Re: Unilang: the Morphology

At 1:38 pm -0400 20/4/01, David Peterson wrote:
>In a message dated 4/20/01 10:11:34 AM, ray.brown@FREEUK.COM writes:
>
><< According to the conventional wisdom in Auxland, Esperanto should be the
>
>least successful of those three languages.  Pity facts upset theory  :) >>
>
>    Why does everyone seem to be so against Esperanto?
Eh??  WHO??

As far as I have seen in the last couple of years or so, at least, there is
no-one on this present this is "so against Esperanto".

>It works, and it's
>survived--thrives, no less.  I've never heard of Volapük being taught at
>college campuses,
Klingon works, survives and thrives!  So what?

YAWN!!!!

I've heard all this stuff _AD NAUSEAM_ on Auxlang.  I quitted that list
because I was fed up, among other things, at the petty peevishness of some
Esperantists, Glosa-pe & others.  I hoped we could be spared it here.

If you care actually to read my words instead of getting prickly when
Esperanto is mentioned, you will see that far from being against Esperanto,
*I was actually saying something in its favor*!!!!!

 <groan> Let me try to explain:

1. I mentioned three artificial IALs: Volapük, Esperanto, Novial.

2. I showed that all three have noun declensions of sorts.

3. I said that Volapük also treated its pronouns in the same way; that
Novial did, apart from 1st person pronoun; that Esperanto had irregularly
formed plurals to all its personal pronouns.  I made NO JUDGMENT on whether
any of these features were good or bad.

4. I said that Esperanto also declines its adjectives so that they agree
with the nouns they qualify.  Fact: no value judgment made.

5. I said that according to the conventional wisdom in Auxland - by which I
meant the prevailing views one will find on the Auxlang list  - Esperanto
should be less succesful than the other two languages.

6. Pity facts upset theory.
That means, as you have singularly failed to appreciate, that I am aware
that Esperanto is more successful than either of the other two languages!!

I was saying that the _success_ of Esperanto disproves the simplistic
theories of many would-be auxlangers - duh!

Please, please let's not have Esperantine flame-wars on this list after
they've been absent for such a long time.  There is another list for those
who want them.

Ray.





=========================================
A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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