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From: donh@netcom.com (Don HARLOW)
Subject: Re: Artificial languages Re: Esperanto (was: Refusing to ....)
Message-ID: <donhCwnnz4.LDM@netcom.com>
Organization: Esperanto League for North America, Inc.
References: <35hl1t$pun@panix2.panix.com> <CwC25v.EqM@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> <35i6b4$gsr@panix2.panix.com> <CwFtxB.KAx@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>
Date: Sat, 24 Sep 1994 22:33:04 GMT
Lines: 40

iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski) skribis en lastatempa afisxo <CwFtxB.KAx@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>:
>In article <35i6b4$gsr@panix2.panix.com> rcpj@panix.com (Pierre Jelenc) writes:
>>
>>In 1887, even in 1900 perhaps, Esperanto worked the way Zamenhof
>>designed it. This is emphatically not true anymore, because it has
>>evolved naturally.
>
>Yes, it has evolved away from its artificially created initial stage,
>which is different from whatever natural languages have evolved from.
>We don't know what their initial stage was or how it came into being,
>we can only build theories about this, and for the building, testing,
>revision etc. of such theories we draw evidence from them.  Ditto for
>theories of how they work at the present stage.  We believe that they
>do not vary indefinitely; they all share certain regularities, and by
>observing them we can make guesses as to what those regularities are.
>French is one of the languages to which linguists often turn for data
>-- Esperanto isn't.  Will you claim that there is no reason for this?
>
Ummm ... so there are some five thousand (give or take four thousand) 
"natural" languages out there about which linguist know nothing about 
initial conditions and very little about their overall evolutionary 
process, and they draw data from these languages -- but ignore one 
language whose initial conditions and evolution, in use, is well 
documented.

No wonder they only had one (introductory) course in linguistics at 
the science-and-engineering school that I attended. 

>Also, I wonder how natural the evolution of a language is if it is not
>the native language of the vast majority of its speakers, nor anyone's
>sole language.
>
Good question. Might be worth trying to find out the answer. Might throw 
some light on the evolution of the other kind.

-- 
Don HARLOW			donh@netcom.com
Esperanto League for N.A.       elna@netcom.com (800) 828-5944
ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/elna/elna.html         Esperanto
ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/donh/donh.html 
