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From: elna@netcom.com (Esperanto League N America)
Subject: Re: Difficulties of Esperanto
Message-ID: <elnaDx8EuB.6JD@netcom.com>
Organization: Esperanto League for North America, Inc.
References: <4v08hq$9ss@sunburst.ccs.yorku.ca> <Pine.SUN.3.94.960902092453.3820B-100000@access5.digex.net> <7fk9ud3p4b.fsf@w <7fd904p026.fsf@wisdom.cs.hku.hk>
Date: Wed, 4 Sep 1996 23:34:59 GMT
Lines: 41
Sender: elna@netcom19.netcom.com

sdlee@cs.hku.hk (Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}) writes in a recent posting (reference <7fd904p026.fsf@wisdom.cs.hku.hk>):

>Zamenhof is forgivable  for  copying difficult European features  into
>Esperanto.   Zamenhof might  not even  have  the chance  to learn  any
>non-IndoEuropean and non-Semitic languages.    Did he know Chinese  or
>some Oriental  langauges, his designed  language would  have been more
>perfect, because the great differences between Oriental and Occidental
>languages  would have shed  much more light on   him.  For example, he
>might have abandoned   grammatical number  in   his design  if  he had
>realized  that languages   without   grammatical number  were  totally
>feasible.
>
Do you really mean to suggest that the distinction between "horse" and 
"horses" can be ignored in a useful language? Or between "he" and "they"?
Is not the distinction of singular/plural a universal?
>
>Wake up!   It's now the  20-th century,  and we're stepping  into  the
>21-st.  Eurocentric IAl language projects are now obsolete.  Languages
>like Esperanto   are  not international  enough.    Esperanto  doesn't
>deserve  the  name  "lingvo   internacia".   It  is  nothing   but  an
>intra-European  language.  Europe is  just  a small part  of the whole
>world.
>
Can you suggest a more suitable IAL? If people do not accept a planned
language in this context, it is likely that English will continue to 
expand into that role. Is English "international enough"?  You have
obviously already mastered the language; but what about your fellow
countrymen who have not? Do you think it fair that they must master
such a difficult language and then compete with others for whom it is
a native tongue?

You also miss one of the biggest advantages of Esperanto: introduction
to the Latin alphabet and European languages in general. If Esperanto
were more of an international hodge-podge, with wordstock lifted from
Chinese, Algonquin, Quechua, Telugu, etc it would not serve well as a
propaedeutic for the eventual scholar of French, German, English etc.
-- 
Miko SLOPER                   elna@netcom.com         USA  (510) 653 0998
Direktoro de la          ftp.netcom.com:/pub/el/elna   fax (510) 653 1468 
Centra Oficejo de la     Learn Esperanto! Free lessons: e-mail/snail-mail
Esperanto-Ligo de N.A.      Write to above address or call 1-800-828 5944
