Re: CHAT: EU allumettes (was: Re: THEORY/CHAT: Talmy, Jackendoff and Matchboxes

Hi!

And Rosta <a.rosta@...> writes:
> Philippe Caquant:
>...
> > Esperanto, at least for such uses, I don't know how we
> > should explain it to our governments !
AUXLANG ALERT!

> Were the EU to mandate that we all learn a new language,
> let it at least be a language designed to be incapable
> of ambiguity (-- no such language exists, but us conlangers
> would, I expect, be happy to oblige by designing one). It
> would criminal to squander, by selecting Esperanto, the
> opportunities afforded by a new common language.
>
> If all that is required were a language that was understood
> by as many as possible, then there'd be no need for
> Esperanto: English would be far superior a choice.
Please no auxlang discussions here.  They are always the first
step of flame-wars.

To give an example of how it starts: I hate Esperanto.  It is so badly
designed, sounds so stupid and looks so ugly!  Don't ever get near me
trying to convince me to learn it!  If ever any governmental office
tries to force me to learn it, I will immediately leave the country.

Thank you for your attention for learning how flame-wars start.

So, please, no auxlang or IAL discussions on this list!

> But it in fact is important that Estonian, Breton, Romagnolo and
> Catalan should be on matchboxes, so as to protect endangered
> cultural entities from oppression by the hegemony of the major
> languages. (I do realize that nonnational languages have at best a
> second-class status, but that is odious.)
I fully agree.  If the languages don't fit on a matchbox, dear EU,
make a law to make matchboxes larger. :-)

**Henrik

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