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Subject: Re^2: Single European Language (irregularity)
Date: Sun, 18 Jun 1995 23:00:00 +0000
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*john.youles* meinte im Brett /ALT/POLITICS/EC
am        : *18.06.95* um *12:05*
zum Thema : *Re: Single European Language*

jy>Esperanto was a good attempt at creating an international language, it
jy>has some good features but many bad.

Can you tell me another language which has less bad features?
A russian friend of mine who learns German, is not very happy with it.

jy>On the good side, the grammar is perfectly regular and you can create new
jy>words by means of affixes, e.g. "hundo" = dog, "hundino" = bitch,
jy>"hundito" = puppy, "hundejo" = kennel.  I'm not sure if the verb to dog
jy>means anything, but if it did you'd use "hundi".  Verbs have participles

Maybe you can think yourself about something called "to doggy".

jy>in all tenes and both voices, unlike English were the present participle
jy>is active and the past is passive, and there is no future participle at
jy>all.
jy>
jy>On the bad side, there's an affix for female ("-ino"), but not for male;

There is already something called "Riismo" in Esperanto, adding a  
masculine affix. (I personally do not agree, but I would still talk to  
you in Esperanto if you would learn it and use the affix "icha" for  
male things like sinjoricho-sinjorino instead of sinjoro-sinjorino.

jy>so you can have a word for feminine ("ina") but not masculine (unless you
jy>use "malina"); to have to use the "ge-" prefix to indicate a group of

The word "malina" is very cute I think, because it fits into the  
pattern bela-malbela, rapida-malrapida.
But if you want you can use "vira" for male. vira bebo - ina bebo
viro=man   virino=woman                      babyboy      babygirl

jy>mixed sex seems clumsy.  Also, you might be forgiven if you thoght that
jy>all words ending in "-ino" were female, but the word "vino" means wine.

So you would also forbid the words mi=I, vi = you, shi=she, ni=we and  
so on, because "i" is the ending of the infinitve form of verbs?

As far as I remember, Zamenhof said that he had to take some (not  
many) irregularities into Esperanto, so that it sounds better, and not  
so mechanical or artificial.

jy>If an articial language is required, and I can see many advantages, then
jy>it should lend itself for automatic translation to / from natural
jy>languages.  A new language, perhaps a reformed Esperanto, might fit the
jy>bill.

Well, you could learn Ido, this is already reformed Esperanto, but  
they reformed it already at the beginning of the century. And you  
could find out about several Esperantist, like Roy McCoy as far as I  
remember, who advertise their reform projects in Esperanto magazines.  
:-) You would be a good friend of his.

But the best advantage of Esperanto is, that it is already spoken in  
about every bigger city in Europe.
Sed la avantajho de Esperanto estas ke ghi estas parolata en chiu  
granda urbo en Europo.

Diana

"Birdo flugas kaj bedaurinde forgesas pepi."
diana@access.owl.de
