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From: urban@spp2.UUCP (Mike Urban)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: More on "Problems with Esperanto".
Message-ID: <415@spp2.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 31-Jan-85 13:10:14 EST
Article-I.D.: spp2.415
Posted: Thu Jan 31 13:10:14 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 5-Feb-85 04:34:13 EST
References: <69@osu-eddie.UUCP>
Organization: TRW, Redondo Beach  CA
Lines: 97

I think we were failing to transmit articles yesterday.  Apologies
to those who might have already read this.

In article <69@osu-eddie.UUCP> allen@osu-eddie.UUCP (John Allen) writes:
>>(quote re Esperanto's political neutrality)
>The assumption here is one that is commonly made by people who support a
>world language; "...that misunderstandings and international quarrels and
>wars are *caused* by differences in language."
>[_Linguistics_and_Your_Language_  by R. A. Hall, Jr.]

The value of Esperanto's political neutrality doesn't rest on this
assumption; assuming that it is important that *all* nations
adopt an interlanguage as a second language, it is necessary
that you be able to "sell the product".  In today's world, there
is already substantial resentment among third-world countries
that they must speak English (that awful language of colonialism)
in order to get their message across.  A neutral language could
be "sold" as a working language to these countries without generating
the same amount of heat.

>>"An even more important factor is that it is built on a  s i m p l i f i e d
>>European base." [Prentiss Riddle]
>This is probably Esperanto's most lauded feature and it's greatest fault.
>Any natural language has various constructs that allows you to express
>essentially the same meaning several different ways, but each of these
>different ways give a slightly different shade of meaning.  They also have
>words that have approximately the same meaning but have different
>connotations.  "What you gain in simplicity, you lose in richness and
>directness of expression." [R. A. Hall, Jr]

I'm not sure I believe this.  First, Esperanto *does* appear to
be able to express many of the nuances of human thought; good
translations of Shakespeare and Tolstoi exist, for example.
Second, I'm not sure that simplicity implies a lack of depth.
For a weak analogy, consider the game "go", whose rules are
extremely simple, but which nevertheless contains considerable
depth.  Esperanto may have fewer words of vocabulary than
English, but you can still write an infinite number of
interesting and novel sentences in Esperanto.  Does the word
"metaphor" suggest ways in which this might be accomplished?

>...(I don't believe that)
>this second language should be Esperanto.  I feel that I can get many more
>benefits by putting the same amount of effort into learning Russian,
>Chinese, or any of the other commonly spoken languages, because these
>languages have the literary and scientific publications that make it
>necessary to learn a second language.

First of all, from the pedagogical point of view, you certainly
get much more bang for your buck learning Esperanto.  In four months
of *very casual* studying from a textbook *alone*, you can get to
the point where you can productively read a news journal in Esperanto,
albeit with a dictionary at hand.  In four months of studying Chinese
casually from a book, I wouldn't expect to be able to even use
a dictionary yet.

Secondly, there is already a growing number of journals in
Esperanto in a number of fields, including computer science
("Interkomputo", from Hungary.  Do you read Hungarian?).

Thirdly, your argument is "well, as soon as all these *other*
professionals take the time to learn this language, and produce
scientific and literary work in it, then it will be worthwhile
for *me* to learn it."  We'll call you when we're ready :-)

>(re: national languages) I object because literature in
>these languages might be lost because it was not deemed worthy enough to be
>tranlated into the "world language".  I also object because language can
>tell us something about how the human mind operates.  If you only have one
>language to study, and a simplified one at that, then it is very hard to
>draw generalizations about how the mind works.

I've re-read the first sentence in that paragraph several times
and still don't understand it.  Literature from *any* language
(modern French, Classical Greek, Medieval Welsh) is "lost"
to *me* whenever it isn't translated into *my* language.
If everyone speaks Esperanto as a *second* language, surely
that *increases* the amount of literature from *all* cultures
that is likely to become available to *everyone*.  Or am
I completely missing your point?  To re-emphasize a point, the
purpose of Esperanto is to be an *auxiliary* language, not
to replace any national or ethnic language.

In general, I have trouble telling whether your objections
are to Esperanto in particular or of an official international
second language in general; do you really think that English
answers any of your objections (other than "people already
use it") *better* than Esperanto?  It's hard to learn, hard
to write and speak, has multiple dialects, is politically
"loaded", and the majority of its native speakers (Americans)
tend to think that to only literature that exists is the
stuff that's been considered "worthy of translation" into
their language--they certainly consider themselves at an
"advantage" or "privilege" in international activities,
since "everyone else has to learn a language but me."

	Mike