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From: ah514@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Manuel M Campagna)
Subject: Re: Esperanto nouns
Message-ID: <D7HMrC.Lo1@freenet.carleton.ca>
Sender: ah514@freenet3.carleton.ca (Manuel M Campagna)
Organization: The National Capital FreeNet, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Date: Sun, 23 Apr 1995 12:30:47 GMT
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In Article 15926 harrisd@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu typed recently :

<<
That may be, but Esperanto is clearly Romance-based and in
Romance-based languages, -o generally indicates masculine such that
patrino sounds more like an ink cartridge or a magazine for a weapon
than a mother.
>>

I guess female Japanese Esperantists whose name ends in "-o" will
think you're ethnocentric, and dangerously so. Note also, that an
impressive number of Classical Greek female names end with long "o" in
the nominative singular. Do you think the graceful Hero: (a name
recycled by Shakespeare) was less attractive to her Leande:r because
her name ended with a long "o" ?

To the linguistically naive, "words", whatever that is, make up a
language, and anything else is accessory.

To the linguist, who is a specialist of language, structures of
various kinds at various levels, make up a language. Words come and
go. Hungarian still has no more than 250 originally Turanian words,
yet it is clearly a full member of the Turanian family. Think that in
Hungarian such household words as "house" (ha~z) and "garden" (kert),
for instance, are Germanic in origin. As a matter of fact, most
Hungarian words are either Germanic or Slavic. That doesn't make
Hungarian an Indo-European language.

However, some people stick to the death to folkloric concepts, and
make it a mission to repeat them like a Tibetan prayer mill.

My advice to those who don't like Esperanto is : Choose another
language.

You must be extremely dumb if you think I'm going to agree that the
"-o" indicating nouns in Esperanto indicates masculine. The origin of
that "-o" is NOT Romance but Slavic, where it is the nominative
NEUTRAL ending of the 2nd declension (in Russian). The masculine
Romance "-o" is pronounced like in French "auto" or American English
(approximately) "row". The neutral Slavic ending "-o" is pronounced
(if stressed) exactly as in Esperanto.

<<
I dont' have much against Esperanto. I like it. But I am just pointing
out that having all words in in a certain vowel is outdated and
unnecessary.
>>

Take it as is or leave it and us alone.

<<
In Novial, nouns ending in -o are masucline and in -a feminine. If you
choose -e as your ending, no gender is implied. If you leave the vowel
off altogether, no gender or number is implied. This way, people from
a wide variety of langauge backgrounds can feel more like they are on
an equal footing with those who differentitate for dumb arbitrary
parameters like gender and number.
>>

Go to soc.culture.novial and don't bother us any more and use your
"masucline" and feminine endings.

<<
I'm just trying to get people to see that blind attempts to tout the
superiority of Esperanto make all of us who cultivate a knowledge of
it look like fools.
>>

The proof is in the pudding. How many Unesco Resolutions has Novial
garnered ? How many Universal Congresses of Novial have been held with
how many delegates ? How many books have been published in Novial ?
How many world associations use Novial ? How many international events
are held annually in Novial ? How many Nobel Prizes have been won by
Novialists ? Has the Pope ever used Novial publicly and officially ?
How many worldwide billeting services has Novial ? (There are at least
three in Esperanto). How many specialized associations use Novial ?

Get a life !

Esperanto need not meet the arbitrary criteria of closeted linguists
or folkloric amateurs to be successful. The proof is in the pudding,
and is there to see to those in good faith and of goodwill who do not
veil their faces. I don't care for Philistines and Pharisees.

<<
Face it. It's not the best language to learn.
>>

Explain the success of Esperanto. Explain the failure of all other
projects.

Manuel

                                .
Manuel-M. CAMPAGNA           . . . .              1 613 789 21 11
survey interviewer             . .             Ottawa  ON  Canada
translator (En/It/Eo -> Fr)   .   .     ah514@freenet.carleton.ca
