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From: dgary@uncecs.edu (D Gary Grady)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Global Cultural Prototype
Summary: Day-to-day Esperanto
Message-ID: <1989Oct15.142457.9248@uncecs.edu>
Date: 15 Oct 89 14:24:57 GMT
References: <3366@ccnysci.UUCP> <2145@avsd.UUCP> <18291@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> <1989Oct13.142526.13122@uncecs.edu> <1489@intercon.com>
Reply-To: dgary@ecsvax.uncecs.edu.UUCP (D Gary Grady)
Organization: Datalytics, Inc.
Lines: 58

In article <1489@intercon.com> amanda@intercon.com (Amanda Walker) writes:
> 1. Does anyone learn it as a native language, or early enough in life to
>    speak it with "native" fluency?

Yes, there are now quite a number of native ("denaskaj") Esperantists,
the offspring of Esperanto-speaking couples.  In a few cases the couples
in question come from different linguistic backgrounds and use Esperanto
as the routine medium at home.  In others they simply set out to
teach the child both the local language and Esperanto from birth.  In
addition, it is quite possible for an adult learner to acquire
native-level (what I believe the U.S. Foreign Service calls "level 5")
fluency in Esperanto.  I have personally met totally fluent adults and
children.
>
> 2. Is it used anywhere for day-to-day casual communication?
>
See above.  Also, it is used routinely in an international orphanage in
Brazil, at Gressillon castle (an Esperanto vacation resort of sorts) in
France, etc.
j
>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...

"Importing" is of course a widespread characteristic of "natural"
languages (ever visited le drugstore?).  There certainly are idiomatic
usages, expletives, and slang in Esperanto.  "Conscious design" is
characteristic to some extent of any language with prescriptive
dictionaries or an "academy."  I might note that insisting on these
presumed "natural" attributes is arbitrary to begin with.

Being an empiricist at heart, I can't help noting that theoretical
objections to Esperanto must somehow deal with the numbers of linguists,
poets, etc, - people who are presumably qualified to judge the merits of
a language and its usability - who have pronounced it a "real" and
expressive language.  (For example, the current head of the Universala
Esperanto Asocio is a linguist at the University of London, and his
predecessor is a former professor of English literature now an American
university president.)

>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.

I could be wrong, but this seems to me a rather firm decision to reach
based on what strike me as a set of misconceptions.  If I'm mistaken and
you do know something about Esperanto please correct me.

Gary
-- 
D Gary Grady
(919) 286-4296
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