Newsgroups: sci.lang,soc.culture.esperanto
From: philip@storcomp.demon.co.uk (Phil Hunt)
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!news.mathworks.com!news.alpha.net!uwm.edu!math.ohio-state.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!peernews.demon.co.uk!storcomp.demon.co.uk!philip
Subject: Re: One point against Esperanto
Reply-To: philip@storcomp.demon.co.uk
X-Newsreader: Demon Internet Simple News v1.27
Lines: 204
X-Posting-Host: storcomp.demon.co.uk
Date: Sun, 12 Mar 1995 02:44:21 +0000
Message-ID: <794976261snz@storcomp.demon.co.uk>
Sender: usenet@demon.co.uk


In message <9503101955.AA18149@sunbeam.ca.tekelec.com> Marko Rauhamaa writes:

[I hope you don't mind that I have also posted my reply to sci.lang,
soc.culture.esperanto, and the conlang mailing list]

> Saluton!
> 
> (What's "saluton" in Eurolang?)

Felixizu! (which literally means "Become happy!")

> >> Phil, I recommend you thoroughly study a foreign language -
> >> preferably not French - before you create new languages.  Or maybe
> >> you already master several languages.  Anyway, what you write seems
> >> totally centered around the English language.
> 
> Phil> I don't know what you mean. Can you give me an example?
> 
> Well, you said you don't like the accusative nor the agreement of
> numbers and cases:
> 
>    tiu sagxa virino     tiuj sagxaj virinoj
>    tiun sagxan virinon  tiujn sagxajn virinojn
>   (de tiu sagxa virino  de tiuj sagxaj virinoj) the genitive doesn't exist
> 
> Angle:
> 
>    that wise woman     those wise women
>   (that wise woman     those wise women)        the accusative doesn't exist
>    that wise woman's   those wise women's
> 
> We see that the adjectives in English don't have a separate plural form,
> while nouns and pronouns do.  But there is an agreement of number
> between "those" and "women".  How do you say "those wise women" in
> Eurolang? 

da savera femino = that wise woman
da savera feminos = those wise women

> Do Eurolang adjectives have a plural?  

No.

> What about nouns and pronouns?

Nouns form plural by adding -s. (Or -es if the noun already ends in -s) 

Pronouns are a separate root in singular and plural. ie:

singular            plural
--------            --------
me    'I'           nos   'we/us'
tu    you           vos   'you'
he    'he/him'      los   'they/them'
she   'she/her'
it    'it'
on    'one'
ge    'he or she'

 
> We see also that in English there is no case agreement: only the noun
> takes the genitive ending.  Does Eurolang have a genitive?

No. it uses 'de' (=of).
 
> English nouns and adjectives no longer have an accusative form but many
> pronouns do (it is called an objective, though, because it corresponds
> to dative, too).  Do the pronouns of Eurolang have an accusative form?
> Do they have a dative form?  Or do they have an objective form?  How do
> you say "I gave them a lesson" in Eurolang?

Either:
   me lernopab los. = I taught them.
or:
   me donab lernation to los. = I gave (a) lesson to them.

>  How do you say "I saw them"
> in Eurolang?  How do you say "They saw me" in Eurolang?

me vidab los. los vidab me.
 
> How do you say "I read fast" in Eurolang?  And "I'm reading fast"?

"I read fast" is:
   me rapide lire.

To say "I am reading", emphasizing "I am rewading, nowe, this very moment"
would be:
   me presente lire.

So "I'm reading fast" is:
   me presente rapide lire.
 
> How do you say "I've been living here for two years"?

   me habit proxda place per du ans.

This assumes that I still live here. If I have just moved, use "habitab" 
(the past tense) instead.
 
> What are the verb tenses and moods of Eurolang?

Example: "lern" = to learn (infinitive), from which is formed:

me lern = I learn
me lernov = I will learn
me lernab = I learnt
me deja lernab = I had learnt
lernation = an act of learning (ie a lesson)

There are 2 participles:
-er forms the subject participle "someone/thing who learns"
-ed forms the object participle "someone/thing that is learnt"
These are nouns. To make the corresponding adjective just the -a suffix.

They can be preceded by -ov-(future) or -ab-(past).

Example: lernabera means "educated", or more literally: "relating to 
someone who has learned".
 
> >> What about those speaking German, Dutch, Danish and Swedish?
> 
> Phil> There aren't as many of these.
>  
> But certainly you're not going to ignore 100+ million people are you?

No. But more people speak Romance+English than speak German. German 
speakers are no worse off learning a language based on Romance roots 
(since it is unlikely it would be politically acceptable for German to 
the EU's common language), and Romance and English speakers are better off.

> After all Germans are driving Europe's economy and everybody's studying
> German in Eastern Europe.  And what will the Russians say when they
> join?

I expect it will be some time before the Russians join, and if the EU 
already has a common language by then, they will accept it, just as they 
will accept the Ecu.

> 
> At least Esperanto's target is to be easy for everybody.  You seem to be
> saying Esperanto is difficult.

No, I think Esperanto is quite easy. But IMO Eurolang is quite a lot easier
for people with a Romance language (1) (and I expect most Germans know quite
a few Romance roots), and possibly slightly easier for people who don't 
speak any European language (2).

The reason for (2) is that EL should have slightly less roots to learn 
than E-o, because it forms more words from 1 root. Eg:

English        Eurolang       Esperanto
-------        --------       ---------
to eat         mang           mangxi
food           manged         nutrajxo

("nutricious food" in EL would be "sana manged"(healthy food), or
"bona manged"(good food)).


The reasons for (1) are:

The basis behind Eurolang is that English, French, Italian, and Spanish 
share a lot of words. So if a lang is constructed which uses this common
vocabulary, it will be familiar to them. People are often put off learning
langs because it is hard work. 

The design goal of EL is to make it as easy to read as possible for someone
still learning the language who doesn't know much vocabulary, but does know
its grammar (in particular it's rules for word formation). I hope to design
EL such that, after having studied it for one day (this might have to 
be extended to 1 weekend), a reasonably well-educated European should be 
able to read it without too much recourse to a dictionary.

The purpose of this is to take the effort out of learning it. Once someone
can read it reasonably well, they can learn extra vocabulary by using the
language. Of course, being able to produce a lang is more difficult than 
reading it, and will take time and practise, but IMO it is important for
someone to be able to read it as soon as possible, since then they can 
begin to find it useful.

That is why EL uses "qu", "x", "c" in words like "aquo", "export", "carn": 
so that the words look as familiar as possible, and people can guess they
mean "water", "export", "meat".
 
> Phil> Eurolang spelling is certainly a lot easier than English, although
> Phil> there are alternate spellings for particular sound-combinations eg
> Phil> /ks/ could in principle be written "x" or "ks" or "cs".
> 
> Even Spanish is more consistent than that.

Eurolang is not designed so that the spelling can be inferred from the
pronunciation. It is designed to be as easy to read as possible, and a
1-to-1 correspondence from pronunciation to spelling is secondary to
that. (The pronunciation can however be inferred from the spelling).

{Eurolang is still being developed, so some of the examples I've given
above are likely to change}.

-- 
Phil Hunt...philip@storcomp.demon.co.uk
"on no pos fac omelet, opcum brekigation ovums"

