Re: OT: For information only !

Oops, sorry, still half asleep. I meant that I have
nothing against English, but I'm afraid there are
political considerations rising up as to English as
the international language (well, by "English", one
should understand "American", of course; strangely
enough, we don't really care to be regularly treated
like dirt by tabloids from "the perfid Albion", but
many of us strongly object to the idea of having to
speak the same language as our American friends).

Of course, what one wishes and what really happens are
two very different things, so I think English - or
American - might very well be tomorrow's Esperanto, if
it isn't already. It doesn't depend on me. But the
idea doesn't excite very much.

I know Esperanto is a very sensible and off-topic
matter here (in my opinion, mainly because it is very
offending for many English speakers to imagine that
another language, even artificial, could supplant
English), and anyway I don't speak it for the moment,
so I don't feel like going further in this way. But I
think that when one compares concepts in different
languages, one should not ban Esperanto as if it was
leper. There are interesting (syntaxic) concepts in
it, and I found several exciting ideas there. After
all, these ideas Zamenhof just gathered from various
natlangs, he invented little, IMO.

So, instead of frowning and instinctively replying
"Horrible !" when hearing the word "Esperanto", why
not just consider it as one element among others in a
discussion about linguistics ? Let's keep cool !
English is not endangered yet. The proof of it is that
I'am writing this message in (broken) English.


--- Philippe Caquant <herodote92@...> wrote:
> I h
> --- "Mark P. Line" <mark@...> wrote:
> > Philippe Caquant said:
> > > Well, any project whose goal is to make people
> > > understand each other is exciting, isn't it ?
> >
> > Of course. That's what's so exciting about ESL
> > (English as a Second
> > Lanaguage) programs.
> >
> >
> >
> > > When, as a bonus, one could save some millions
> > > (billions?) euros in the Community budget, and
> > thus
> > > maybe pay less taxes, it's even more exciting.
> >
> > Pursuing universal bilingualism (or
> multilingualism)
> > in English would save
> > even more money for the EU, since so many people
> > already speak it as an L1
> > or L2. Descriptive and didactic materials are much
> > more readily available
> > for English than for any other language, natural
> or
> > constructed, and
> > there's a large infrastructure for teaching ESL
> (and
> > for training ESL
> > teachers themselves) already in place.
> International
> > economic, technical
> > and scientific vocabulary is already based on
> > English. English is a
> > national language on every continent of the world,
> > and according to the
> > Ethnologue, it is spoken in 104 countries --
> making
> > it the international
> > auxiliary language of choice that it is today.
> >
> >
> > -- Mark
> >
>

=====
Philippe Caquant

"High thoughts must have high language." (Aristophanes, Frogs)


	
		
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