Esperanto as a Lingua Franca [split]

[Travis B.]

Trends and prominence of features are important tools in comparative linguistics. For instance, French can sometimes use a noun as an adjective, as in English "a source network" and French "un réseau source", but English does this regularly almost as a rule, whereas French more often than not has to use a differently formed adjective or show grammatical relationship in some other way. Are the two to be taken together in this regard because French can sometimes do what English almost always does? Is the regularity of English's noun->adjective usage versus French an unimportant detail?
No, and it's a point worked on in French translation courses, on how to render English's compound nouns into correct French. This is viewed as and accepted as a difference between the two; despite being similar in some cases, they are not similar on the whole. The cause may be the regularity of one versus the irregularity of the other, but this doesn't discount the differences.

On a completely off-topic note, I am not sure if I agree with the example you used above. The matter is that in English a source network, I myself take source network as a compound and not as an adjective-noun pair; source acts here to constrain network rather than to actually act as specifying a quality of network. The reason being is that at least in everyday spoken NAE there is a specific obligatory affix for converting nouns that do not have a built-in adjectival sense directly to adjectives, specifically -y, and a so-affixed noun now actually specifies a quality of the noun with which it is to be used, if it used with any noun at all in the first place. One cannot use words like source as predicate adjectives, as one would expect if they could truly be converted into adjectives rather than acting as mere members of compounds, whereas in contrast one can certainly use the derived word sourcey as a predicate adjective.

[Narbleh]

Narbleh, I really think you've misunderstood a great deal of my points with your last post. I will address them a little later, when I have more time to write a detailed response. I do think that at times we have both been arguing against things that neither of us is proposing (you don't believe Esperanto is "global" so I don't need to disprove that to you; I don't believe Esperanto is devoid of character so you don't need to disprove that to me).

Nah, you don't have to bother. Like I said was going to happen, I'm in another don't-care-about-Esperanto phase. I'm working on the Sjal wiki again. More fun than pontificating about Esperanto

On a completely off-topic note, I am not sure if I agree with the example you used above.

A misuse of terms on my part. The phenomenon I was trying to illustrate still holds, I believe, in the formation of compound nouns.

[Steli]

* Verbs lack conjugation but instead use particles to show time and active or passive voice: pluv/i, pluv/os, pluv/inta, pluv/ota, etc.

That's an interesting point of view, but you could say that about most English verbs too. To rain, rain/s, rain/ed, rain/ing, will rain and so on.

[Narbleh]

I called them particles because they can be applied to adjectives and nouns as well, though doing so for nouns is considered substandard for some reason. Can't really do that in English, despite weak verbs apparently having the same phenomenon.

[linguaholic]

Okaay, but the question is not really whether Esperanto is a SAE language, is it?

Why not just throw mandatory English out the window and make Esperanto the lingua franca? It's a heck of a lot easier the English...

I agree that Esperanto doesn't have the same level of difficulty for everyone. However, it certainly is a lot easier than English, no matter what language background you have (except English native speaker, of course). I think it's not so much grammar and vocabulary that's difficult for non-Europeans, but phonology. Now, I'm not an expert, but I can imagine that those consonant clusters are difficult for many people and there are 7 (!) palatal fricatives (though some of them are diphtongs, but still) ... why?? (c, s, z, ĉ, ŝ, ĝ, ĵ) (Maybe because a language without tongue twisters isn't fun...?)

There might be some "better" conlangs around (I also hate Eo's sexism), but as far as I know, none of them has a culture and "infrastructure" comparable to Esperanto.

Do we need a different "lingua franca" at all? And if we do, would it be better to create a new one (that people would be quarreling about from the minute of its creation, too, I guess) or to pick one of the already existing?

I don't think it's realistic to "throw English out of the window", because the tricky (and great) thing about languages is that it is hard to change them by law. Sure, it would be great if Esperanto was taught at schools and if tourist information leaflets would come in Esperanto as well, but yeah, with English being what it is nobody would want to finance such an idealistic project.

What I really like about Esperanto is that everybody who speaks it has made an effort to learn it. Wouldn't it be great if when asking for the way in a foreign country I would not have to think about whether it is appropriate to ask in English? (Though asking in the local language is cooler anyway, but there's another thread for that discussion.) But yeah, then there's the issue of Eurocentrism again. Hm. Better no artifical lingua franca than a bad one? I don't know ... I'm ambivalent! Would love to get more input from you guys.

By the way, while an official Eo policy might not really be realistic enough to even talk about it, I like the suggestion somebody brought up on the lernu forums: asking people whether they speak Eo before asking about English, leaving youtube comments in Eo etc. - just to make it a little bit more visible. (Something that could go for all languages - doing everything on the internet in English is lazy. )

[Travis B.]

The main thing is that Esperanto could have been made so much better had it been designed more rationally as an auxlang. For instance, were it a rationally designed auxlang it would probably have:

• No inflection; the only thing of that sort which would be permitted would be compounding
• No grammatical gender of any sort
• Things typically indicated through inflection in European language to be marked via things such as adjectival forms and adverbial forms
• Only CV syllables except word initially, where V could be allowed
• Only labial, alveolar, and velar consonants
• No voicing or fortis/lenis distinction
• [s] as the only fricative
• There is only one liquid (which in my personal opinion should be [ɾ])
• [j] as the only approximant
• A 3 or 5-vowel triangular vowel system
• No phonemic vowel length, pitch accent, tone, phonation, or whatnot
• You probably get the picture at this point

Such would be designed for people from around the world to be easy to learn, yet at the same time would not have the creolishness that one finds in things like Toki Pona and like. Too bad such ideas were not floating around at the time that Esperanto was created...

[Narbleh]

Most of those have to do with its phonology, and I couldn't agree with you more. I think it's absurd to design a language for international use and put in clusters and phonemes the majority of the world doesn't have or has difficulty pronouncing. How about these gems? The stuff in the first [] is how people normally (mis)pronounce it. Red asterisks are ones even I can't pronounce right:
lingvo [liŋ vo] vs. [lin gvo] *
scii [sːi ʔi] vs. [s t_s i:]
gvidi [gə vi di] vs. [gvi di]
mallonga [mal oŋ ga] vs. [mal: on ga]
ŝminki [ʃə miŋ ki] vs. [ʃmin ki]
disĵeti [diʃ:ɛ ti] vs. [dis ʒɛ ti] *
ekzemplo [ɛg zɛm plo] vs. [ɛk zɛm plo]
ŝranko [ʃə ɾaŋ ko] vs. [ʃɾan ko] *
ŝpruci [ʃp(ə)ɾu t_si] vs. [ʃpɾu t_si] *
ĥoro [ho ɾo, kʰo ɾo] vs. [xo ɾo]

Even Volapuk made the mistake of having ö and ü, though it was considerably kinder in the consonant department.

[Travis B.]

Yeah, when I myself had looked at Esperanto in the past, I found many of the words to be rather tongue-twister-esque, and that is for a native speaker of a Germanic language which is quite fond of consonant clusters and closed syllables... (and hell, I seem to be better at pronouncing weird consonant clusters than many other English-speakers here...)

(At least when speaking carefully; when not speaking carefully, I tend to favor the assimilations and elisions that are usual here in Real Life.)

[Car]

Most of those have to do with its phonology, and I couldn't agree with you more. I think it's absurd to design a language for international use and put in clusters and phonemes the majority of the world doesn't have or has difficulty pronouncing.

I remember reading on Espe - RANT - o that the phonology is a very simplified version of the Polish dialect Zamenhof spoke. They also demonstrated it. How anyone can take Polish phonology as a basis for an international language is something I absolutely fail to understand.

How about these gems?

Esperanto has gems? Never heard that before.

lingvo [liŋ vo] vs. [lin gvo] *
mallonga [mal oŋ ga] vs. [mal: on ga]
ekzemplo [ɛg zɛm plo] vs. [ɛk zɛm plo]
ŝranko [ʃə ɾaŋ ko] vs. [ʃɾan ko] *
ĥoro [ho ɾo, kʰo ɾo] vs. [xo ɾo]

All materials I have say that "e" and "o" are always open, no matter the position. That may be more straightforward, but not easy for everyone.
If I'm not mistaken, ĥ was replaced by k later on. Isn't the r /r/ instead of /ɾ/?

[Travis B.]

At least I myself can pronounce certain long consonants with ease, as they do commonly show up in the English dialect here in practice, but for the most part, a lot of those examples are practically impossible for me without speaking extremely carefully. In particular, having [n] next to a labial or velar consonant is wholly impossible for me, as is having two obstruents that do not agree in voicing next to each other (but in such pairs one can generally tell what at least the first obstruent was before being devoiced).

[Narbleh]

Does sarcasm not translate well between languages or something?

All materials I have say that "e" and "o" are always open, no matter the position. That may be more straightforward, but not easy for everyone.

That's strange, the materials I've read say /E/ for "e" and /o/ for "o", which makes words like "ne" problematic. Maybe since they're geared towards English-speakers, it's to avoid the tendency to make /e/ into /Ej/.

If I'm not mistaken, ĥ was replaced by k later on.

In some words yes, but in others, it persists, such as the example I gave.

Isn't the r /r/ instead of /ɾ/?

I don't know. This is one of the vaguest parts of Esperanto pronunciation. I've heard and read conflicting advice between making it a tap or making it a trill. So long as it's not guttural or rhotic, I'm sure no one would care much. Then again, what an ambiguous consonant to include in the phonology. Volapuk disposes of "r" for that very reason.

[Car]

Does sarcasm not translate well between languages or something?

Sarcasm?

That's strange, the materials I've read say /E/ for "e" and /o/ for "o", which makes words like "ne" problematic. Maybe since they're geared towards English-speakers, it's to avoid the tendency to make /e/ into /Ej/.

I once heard a recording of Zamenhof. I'm pretty sure he had /O/. For a language that claims to sound like Italian, it sounded pretty Slavic when spoken by him.
But even in the courses, you can clearly hear the speaker's accent, tell easily what their native language is. In any case, it should have been made a lot simpler. Even with the languages he spoke, he should have done better.

[Narbleh]

How about these gems?

Esperanto has gems? Never heard that before.

There's the sarcasm

And yes, that's a very fundamental flaw with many Esperanto-speakers, and I attribute it to the mentality that surrounds Esperanto. "Oh, it's so easy! So I don't have to work on my accent and I can just pretend it's my native language with different words."
It's really unfortunate that even Esperanto-speakers themselves, at least the vast majority of casual ones I've seen, speak shoddy Esperanto because of this.

[Steli]

I called them particles because they can be applied to adjectives and nouns as well, though doing so for nouns is considered substandard for some reason. Can't really do that in English, despite weak verbs apparently having the same phenomenon.

I'm not sure if I get what you want to say. How could you apply -as or -u to a noun or adjective?

I also quite don't understand the objections against the sibilants and sibilant affricates. S, Z, Ŝ, Ĵ, Ĉ and Ĝ are quite common sounds in languages around the world. If you don't want to oversimplify the phonology (what could put off people, too) the E-o choice is fairly reasonable. It's at least a lot less than in standard Polish (which has 12 similar sounds, I believe) or Mandarin.

[Travis B.]

I called them particles because they can be applied to adjectives and nouns as well, though doing so for nouns is considered substandard for some reason. Can't really do that in English, despite weak verbs apparently having the same phenomenon.

I'm not sure if I get what you want to say. How could you apply -as or -u to a noun or adjective?

I also quite don't understand the objections against the sibilants and sibilant affricates. S, Z, Ŝ, Ĵ, Ĉ and Ĝ are quite common sounds in languages around the world. If you don't want to oversimplify the phonology (what could put off people, too) the E-o choice is fairly reasonable. It's at least a lot less than in standard Polish (which has 12 similar sounds, I believe) or Mandarin.

As languages in general go, though, one cannot count on having nearly that many sibilants. Hell, it is quite common for languages to have two or less sibilants. Just because English happens to have all of those as does some other Indo-European languages such as Polish does not mean that they are really all that common cross-linguistically.

[Narbleh]

I'm not sure if I get what you want to say. How could you apply -as or -u to a noun or adjective

Generally, it kind of acts like a "to be" when you put it on a noun/adjective. It's actually quite common now to use it for adjectives:
Eblas, ke... = It's possible that... (ebla)
Kiam tio disponeblos? = When will that be available? (disponebla)
La nokto malhelu, kaj mia koro mallaboremu! = May the night be dark, and my heart lazy! (malhela, mallaborema)
Via laboro pli kaj pli farendas ĉiun tagon. = Your work gets more and more pressing every day. (farenda)
Ĉu vi pretas? = Are you ready?

It's even acceptable, though less common, with participles:
La muziko kantotas. = La muziko estas kantota. = The music will be sung.

Using it with nouns is considered substandard, but I don't see why:
Li ekpatris. = He was suddenly a father.

[Steli]

But in all these cases you use verbs, not adjectives. When you say "mi pretas", "pret-" is the verb "to be ready", not the adjective "ready".

At least that's the way I see it.

[Narbleh]

I think that's stretching it. The roots, by and large, have no set part of speech. That's determined by the endings. You don't know the precise meaning of ebl- because it could be "ebla" able/possible, "eble" possibly, "eblo" possibility, "ebli" to be possible... Most speakers would lean toward "possible/able" if they had to pick one, because "ebla" is the most common form. Likewise, people would lean toward patr- being "father" because "patro" is more common than "patra" paternal/fatherly or "patri" to be a father.

So for the case of "pret-", it only means "to be ready" when you add a verb particle. Otherwise, you're not really sure.

Don't get me wrong, some roots do have very specific affinities. The notorious pair: martel- is substantive-leaning "hammer", yet sxovel- is verb-leaning "to shovel". This comes into play when forming derivatives: martelo is already "hammer", so adding -ilo (tool) is nonsensical. However, to get "shovel", you can't simply say "sxovelo" because that means an act of shoveling, and you do need -ilo "sxovelilo".

These kinds of words are very rare, however, and most times, it's only a "well it's more commonly an adjective/noun/verb" kind of instinct that would let you guess what a root is if it had no endings.

So I guess it was kind of inaccurate of me to describe it as making adjectives/nouns into verbs. It more precisely is making adjective/noun-tending roots into verbs.

[Steli]

I was just trying keep the particles approach. I guess you could say that for example "patr-" has a whole set of meanings, including "father", "fatherly" and "be a father", and that the nominal, adjectival or verbal particles are used for the sole purpose of clarifying what is meant in particular.

The ŝovel- vs. martel- example is by the way a very good example for the fact that E-o is not 100% regular, despite what is said. Not that there are any rules that are violated though, it's rather that there often aren't any rules at all. Or that they have to be learned for each word separately.

[Narbleh]

Yep. Esperanto's irregularity lies in its vocabulary, not so much in its grammar. It's often key to have this instinct for what affinity a root has. Another example where this dictates the grammar:
amiko - friend
amika - friend-like, friendly
amiko != friendship, friendliness, it already means "friend", so you need:
amikeco - friendship, friendliness

But with blu-:
blua - blue
bluo - blueness, color blue
blueco - bluishness
blueca - bluish

These things form the crux of what one develops after learning the grammar, and it takes time. Note that in the above example, in the case of adjective-leaning roots, there's a tendency to just whitewash the bunch and use -eco for "quality of adjective" even though -o would technically suffice.
I read something in an Eo course about this very thing once, and that our "language instinct" will rarely lead us astray in determining the quality of a root, but I somehow doubt that holds true for all world languages, or even a majority of them.

And then there's the whole transitivity debacle, which is another example of vocabulary being the bulk of what you work on when you get all the grammar down.