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From: John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org>
Subject: Re: Judging Esperanto
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Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~} wrote:

> So, the ability to construct opposites on the fly  is not an advantage
> of  Esperanto over national langauges (or  other auxlangs).  Beginners
> of other languages have that facility, too!

Well, Esperanto has a specific feature that some languages have
and others lack (both natural and constructed): whatever communicates,
and doesn't violate a short list of grammatical rules, is good
Esperanto.

I once read an anecdote (possibly by Don Harlow) demonstrating this.
The details have become vague to me, but it was about the word
*mallakso*, signifying "the opposite of diarrhea", used by an
Esperanto-speaking passenger on a Chinese train to explain his
symptoms to an Esperanto-speaking Chinese doctor (or possibly via
a translator, but in any event, the word passed through Esperanto).

In English you simply cannot use "anti-diarrhea", but must say
"constipation".  English has zillions of pairs (triples, multiples)
of almost-but-not-quite synonymous terms, too.

Chinese, OTOH, seems to be a lot closer to having
the above-mentioned feature ("loose grammaticality").  Lojban
decidely lacks the feature, as does Standard French.

-- 
John Cowan						cowan@ccil.org
			e'osai ko sarji la lojban
