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From: pardoej@lonnds.ml.com (Julian Pardoe LADS LDN X1428)
Subject: Re: Single European Language
Message-ID: <DA23Cz.Gry@tigadmin.ml.com>
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Reply-To: pardoej@lonnds.ml.com
Organization: Merrill Lynch Europe
References: <802728149snz@storcomp.demon.co.uk>
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 10:48:35 GMT
Lines: 72

In article <802728149snz@storcomp.demon.co.uk>, Phil Hunt <philip@storcomp.demon.co.uk> writes:
>> The obvious choice would have been English, but the British government has 
>> pissed off the rest of the EU that English is now unlikely to be chosen.
>
>Agreed.
>
>> Another problem with English is that it would only encourage the sort of
>> people who complain, when they go to France or wherever, that they don't
>> speak English there.
>
>Also I think some French people (for example the ones who want to
>keep English words out of French) would object.

They (and the French government) certainly would!

The way I heard it was: Everyone would be happy if English became the
de facto working language of the EU except for the French.  So we could
allow French alongside English, but if the French get French the Germans
would insist on German and if the Germans got German the Italians would
insist on Italian...

Of course, that was before the collapse of the GDR and reunification.
I get the feeling that the Germans are rather more linguistically
self-assertive now.  (And that in ten years' time we'll find that
Germain is once again the lingua franca of Eastern Europe...but that's
another story...) 

>One problem with Esperanto is that the spelling is not what would be
>most familiar to speakers of western European languages. Example:
>there is an Esperanto word "akvo". 
>
>Without looking ahead, try to guess what this word means.
>
>[...]
>
>In fact, it means water and is derived from the Latin "aqua". However
>E-o cannot use the spelling "aqua", because (1) all E-o nouns end 
>in "o", (2) E-o doesn't use the letter "q". Also there is no /w/
>sound in E-o (the Latin word is pronounced /akwa/), so E-o uses the 
>combination "kv" for words derived from Latin which have "qu" in 
>them.
>
>Also a lots of words which English, French, Italian, Spanish etc
>spell with a "c", Esperanto spells with a "k".

I find this rather a bogus argument.  The language which is easiest
to decipher without any knowledge is not necessarily the one which
is easiest to speak or write once one has studied it.  (And in any
case preferring "qu" for [kw]/[kv] and "c" for [k] shows a strong
West-European bias (and even the Dutch have "kwaliteit")!

Having all nouns end in "-o" is one of the great simplifying factors
in Esperanto; breaking that rule so a few words could take the same
ending as in Latin or whatever would hardly make the language simpler.
If someone finds that having to write "skribas" rather than "scribas"
makes the language significantly more difficult then they're unlikely
ever to be able to use the language effectively!

..and then there's the problem of "c" before "e" or "i".  Given "vencas"
do we write "venkis" or "venquis" or "vencis" or "venckis" or...

...but I've had this argument with Phil before.  For a good analysis
of why sticking close to Romance langauges makes things easier in a
superficial way but actually tends to make things harder, see "Plan-
lingvaj Problemoj".  (Unfortunately, I don't know the names of the
author or publisher.)

-- jP --




