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From: rbcrosie@apgea.army.mil (Ronald B. Crosier)
Subject: Re: Thoughts on IAL Success (long)
Message-ID: <1996Jun10.164213.18894@apgea.army.mil>
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Date: Mon, 10 Jun 96 16:42:13 GMT
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In article <31B929C9.62AB@gold.tc.umn.edu>,
Karl M. Bunday <bunda002@gold.tc.umn.edu> wrote:
>
>Work for what? What does Esperanto work for that any of several natural 
>languages don't work for as well?
>

Education.

Esperanto offers the same educational value that Latin once did, but
without the complications of Latin.  The most obvious educational value
of Latin came from its cognates in English.  English word roots are
60% Latin, 30% Anglo-Saxon, and 10% other languages.  Esperanto offers
vocabulary building value similar to Latin, because the word roots of
Esperanto are 60% Latin (and 25% Germanic, 10% Slavic, 5% other).  Note:

Esperanto            English
 word      meaning   cognate
---------  --------  -------
 muro       wall     mural
 luno       moon     lunar
 legas      read     legible
 viro       man      virile
 
The regular grammar of Esperanto allows more time to be spent on
vocabulary, because no time is wasted memorizing irregular verbs
and other inconsistencies.

Another educational value comes from comparing English grammar
with a foreign grammar.  This helps students understand English
grammar.  Of course, the insight from such comparisons is made
more difficult by irregularities in the foreign language.
IMHO, many students never get any comprehesion of grammar from
foreign language study; trying to map the irregularities of their
native language (which they might not even recognize as irregularities)
to the irregularities of another natural langage becomes a maze in
which they get lost.  So a planned language with regular grammar is
more suitable for such comparisons than national languages are.

A third educational value of a planned language is as preparation for
foreign language study.  English students who studied Esperanto for
one year, followed by French for three years, learned more French than
students who studied French for all four years.
I doubt that Latin or any other natural language could duplicate
this result. (just my opinion!)

In the last five years, 26 elementary/middle schools in the US have
begun to teach Esperanto.  That is mostly due to the hard work of
R. Kent Jones over many years, but the logic and facts supporting
planned languages for educational value do exist.
--
Ronald Crosier    E-mail: <rbcrosie@cbdcom.apgea.army.mil>
Disclaimer: Mi skribas nur por mi mem kaj ne por la registaro.
The USA doesn't have an official language, so how can the government complain?
This post intended as information and entertainment, not as a flame.
