Re: CHAT: Umberto Eco and Esperanto

"Raymond A. Brown" wrote:

> At 1:39 am -0500 12/6/99, Tom Wier wrote:
> >Nik Taylor wrote:
> >
> >> Tom Wier wrote:
> >> > There's no objective way to say
> >> > one way is or is not better than another.
> >>
> >> Well, there are objective ways of saying that when it comes to
> >> auxlangs.  An auxlang should be expressive and easy to learn.  Part of
> >> ease is, of course, the language background potential speakers are
> >> coming from, but another part is objective: one declension is easier to
> >> learn than 5.
>
> Yes - but no declensions are easier to learn than 1!
True, but then you compensate for that by having to learn the syntactic
wordorder of the language.  Why would it matter if you didn't have to learn
several declensions only to have to learn an equal number of rules for
manipulating wordorder? Personally, I see no expressive gain in e.g.
German's distinction in wordorder between subordinate and main clauses.

> >> Exactly, but conlanging is different than auxlanging.  In conlanging,
> >> the intended speakership is (usually) only the creator, so you can do
> >> what you like best.  I like agglutination, another likes isolating, or
> >> fusional, or whatever.  I like gender, another might not.
> >
> >I consider auxlanging a subset of conlanging.
>
> ...and so it is if by 'auxlanging' is meant the _construction_ of potential
> IALs.
Right -- that's what I meant.  If I had meant natlang auxiliary languages, I
would have written out "auxilliary languages".

> (I also don't
> disagree with that either, I just once expressed caution about conIALs :)
And I think probably rightly so.  Not that conIALs are bad or anything
(Degaspregos started out as one), but that unless you are very careful
to stick to qualitative, descriptive discussion about the conIAL, it could
very easily devolve into simple gainsaying of whatever the other person
says (as evidenced by past experiences on this list, apparently).

> (OK - the guy could've done better on both accounts. But maybe we should
> not judge him by the standards of linguists at the end of the 20th cent,
> living in a world where global communication is easy).
I think you've brought up a very important point here.  It was not long
ago that programming computers implied a very large number of punch
cards, and hearing about political events in places on the other side of the
planet was rare, occurring only when the events were highly important.
I'm sure he would have had little if any chance of find any information
on books from obscure areas of the world, often just because there were
none in the first place at the time.

> Also it is my understanding is that as an adult he had become aware of
> earlier attempts to produce auxlangs and these, e.g. Volapuek, had adopted
> the agglutinating principle.
Does Volapu"k really use that German spelling rule there?  Does <u"> really
equal <ue>?

===========================================
Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
AIM: Deuterotom ICQ: 4315704
<http://www.angelfire.com/tx/eclectorium/>
"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."

"Things just ain't the way they used to was."
     - a man on the subway
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