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From: elna@netcom.com (Esperanto League N America)
Subject: can an IAL really work? 
Message-ID: <elnaE6ACyp.256@netcom.com>
Organization: Esperanto League for North America, Inc.
References: <853605030.2652@dejanews.com> <7fn2twloys.fsf@phoenix.cs.hku.hk> <33152CEA.42B0@postoffice.worldnet.att.net> <7f7mju4izy.fsf@phoenix.cs.hku.hk>
Date: Thu, 27 Feb 1997 23:52:01 GMT
Sender: elna@netcom14.netcom.com
Lines: 67

sdlee@cs.hku.hk (Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}) writes in a recent posting (reference <7f7mju4izy.fsf@phoenix.cs.hku.hk>):
>
>After all,  why shall people from  isolating languages learn inflected
>languages  (such as Esperanto)?   That's psychologically difficult for
>them.   So,   why  promote Esperanto?   Just  leave   Esperanto to its
>speakers.  Promoting Esperanto as an IAL is unjustifiable.
>
At long last, I understand your position (or at least I believe I do!).
You seem not to believe that *any* International Auxiliary Language is
justifiable. One which is based on an isolating grammar might be 
acceptable to Chinese-speakers, yet still be, by your arguments, 
psychologically difficult and therefore unjustifiable for speakers of
inflecting and agglutinative languages. And so forth for any decision of
meta-structure.
I suppose that the same argument would apply also to vocabulary-source:
any decision to draw from somewhere would render the decision unjustifiable
for speakers from other linguistic families.
      
       [stuff ommitted]   

>Even  if they understand the "whys"  and they are enthusiastic enough,
>they still need  a very long time  of practise before  they can master
>those "difficult" grammatical rules.  *FLUENTLY* and *NATURALLY* using
>and following a set  of rules needs  the  development of some sort  of
>habits, and this requires a very long time of practice.
>
This is true for *any* language learned by *any* student regardless
of the degree of similarity between the two.

        [stuff ommitted] 
>
>Again, the difficulty comes  from the large amount  of time and effort
>that  has to be spent.  That's  why Esperanto is  difficult for people
>from isolating  languages.  Many of my  friends have been studying and
>using English  for over 10 years.  Yet,  they are still  unable to use
>the correct  tenses and  fail  to add  "s" appropriately.  They  still
>haven't built  up their awareness of tense  and number, even  after 10
>years   of practice.   What  would you  expect them    to do with  the
>grammatical case in Esperanto?  How much time would you expect them to
>spend if you teach them Esperanto?
> 
I would expect (based on experience, not wild conjecture) that students
approaching Esperanto reach a usable level of proficiency in Esperanto
approximately three times as quickly as is required by English. That is,
somebody studying Esperanto for two years can speak, read, write and
understand that language as well as somebody from a similar backgroud 
can utilize English after six years of similar study.  And if
Chinese students were *first* introduced to Esperanto, and then allowed
to branch out into English, French, and other Latin-alphabet-based
languages, it would be a less frustrating introduction. The value of
Esperanto as a propaedeutic is well documented and readily understandable.
The difficulties of tense and number are *much* more confusing in English
than in Esperanto.

      [stuff ommitted]

>For similar  reasons,  Desmond and I  think Esperanto  is an ugly  and
>dirty design.
>
No, your reasons are political, based on a dislike of perceived 
"Eurocentrism".  The reasons cited were aesthetic; there is a difference.

-- 
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
