Re: Two questions about Esperanto
| From: | Philippe Caquant <herodote92@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Wednesday, July 7, 2004, 20:41 |
|---|
Seems there is a very simple way to go around those
Esperanto 'special letters', it's to use just 'x'
after the letter, meaning there should be an accent on
it (circumflex, but also that sort of small u, like in
'antau', I don't know how it is called):
"Sxi estas muzo en solec'
Spegulon turnis cxi virin'
Observis kasxe cxe l' fontan'
Vi preskaux ne rimarkis sxin
Sed estis kiel rendevu'
Gxin antaux longe en sopir'
Arangxis vi ja kun vi mem
Frenez-kuragxa pluen-ir'... inspir'!"
(An Esperanto version of a Morice Benin's song)
Sure, it changes the written physionomy of the
language, it "looks different", but this is the same
argument that is used by the French ultra-conservative
who decided that French orthograph will eternally be
the XIXth century one. I of course prefer the
accentuated Esperanto writing, there is more style in
it, IMO, but that's only detail. Just now, I'm trying
to learn some Javascript, and to my utter despair, I
found that all the most common instructions you find
in just every language had to be written differently
in Javascript, just for the pleasure of making it more
difficult, and to allow the ones who know to say
scornfully : ah ah, but I know what is the correct
form, and you don't, ah ah. My God, when shall we be
adults at last ?
--- Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> wrote:
> On Tuesday, July 6, 2004, at 09:13 , Philippe
> Caquant wrote:
>
> > I guess this letter h^ was introduced mainly
> because
> > this phoneme is very common in Russian, and
> Zamenhof
> > probably was influenced by Russian.
>
> It is common in Russian, but on the other hand /h/
> is absent from the
> language. Esperanto has both /h/ and /x/. Zamenhof
> knew Russian, as his
> part of Poland was at that time under Russian rule.
> But I feel Zamenhof
> was far more influenced by his L1, i.e. Polish,
> which also has both /h/
> and /x/, as does Esperanto.
>
> [snip]
> > The problem in Esperanto is those letters with
> > diacritics signs: h^, g^, c^, j^, s^.
>
> Yep.
>
> > I think that
> > when Zamenhof invented his language, those letters
> > were rather easy to produce on typewriters (you
> just
> > type the ^, then any letter; besides, several are
> > quite usual in Slavian languages).
>
> No, they're not. AFAIK Esperanto alone puts
> circumflex accents on
> consonants. Probably what you're thinking of is the
> 'caron' (hacek, haczek)
> used in the writing of Czech & some other Slav
> langs - like an _inverted_
> circumflex.
>
> This was, indeed, Z's starting point. But he, quite
> rightly, thought that
> western printers, type-setters, type-writers etc.
> would have problems with
> the caron. The solution? Invert the caron & use the
> good ol' circumflex
> that the ancient Greeks bequeathed us.
>
> > But now we're
> > working on computers. This is a huge progress: we
> > cannot get those characters any more, or only with
> > difficulty. How could Zamenhof have foreseen that
> ?
> > That's why (I think), Ido tried to get rid of
> those
> > special letters.
>
> ?? Ido was invented long before computers! Doesn't
> its origins go back to
> 1908?
> Also, of course, Ido did merely _try_ to get rid of
> the letters - it
> actually did.
>
> > But to me, this is not a huge
> > problem.
>
> Maybe not - but it is a problem & IMO a problem that
> could easily have
> been avoided.
>
> > The real problem is to change mentalities and
> > politics. [STOP ! YOU'RE ENTERING FORBIDDEN ZONE
> !]
>
================================================================
>
> On Wednesday, July 7, 2004, at 12:27 , Jean-François
> COLSON wrote:
>
> > Where is that "forbidden zone"? I don't see it.
> The "Fundamento de
> > Esperanto" itself allows you to use digraphs with
> h instead of the
> > circumflexed letters
>
> It does indeed. But for some reason Esperantists in
> practice do not seem
> to like this. Even on the Internet the combos cx,
> hx, jx etc seemed to be
> preferred to ch, hh, jh etc. I don't know why.
>
> But Philippe's enigmatic reference to the "forbidden
> zone" can hardly have
> anything directly to do with denoting certain sounds
> with circumflexed
> consonants or an objective discussion of Esperanto's
> phonology, since
> these are linguistic matters and, strictly speaking,
> quite OK here.
>
> The clue, I guess is in "The real problem is to
> change mentalities and
> politics" which also is enigmatic, but those of us
> who've been around a
> long time are possibly less puzzled.
>
> Since Philippe mentioned Ido, he might be referring
> to old Ido ~ Esperanto
> quarrels (betrayal or whatever) which some of us
> have heard ad_nauseam
> before & has no relevance to this list. It most
> certainly is forbidden
> territory here as it is very much a matter of
> auxlang politics.
>
> But I have a horrible suspicion - tho I'd like to
> think I'm wrong - in
> view of the context in which it occurs that it's the
> problem of daring to
> criticize any feature of Esperanto. It's assumed by
> some - thankfully not
> all - that if you criticize the language you are
> doing so for political
> reasons (i.e. have 'bad mentality'). I remembered
> being treated to sarcasm
> & flames on that other list for suggesting that, er,
> maybe having
> adjectives agree with nouns in case & number was,
> perhaps, not the best
> idea in a _global_ AIAL. Now that IMNSHO is a
> _linguistic_ matter - but it
> meets, alas, the type of response that it's me who
> has the problem & I
> need to change my mind and politics.
>
> As I say, I do sincerely hope that my suspicion is
> wrong & that I've
> misunderstood Philippe. But that is why we mostly
> avoid auxlangs here. It
> is, alas, in practice difficult to discuss them
> objectively. {sigh}
>
> Maybe we'd best leave the circumflexed consonants
> alone. I think the
> replies about the use of h^ ~ hh ~ hx have shown
> what, in practice, is
> going on in the Esperanto community.
>
> Ray
> ===============================================
>
http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
> ray.brown@freeuk.com (home)
> raymond.brown@kingston-college.ac.uk (work)
> ===============================================
> "A mind which thinks at its own expense will always
> interfere with language." J.G. Hamann, 1760
>
Reply