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Native Esperanto as a Test Case (...) | ||
Tags: Native Language | Esperanto | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Esperanto |  | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6702 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes  Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 41 of 43 20 June 2012 at 1:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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Zamenhof may have hoped that Esperanto would become a standard, universal language, but it never happened and never will happen. The question is to which extent Esperanto will change, and whether it will diversify like most other languages have done. There are a number of features where I am puzzled by the choices of Zamenhof. Sometimes I can see a reason (the avoidance of compund verbal forms based on 'havi' is clearly reminiscent of his Slavic backround), sometimes not (as in the choice of the endin -a to indicate quality for correlatives - -a otherwise signals adjectival use). But by and large I agree that we need to maintain a common standard form of the language because the alternative - given the dispersion of its speakers - would be chaos. It is inevitable that loanwords will seep in from other languages (in spite of the official policy that derivations based on a limited stock of roots be used instead), but so far it hasn't destroyed the unity of the language. And as in any other languages I may miss certain features or wish that things were different, but I still try to emulate the language of its more proficient speakers/writers - just as I do with other languages where there is some kind of standard.
Right now the main point is that we in Esperanto have an artificial language which is so well planned and whch is used on so many persons (often at a very high level) that it in practice functions like a 'natural' language. And this evaluation isn't dependent on the existance of a few truly native speakers. Edited by Iversen on 20 June 2012 at 1:42pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| remush Tetraglot Groupie Belgium remush.beRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6267 days ago 79 posts - 94 votes Speaks: French*, Esperanto, English, Dutch Studies: German, Polish | Message 43 of 43 21 June 2012 at 12:47am | IP Logged | ||
The dispersion of its speakers is a factor of stability, provided that they communicate with each other. Esperanto is not meant for isolated communities lacking communication channels. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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