Re: Two questions about Esperanto

On Sunday, July 11, 2004, at 03:59 , Christophe Grandsire wrote:

[snip]
> Years later, seeing growing disagreements in the community, Zamenhof
> proposed to reintroduce some of the reforms that hadn't made it due to
> the referendum, but the vast majority was against it, and they never went
> far. This eventually provoked the defection of some and the creation of
> Ido (and later other projects), much to Zamenhof's regrets.
It seems somewhat ironic to me that:
- in the case of Volapük, which clearly needed reforming, its inventor,
Martin Schleyer, adopted a strictly proprietary attitude to his creation
and, although there were no lack of proposals for reform, he stubbornly
refused to countenance any;
- in the case of Esperanto, which IMHO would also have benefited from
reform, its inventor relinquished all proprietary claims and that it was
the speakers of Esperanto that refused to accept reforms proposed by its
inventor.

As I've observed: "There's nowt so queer as folk"     :)

> This is why Esperanto has seen no reform until today: most people don't
> want to see anything change *until* Esperanto acquires a truly official
> status and is protected as such. *Then* only will reforms be welcome.
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On Sunday, July 11, 2004, at 05:44 , Andreas Johansson wrote:

[snip]
> Ugh. One of the things I'd hate more than Esperanto becoming the official
> int'l
> language would be it achieving such status and _then_ beginning to mutate.
I agree on both accounts. But, Andreas, never fear! Hell will have frozen
over, the Greeks will have found their Calends and Achilles will have
caught up with that pesky tortoise before these things come to pass   ;)

Ray
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