Newsgroups: sci.lang
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From: elna@netcom.com (Esperanto League N America)
Subject: Re: languages & happiness!!
Message-ID: <elnaE4uML1.G9M@netcom.com>
Organization: Esperanto League for North America, Inc.
References: <853605030.2652@dejanews.com> <32E8F9C2.4FDA@sn.nono> <5cc1er$hts@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <32EA0F8C.1A57@sn.nono>
Date: Fri, 31 Jan 1997 01:24:36 GMT
Lines: 34
Sender: elna@netcom6.netcom.com

ablehr@sn.nono writes in a recent posting (reference <32EA0F8C.1A57@sn.nono>):
>
>To me the concept of a constructed language is as repulsive as the
>concept of fake flowers.  Fake flowers serve the purpose of "being
>beautiful" just as well as real ones, but if you smell it, it has no
>scent, it's dead. 

You are distracted by your own metaphor.

>       Constructed languages may very well serve the purpose
>of supporting communication, but for someone who enjoys languages for
>their "scent" (i.e., the roots of the language in a time and era long
>gone, the silent people who have been speaking it for thousands of years
>and how they and their history and culture have contributed to bringing
>the language to where it is today, &c.), they're as dead as a plastic
>flower.
>
How is history like a scent? If you compared it to the root, I would
be happy to agree!

>This is, of course, my very own, very subjective opinion.
>
Of course, you are welcome to opinion; but I suggest that some aspects of
this opinion are based in prejudice-- opinion requires experience. How
much do you know about Esperanto? How much of you opinion is based on
extrapolation from your experience of plastic flowers?



-- 
Miko SLOPER              elna@netcom.com              USA  (510) 653 0998
Direktoro de la          ftp.netcom.com:/pub/el/elna   fax (510) 653 1468 
Centra Oficejo de la     Learn Esperanto! Free lessons: e-mail/snail-mail
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