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From: Vittorio Barabino <ETHEVBAR@lshtm.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: "Simplified" Arabic as an IAL?
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Date: Tue, 29 Oct 1996 03:10:48 GMT
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71064.332@compuserve.com wrote:
> 
> Esperanto has both people who speak it as a "native" language (the
> so-called "denaskaj esperantistoj") 

Could you introduce me to one of them? I'd like to know one of them... 

> and an original literature of some
> size and apparent high quality, but has not become "universal".  Both
> Latin and Classical Chinese were used for centuries as IAL's despite
> having no new "native speakers".


If you read any document *written* in the Middle Ages, you'll see that any 
*roman-language speaker* considered Latin as the written form of his 
own vernacular language. 

One of the first testimonials of their awareness of the spread between 
"written" latin and vernacular is as late as XI century: a Pope did a speech 
three times, in latin, roman vernacular and "gallic" (ie frank) vernacular... 

As long as the language of diplomacy was latin (replaced by French in XVII), 
German and English courts often employed French or Italian humanists rather 
than their own students. 

So, roman-language speakers were THEN considered as native-latine speakers, 
while we NOW consider latin and vernacular two distinct languages. 


China is a world apart ;-) but maybe the written ideograms are independent 
from the spoken language, so there was no need for mother-language people. 

> So it's hard for me to see how those 2 criteria can be said be either
> necessary or sufficient...

I dont't know in Far East, but for me in West and Middle East they 
(literary monuments and native speakers) are utterly valid... :-)

I tell you more: a rich corpus of literature is inportant to keep a language 
simply alive: here in Britain i see that Welsh are still proud of their 
language, while Scots have forgotten it, despite they have stronger national 
traditions. 
The only explanation is that Welsh have the King Arthur's Epos, and the 
Scots don't... (?) 

> George Partlow.......Delegito de UEA en la alaska regurbo, Juneau (Usono)
> retposxto cxe: <71064.332@compuserve.com>...Pensu terglobe, agu surloke!
> Ekzistas nur 2 klasoj de homoj: tiuj kiuj opinias, ke ekzistas nur 2 klasoj
> de homoj, kaj tiuj kiuj malsamopinias... (Clifford Partlow, 1966)

-- 

Ciao,       |\      _,,,---,,_
   Vittorio /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_
           |,4-  ) )-,_. ,\ (  `'-'
          '---''(_/--'  `-'\_)

