Mandarin & IALs (was Re: modern Mandarin Chinese(s)

In a message dated 05/12/2002 12.52.00 PM, ray.brown@FREEUK.COM quotes me and
writes:

>>Mandarin has mutated almost as much as all the mutant
>>varieties of English! I guess just like some say there are different,
>>differing "Englishes," there are Mandarins, too ;)
>
>Perhaps it is because both languages are so tolerant of variation that
>they are successful and both have so many speakers  :)
    IMHO, adaptability should be _a_ chief criteria (amongst others) in any
conlang, especially an auxlang.

>[snip]
>
>>    I take after my dad :) but oh so much worse... I sound like an
>>Americanized Britisher who learned Mandarin from a Cantonese who grew up in
>>Malaysia. In another words, a really truly f***ed Mandarin.
>
>Heehee - sounds as tho your 'Mandarin' is to mainland Chinese Mandarins
>what Europanto is to European langs  :))
    Using/abusing your analogy: my scanty Mandarin, it's more like badly
mangled and "broken" Novial ;)

>Pst - keep it quiet & don't tell the auxlangers (otherwise I'll need
>several sets of asbestos suits), but Europanto is the only con-IAL worth
>taking seriously  :)))
    ::donning high-intensity level asbestos suit and whispering, too::
    In similar vein (vain?;) I think Lingua Franca Nova is the best, serious
Euroclone IAL I have looked over and that Frater2 has _some_ serious merits
as an IAL!

>Ray.

Hanuman Zhang {HANoomaan JAHng} /'hanuma~n  dZahN/

~§~

_Ars imitatur Naturam in sua operatione._ <from Latin> = "Art is the
imitation of Nature in her manner of operation."
    "The most beautiful order is a heap of sweepings piled up at random." ~
Heraclitus, c. 500 BCE

~§~ jinsei to iu mono wa, kinchou na geijyutsu to ieru deshou ~§~
<from Japanese> = lit. "one can probably say that 'life' is a precious
artform")