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From: donh@netcom.com (Don HARLOW)
Subject: Re: Esperanto? The EU? (Very, very long)
Message-ID: <donhD449JB.2qG@netcom.com>
Organization: Esperanto League for North America, Inc.
References: <donhD3v8EG.275@netcom.com> <DG.95Feb13155548@lambek.sfs.nphil.uni-tuebingen.de>
Distribution: inet
Date: Thu, 16 Feb 1995 23:35:35 GMT
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Sender: donh@netcom5.netcom.com

dg@lambek.sfs.nphil.uni-tuebingen.de (Dale Gerdemann) skribis en lastatempa afisxo <DG.95Feb13155548@lambek.sfs.nphil.uni-tuebingen.de>:
>In article <donhD3v8EG.275@netcom.com> donh@netcom.com (Don HARLOW) writes:
>
>   REAL LANGUAGES EVOLVE, AND ESPERANTO HASN'T ... HAS IT?
>
>   [Stuff Deleted in which Don Harlow convinces us that Esperanto
>   evolves]
>
>In part Mr Harlow is writing in response to claims made by me. But
>this is a little unfair since I claimed all along that Esperanto, like
>all languages, must evolve. 
>
My impression was that you claimed that it must ... but doesn't.

>   (2) And, once the EU had decided "in principle" to adopt Esperanto, 
>   who's to guarantee that a couple of Eurocrats, munching at a McDonald's 
>   in Brussels, would not decide to "repair" the language. A century of use 
>   has shown that "repairs" (they are commonly called "reforms") are 
>   generally the products of people who read through _Teach Yourself 
>   Esperanto_ once, decide that because Zamenhof didn't do it in the same 
>   way the French do he was dead wrong, and set out to fix up the language. 
>   In other words, most proposed reforms of Esperanto are definitely _not_ 
>   for the better. Mostly they end up in the garbage can ("dustbin", if you 
>   prefer) of history. The EU would have the clout to ensure that, good or 
>   bad, this would not happen.
>
>First of all, I apoligize for removing the context, but I don't think
>I've altered the point that Mr. Harlow is making. 
>
>Mr. Harlow has already made the point that Esperanto evolves and
>here's he comes to the next logical conclusion that the changes to
>Esperanto are not neceessarily improvements. Again, I agree with the
>point he is making.
>
>All languages are shaped by potentially contradictory social forces.
>If the EU doesn't "fix" Esperanto, then maybe someone else will. Even
>if you point to Esperanto and say gee-whiz all the changes so far have
>been improvements, this provides no guarantee that future changes will
>also be improvements.
>
>Now then, the paradox that I pointed out is this: Esperanto can
>succeed only by failing. Esperanto succeeds by adding more and more
>users of the language. But this increases the contradictory social
>forces on the language. Hence the language fails to provide the
>logically clean language that all of those users were looking for.
>
(1) It is not clear that most people who learn Esperanto are looking 
for a "logically clean language" -- whatever that may be. Most of 
them are looking for a language that is (a) useful and (b) very easy 
to learn (often by self-instruction).

Which leads us to question (2): have the evolutionary forces at work 
on Esperanto obviated either of these two points? Answer: (1) obviously, 
more and more users make the language more and more useful; (2) but 
the evolution of the language so far indicates that (except for the 
perhaps unavoidable increase in basic roots) such evolution has, in 
fact, _simplified_ it rather than making it more difficult. Good 
example of this is the battle over the word for "computer". Those who 
pushed "komputero" and "komputoro", words which would require a brand 
new (and unnecessary) root have lost in favor of the generally-used 
"komputilo" which recycles an already extant root (and one which, even 
in its original meaning, was peculiarly appropriate to a digital 
machine) which is much more productive in terms of the formation of 
new words. Similarly, the gradual adoption of -IO for country names 
in place of the old -UJO apparently presages a rationalization of 
the system of naming countries. And the truncation of nouns in -CIO 
to shorter verb roots is, again, a rationalization of the system.

The assumption that what we may call "democratic evolution" is going 
to lead to recomplication is not supported by the facts of the matter.


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