sudanglo:

And a natural language doesn't have to develop irregularities etc.

But this is highly characteristic of natural languages.

The chances of English developing a rational orthography or French getting rid of its irregular verbs is just about zero.

Because they were developed way before anyone with the power to stop such things arising were born, and when such people were born, they decided to codify and regulate the language as they found it natural.

Additionally, English has an entirely rational orthography, for Middle English. But it's because of how out-of-date it is that the English speaker is blessed with such rich etymological information about their own language. We've come to grow accustomed to that, and find it natural, so we don't want it to go, while we've simultaneously developed a culture of deriding alternative ways of spelling.

Esperanto speakers have the power to maintain the langauge now, while the language doesn't really have the amount of irregularities of English etc. In addition, the community for the time being is full of people who want to preserve the language relatively well.

You cannot use the Humpty-Dumpty approach to the meaning of Esperanto compound words.

This humpty-dumpty approach you speak of is vague, what do you mean? And why are you disapproving of a naturalistic approach, when you're complaining about the lack of words with historical backing behind them and community consensus? Such words only evolve naturally, so you're shooting yourself in the foot

Esperanto will forever be distinguished from the natural languages, or loose its defining characteristics in degenerating to 'la blinda evoluo' of the natural languages - in which case it also looses its raison d'être, and in which case there's not much point to it.

Unfortunately, now that it has a human language community, it seems that your definition of its raison d'être is lost. Perhaps you need to reprioritise?

But it's not like we have to let the language evolve willy-nilly. Guided evolution is a possibility for naturalised languages.

Anyway, for a living "artificial" language, it's give and take, put simply.

It must remain essentially 'artificial' and its superiority over other artifical languages whilst owing much to its structural features comes in no small part from the destructive testing in an international setting to the point that much meaning can be expressed with certainty.

That doesn't mean however that the job is finished.

Like I said, the whole "superiority over other artificial languages" sorta breaks down when you start talking about how we're not treating the language artificial enough. If Esperanto's fundamental word-making system is being stretched thin by your definition (one that's ironically very anglo-french in nature too, since both of those languages tend to enjoy using neologisms over internal ingenuity, and treat anything else like stupidity), but you don't want to change the fundamental grounding of the language, you're better off jumping ship.

TL;DR summary of my sentiments:

What exactly is wrong with the word compounding system? When I say "wrong", I mean more "wrong" than say English, French, Chinese or Spanish, assuming we're using international languages here, and I mean "wrong" as in those languages don't have the exact same "problems".

(I'd bring in Latin and Greek, but anyone who knows them enough would probably agree that Esperanto's word building system is very similar to their own, so whatever's "wrong" with Esperanto would have been wrong with those two languages anyway).

sudanglo:
That doesn't mean however that the job is finished.

What job?

What does Humpty Dumpty word mean?

Word used to mean whatever the speaker wants it to mean at the time, usually without further elucidation. From the character of Humpty Dumpty in "Through the Looking Glass" by Lewis Carroll.

What exactly is wrong with the word compounding system?

Nothing in principle. The 'problem' arises when the root stock is inadequate, leading to compounds which are vague at best, misleading, or covering too many meanings, at worst.

sudanglo:What does Humpty Dumpty word mean?

Word used to mean whatever the speaker wants it to mean at the time, usually without further elucidation. From the character of Humpty Dumpty in "Through the Looking Glass" by Lewis Carroll.

Ah, thanks for that, that makes more sense . Unfortunately, your argument's not saved, since I can use the humpty-dumpty approach to figuring out what neologisms mean too.

Or, I could use my god-given intuition to figure out the meaning of a word laŭ la sistemo which every Esperantist recognises, practices and understands.

As opposed to treating everyone in Esperantujo like an idiot After all, I recall you mentioning that ones skill in Esperanto is their ability to recognise what words mean even if they're not awfully familiar with them, as opposed to being able to understand the grammar. Why not merely promote intelligent approaches to understanding new words, as opposed to dumbing down the community by waiting for words to become "accepted" (which is one of the things many native languages do, I might add!)

sudanglo:What does Humpty Dumpty word mean?

Word used to mean whatever the speaker wants it to mean at the time, usually without further elucidation.

"... usually without further elucidation..."(?) The area I grow up (not Munich) prefer to speak excactly what someones try to express. It would be some kind of arrogance to let the others folks assume what I'm talking about. And I try to be aware a lot about how the otherones receives my messages. To recognize that body signals of others already learned at Kindergarten. Most folks of my area try to avoid everything to get looked like being arrogant. Thats some difference to other parts in Germany, where they don't worry (Es ist ihnen schnurzpiepe/f##egaliĝas) about how their communicated message is received by someones. They could speak to some object, too. Would have the same effect. I only see one conversation exception to that. That's sarcasmic and ironic conversation. But that also have an full intention behind during speaking that. Especially self-sarcasmic and self-ironic conversation can be a very proper stategy to detach/step-down to eye-level others folks arrogance against oneselves.

@ Qwertz:
It'd have to be more of a mix here, and I like it that way. My brain is better equipped to understand things that are balanced between being vague and precise, and I can't communicate well with either extreme. So I wouldn't call it arrogant to communicate one way or the other, since no matter which way you're still excluding someone and assuming they can understand where you're coming from without actually knowing if they can or can't.

So, for me, it's another "Dr. Strangelove" situation where I just give up caring and fall in love with this particular anarchy (I have to see that movie eventually so I can paraphrase more than its title )

ceigered:
@ Qwertz:
It'd have to be more of a mix here, and I like it that way. My brain is better equipped to understand things that are balanced between being vague and precise, and I can't communicate well with either extreme.

If it comes to serious matter I see differences between communicating vague or let consciously somebody die stupid/jemanden absichtlich dumm sterben lassen. Of course, non-serious communication doesn't need non-vague by default.

ceigered:
So I wouldn't call it arrogant to communicate one way or the other, since no matter which way you're still excluding someone and assuming they can understand where you're coming from without actually knowing if they can or can't.

Hhm, that's an interesting word composition: "one way communication"*. Why there is still the "communication" part in it? Its kind of let sprinkled by something/sich berieseln lassen. Like at an 1th semester university lecture where 300 persons take part. (Regarding the fees studying at university is quite cheap in Germany. Its now getting common again to dispose University fees.)

Yes, I agree. Its not possible to talk completly non-vague. That would need to much of mental energy. Apart daily communication i.e. vague song lyrics can trigger very different interpretations, what could be high interesting. I was told that La Fariseo simply is an string together (Aneinanderreihung) song lyric of Zamenhof proverbs. There originaly doesn't excist an core idea. But its possible to find one. At least I found German one. LPG-lyrics are also very worthfull study object if it comes to vagueness. (They are one of my favourite Espo music groups. LPG live).

That vagueness doesn't have to be an big problem at daily communication. It only needs accepted communication culture where question-making process is associated to show interests at that what otherones want to tell. And it also needs respect not to dump soul-waste/Seelenmüll* during communication. It also needs communication culture characteristics, that question making intention is not associated with making mistakes and also is not associated with personal impairment.

Someones is wondering, what I'm talking about? You never lived in Munich, I assume. (I don't talk about touristic visit)

qwertz:If it comes to serious matter I see differences between communicating vague or let consciously somebody die stupid/jemanden absichtlich dumm sterben lassen. Of course, non-serious communication doesn't need non-vague by default.

Ah well I guess that's a different thing then, since I tend to try to keep things between serious and casual and try to avoid both extremes, but effective communication is good in serious matters, definitely.

ceigered:
So I wouldn't call it arrogant to communicate one way or the other, since no matter which way you're still excluding someone and assuming they can understand where you're coming from without actually knowing if they can or can't.

Hhm, that's an interesting word composition: "one way communication"*. Why there is still the "communication" part in it? Its kind of let sprinkled by something/sich berieseln lassen.

Ah, sorry, I meant "So I wouldn't call it arrogant to communicate, (using one method or another method)", not about "one way communication".

Someones is wondering, what I'm talking about? You never lived in Munich, I assume. (I don't talk about touristic visit)

Yeah, it's complicated, each community has its own subconscious standard for communication, and even if we don't recognise the differences they certainly can exist...

ceigered:
Yeah, it's complicated, each community has its own subconscious standard for communication, and even if we don't recognise the differences they certainly can exist...

Yes, and sometimes it even takes long time to shape/texture that differences into words. Something crashes and the cause is not identifiable. Critical incident, culture shock.