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From: brg@netcom.com (Bruce R. Gilson)
Subject: Judging Esperanto
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Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 11:17:45 GMT
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(Posted to the auxlang list and to alt.language.artificial, as well, for
propagation reasons, to sci.lang, though the phrase "specific fora like this, devoted to artificial languages," does not apply there.)

Esperantists like to judge their language by different criteria, depending
on what will make their language look good. As a result we see a mixed bag
of comparisons.

When someone points out that dozens of constructed languages have been devel-
oped that are simpler, easier to learn to use, etc., Esperantists like to
claim that theirs is "not just a language project" like Novial, Occidental,
etc.; it is a "real language" with original literature, native speakers,
daily broadcasts, etc. And therefore it cannot be tinkered with any more
than Spanish, English, etc.

But when someone tries to compare Esperanto with national languages, and
points out that, with estimates of numbers of speakers ranging from 50,000
to 2 million, the number of Esperantists is smaller (at the least) than the
population of Turkmenistan, and with the smaller estimates smaller than a
quarter of the population of Malta, so the number of speakers I could reach
by learning Turkmen or Maltese would be greater, then Esperantists say, "No,
you have to compare it with the number of speakers of IALs, not with the
number of speakers of Maltese, and E-o outdistances the sum total of all
other IAL speakers."

You can't have it both ways. And either you judge it against natlangs, in
which case I see no reason to learn E-o, since I can't reach anyone with it
(outside of specific fora like this, devoted to artificial languages, I have
run across exactly ONE Esperantist in 50+ years of my life, and he could be
reached in both English and French as well!), or you judge it against
proposals for world interlanguages, in which case I would rather teach people
Novial (or even Ido), which is so much easier, and reach a larger number of
prospective learners (since I could give people a working knowledge of Novial
in a third the time, of of Ido in half the time).

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