Re: Natlang-based "IAL pidgins" (was: Bigbabytalk -a primitive language for AI)

--- Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...> wrote:

> It has been suggested that an essentially minority natlang be
> adopted, e.g.
> Gaelic, Basque, Navaho, Sotho or whatever.  But that does not seem
> likely
> IMHO.
And very impractical.  Poliespo is an example of a supposed form of
Esperanto based on Cherokee; the inventor just happens to be a
condemned murderer on death row.  An extreme instance, yes.  (I
proposed Romany once in half-jest because it's a language with more
foreign borrowings than any other, and Gypsies are the best example of
a nation without a geographical limitation -- Jews before the founding
of Israel in 1948 are another good example, so Hebrew would work... but
anyway, these are languages spoken by limited numbers, and to use a
rare language is implying more ethnocentrism than using English or
Hindi or Spanish.)

I begin to wonder if IAL's aren't a waste of time really, or just
giving up and using Esperanto since it's had success unlike the
others...

> On what statistics?  I've not found that to be so.  The vast majority
> of
> the human race, however, clearly shows singular indifference.
Because of ignorance.  I never heard of Esperanto until I read about it
in a book on languages (one of Mario Pei's).

> I don't want to get into the all too well-known and often repeated
> arguments in favor of and against Esperanto here. It's been my
> unfortunate
> experience to know that they inevitably (and quickly) lead to flames.
That's why we have AUXLANG, and I am not a member of that list because
of all the rather caustic arguments.  CONLANG is a more uplifting
environment.

DaW.

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