Newsgroups: sci.lang,alt.politics.ec
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!udel!gatech!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!news.sprintlink.net!news.indirect.com!bud.indirect.com!stevemac
From: stevemac@bud.indirect.com (Pascal MacProgrammer)
Subject: One point against Esperanto
Message-ID: <D5L4vJ.L5y@indirect.com>
Sender: usenet@indirect.com (Internet Direct Admin)
Organization: Department of Redundancy Department
Date: Fri, 17 Mar 1995 12:47:43 GMT
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Not so very long ago, timd@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM (orpheus) said...

>Excuse my ignorance, but what is the objective of Esperanto?  I know that
>it is an invented language with goals of commonality and ease of use...but
>there are no native speakers, right?  There is not, as far as I know, a
>developing body of E-o literature... So, I am wondering, what, if any, are
>the goals and plans for the tongue? 

  The objective is to be a candidate for the universal auxiliary 
language, which can be easily learned by anyone, so that communication 
between any to people can be accomplished without one of them having to 
speak the other's national language.
  As for native speakers, there are a few hundred in the world, but they 
don't have a very large effect on the ongoing evolution of the language.  
Most people learn it as their second (or subsequent) language, and 
generally learn it in a formal class (though I picked it up from books, 
and am using it on the Internet).
  Now ideally, the class-learning aspect means that everyone learns the
same version, instead of learning a not-quite-perfect version from his
parents, and passing this version along not-quite-perfectly to his
children, a tendency that over time leads to local, regional, and national
dialects.  In reality, class materials are created by separate groups and
individuals, but they all work toward teaching the same form of the
language. 
  As for literature, there is an extensive body of literature in
Esperanto, both translated and original, and it is growing.  One use for
the language is to read, in translation, works by authors from varied
national backgrounds without having to learn all their respective
languages. 

  I have a lot of fun with the language, especially attempting to 
translate what others have written.  Esperanto is extremely expressive, 
even with its very small root vocabulary, and it's interesting that so 
often Experanto text is extremely understandable, but sometimes a little 
tricky to translate, because English words cannot always be mangled into 
a form that expresses what the Esperanto words say so easily.

-- 
                              ==----=                    Steve MacGregor
                             ([.] [.])                     Phoenix, AZ
--------------------------oOOo--(_)--oOOo----------------------------------
        Help stamp out, eliminate, and abolish redundancy!
