Newsgroups: sci.lang
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From: elna@netcom.com (Esperanto League N America)
Subject: Re: languages & happiness!!
Message-ID: <elnaE5vpMt.JKF@netcom.com>
Organization: Esperanto League for North America, Inc.
References: <853605030.2652@dejanews.com> <elnaE5K2wu.94G@netcom.com> <3306506A.2C77@scruznet.com> <AF2E91AE9668230FD2@max1-39.hk.super.net>
Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 02:01:41 GMT
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Sender: elna@netcom10.netcom.com

dcmsin@hk.super.net (Desmond Sin) writes in a recent posting (reference <AF2E91AE9668230FD2@max1-39.hk.super.net>):
>
>Just the other day, seeing that there are actually people writing in
>Esperanto in this newsgroup, I thought "Hey, it would be a cool thing to
>learn some Esperanto!". So I dug out my Esperanto book. I got to about p.3
>or about plurals and decided to give up. Chinese doesn't have plurals. Nor
>does Japanese. Why would a language which is meant to be easy to learn
>still retain such a thing?
>
Because Esperanto is not Chinese! It is Esperanto. Chinese marks pluralness
by using a separate word (as does Japanese and many other languages) while
Esperanto uses an ending. Well, what do you expect from an agglutinative
language? Of course it behaves differently from an isolating language!

This is a strange concept-- that an isolating structure is somehow simpler
than one which synthesizes. And the "reason"? ... because it is isolating!

If you look at the Great Wall of China, do you dismiss it because "all
truely great buildings rise up massively to the sky"? Or do you judge it
on its own merit?  Prejudice is often counterproductive.

>And what an enlighted choice to choose "j" to indicate plurals. Pardon my
>ignorance but I've not seen a plural ending in "j" in my life. 

Look at Greek....  Feminine plural nominative (if I recall correctly)
is -ai which in Esperanto is spelled -aj. Masc. plural nom. is -oi
which becomes -oj. Ho potomos ==> hoi potomoi.

>      I don't like
>this letter either because it's pronounced differently in different
>languages. 

But it is always pronounced the *same* way in Esperanto. Learn it
but once-- no exceptions!

> If this is the easy part, I wonder what other Esperanto niceties
>there are in store for me... 
>
The hard part is giving up prejudice and pushing beyond page 3!
-- 
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
Esperanto-Ligo de N.A.   Write to above address or call:  1-800-ESPERANTO
