanto have been only temporary enthusiasms for me.

razlem:let's look at how improbable this scenario is.

Piron set up a thought experiment to analyse the characteristics of Esperanto, not a scenario which he claimed to be probable. I hold that he reasons well in his analysis of this thought-experiment.