Newsgroups: talk.politics.european-union,sci.lang,alt.language.artificial
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From: brg@netcom.com (Bruce R. Gilson)
Subject: Re: Asians & Esperanto
Message-ID: <brgE18nKv.H5r@netcom.com>
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References: <56rhnd$623@acmex.gatech.edu> <848433562snz@vision25.demon.co.uk>
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Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 20:58:06 GMT
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In article <848433562snz@vision25.demon.co.uk>,
Phil Hunt <phil@vision25.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <56rhnd$623@acmex.gatech.edu>
>           pscccsm@prism.gatech.edu "STAN MULAIK" writes:
>>The "success" of
>>Esperanto in drawing adherents seems to me more due to its attraction of
>>a limited but not totally insignificant number of people  to its
>>"one-world culture" than to any particular merits of the language itself.
>
>The reason that there are more users of Esperanto than other auxlangs 
>is quite simple: there is a much wider availability of Esperanto learning 
>material.
>
>A medium-sized bookshop in a large English town is likely to have Esperanto
>matterial such as the "Teach Yourself Esperanto" book. There is likely
>to be no material whatever for any other constructed language, with the 
>possible exception of Klingon.

The same is also true in the USA. I was in a bookstore yesterday and saw three
books on Esperanto: Teach Yourself Esperanto, the companion dictionary, and
another similar instructional book. However, there were a larger number of
books on Romanian or Estonian, and an equal number of books on Basque (and 2
of the 3 on Basque were massive tomes, so in bulk that outdid Esperanto). 

This was, to be sure, a specialized bookstore, with books almost exclusively
on travel and languages. But even so, E-o was the only conlang represented.

I agree with Phil Hunt, however: the reason is not that E-o has any inherent
linguistic advantages, but merely a better distribution system.


                                Bruce R. Gilson
                                email: brg@netcom.com
                                IRC: EZ-as-pi
                                WWW: http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/3141
                                (for language stuff: add /langpage.html)
