Newsgroups: talk.politics.european-union,sci.lang,alt.language.artificial
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!rutgers!news.sgi.com!news.mathworks.com!howland.erols.net!netcom.com!elna
From: elna@netcom.com (Esperanto League N America)
Subject: Re: Asians & Esperanto
Message-ID: <elnaE12zD9.9GC@netcom.com>
Organization: Esperanto League for North America, Inc.
References: <55ea49$f2t@nntp1.best.com> <marnen-1411960143480001@dialin-6.croton.bestweb.net> <marnen-1411960153250001@dialin-6.croton.bestweb.net> <56f8ur$93k@boris.eden.com>
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 19:27:08 GMT
Lines: 43
Sender: elna@netcom12.netcom.com

Mark L. Vines <mark.vines@wholefoods.com> writes in a recent posting (reference <56f8ur$93k@boris.eden.com>):
>Curiously, the errors made by my Chinese Eo penpals corresponded
>almost perfectly with the complaints that "sdlee" makes in this forum
>about Eo's design:  inflection, case marking, obligatory number
>marking, obligatory tense marking, noun-adjective agreement & so
>forth.  (That's why I got irritated when someone at ELNA implied that
>"sdlee" might be alone in making these complaints.)
>
Sorry to rankle...
I meant that in recent months on this forum sdlee has been more-or-less
alone in raising these complaints. To be sure, there are plenty of folks
out there more than willing to complain about any topic; but sdlee is 
a lone voice bewailing Esperanto's Eurocentrism these days.

>You know, I should apologize to Bruce Gilson.  I once, & rather
>nastily, berated him for too often listing the flaws in Esperanto. 
>"Eo works well enough," I told him, "& everyone already knows what its
>flaws are."  But it seems clear from this newsgroup thread that such a
>consensus has not, after all, been achieved yet.  That's a pity,
>because the flaws are rather obvious, at least to me.  The linguistic
>engineering community ought to accept Eo as an impressive but obsolete
>proof-of-concept & move on to something better.
>
There seems to be a different set of intentions here: if you are in
search of a "perfect language" then please feel free to invent 
something which will better match your criteria. But if you are
willing to use a non-national, well-designed language with a century
of history, rich literature, millions of speakers, etc. then Esperanto
is your best choice.
The perceived "flaws" are subjective- that is, critics do not agree on
what they are.
Esperanto is not a language project: it is a language! There are hundreds
of conlangs out there which are still in R&D. Perhaps some of them will 
attract your attention as less Eurocentric, more isolating, etc. If your
inclination is to tinker with projects, have at it!
Esperanto is an international language that *works*.


-- 
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 1-888-2-ESPERANTO
