NPR - Lana Shlafer interview 1/5 - Esperanto in Russia (NPR pt 6, NASK 2000 pt 14)

[JerryBear48]

Examples of how Esperanto differs from English: "He says about that that that that that is in your essay is wrong"  Can you punctuate this so it actually means something in English? In Esperanto you would say, "Li diras pri TIO KE TIU TION KIU estas en via eseo estas malg`usta" I capitalized all the words equivalent to "that" in English. Notice each one is a different word in Esperanto. "The shooting of the hunters was terrible," If its markmanship, you say "pafado del' c`asistoj",

[JerryBear48]

@JerryBear48 if it is about murder, you say "pafado al la c`asistoj". Ambiguous grammatical structure in English is "Johnny is eager to please." vs. "johnny is easy to please." The underlying grammar is totally different. This is explicit in Esperanto translation" "Johano estas dezirema plac`i" vs. "Johano facile plac`ig`as." Even "Love of God" is ambiguous in English: in Esperanto you say Amo al Dio (love for God) vs. "Amo de Dio" (god's love for you) Esperanto lacks such syntactic ambiguity.

[JerryBear48]

Where to begin? I am sorry but you seem to be suffering from the infamous Fundamentalist Mind Squish; a sort of dry rot of the brain induced by religious fanaticism. If you are really interested in Esperanto, I suggest you check out "ww.lernu.net" and choose English as your working language. They have quite an enormous amount of material, including a fairly extensive discussion in English of the rather elaborate grammar of modern Esperanto. But I cannot hold a discussion if you dont know how.

[mirandansa]

I suspect these people don't know enough about other artificial languages. There are alternatives better suited for international communication than Esperanto, in terms of neutrality & unambiguity. Esperanto can't get these qualities right. For instance, "filino" is both sexually biased and semantically ambiguous. Esperanto was created before the modern linguistics, logic, computer programming, etc. The structure is outdated.

[arpee9216]

Well, Esperanto is the only widely spoken International Auxiliary Language. Until Toki Pona, Lojban, etc. surpasses Esperanto, everyone will continue learning this one.

[JerryBear48]

@mirandansa What nonsense! Are you by any chance referring to "Dr. Esperanto's International Language Project" of more than 120 years ago? The Esperanto language of today is a far cry from that protolanguage and as fully developed as any modern language. Every aspect of the language has been gone over in fine detail in light of modern linguistic theory/ My current grammar runs to 700 pages. You know nothing of genuine Esperanto. Please refrain from displaying your ignorance.

[mirandansa]

@JerryBear48

« Every aspect of the language has been gone over in fine detail in light of modern linguistic theory »

Then you should know that 1) almost all Malayo-Polynesian languages of 350+ million speakers as well as other languages lack consonant clusters and 2) not all languages distinguish voiced/unvoiced consonants (e.g. Chinese). In light of that, how do you explain Esperanto's /kk/, /kg/, /kv/, etc. that appear in even such basic words as "kvar", "kvin", "dek kvin", etc.?

[mirandansa]

@JerryBear48

« You know nothing of genuine Esperanto. »

Then you must already be aware of Esperanto's morphological ambiguities more than me:

paperaro --> pap-erar-o (a papal mistake) / paper-ar-o (a ream of paper)

filino --> fil-in-o (a daughter) / fi-lin-o (dirty linen)

lavenda --> lavend-a (lavendery) / lav-end-a (in need of cleaning)

There are *so many* examples like these. Not to mention sexism and cultural bias.

[JerryBear48]

@mirandansa Over a century has shown that the sound system of Esperanto is not much a problem for Orientals, unlike English or French. There is a significant Esperanto movement in Indonesia. There is a long tradition (back to the 20's) of anarchists and leftists in the Far East (especially China, Japan an0d Korea)using Esperanto as an interlanguage because it is so much easier than any of their own. A language with too simple a phonology requires excessively long words for its vocabulary,

[mirandansa]

@JerryBear48

Right, the Esperanto phonology is *relatively* easier than that of the current dominant auxlangs such as English. That doesn't mean it's optimally neutral from the viewpoint of comparative linguistics.

"a significant Esperanto movement in Indonesia"... Tell me how significant it is. And did you know Malay-based creole languages in Indonesia are known for buffering/simplifying consonant clusters in words borrowed from Dutch and Portuguese? They would just rather not have /kg/ etc.

[mirandansa]

@JerryBear48

Esperanto also suffers from syntactic ambiguities:

* la frato de Kris, kiu estas mia amiko <-- Which one is "my friend"?

* Mi vidis viron kisantan virinon. <-- Which one is kissing which?

* Li estas nur infano. <-- Is this "nur" an adjective modifying "infano" or an adverb modifying "estas"?

* povus senkoste uzi <-- Which side does "senkoste" modify?

* bele rugxa kaj blua balo <-- What is "beautifully": "red", or "red AND blue"?

And so on, and so on.

[JerryBear48]

@mirandansa #1 "kiu" can only refer to the head of the noun phrase "frato". It cannot be Kris. #2 only one meaning is possible here. Nur modifies "estas". To modify "infano" change it to "nura". #3 if a phrase is an adjective, it can only refer to the object, here "viron". If it refers to the subject it should be an adverb. "Mi vidas viron kisante virinon." Here I would be doing the kissing. #4 The main verb "uzi"ntaurally, not the helping verb"povus".

" rug`a. to get both, repeat kaj .

[JerryBear48]

@JerryBear48 "bele kaj rug`a kaj blua balo" But hardly anybody would bother with this. Most would just say it like you did and assume it applied to both colors. such obscure picayune distinctions are not really useful and overemphasizing them ewould burden the language. You are actually imposing the high degree of syntactic ambiguity of English onto Esperanto, a language that possess in full measure the logical precision and rigor of the Classical languages. You do not know the grammar!

[mirandansa]

@JerryBear48

« a language that possess in full measure the logical precision and rigor of the Classical languages »

A "logical" language that can't even distinguish multiple kinds of "be" and "reason" lexically?

X estas. [EXISTENCE]

X estas Y. [IDENTITY]

X estas ___a. [PREDICATION]

X cxar Y. [CAUSALITY/NECESSITY/MOTIVATIO­N/JUSTIFICATION]

Esperanto is no match for Lojban on logic.

[mirandansa]

@JerryBear48

« "kiu" can only refer to the head of the noun phrase "frato". »

That's just not true. "NOUN1 de NOUN2, kiu ..." is also a form people actually use to modify the second noun with "kiu".

« To modify "infano" change it to "nura". »

Why is its adverbial form not "nure"? Why such arbitrariness?

[mirandansa]

@JerryBear48

« if a phrase is an adjective, it can only refer to the object »

And there are two objects: viron & virinon. The Esperanto syntax is ambiguous as to which one "kisantan" modifies, since the word order is supposed to be so "free" that an adjective can come either before or after a noun.

« The main verb "uzi"ntaurally, not the helping verb"povus" »

Why?

« " rug`a. to get both, repeat kaj . »

In "rugxaj balo kaj pomo", the modifier can get both due to "-j". So why not "belej"?

[JerryBear48]

@mirandansa I have aMaster's Degree in Linguistics. I understand how grammar phonology and syntax operate. You have no understanding at all of how languages work. In my experience, unintelligent people can never admit they are wrong no matter what logical evidence is presented to them because they cannot understand logic or evidence, only emotion. I choose to waste no further time on you. rather than intelligently respond to my arguments, you repeat the same thing over again, overemotionally.

[mirandansa]

@JerryBear48

Er... where is your actual refutation?