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From: pardoej@lonnds.ml.com (Julian Pardoe LADS LDN X1428)
Subject: Re: Concerning the number of esperantists
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Organization: Merrill Lynch Europe
References: <7f7mr99ncu.fsf@wisdom.cs.hku.hk>
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Date: Wed, 14 Aug 1996 14:13:08 GMT
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu bit.listserv.slovak-l:21420 sci.lang:59982

In article <7f7mr99ncu.fsf@wisdom.cs.hku.hk>, sdlee@cs.hku.hk (Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}) writes:
-->One more irregularity  (or  abnormalie or whatever):   The conjunctive
-->"dum"   has  two different,   independent,  unrelated uses.   Both are
-->translated by  the  English word "while".   However,  one of the  uses
-->shows chronological relationship between two clauses (as in "The phone
-->rang *while*  I was having a bath"),  *while* the other use just shows
-->contrast (as in this sentence).

What about "krom"?  It translates "besides X" (implying X does it too)
and "apart from X" (usually implying that X doesn't).

-->Another irregularity is the  use of  "hospitalo"  instead of  the more
-->logical "malsanulejo".  Expect  more  irregularities of  this  type to
-->evolve.

There are a lot of words like this in Eo!  What is an oceano if not a marego?
And isn't a lago just a mareto?  Why not call a kooperativo a kunlaborantaro?
I've heard a Japanese complain about the "obviously international" word
futbalo.  It's not international to him!  He'd rather we said "piedpilkludo"!

And why does Eo need two roots arkitekturo and arkitekto?  Surely the language's
derivational system is powerful enough to derive one from the other.  And if
Volapuk can derive bumav and bumavan from the root bum- (build) can't Eo
use konstruarto and konstruartisto?

The question is: How far do you go?  People mock Volapuk just because it
says bumavan instead of arkitekto!

Eo's vocabulary is full of "unnecessary" words like this and I'm afraid that
you're right: the number will probably increase.  I see "poetic" words such
as olda creeping into ordinary usage.  I guess it's most just the laziness
of Europeans.  It's easy to Esperantize a word from your own language or
English or French than it is to think.

-->The agglutinative morphology is also ambiguous.  This is because it is
-->not trivial to separate a compound word  into the component morphemes.
-->Should "pomarbaro" be decomposed as "po-mar-bar-o" or "pomar-bar-o" or
-->or "pom-arb-ar-o"?  Even if I have a dictionary  on hand, I would have
-->problems decomposing  and looking up this  word, if I  don't know this
-->word beforehand.

This is a problem.  However it's also the basis for as lot of jokes.

   Kial ghirafo neniam sentas sin sola?

   Char chiu ghirafo havas sian kolegon.

Kolego = koleg+o, colleague or kol+eg+o, big neck.  Or this one, uttered
spontabeously by a friend at the Londona Esperanto-Klubo when the chairman
announced a forum:

   Chu pli bone forumi au umi for?

There are also occasions where it's not so much the boundaries of morphemes
the associativity of bindings between morphemes that is a problem.  Normally
a compound X+Y+o can be analysed as (X+Y)+o but sometimes an analysis along
the lines of X+(Y+o) seems more accurate and then it seems that the word
is missing its ending.  What we want is (X+(Y+o))+o.  Perhaps one o swallows
the other.

This may be an effect of the missing noun-suffix (to accompany the verbal
suffix -ad- and the adjectival -ec-).  Does acidigi mean igi acida or
igi acido?  Some have proposed -on- for this role, giving acidonigi for
igi acido.

-->Lee Sau Dan

It's nice to have someone criticize Esperanto from a basis of knowledge
rather than one of prejudice!!  There are a lot of interesting issues
in the Interlingua/Ido/Esperanto/... debate but so often all you get
is meaningless stuff like "Esperanto isn't a real language".

Dankon -- jP.


