What would you change about Esperanto to make it easier?

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loqu
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Re: What would you change about Esperanto to make it easier?

Postby loqu » 2012-01-11, 6:55

Skeptik wrote:-Replace Ĥ with K. This is happening in Esperanto general usage as the Ĥ sound in Scottish loch is replaced by the K sound as in lock.
Citation needed.

Skeptik wrote:2) Replace R with L. It might be fun rolling your R's in bed, but for native English speakers who have no such sound in their native language it can be quite difficult during conversation.
Ethnocentrism much? If Esperanto were made with English speakers in mind, there would be no point in Esperanto to begin with, we'd speak in English.

Skeptik wrote:4) Remove the need for adjectives to agree in number and case with the nouns which they describe. Other languages work without this so it is unnecessary complication.
Again, anglicising the language?

General response: if you're so interested in anglicizing Esperanto, why do you even bother learning it? Do you like other languages at all?

Plus, look into Ido, you might like it more.
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Re: What would you change about Esperanto to make it easier?

Postby linguaholic » 2012-01-11, 9:38

With all the letter replacements you suggest to make Esperanto easier for English speakers, presumably, how would you deal with all the resulting homophones?

"Rideto" literally would mean "small laugh", and that's not a ridiculous word at all. In fact, your suggested French source means something like "sub-laugh", which is not much different. German also has a diminutive of laugh for smile (lachen-lächeln) and the Dutch call it "glowing/gleaming laugh" (glimlach). In fact, I would find it more unusal if the words for laugh and smile were not related. Yep, even if that's the way the glorious English language does it.
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Re: What would you change about Esperanto to make it easier?

Postby Skeptik » 2012-01-12, 7:50

Reply to linguaholic

The special characters are unique to Esperanto. No matter which other languages anyone may speak, they need to modify keyboard settings to type Esperanto special characters. Removing these characters would make it easier for everyone, not just English speakers.

People of Asian background would benefit more than English speakers from the replacement of R with L as some have difficulty distinguishing between the two.
The mention of English rolling their R's was meant as a little joke. Think of other English word that rhymes with R's.

Rido= laugh, ridego= loud laugh, rideto would logically mean quiet laugh.
Using a word other than rideto for smile would remove potential for confusion. If you can suggest a better alternative than sonriso (i.e. a word that means smile and has similar sounding words of the same meaning in a number of other languages) then please do so.

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Re: What would you change about Esperanto to make it easier?

Postby Narbleh » 2012-01-12, 19:32

Logic is often a subjective thing, especially in language. What makes sense to you won't to someone else, and vice versa as evidenced by you not liking "rideto" for "smile". There are other examples besides just "rideto," like "eldoni" (from-give) which means "to publish". I'd argue that idiomatic usages and potential confusion are par for the course in any language, constructed or otherwise.

I think the value of Esperanto and any language is in how the people use it and sometimes the enjoyment they get out of it. Talking about the supposed logic of this sound or that word just seems like nitpicking.
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Re: What would you change about Esperanto to make it easier?

Postby bartlett22183 » 2012-01-12, 21:14

Skeptik wrote:The special characters are unique to Esperanto. No matter which other languages anyone may speak, they need to modify keyboard settings to type Esperanto special characters. Removing these characters would make it easier for everyone, not just English speakers.

I have just joined UniLang, so I may well be behind things for now. If this has already been addressed, please overlook my comment.

I am not an accomplished Esperantist and do not pretend to be. However, I have been around the constructed international auxiliary language (conIAL) movement for a number of years. There was a time when I also deprecated the Esperanto supersigned letters. Then I simply made up my mind to become current with modern computer technology. I am not a computer specialist, but once I made my mind up, it turned out to be amazingly simple to handle the special characters. My computer is an older Windows model, but even so, several of the display and printer fonts already have the letters, and one font I downloaded for free also has them, as well as many others. I did not have to modify keyboard settings. All I had to do was to download and use a program (for Windows) such as Ek! or Tajpi, both of which are available for free and simple to install in just a minute or two. Most modern email and news agents and web browsers have no problems with Unicode in utf-8 encoding, as long as the installed fonts have the desired characters. Again, once I simply decided to get up to date, the process was amazingly simple and fast, even for an old codger like me. I no longer consider the Esperanto letters to be a significant issue.

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Re: What would you change about Esperanto to make it easier?

Postby Milya0 » 2012-01-16, 19:36

Skeptik, I decided to point out the anglocentric things from your post:

Skeptik wrote:To make Esperanto easier:

1) Remove special characters and remove or reassign their sounds to letters in the standard Latin alphabet. There are workarounds available to input the special characters but it would be easier to remove them.
-Replace J with Y (pronounced as in yes)
-Replace Ĉ, Ĝ, Ĵ and Ŝ with J (pronounced as s in pleasure). People have trouble telling these sounds apart so it would be easier to make them all the same.
-Remove C. Once Ĉ is removed there is no longer any need for C, for the sound ts use the letters ts.
-Replace Ĥ with K. This is happening in Esperanto general usage as the Ĥ sound in Scottish loch is replaced by the K sound as in lock.
-Replace Ŭ with W.

2) Replace R with L. It might be fun rolling your R's in bed, but for native English speakers who have no such sound in their native language it can be quite difficult during conversation. Also some people from Asian countries have difficulty telling the sounds of R and L apart.

3) Remove the accusative case. Zamenhof, the person who invented Esperanto, himself referred to it as "superfluous baggage".

4) Remove the need for adjectives to agree in number and case with the nouns which they describe. Other languages work without this so it is unnecessary complication.

5) Introduce a new word to mean "smile". The current word for smile is "rid/et/o". This would logically mean "quiet laugh" and to describe a smile as a quiet laugh is just rid/iculous. I would suggest the word "sonriso", adapted from the Spanish "sonrisa", and similar to the Italian "sorriso," and the French "sourire"
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Re: What would you change about Esperanto to make it easier?

Postby Skeptik » 2012-01-17, 5:03

A question was asked.
I answered it.
The reaction has been nothing but attacks and criticism.
No wonder this board is hardly active.
Have fun staring at old posts because with this attitude you will be getting very few posts from new people.

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Re: What would you change about Esperanto to make it easier?

Postby mōdgethanc » 2012-01-17, 5:21

If you don't want constructive criticism, don't post. This board is plenty active without inane discussions on how to fiddle with Esperanto, a topic which has been done to death already (see: Ido).
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Re: What would you change about Esperanto to make it easier?

Postby Narbleh » 2012-01-17, 19:35

Please try to understand where the attitude may come from. For its entire existence, Esperanto has been subject to suggestions for improvement. Where the problem comes from is these suggestions are often given by people with only a cursory knowledge of Esperanto.

Despite having little to no experience actually using the language, these well-intentioned people feel they can improve something many people have successfully used and enjoyed for a very long time. The suggestions are often dramatic and fundamental, like changing the phonology. Consider also the other "better" languages like Ido and Novial that have a paucity of speakers, or a language like Volapük that was subject to many sweeping changes and has fallen into even deeper obscurity than Esperanto.

The joy of Esperanto comes from using it to communicate. In actual use, you'll find things like ĥ or having a rolled "r" mean very little.
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Re: What would you change about Esperanto to make it easier?

Postby bartlett22183 » 2012-01-18, 21:28

As I mentioned in my first post above, I am not (and do not claim to be) an accomplished Esperantist. Nevertheless, I have been around the block, as we might say. I have viewed various proposals (rarely more than that) for conIALs (constructed international auxiliary languages). As nearly as I can tell, there are now only three which have any significant, meaningful user base -- Esperanto, Interlingua, and Ido -- among so-called WENSA speakers (*W*estern *E*urope, *N*orth and *S*outh America, *A*ustralia and New Zealand), and only Esperanto has any significant usage among native speakers of non-Indo-European languages.

Yes, there are those who come and have a fleeting, minor acquaintance with this or that conIAL, and without having mastered any of them they suppose that they, the dabblers, beginnners and amateurs, know better and can overrule a quarter century or more of actual, real world experience.

Some time ago, at the risk of seeming to blowing my own horn, I wrote an Essay "Thought on IAL Success" which is available at http://www.panix.com/~bartlett/ial.html . In that essay, I also reference an essay by Richard Harrison with his thoughts on an "optimal" design for an international auxiliary language at http://www.rickharrison.com/language/optimal.html . I do not always agree with Rick Harrison, but my point is specifically that it is *NOT*specifically this or that characteristic, phonological, morphological, syntactic, lexical, or otherwise, which determines the overall success of some or another conIAL.

Do I think that in terms of theoretical considerations Esperanto is "sub-optimal"? Definitely, yes, in theoretical terms I definitely consider E-o "sub-optimal." Is E-o easier to learn and use than various "natural" languages? I would say, again (in the contrary), yes, even though I as an older person have not mastered it. Does Esperanto *WORK* as a medium of human communication for whatever communicative needs people have? Again, definitely yes.

The perfect is the decided enemy of the good enough. Could E-o be improved in this way or that? In my opinion, yes. Are there ways to construct a conIAL for this and that consideration? Yes. But are any of such newcomers likely to overcome a century' and a quarter's success of Esperanto? I suspect not, no matter how much I might think that things should be otherwise.

I myself support the ideal of a constructed international auxiliary language which is not (now, at least) *anybody's* (apart from a handful of denaskoj parolantoj) home language. Considering the current juggernaut of English as an international auxiliary language -- just not a constructed one! -- I think that there are now few choices, with Esperanto (even though it is NOT my personal choice) in the lead.

Reality has a disconcerting way of messing with theoretical notions.

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Re: What would you change about Esperanto to make it easier?

Postby Hampayof » 2012-02-19, 11:02

What Bartlett said. (Btw, I presume you're the same man as wrote this page http://xn--volapk-7ya.com/bartlett/volgram.html? I found it useful when I was a Volapükan myself.)

I'll add my two penneth on Esperanto modification. I've been an Esperanto user for about four years on and off, and my main reason for being so is my admiration of its morphology. In fact, I would say that Esperanto has the best morphology of any auxlang ever; given its grammar, its morphology couldn't be better imo.

In my early years, as a conlanger myself, I used to regularly come up with reform ideas. And people have been doing this for over a hundred years. There are two problems with raising these ideas with other Esperantists. Firstly, they're sick to death of hearing about them, particularly because many of them don't really offer significant improvement. And secondly, the open secret in the Esperanto community is that they're mostly Raumists who don't want to conquer the world, but who just want to revel in their own small conlang community. They love and understand their language, and there'd be no sense in a reform.

Everyone has their own opinions about the optimal IAL, but even so, certain design features are accepted by the majority - including being an isolating language without a compulsory accusative case. In another thread, I refer to the "old chestnuts" of Esperanto - things that regularly get criticised. I believe that for all its wonder, the old chestnuts of Esperanto are a barrier to its adoption as the world's language. But, as a Raumist myself, I don't care much about this, because la fina venko was always a fantasy. I have reached a point in my life where I just USE Esperanto. I'm still interested in talking about reform, but for me it's just talk, no more.

Regarding the suggestions in this thread, Skeptik's are all sensible, although he's discovered how little people care for these millionth-time conversations. And to Arpee: I don't understand your compounding issue, and I must say I don't like the idea of merging adjectives and adverbs.

Conclusion: let's not delude ourselves into thinking Esperanto is reformable, but let's not attack reform proposers. If you're sick of reform talk, ignore it, and don't come in and insult the posters, because at the end of the day they usually say sensible things.

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Re: What would you change about Esperanto to make it easier?

Postby bartlett22183 » 2012-02-19, 19:11

Hampayof wrote:What Bartlett said. (Btw, I presume you're the same man as wrote this page http://xn--volapk-7ya.com/bartlett/volgram.html? I found it useful when I was a Volapükan myself.)

Yes, I wrote that, although I don't recall giving anyone permission to copy it elsewhere. The email address in that copy of it is obsolete. However, I never did (and do not) claim copyright, so I have no objection to it having been copied.

I'll add my two penneth on Esperanto modification. I've been an Esperanto user for about four years on and off, and my main reason for being so is my admiration of its morphology. In fact, I would say that Esperanto has the best morphology of any auxlang ever; given its grammar, its morphology couldn't be better imo.

Certainly, opinions will differ, but I myself have no major objections to Esperanto's morphology, although as a non-expert I sometimes find some compounded words rather disconcerting, puzzles to be figured out rather than means of easy communication.

In my early years, as a conlanger myself, I used to regularly come up with reform ideas. And people have been doing this for over a hundred years. There are two problems with raising these ideas with other Esperantists. Firstly, they're sick to death of hearing about them, particularly because many of them don't really offer significant improvement. And secondly, the open secret in the Esperanto community is that they're mostly Raumists who don't want to conquer the world, but who just want to revel in their own small conlang community. They love and understand their language, and there'd be no sense in a reform.

As do some people (not everyone), I make a distinction between conlangers and auxlangers. I myself consider Raumists to be primarily conlangers rather than auxlangers. They might be Klingonists in another reincarnation. Whether the majority of Esperanto users are Raŭmistoj or Finvenkistoj I couldn't say. But it is certainly so that most Esperantists are sick of hearing about reform proposals. The language works and works well, and auxlang history is replete with failed Esperanto reform proposals. Even Ido, the only one to gain any significant user base at all, never won the field.

... But, as a Raumist myself, I don't care much about this, because la fina venko was always a fantasy. I have reached a point in my life where I just USE Esperanto. I'm still interested in talking about reform, but for me it's just talk, no more.

Again, real auxlangers, whatever their preferred languages, are probably Finvenkistoj at heart. Otherwise they would be playing with one or another -- or their own -- of an uncounted multitude of projects and/or languages. (A tiny handful actually achieved some user base, even if it later faded away, at least somewhat.) And to that extent, they would be conlangers. Even the Raŭmistoj. Absolutely, there is nothing wrong with being a conlanger, not at all. I myself have toyed around with this or that conlang. But at heart I am a Finvenkisto (whether for Esperanto or something else), although whether there will ever be an actual worldwide constructed auxlang, I don't know.

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Re: What would you change about Esperanto to make it easier?

Postby Hampayof » 2012-02-20, 10:21

Interesting idea, I've never thought about it like that. So you think that the behaviour of the speaking community is more important that the inherent nature of the conlang? In other words, if Lojban people started handing out leaflets and emailing the European parliament, they would be auxlangers, whereas the current Volapükists (for example) are conlangers? My gut feeling is that the conlangs themselves must play a part, although the Raumist/Finvenkist distinction is very important.

I myself am actually a "sleeping" Finvenkisto, because even though I never lift a finger to promote Esperanto, if the Fina Venko started happening, I'd get involved one way or another.

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Re: What would you change about Esperanto to make it easier?

Postby bartlett22183 » 2012-02-20, 19:55

Yes, I myself (please note) consider that "Interesting idea, I've never thought about it like that. So you think that the behaviour of the speaking community is more important that the inherent nature of the conlang?" In other words, there are those who advocate this or that (constructed) language especially as an auxiliary language for international (or at least interethnic) use, and those who engage this or that (constructed) language more or less as an end in itself. The former are auxlangers, and the latter conlangers, as I use the terms.

To be sure, one can be both. No doubt, I would say, there are many Esperanto users who are both Raŭmistoj, and thus conlangers, and Finvenkistoj, and thus auxlangers. Some may be one or the other but more or less not both, some may be both at once. Advocates of Volapük were once auxlangers. Now most of them are probably conlangers, as I use the terms. I doubt that many, if any, of them really anticipate that Volapük will ever again be seriously considered as an auxlang. In the beginning, Loglan and later Lojban might have been considered conlangs. If there are those users who advocate that one of them be considered for actual use as an interlanguage, then those advocates are, to that extent, auxlangers in my opinion.

Yes, I do think that it is the behavior of what users there be which makes the difference between a conlang and an auxlang, although certainly any one language could be both at the same time: one might be both a Raŭmisto and a Finvenkisto, as nearly as I can tell. Different (proposed) auxlangs have different characteristics, so, yes, I do consider it the behavior of the advocates rather than the intrinsic natures of the languages themselves to differentiate conlangs and auxlangs.

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Re: What would you change about Esperanto to make it easier?

Postby E Pluribus Neo » 2012-03-22, 15:22

Esperanto is a waste of time. Esperanto is easy. Really? What does this "oni memvole defendkorpusaniĝas" mean? 2 million people speak it. Really? On what level. Everybody who reads the grammar that could be written on a single sheet of paper thinks he can speak it. It's the language of love and peace. Wow. Really? On every site 've seen so far, there was not one that wouldn't badmouth English. The English pronunciation is so random, it's hard to catch the sound and even after 20 years of study you won't understand that autotuned shit and be bound to look for lyrics blah blah blah ...

And to top it off, the community is full of nerds and crazy ugly people.
Image

Ido? Just a little bit better language nobody gives a shit about.

And even though the vocabulary is significantly lower, you still ought to learn 20,000 words to know it thorough. And you have to learn words like pilko (Polish). Nothing against Poland or the language, but how important the language is today or was in Zamenhof time. I won't bitch about Asian and African languages not being included, because Zam was only a human, but this languages sucks so badly and attracts all the wrong people. No offense.

This isn't just about hate, but the year or 2 I'd spend on learning this E-bullshit can give me an all-around confidence in Latin and it'll be still more useful. :D

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Re: What would you change about Esperanto to make it easier?

Postby loqu » 2012-03-22, 16:28

K.
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Re: What would you change about Esperanto to make it easier?

Postby bartlett22183 » 2012-03-22, 20:25

Certainly, opinions and attitudes differ, especially as there is not at present any constructed international auxiliary language (conIAL) which has swept the field. Those who do not like conIAL A or conIAL B or any other are under no obligation to try to learn any of them. I myself would tend to agree with some that Esperanto (or conIAL X of your choice) has been oversold in terms of its supposed easiness, but I do think nevertheless that some conIALs, including Esperanto, Interlingua (both of the languages by that name, actually), and Ido, all of which I have at least some familiarity with, are significantly easier to learn to use with at least minimal effectiveness than any "natural" language that I am aware of. If, for whatever reason, you do not like Esperanto, then don't bother yourself with it. If, somehow, sometime in the future it does become much more widespread than it is now and it becomes an advantage to learn to use it, then reassess your position.

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Re: What would you change about Esperanto to make it easier?

Postby Mutusen » 2012-03-22, 22:28

E Pluribus Neo wrote:Esperanto is a waste of time. Esperanto is easy. Really? What does this "oni memvole defendkorpusaniĝas" mean? 2 million people speak it. Really? On what level. Everybody who reads the grammar that could be written on a single sheet of paper thinks he can speak it. It's the language of love and peace. Wow. Really? On every site 've seen so far, there was not one that wouldn't badmouth English. The English pronunciation is so random, it's hard to catch the sound and even after 20 years of study you won't understand that autotuned shit and be bound to look for lyrics blah blah blah ...

And to top it off, the community is full of nerds and crazy ugly people.


Another amazing aspect of Esperanto is that I don't know of another language that makes people so angry.
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Re: What would you change about Esperanto to make it easier?

Postby bartlett22183 » 2012-03-23, 0:50

Mutusen wrote:
E Pluribus Neo wrote:Esperanto is a waste of time. Esperanto is easy. Really? What does this "oni memvole defendkorpusaniĝas" mean? 2 million people speak it. Really? On what level. Everybody who reads the grammar that could be written on a single sheet of paper thinks he can speak it. It's the language of love and peace. Wow. Really? On every site 've seen so far, there was not one that wouldn't badmouth English. The English pronunciation is so random, it's hard to catch the sound and even after 20 years of study you won't understand that autotuned shit and be bound to look for lyrics blah blah blah ...

And to top it off, the community is full of nerds and crazy ugly people.


Another amazing aspect of Esperanto is that I don't know of another language that makes people so angry.

There are other constructed languages that make people angry. (I have read a screed against IALA Interlingua by one who once favored it.) However, because Esperanto is the largest, best known, and most widespread conIAL, it is the biggest target and catches the greatest number of arrows. This fact does not amaze me. What does amaze me is the sometimes indifference and sometimes seeming hostility towards Esperanto and even the very idea of constructed languages by supposed professional linguists (there are a few exceptions, such as Wells) who will exhaust themselves scrutinizing some unwritten tongue spoken by a few dozen aboriginal people somewhere but ignore an "artificial" language used fluently, in speech and in writing, by many times more individuals in various parts of the world. Even so-called "professionals" can have their blindnesses and bigotries.

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Re: What would you change about Esperanto to make it easier?

Postby arpee » 2012-04-07, 16:02

Mutusen wrote:
E Pluribus Neo wrote:Esperanto is a waste of time. Esperanto is easy. Really? What does this "oni memvole defendkorpusaniĝas" mean? 2 million people speak it. Really? On what level. Everybody who reads the grammar that could be written on a single sheet of paper thinks he can speak it. It's the language of love and peace. Wow. Really? On every site 've seen so far, there was not one that wouldn't badmouth English. The English pronunciation is so random, it's hard to catch the sound and even after 20 years of study you won't understand that autotuned shit and be bound to look for lyrics blah blah blah ...

And to top it off, the community is full of nerds and crazy ugly people.


Another amazing aspect of Esperanto is that I don't know of another language that makes people so angry.


Yeah, they speak with so much conviction that it reminds me of religion, sometimes. They know the language isn't easy and they don't care just because people speak it. It is a contradiction to its own goal which is to be an international "AUXILIARY" language. They can stay in their little language group if they want, but I do not want this language becoming "the" global language. It is absolutely NOT WORTHY.

So what if English is more difficult? Nobody is forcing you to choose between "crap" and "crap", if they are both crap - just admit it, know that it is not worthy of the title "International AUXILIARY language" and be done with it, or make a reformation. And if people don't like the reformation because the want to stick to "tradition" instead of the ACTUAL goal, then they are not true Esperantists in the first place because they are missing the point of Zamenhof.


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