Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!intercon!amanda@intercon.com From: amanda@intercon.com (Amanda Walker) Newsgroups: comp.society.futures Subject: Re: Global Cultural Prototype Message-ID: <1490@intercon.com> Date: 13 Oct 89 19:55:51 GMT References: <3366@ccnysci.UUCP> <2145@avsd.UUCP> <18291@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> <1989Oct13.142526.13122@uncecs.edu> Sender: news@intercon.com Reply-To: amanda@intercon.com (Amanda Walker) Organization: InterCon Systems Corporation Lines: 36 In article <1989Oct13.142526.13122@uncecs.edu>, dgary@uncecs.edu (D Gary Grady) writes: > It is a living > Indoeuropean language and the charge of artificiality is leveled at it > principally by folks who have only a vague notion of what it might be. I don't keep up with Esperanto developments, but I have two questions about this assertion: 1. Does anyone learn it as a native language, or early enough in life to speak it with "native" fluency? 2. Is it used anywhere for day-to-day casual communication? If it is not (which is what I expect, although I could be wrong), then I would claim that it is not a "living" language. At best it would function as a trade language (not that this is a bad thing, certainly), and at worst a mildly interesting intellectual exercise. The biggest reason that I personally think of Esperanto as artificial is a very simple one: it was consciously designed by a group of people. It did not arise out of the needs of a community's need to communicate, and thus it lacks many of the characteristics of "natural" language, except by importing them. Idioms and expletives, for example... Now, I have nothing against synthetic languages in and of themselves--for instance, I think that Tolkien's Elvish languages are marvelous works of linguistic art. I don't find Esperanto quite so "pretty", but that's beside the point. However, I wouldn't try to use either for day-to-day communication, however much fun they might be for recreation. -- Amanda Walker "Tobacco is the only drug in America that will kill you if it's taken as directed." --Dr. C. Everett Koop, former U.S. Surgeon General