@ Islander: I did have a very similar thought!

Anyway, I think it would be quite difficult to explain to somebody who has never used different genders, what's the "deeper sense" of it. Mostly, because, obviously, there is no deeper sense.

Some language scientist might say that different genders give language a touch of beauty (or something like that), but this is an opinion one can share, or not.

Strange, as mentioned above, when a gender does not even express it's "natural" gender like "das Mädchen". A young women would certainly be female (in my opinion).

The problem with different genders is also, that after some time, one keeps forgetting them (unless used frequently). With irregular verbs, it's easier, once you know them, they just keep "coming back" when you need them.

The gender of a noun starts to fall into oblivion, if you don't use it for a long time. I try to use menmonics (memory hooks), but that just helps a bit (by the way, we have a very funny word for that in German: Eselsbrücke, what would literally mean donkey bridge). Is there an Esperanto word for mnemonic (mnemonico)?

Gerald

Yes, it is " mnemoniko".

Islander:It was mentioned that Esperanto did not become what it was supposed to (not yet, anyway). It wasn't clearly stated why.

Honestly since I've discovered Esperanto, I'm shocked to read there so many people even considering Esperanto as an auxiliary international language.

It's a fun hobby, it makes you think, it's an excuse to form a community, that's it. Otherwise, it is flawed in every aspect.

The common rebuttal is that no language created will ever be perfect... True. But without being perfect, there is no way an IAL should have plural with "j". There is no way an IAL should have the Eo alphabet. There is no way an IAL should have a monster like "knabojn" to express a very simple thought. There is no way an IAL should refer to Mary and Asia as "Mario" and "Asio". Etc.

At least if Esperanto would be open to reforms, then the language could first grow and then there could be a reform once it got enough popular. But Esperanto doesn't allow reforms... So it's a doomed project.

And there is no way Esperanto would stay "neutral" if it would gain popularity, so I'm not even sure there is an argument to support Esperanto over the English language for example. Once it would get the support of a country (it has to start somewhere!), then there is no way it could stay neutral. If the US would support it, then anti-US countries would be against it. If an anti-US country would support it, then the US would be anti-Esperanto.

djeepywta:Honestly since I've discovered Esperanto, I'm shocked to read there so many people even considering Esperanto as an auxiliary international language.

i'm not sure why this would be shocking to you? Many people USE esperanto as an auxiliary international langugage. People use it for travel, for international communication, to make friends (who often don't speak their native language), even to find a spouse (again often without the two sharing any other common language). It may not be a UNIVERSAL international languge (yet , but it is certainly is used as one by many of us who speak it.

djeepywta:
It's a fun hobby, it makes you think, it's an excuse to form a community, that's it. Otherwise, it is flawed in every aspect.

Wow, that's a remarkably strong statement. flawed in EVERY aspect. Why do you bother studying it at all if it is so flawed (in your opinion)? In fact, it has very few flaws compared to national languages. You may not like the choices made in the construction of esperanto, but it is a very logically constructed language. There have been some compromises, of course, but often those compromises lead to gains in flexibility and usage. So yes, Esperanto has flaws, but they seem minor to me in comparison to the flaws in other available choices

I'm reminded of the comment made by Winston Churchill. He said (and I'm paraphrasing) Democracy is the worst system of government ever created, except for all the others. Once could paraphrase that about esperanto

djeepywta:The common rebuttal is that no language created will ever be perfect... True. But without being perfect, there is no way an IAL should have plural with "j". There is no way an IAL should have the Eo alphabet. There is no way an IAL should have a monster like "knabojn" to express a very simple thought. There is no way an IAL should refer to Mary and Asia as "Mario" and "Asio". Etc.

According to whom? Why is having a plural with j more crazy than having a plural with s (english)? or not having any plural markings for nouns at all (chinese)? Your statement makes no sense to me at all. I also fail to see why knabojn is a a monster?

In fact, the orthographic system of esperanto is very logical and self-consistent. I can properly pronounce any Esperanto word when I see it written down. And if you pronounce an Eo word to me clearly, I immediately know how to write it down (even if I don't know what the word means). You may not like the use of diacritic marks in the Eo Alphabet (I'm guessing), but there are several ways around that. There are also several unusual letters in other alphabets. French has vowels with diacritic marks to indicate variations of vowel sounds. German also has other extra letters as well (like ß).

As for names, they'll have to be adopted into the orthographic system of any language being used. How do you handle national or other proper names with sounds not in your "perfect" IAL?

djeepywta:
At least if Esperanto would be open to reforms, then the language could first grow and then there could be a reform once it got enough popular. But Esperanto doesn't allow reforms... So it's a doomed project.

There have been attempts to "perfect" the language over the years. Ido being the most successful of them. You might like ido, I think that based on your comments you would find it much more "perfect" than esperanto. Although, I'd wish you luck finding people who speak it. While there is an Ido community of sorts, it's mininscule compared to Eo.

To say that Esperanto hasnt had any reforms is ludacris. What about Io supplanting ujo for country names? What about the evolution of the meaning of the word ŝati? What about the dropping of the ino suffix on careers unless one is specifically trying to indicate female sex? Those are just three off the top of my head in 30 seconds. It is a living, evolving language. RADICAL reforms tend to be rejected, because they are simply not needed.

djeepywta:
And there is no way Esperanto would stay "neutral" if it would gain popularity, so I'm not even sure there is an argument to support Esperanto over the English language for example. Once it would get the support of a country (it has to start somewhere!), then there is no way it could stay neutral. If the US would support it, then anti-US countries would be against it. If an anti-US country would support it, then the US would be anti-Esperanto.

There's a difference between Eo and other languages. Eo is primarily for international communication. The EO community resists changes that would harm that goal. I see no evidence that this would change from wider adoption. The world is no longer geographically isolated the way it once was (because of modern, inexpensive communication methods like the internet). The pressures to frament the language will be ameliorated by that. Also, because the purpose of esperanto is first and foremost international communication, there will continue to be pressures from within the community to resist radical changes.

Has Eo conquered the world? of course not. But with an estimated 2 million speakers (that have come to Eo largely through grassroots effors) it is hardly "doomed". In my opinion, it's doing just fine.

i'm not sure why this would be shocking to you? Many people USE esperanto as an aŭiliary international langugage.

Just because people use it doesn't mean they have to think the rest of the world should do like them. I like Kraft Dinner, but it doesn't mean I think the rest of the world should eat it. Especially when I know fully well it's not the healthiest food available.

Wow, that's a remarkably strong statement. flawed in EVERY aspect. Why do you bother studying it at all if it is so flawed (in your opinion)?

I bothered because I was curious about it.

I'm reminded of the comment made by Winston Churchill. He said (and I'm paraphrasing) Democracy is the worst system of government ever created, except for all the others. Once could paraphrase that about esperanto

Most languages don't have the goal Esperanto have. If we're going to pick a language that has the goal to be spoken by millions and millions of people, it better be very, very good. (Not perfect!).

According to whom? Why is having a plural with j more crazy than having a plural with s (english)? or not having any plural markings for nouns at all (chinese)? Your statement makes no sense to me at all. I also fail to see why knabojn is a a monster?

I can't prove it, but to me both are a matter of common sense. On paper it isn't that bad, but it contributes greatly to the ugliness of the language when spoken.

There are also several unusual letters in other alphabets.

Irrelevant, IAL shouldn't have unusual letters, period.

As for names, they'll have to be adopted into the orthographic system of any language being used. How do you handle national or other proper names with sounds not in your "perfect" IAL?

The mendatory o ending creates nonsense. "Mario" is the perfect example. No decent IAL, even very imperfect, would have that kind of nonsense.

Ido being the most successful of them. You might like ido, I think that based on your comments you would find it much more "perfect" than esperanto. Although, I'd wish you luck finding people who speak it. While there is an Ido community of sorts, it's mininscule compared to Eo.

Ido isn't Esperanto, so that's another debate. And I would need luck to find either Ido or Eo speaker.

Ido fixes a lot of flaws that imperatively needed to be fixed, but I don't know about it enough to judge if it should be spoken by millions of people or not.

To say that Esperanto hasnt had any reforms is ludacris. What about Io supplanting ujo for country names? What about the evolution of the meaning of the word ŝati? What about the dropping of the ino suffix on careers unless one is specifically trying to indicate female sex? Those are just three off the top of my head in 30 seconds. It is a living, evolving language. RADICAL reforms tend to be rejected, because they are simply not needed.

Esperanto would need a reform if it wants to be considered seriously as a IAL. It doesn't have to be radical. But at least it should do partly what Ido did.

Some of Z. choices were either random or biased. At the very least, a reform would need to fix Z. bad decisions. And there are a lot.

Has Eo conquered the world? of course not. But with an estimated 2 million speakers (that have come to Eo largely through grassroots effors) it is hardly "doomed". In my opinion, it's doing just fine.

It's doing just fine at what it is: a hobby and nothing more. A IAL should be elaborated by a group of linguists who fully know what they're doing. Esperanto is a very fine effort by a single man, but has too many basic flaws to be taken seriously in its current form. The fact you can't even type the language properly with a normal keyboard speaks volume. It's normal, a single person can't elaborate alone something so complex.

djeepywta:

i'm not sure why this would be shocking to you? Many people USE esperanto as an aŭiliary international langugage.

Just because people use it doesn't mean they have to think the rest of the world should do like them. I like Kraft Dinner, but it doesn't mean I think the rest of the world should eat it. Especially when I know fully well it's not the healthiest food available.

Wow, that's a remarkably strong statement. flawed in EVERY aspect. Why do you bother studying it at all if it is so flawed (in your opinion)?

I bothered because I was curious about it.

I'm reminded of the comment made by Winston Churchill. He said (and I'm paraphrasing) Democracy is the worst system of government ever created, except for all the others. Once could paraphrase that about esperanto

Most languages don't have the goal Esperanto have. If we're going to pick a language that has the goal to be spoken by millions and millions of people, it better be very, very good. (Not perfect!).

According to whom? Why is having a plural with j more crazy than having a plural with s (english)? or not having any plural markings for nouns at all (chinese)? Your statement makes no sense to me at all. I also fail to see why knabojn is a a monster?

I can't prove it, but to me both are a matter of common sense. On paper it isn't that bad, but it contributes greatly to the ugliness of the language when spoken.

There are also several unusual letters in other alphabets.

Irrelevant, IAL shouldn't have unusual letters, period.

As for names, they'll have to be adopted into the orthographic system of any language being used. How do you handle national or other proper names with sounds not in your "perfect" IAL?

The mendatory o ending creates nonsense. "Mario" is the perfect example. No decent IAL, even very imperfect, would have that kind of nonsense.

Ido being the most successful of them. You might like ido, I think that based on your comments you would find it much more "perfect" than esperanto. Although, I'd wish you luck finding people who speak it. While there is an Ido community of sorts, it's mininscule compared to Eo.

Ido isn't Esperanto, so that's another debate. And I would need luck to find either Ido or Eo speaker.

Ido fixes a lot of flaws that imperatively needed to be fixed, but I don't know about it enough to judge if it should be spoken by millions of people or not.

To say that Esperanto hasnt had any reforms is ludacris. What about Io supplanting ujo for country names? What about the evolution of the meaning of the word ŝati? What about the dropping of the ino suffix on careers unless one is specifically trying to indicate female sex? Those are just three off the top of my head in 30 seconds. It is a living, evolving language. RADICAL reforms tend to be rejected, because they are simply not needed.

Esperanto would need a reform if it wants to be considered seriously as a IAL. It doesn't have to be radical. But at least it should do partly what Ido did.

Some of Z. choices were either random or biased. At the very least, a reform would need to fix Z. bad decisions. And there are a lot.

Has Eo conquered the world? of course not. But with an estimated 2 million speakers (that have come to Eo largely through grassroots effors) it is hardly "doomed". In my opinion, it's doing just fine.

It's doing just fine at what it is: a hobby and nothing more. A IAL should be elaborated by a group of linguists who fully know what they're doing. Esperanto is a very fine effort by a single man, but has too many basic flaws to be taken seriously in its current form. The fact you can't even type the language properly with a normal keyboard speaks volume. It's normal, a single person can't elaborate alone something so complex.

Freind, it seems to me you're just sidestepping and otherwise ignoring every significant part of his rebuttal, blundering ahead with your own, apparently unenlightened claims. He's just disproved every one of your complaints and has given you a chance to respond, but instead of admitting that you appear ignorant and prejudiced you continue to try to make a point by way of force.

You don't have an ounce of evidence to enforce your claims- you even admitted that you couldn't prove that "knabojn" was a monster but that to you it was just a matter of common sense. To me that only highlights the fact that you really don't know anything about the language and can't come up with a logical or coherant response. You even said that it only contributed to "the ugliness of the language", which is openly prejudiced- basing the merits of the entire language on a few anomalies. Yes, you can choose to emphasize the words with less latin influence, but I could reverse your tactic, with words like "ponto, mielo, and fluo". Perhaps to your limited knowledge the language does not sound particularily euphanous, but many others find it exactly the opposite.

There is only one fact here: ALL languages which have followed your advise and have allowed dramatic reformes by people who "know what they are doing" have FAILED compared to the accomplishments of this language. Esperanto is the most successful. Period.

Novico Dektri:
Freind, it seems to me you're just sidestepping and otherwise ignoring every significant part of his rebuttal, blundering ahead with your own, apparently unenlightened claims. He's just disproved every one of your complaints and has given you a chance to respond, but instead of admitting that you appear ignorant and prejudiced you continue to try to make a point by way of force.

What significant parts of his rebuttal I've ignored? I answered almost every argument he provided.

You don't have an ounce of evidence to enforce your claims- you even admitted that you couldn't prove that "knabojn" was a monster but that to you it was just a matter of common sense. To me that only highlights the fact that you really don't know anything about the language and can't come up with a logical or coherant response. You even said that it only contributed to "the ugliness of the language", which is openly prejudiced- basing the merits of the entire language on a few anomalies. Yes, you can choose to emphasize the words with less latin influence, but I could reverse your tactic, with words like "ponto, mielo, and fluo". Perhaps to your limited knowledge the language does not sound particularily euphanous, but many others find it exactly the opposite.

Wow, you seem to know me very well.

There is only one fact here: ALL languages which have followed your advise and have allowed dramatic reformes by people who "know what they are doing" have FAILED compared to the accomplishments of this language. Esperanto is the most successful. Period.

It isn't a matter of if Esperanto is successful or not, it's a matter of if it should be the IAL or not.

You don't seem to realize what is the topic of the discussion. As a language itself, Esperanto doesn't need any reform. Just like Spanish or French don't need one... But like I said, it's normal to have high standards when picking something that would be used everywhere around the world.

I actually think that would probably one of the most important decision humanity would take. I don't see why "we" should automatically pick Esperanto just because it's the most successful of the constructed languages.

I must add, it's exactly because of the kind of attitude some people grow anti-Esperanto feelings. I expressed my thoughts in a respectful manner and I expect respect in return. But it's impossible to engage in a civil discussion, the second you doubt one of the Esperantist claim ("it's a regular language", "it's 10 times easier than another language", "it shouldn't be the IAL", etc), you're being labelled as a "miserable" person or a person who doesn't know anything about the language. I don't think I've attacked the intelligence or knowledge of one person here, so...?

djeepywta:I can't prove it, but to me both are a matter of common sense. On paper it isn't that bad, but it contributes greatly to the ugliness of the language when spoken.

"De gustibus non disputandum est" - In matters of taste, there can be no argument. Ugliness of a language is very much a matter of taste. I correct the Ana Pana course for English-speaking students; one of the questions asks the student which language(s) they believe are most beautiful. More than once, students have named languages that are among the ugliest (according to my taste). You can't objectively say that a language is ugly or not, any more than you can say "Spinach tastes good". Lots of people love spinach, and lots of people hate it. I don't believe it would be possible to construct a language that everyone would find attractive. Even languages commonly considered beautiful are not universally liked. One friend of mine thinks Italian sounds harsh and awful (and that Hebrew sounds soft and attractive!), another once told me that to her, people sound like they're choking on their spit when they speak French.

Irrelevant, IAL shouldn't have unusual letters, period.

This also depends on what you call unusual. Not every language has an X. Not every language has a Y. Who is to say which letters are acceptable and which are not?

The mendatory o ending creates nonsense. "Mario" is the perfect example. No decent IAL, even very imperfect, would have that kind of nonsense.

The -a ending is acceptable in Esperanto for female names. "Maria" is perfectly acceptable. Here at lernu!, we have two courses about "Ana" - not "Ano". Women can choose to use the -a or the -o. I go by Erinja, but I know a woman who goes by Elinjo. It's a matter of personal taste.

In any case, I don't see a problem with "Mario". Names change a lot when crossing language borders. "Mario" is closer to "Maria" then the English version "Mary". And none of them are really that close to the original Hebrew name of Miriam.

Esperanto would need a reform if it wants to be considered seriously as a IAL. It doesn't have to be radical. But at least it should do partly what Ido did.

Zamenhof actually did, under pressure from certain groups, publish a series of suggested reforms. They were turned down by the Esperanto speakers of the period.
http://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reformprojekto_de_Zam...

Esperanto is not a dictatorship. After Zamenhof designed the language, he gave it over to the speakers. It has been the Esperanto speakers themselves who have not wanted to reform things. Many constructed languages have died when they tried to reform themselves by force. Speakers fell away, couldn't agree on which reforms to carry out. And in the end, new speakers have been reluctant to learn. If you are reforming the language, why should I learn it at all? Why should I waste my time learning grammar that may be changed? Why don't I just wait until the perfect version? Why bother?

It's doing just fine at what it is: a hobby and nothing more. A IAL should be elaborated by a group of linguists who fully know what they're doing. Esperanto is a very fine effort by a single man, but has too many basic flaws to be taken seriously in its current form.

Lots of good things in history have been thought up by people who weren't professionals in the field, who were just messing around in their spare time and came up with something great.

However, if you truly believe that a linguist will always create a better language than a non-linguist, I suggest you check out something like Novial, which was created by a linguist. There are a bunch of IALs created by linguists, and by committees; I'm sure it will be no problem for you to find plenty of information on them. If someone decides that Esperanto is not for them and prefers to pursue another language, they are certainly welcome to do that.

The fact you can't even type the language properly with a normal keyboard speaks volume. It's normal, a single person can't elaborate alone something so complex.

I can't even type French with my normal keyboard. I also can't type Hebrew. I have to download special keyboard drivers to type them! I guess that must mean it's not worth learning them, since I can't type them with my normal keyboard. Right? As an English speaker whose keyboard contains no diacritics whatsoever, I guess I'm limited to... uh... Latin, English, and those constructed languages that are based on the English alphabet with no diacritics.

But in real life, I downloaded keyboard drivers for whatever languages I needed. My computer has support for French, Italian, and Hebrew, according to my various needs. I could easily install more if I needed to, but I don't. It's not really a big deal, and I'm sure this is standard procedure for people who need to use different languages on a regular basis. The standard Swiss keyboard has support for both German and French letters. I can imagine that if Esperanto use is ever widespread, something similar would happen. Probably the Esperanto letters would be linked to the Alt-Gr key or something. Now that Unicode is fairly widespread, I don't see keyboards as being a big issue.

Plus there are a number of proposals for Esperanto spelling reforms to eliminate the circumflexes. People aren't generally interested in that, though, so none of the proposals have very widespread support. It would be a relatively easy retrofit on the language, though in most cases something would be lost in ease of pronunciation (spelling would no longer be 100% regular, according to most proposals.)

djeepywta:
What significant parts of his rebuttal I've ignored? I answered almost every argument he provided.

The problem is the absence of arguments for your claims. It's hard to debate a point (see title of this thread) without arguments.

If we're going to have a constructive debate about Esperanto's plural marker, or any other attribute, then we need to know the arguments on which your claims rest. For example, "IAL shouldn't have unusual letters, period." That is an assertion, not an argument. Clearly you believe it strongly, but that's not an argument either. Is there any reason why anyone else should believe it? That's what we need, if we're going to have a useful discussion.

Another important point is openness to reforms. Esperanto is in fact open to some reforms, not others. Historically, Esperanto reform projects and other IAL projects with long records of reforms have not fared nearly as well as Esperanto itself. That gives us at least some evidence that fundamental reforms can be corrosive. You'd need to provide some reasons to believe that fundamental reforms would not undo the progress that Esperanto has already made. As awake pointed out, Esperanto is *already functioning* as an IAL, not just a hobby. It's not anywhere near as widely used as English, of course, but it's not clear that that has anything to do with its plural marker, alphabet, or anything of the sort.