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From: Nick Rezmerski <rezm0001@gold.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: Re: ESPERANTO - SPAM SPAM SPAM, SPAM SPAM SPAM
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Date: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 15:49:21 GMT
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Jeff Bishop <jbishop@babel.ling.nwu.edu> wrote:
>
> On 24 Feb 1995, giuseppe castelli wrote:
> 
> > mintaka@alnilam.toppoint.de (Bernd P.F. Kassler) writes:
> > After two weeks of self study, my written esperanto was better than my
> > english. After one week of spoken practice, I could buy anything with
> > esperanto. Wouldn't it be better to have a common _simple_ language
> > so that everybody could communicate everywhere after a six-months
> 
> Dream on - it will never happen.  Nice pipe-dream, though.  Most of the 
> trouble people have learning languages is not going to go away simply 
> because we pick an artificial language instead.  For many, myself 
> included, the artificiality of the language poses its own roadblock - I 
> don't mind going to the trouble of learning a foreign language when I 
> recognize its function as the primary means of communication for another 
> culture.  Esperanto lacks this justification; the best a student can tell 
> himself (truthfully) is that it COULD be useful for communication if 
> everyone else learned it and used it, which they don't and won't.

Time will tell.
 
> [other points omitted]
>
> > > 3. read: I meant *human* communication by means of a dead language. By  
> > > "human" I mean a communication including feelings (and not only bits/ 
> > > bytes)
> > 
> > I think I see some prejudice here. Study how people for all this century
> > expressed their feelings, wrote poetry, had friends, had sex, formed
> > families all over the world with Esperanto, and then tell me if it's
> > a *dead* language!
> 
> You were right in sensing a prejudice - he was being too generous.  Latin 
> is a dead language, meaning that it once was a living language.  
> Esperanto was never alive in the first place, but for a small cult of 
> true believers.

Yeesh! And people accuse us Esperanto enthusiasts of being insulting.
BTW, the Esperanto-speaking community is currently much larger than a
number of ancient societies ever were.

> Besides, if a culture did evolve which spoke Esperanto as a native 
> language, guess what would happen to the language!  That's right, the 
> same thing that has happened to all natural languages.

Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean.  Do you mean it will diverge into
dialects?  On what do you base this?

> > This is a matter of opinion. If democracy and culture are necessary, a
> > 2nd international language is necessary, 
> 
> That does not make any sense at all.
> 
> > and Esperanto is so far the best one for this purpose.
> 
> Sez you.  But few agree - most prefer the language with a large number of 
> speakers over one with almost none.

So learn that too.  Do you know Chinese yet?

> > > If you like Esperanto, it is OK with you; but then it should be regarded  
> > > more like a religion than like a language :-)
> > 
> > ? Why? This is a very strong statement! Try to prove it...
> 
> Don't be silly - it's up to you to prove its relevance, just as the 
> burden of proof is on the religionist to prove his religion is true.  The 
> skeptic does not have to justify his skepticism; the believer must 
> provide evidence to overcome it.
> 
> > Esperanto is a language, nothing less, nothing more.
> 
> Therefore, there is no more reason to adopt it than any other language.
> Let's start with one that most of us already speak, OK?

"Most of us?"  Do you mean English?  I'm a native English speaker, and
even I know that we're not in a majority worldwide.  What do you mean by
"most of us?"  Most of us English speakers?  That does make sense.

Sorry, I can't read this as anything but linguistic snobbery.  It's the
kind of conceit that gives English a bad name in some places.

On the other hand, many Esperantists may be guilty of the same thing.

  - Nick@Nite (Nikolaso)
    rezm0001@gold.tc.umn.edu - University of Minnesota
    Opinions are mine, not those of the University of Minnesota
    (So don't tell them what I said!)    
