Newsgroups: soc.culture.esperanto,sci.lang
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!news.mathworks.com!udel!gatech!swrinde!pipex!lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk!warwick!uknet!festival!edcogsci!iad
From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Subject: Re: One point against Esperanto
Message-ID: <D5xrKt.FD9@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK
References: <3jq7ch$jr0@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> <3jq8vn$h0s@blackrabbit.cs.uoregon.edu> <1995Mar14.082029.16036@guvax>
Distribution: inet,world
Date: Fri, 24 Mar 1995 08:29:14 GMT
Lines: 34

In article <1995Mar14.082029.16036@guvax> harrisd@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu writes:
>The claim that Esperanto is easier to learn than any other European language

Somehow I think we've dealt with this before.

Why do you call Esperanto a European language?  It is not the native
language of any European nation.  There are Esperanto speakers in Europe,
but there are Japanese speakers in Europe also, and that does not make
Japanese a European language.

And if you're referring to its vocabulary, then there are scores of other
constructed languages which are just as European, and I'm not sure that
Esperanto is easier than all of them.

> and, hence, any other language, stands.

It doesn't.  You haven't proven that all non-European languages are
harder than Dutch.

> Italian may be easy to pronounce, but in the time it takes you to 
>learn all the ways that the definite articles combines with the 
>preposition "de" you will have learned one fourth to one half of the 
>rules of Esperanto.

Interesting.  I'm told I speak and write Italian well, yet I've never
spent a single minute learning the ways in which the definite article
combines with the preposition _de_.  Then again, I've never spent any
time on the rules of Esperanto either, so you're right after all. :-)

-- 
`"Na, na ... ah mean, *no wey*, wi aw due respect, ma lady," stammers Joe.'
Ivan A Derzhanski (iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk)    (J Stuart, _Auld Testament Tales_)
* Centre for Cognitive Science,  2 Buccleuch Place,   Edinburgh EH8 9LW,  UK
* Cowan House E113, Pollock Halls, 18 Holyrood Pk Rd, Edinburgh EH16 5BD, UK
