Re: Auxlang diversions

At 9:37 pm -0800 6/9/00, Mike Adams wrote:
>Hum, I know of atleast two Auxlangs that have diverged from each other,
>mostly over technical and control reasons, but not for exactly cultural
>as the Romans did.
Er - isn't that what I said?

At 6:59 am +0100 6/9/00, Raymond Brown wrote:
[....]
>Auxlangs, at least, do sometimes separate as the examples early in the
>century of 'esperantidoj' and, not so very long ago, the rival 'Novialids'
>on AUXLANG show.  But these separations occurred for very different reasons.
...unless Mike is making some petty distinction between his "not for
exactly cultural as" and my "for very different reasons".

What I meant is that - and AFAIK this is the general view - Vulgar Latin
dialects gradually developed, as dialects are apt to do, distinctive
features of their own and out of these developed the modern Romance
languages; but the auxlangs I referred to did _not_ split because of
dialect variation (as the term is generally understood) but because of
deliberate choices made by individuals who were trying to "improve" or
"reform" a particular language.

I don't know which two auxlangs Mike had in mind, but I referred also to
two: Esperanto & Novial.

The most well known off-spring of Esperanto is Ido which still has active
adherents.  But there were others.  One I've heard off is Esperantido (had
to be one with that name).  And those interested can find a sentence quoted
in all three versions in "The Loom of Language".

The Novialoids I was referring to are of more recent origin.  Novial
continued in use among its adherents up to, I believe, WWII but virtually
died out then.  Jespersen never finalized and, indeed, allowed two
different orthographies to be used.  But two or three years back there were
people trying to modernize it in an effort to revive it; the trouble was
that not everyone agreed how to modernize it and there were, to my
knowledge, at least three different proposals (I was involved, not
willingly, for a time in one of these).  But I don't want to get involved
in the inter-Novialist arguments on this list - indeed, I will not do so.

Nor is this separation confined to those two auxlangs.  When Volapük fell
into rapid decline at the last decade of the 19th century, a whole host of
new auxlangs arose from it, e.g. Bopal, Spelin, Dil, Balta, Veltparl,
Langue Blue.  Then quite remarkably between 1921 & 1931 Arie de Jong
ellaborated a revised version of the original language and caused the
language to be revived.  AFAIK the main area of revival was in the
Netherlands & Germany; certainly Hitler saw fit to ban both it & Esperanto.
The revised form still has active adherents and users, I believe.

And I'm quite sure there those on this list who could quote other examples.

But I most certainly do *not* want to get into auxlang politics here (or
anywhere else, for that matter) - and if I've misrepresented anything, it
is quite unintentional.  Those who are interested in auxlang politics have
a list: AUXLANG.

I wasn't sure if Mike was saying he disagreed with me or not, tho the 'Hum'
seems to suggest some sort of correction or contradiction.  In fact, as far
as I can see, this time I'm actually agreeing with Mike.  At least, I think
I am, for as Thomas R. Wier wrote:

>Mike:  for the sake of us all, please please *please* quote what you're
>referring to, and cut out with the jargon! It makes you very difficult
>to read and interpret.
Amen!

Ray.





=========================================
A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
=========================================