Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!peregrine!elroy!ames!mailrus!utah-gr!uplherc!sp7040!obie!wsccs!dharvey
From: dharvey@wsccs.UUCP (David Harvey)
Newsgroups: comp.std.internat
Subject: Re: All numeric representation of dates
Summary: Esperanto is bound to die
Message-ID: <645@wsccs.UUCP>
Date: 13 Sep 88 10:41:33 GMT
References: <622@uwovax.uwo.ca> <3690001@otter.hple.hp.com>
Lines: 41


I just had to throw my two bits into the discussion of languages.
I don't really know enough about Esperanto to judge its relative merits,
but it seems that people who favor it have forgot an essential element.
All people seem to favor their own ethnic culture which also has an
associated language.  If you doubt it, try getting the Quebecois to
speak English!  They maintain, as many French do that the French is the
language of the Gods (or something similar to that).  The United States
has a similar problem in that immigrants from Latin speaking countries
from the south refuse (okay, only some of them) to learn English (the
American dialect).  Why?  Because they have established patterns of
thought that are only expressable in Espanol (sorry about the missing
tilde).  And even if Esperanto is adopted, what is to prevent it from
changing?  A language is a living thing, something that changes as the
people who use it also change.  Oops, forgot those French who think that
their language is somehow a language of the Gods.  I must confess that
I am puzzled why they believe that so strongly, even to the point of
appointing a committee whose only task is to root out the horrible
English phrases that are corrupting their language.  Never mind the fact
that French is just a corruption of the Latin tongue with the Germanic
language of the region, even to the point that the French spoken on the
border of Spain is a significantly different dialect from what is spoken
on the border of Belgium.  Need I say more on the tendency of a language
to change?  Actually, television, radio, and other means of national and
international communication mediums are having a stronger stabilizing
force than the French national committee on language.

But back to Esperanto, I really don't feel that it is a language worth
studying.  It is kind of like Latin, a dead language since it isn't used
much.  Personally, I feel Americans would benefit far more from studying
Espanol or another language that is in ACTUAL USE somewhere in the
world.  People in Europe must also realize that unlike them, Americans
really are isolated from day-to-day contact with people who speak other
languages.  The only exception would be our neighbors to the south.  You
could count the French speaking Canadians, but learning their dialect
would be of little help in France.  It really is that different!  Even
here, many Spanish speakers use the old Castillian dialect which has just
as about as much chance of being understood in Spain as our English!
Enough said.  Nes't Pas? (sp?)

dharvey@wsccs