Newsgroups: sci.lang,alt.politics.ec
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!news.mathworks.com!uunet!newsflash.concordia.ca!CC.UMontreal.CA!news.Umontreal.CA!hinsenk
From: hinsenk@cyclone.ERE.UMontreal.CA (Hinsen Konrad)
Subject: Re: One point against Esperanto
In-Reply-To: scharle@lukasiewicz.cc.nd.edu's message of 5 Mar 1995 15:25:01 GMT
Message-ID: <HINSENK.95Mar7155741@cyclone.ERE.UMontreal.CA>
Sender: news@cc.umontreal.ca (Administration de Cnews)
Organization: Universite de Montreal
References: <D4wsoy.7y3@indirect.com> <D4y7Jv.C7M@cwi.nl> <3jcl4d$kqe@news.nd.edu>
Date: Tue, 7 Mar 1995 20:57:41 GMT
Lines: 36

       In browsing through the discussion on Esperanto, this occurred to
   me.  Many people have trouble with the English sound-system, especially
   those who speak Chinese or Japanese.  I don't mean this to be a flame, 
   but how do people handle the foreign sounds of Esperanto?

It is certainly more difficult for them than for most Europeans, but
it is still easier than learning to pronounce any other European
language, especially English.
Since phonetically Esperanto is rather similar to Italian and
Spanish, the problems people have pronouncing these languages
should give you a fair indication on how they get along with
Esperanto.

       If I were to invent a language that was to be easy to learn, I'd
   think of restricting the syllables as narrowly as this: initials 
   k l m n s t 0, medials a ai/e au/o i u, and finals n 0.  Just about any
   other syllable might cause difficulty to speakers of some major 
   language.  (BTW, don't worry, I'm not about to try to invent a new 
   language. :-))

One problem with this approach is that you could practically not
borrow words from existing languages. In the history of Esperanto
this was quite important - in the first years there were no
definitions of word meanings obtained from actual use (there
simply was no actual use), so the meanings of the root words
in the languages they were borrowed from had to serve as a
guideline.

--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Konrad Hinsen                     | E-Mail: hinsenk@ere.umontreal.ca
Departement de chimie             | Tel.: +1-514-343-6111 ext. 3953
Universite de Montreal            | Fax:  +1-514-343-7586
C.P. 6128, succ. A                | Deutsch/Esperanto/English/Nederlands/
Montreal (QC) H3C 3J7             | Francais (phase experimentale)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
