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From: brg@netcom.com (Bruce R. Gilson)
Subject: Re: Eurolang v. Interlingua (was: Improving Esperanto)
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Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 08:18:54 GMT
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In article <32422B1D.5F38@introweb.nl>,
Hans Kamp  <hanskamp@introweb.nl> wrote:
>Phil Hunt wrote:
>> 
>> Oh, it means "breakable". The EL-root for "break" is _brek_ which
>> I'm sure most EU citizens will find easier to learn than frang-.
>
>Eurolang indeed looks like Esperanto in this respect. Therefore it is a
>more respectable international language than Interlingua. The words in
>Interlingua are almost al of Latin origin. The words in Esperanto and -
>as I see now - Eurolang are of mixed origin. 'brek' is of Germanic
>origin:
>
>English		To break
>Dutch		Breken
>Afrikaans	Breek
>German		Brechen
>Eurolang	Brek
>
>The Esperanto word however is of Latin origin: 'rompi'
>
>French		Romper
>Esperanto	Rompi
>
>> I have determined EL-roots by deciding, for each meaning, what word
>> will be the most recognisable by EU citizens, particularly university-
>> educated ones. Take, for example the meaning "find". In the main
>> EU languages this is:
>> 
>> Eng: find
>> Fr:  trouver
>> Ger: finden
>> Sp:  encontrar
>> It:  trovare
>
>And Esperanto: trovi
>
>> 
>> So "find" and "trov" are candidate roots. However, English and
>> German together have more speakers in the EU than French and Italian,
>> so "find" is chosen.
>
>And 'find' is of Germanic origin:
>
>Dutch		Vinden
>English		Find
>German		Finden
>Eurolang	Find
>
>> Interlingua is based on Romance languages. There is nothing wrong
>> with having an IAL based on Romance languages. 
>
>And I, that has a Germanic native language, are in the cold. This makes
>Interlingua difficult for me to learn. The English language is easier
>for me than Interlingua, because it has many Germanic characteristics.
>Esperanto is easier for me than English, though.
>
>> However, most EU
>> citizens have a Germanic language as their L1, so an ideal IAL for
>> the European Union will use Germanic vocabulary when that will be
>> more recognisable than the equivalent Romance term. This is what EL
>> does, but IL's design principles are different, making it less
>> suitable for the EU. (This is not a criticism of IL, anymore than one
>> would criticise a plane for not being able to float or a ship for
>> not being able to fly; it is merely an acknowledgement that a conlang
>> designed for one purpose mighn't be good at a different purpose).
>> 
>> EL tends to use the 2nd (ie derived from the supine) stem to form
>> EL-roots. Eg _construct_, _act_, _solut_ "solve".
>
>Esperanto tends to use the first: 'konstrui', 'agi', 'solvi'. So:
>'konstruo' is 'construction', 'ago' is deed (less exactly 'action'), and
>'solvo' is 'solution'.
>
>> However the purpose of EL isn't to recover the scheme used in Vulgar
>> Latin or whatever. It is to form an IAL for the EU.
>> 
>> My intention is to form EL-roots that are as familiar as possible for
>> EU people. Words derived from these roots might be less familiar
>> (although I have tried to use familiar affixes such as -er (eg _acter_),
>> -iti (_moraliti_), -isim (_belisima_), -iz (_liquidiz_). However, once
>> you have learned EL's grammar and affixes (done in less than a day),
>> you can soon see where the root is and what affixes are used.
>
>This is exactly the same for Esperanto.
>
>Eurolang is very interesting.
>
>Phil, would you like to show my more strong capacities of Eurolang? You
>have increased my interest for it.
>
>Hans Kamp.


I tend to agree with the idea that a Germano-Romance base is the best one,
and I extend this beyond Phil Hunt's hope for a language for the EU because
the Americas and Australia are also (and in fact even more overwhelmingly)
majority speakers of languages in these two families. I certainly prefer
Eurolang to Esperanto, but I don't really think it looks coherent, perhaps
because Phil Hunt only started the project a couple of years ago. 

I would like to offer a candidate: Novial. It's been out of favor in
recent years, but a number of us are trying to revive it with a few minor
updates. You can se a description of the original 1928 Novial on my
webpage at http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/3141/novial.html and if
you'd like to learn more or to help in our task, contact Thomas Leigh
at u02tl@abdn.ac.uk to be put on our mailing list (we do not have a LISTSERV
but there is an automatic mailing list). 

For "break" Novial offers the Romance "rupte" (1930) or "rupter" (in our
1996 modification; the principal difference between 1930 and 1996 Novial
happens to be that we've added -r to all the verbs). Because English happens
to also have "rupture" as well as "break," Otto Jespersen (the inventor of
Novial, and a better linguist than most IAL constructors) went with that
root, and you can see by this example that the supine stem rather than the
infinitive is the way Novial goes too.

There are still a lot of Germanic roots too... but I think Novial looks better
to my eye than Eurolang, which sometimes uses a Germanic word in its English
form, sometimes its German, and you can't be sure which it'll be.

                                Bruce R. Gilson
                                email: brg@netcom.com
                                IRC: EZ-as-pi
                                WWW: http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/3141
                                (for language stuff: add /langpage.html)
