Newsgroups: sci.lang
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!rutgers.rutgers.edu!news.sgi.com!news.mathworks.com!howland.erols.net!ix.netcom.com!elna
From: elna@netcom.com (Esperanto League N America)
Subject: complaints & perfection 
Message-ID: <elnaE64vJ5.35M@netcom.com>
Organization: Esperanto League for North America, Inc.
References: <853605030.2652@dejanews.com> <AF2E91AE9668230FD2@max1-39.hk.super.net> <elnaE5vpMt.JKF@netcom.com> <33114002.6E3A@scruznet.com>
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 1997 00:47:28 GMT
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Sender: elna@netcom4.netcom.com

Mike Wright <darwin@scruznet.com> writes in a recent posting (reference <33114002.6E3A@scruznet.com>):
>> 
> In Chinese and Japanese, if the number is important, I can say
>it. If it is not, I can leave it undefined. 

And the rules for when to mark & when not to mark-- are these simple
enough for quick mastery by students from other language backgrounds? 

>        There is no logical need for
>plural forms, except to comfort those whose native languages happen to
>have plural forms - and to irritate everyone else.
>
In the first place, this does not irritate "everyone else" -- only those
easily irritated by things being as they are! Of course, there is no "logical
need" for any language to be regularly agglutinative; isolating languages
work quite well. Nobody denies this.

       [I wrote:]
>> This is a strange concept-- that an isolating structure is somehow simpler
>> than one which synthesizes. And the "reason"? ... because it is isolating!
>
>No, as you can see, this is not the problem. It is the inability some of
>those who have designed artificial languages to see beyond their own
>linguistic heritages.
>
Not at all. If Zamenhof had created a grammar based on concepts of
isolating strategies, others would complain that it was unfair to
ignore agglutinative and inflecting grammar.

Look, guys, every language planner must make some choices, the result
of which is that huge classes of languages will be less similar to the
result than other huge classes. This is unavoidable. Even planned
languages which strive to avoid similarity to all existing tongues will
likely be somewhat more similar to some than to others (and completely
sacrifice "naturalness"-- how many have ever been known to converse in
Loglan or Solresol?) 

Given that a workable language is likely to be:
1. Isolating
2. Inflecting
3. Agglutinative
4. Some combination of 1,2,3

language planners must choose an overall structure. This leaves the 
planned language open to criticism of "unfairness" by those whose
native tongues fall into the other groups.

The same is true for vocabulary. Given that a workable vocabulary is 
likely to be:
1. a priori
2. a posteriori
3. some combination of 1,2

language planners must choose an overall strategy. A language cut
completely of new cloth (a priori) would not borrow from any existing
language, and would therefore be equally distant from any source
vocabulary. A posteriori vocabularies must draw from *somewhere*
which leaves them open to criticism of "unfairness" by those whose
native tongues are not represented in the resulting vocabulary.

In short, there can be no perfectly neutral planned language. Those
who complain of Esperanto's imperfections relative to some unrelated
family group ought just as well complain that cabbage is not an animal,
or that Mt Fuji is not a body of water. Esperanto marks plurals, as nearly
all agglutinative languages do. Esperanto conjugates verbs, as nearly all
agglutinative languages do. Esperanto draws vocabulary from IE [Romance,
Germanic, Slavic, Greek] and Semitic sources. Unfortunately, it ignored
Austronesian, African, Amerindian, Sino-tibetan, Dravidian &c sources.
Some have suggested that a vocabulary made up of a word or three from 
each of the world's five thousand languages would be "fair".  But at
that point it might as well be a priori!!

Several participants in this newsgroup enjoy criticising Esperanto because
it is not perfect. It is what it is; and it is not what it is not. It is
not an isolating language, so why should the complainers expect it to act
like one? Esperanto is 99% agglutinative. Should we complain that this 
gives unfair advantage to Turks, Finns, Japanese & Swahili-speakers?

Rather than comparing real Esperanto vs "My-pet-improvement-of-Esperanto"
let us look at the (dis)advantages of English (or Chinese, or Malay) as
the accepted international language of business, science, tourism, 
diplomacy, &c. Esperanto may not be perfectly fair, but is it not more
fair than English?





-- 
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
