Re: A Conlang, created by the group?

Tom Wier wrote:
>
> Charles wrote:
> > I have been re-reading a very interesting
> > critique of Esperanto; and in this section ...
> > http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/ranto.html#f
> In short, don't listen to people unless they are truth-seekers rather
> than truth-provers, as this guy is.
I try to look at the ideas separately from the person.
Ad hominum arguments, "poisoning the well", etc ...

It is clearly labelled as a "rant", after all.
I like Esperanto very much, but it can be good to
hear the bad points of it exposed. Now, I wouldn't
under any circumstances show him my own conlang!

> * (If he is a linguist, as his page appears to indicate that he is
> [a masters, at that], he should know better than to belittle the
> 1 million speakers of Esperanto as anything less than a spectacular
> achievement.  The overwhelming majority of the world's languages
> have far fewer speakers than that by several magnitudes, and most
> of them are far from the literate ones that most Esperantists are)
Indeed.

> First off, no reputable English-language encyclopedia uses
> the 850 Basic English wordset unless it is made for very
> young children.
Heard of Longmans? Yes, 850 is too low, but 3000?
For a "defining dictionary that does work, though
an encyclopedia should be more, um, encyclopedic.
Both Eo and Basic try to minimize learning time
by reducing the number of roots to be memorized,
and I consider that a worthy objective.

> I'm sorry if this post seems entirely offtopic,
Well, it's not. I should have disclaimered the URL,
because people can easily be upset by sharp remarks.
No offense to Eo or its speakers intended here.