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So, it's a dasyproctian language? 
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I think esperanto is unappealing because of its contrived and inflexible nature. It's a test-tube language, whereas natural languages are exactly like living things: they evolve continuously, and there is no way anybody can stop it (good luck, France.) Nobody tells children to invent new slang; they do it because it's the natural thing to do. It is an imperative.
Words, phonemes, phrases, and the intellectual substance they represent are constantly being recyled, created and abandoned by speakers, communities and entire cultures. It's what gives human language (and probably the human species) its strength. All language is a mutt, and apparently with good reason, or it wouldn't be universally so.
"I don't know which is worse: ignorance or apathy. And, frankly, I don't care." - Anonymous
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I don't know enough about Esperanto to gainsay you, but I would say that your objections would apply to any constructed international language. The only alternative would be for a language to be imposed through some sort of imperialism. Even that leads to variants that border on mutual unintelligibility. One of my job responsibilities is to copy-edit engineering reports, some of which are generated by native Mandarin speakers and passed to Indians (some of whom are from a Hindi-speaking area and some from a Tamil-speaking area) before they get to me. I get some interesting samples from time to time. As to inflexibility I would guess that there are likely many words in modern Esperanto that were coined since the time of its invention by Zamenhof. This would be more a function of the number of people who are using it in a day-to-day manner than due to its nature as a constructed language.
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Well, Esperanto is only a little over a century old, and (as far as I know) there are no native speakers. It is a written language. That has probably slowed down its rate of change. I do know that the suffix for forming country names has been deprecated. So, Russia and Germany today are Germanio and Rusio instead of Germanujo (country of German speakers) and Rusujo.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Crosswords and cryptogram in Esperanto?
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old hand
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old hand
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Esperanto, why is it so very unattractive? - My hypothesis: language, like food, tends to raise suspicion if it looks "artificial".
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Words, phonemes, phrases, and the intellectual substance they represent are constantly being recyled, created and abandoned by speakers, communities and entire cultures. It's what gives human language (and probably the human species) its strength. All language is a mutt, and apparently with good reason, or it wouldn't be universally so.
It does not grow, from what I've understood. Made one time,
and left to sit.
----please, draw me a sheep----
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You're speaking of esperanto, no?
Esperanto is a plastic flower compared to the living bouquet comprised of our many varied and interconnected languages.
"I don't know which is worse: ignorance or apathy. And, frankly, I don't care." - Anonymous
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your objections would apply to any constructed international language. The only alternative would be for a language to be imposed through some sort of imperialism. Even that leads to variants that border on mutual unintelligibility. Certainly they would apply. Imperial imposition of a common language has been tried - unsuccessfully - time and time again: China, Rome, the prohibition of some Native American tongues, etc. On a much smaller scale, my grandmother's parents imposed German on her and her siblings, and yet none of the children grew up understanding the German language (beyond the baby songs and curse words.) Language cannot be imposed on a people for any length of time. The natural changes that occur within populations that are not in constant, two-way communication add up until, as you say, the disparate populations are virtually unintelligible to one another. The language variants drift apart thanks to the accrual of thousands of small changes that are not transmitted from one group of speakers to another over time. So it doesn't really matter if the imposition is made by a tyrannical government, a group of intellectuals, or the head of a household. All are working against a human imperative: to speak in a way that serves one's individual needs. No one language or language form will ever do that for everyone. It's convincingly parallel to organic evolution in every way except the time scale.
Last edited by beck123; 02/24/10 12:19 AM.
"I don't know which is worse: ignorance or apathy. And, frankly, I don't care." - Anonymous
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Esperanto is only a little over a century old, and (as far as I know) there are no native speakers. It is a written language. That has probably slowed down its rate of change. I'm going to challenge this idea by pointing to exactly what we are doing in this forum. We are using a written language - never spoken, even by the linguistically adventurous (try saying ":-)") - that is far less than a century old, and its rate of change is so rapid as to be astounding. The person who was creative enough to type the first emoticon is probably still among the living. Unless there was a tragic bus accident, the person who coined "emoticon" is still living. So it remains to be explained why this language, with no real rules, has caught on like wildfire; and esperanto languishes on the shelf. I offer that this language serves our individual needs and - most importantly - is created by its users, as are all viable languages.
Last edited by beck123; 02/24/10 12:21 AM.
"I don't know which is worse: ignorance or apathy. And, frankly, I don't care." - Anonymous
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