Now, speaking as a user discussing with another user:
First off. You’re clearly assuming that I’m arguing against Esperanto usage, when I’m mostly talking about its design demerits, and how they descriptively impact its usage. Specially Esperanto as designed by Zamenhof back then; that, as yourself highlighted, is not the “same” Esperanto as now, and being promoted by plenty Esperantists under the incorrect claim that “you only need to learn 16 rules! It’s so easy~” [more on that later].
And keep in mind that what I’m saying comes from the PoV of a conlanger, not the PoV of someone soapboxing which language people should use. When it comes to prescriptions of which lingua franca people should use, I’m simply lukewarm towards Esperanto.
With that out of the way: some of the claims in JBR’s page are garbage, but some are actually sensible, even if you dislike them. (And some are as outdated as its layout.) It’s still good discussion material about the language, regardless on how it affects its community.
That’s not “poorly designed”, that’s a misnomer for “not perfect enough”. Perfectionism is the enemy of good. And Esperanto is a working language which is in itself more or less consistent. [NB: emphasis in the original]
The difference between “poorly designed” and “not perfect enough” is solely where you arbitrarily place the quality threshold. And the exact same argument that you’re using can be used against you:
A natural language, by setting the bar lower. “Perfectionism is the enemy of the good. [Mandarin | English | French | Latin | Greek | etc.] is a working language which is in itself more or less consistent. Why bother with Esperanto? Because natural languages are «not perfect enough»?”
Another conlang over Esperanto, by setting the bar higher. “[Ido | another Esperantido | Toki Pona | Lojban] is a working language which is in itself more or less consistent, while Esperanto itself is just poorly designed”.
So, where do you put that bar? And more importantly, why you put it there instead of higher or lower?
One could argument that its inventor did not want to create the perfect language, but a working one which is the template for the actual language, which he knew would evolve out of it. Today’s Esperanto is already a different one than the one published in 1887.
I’m not going to assume what Zamenhof “wanted”, regarding design, but the idea is rather curious. Contemporary Esperanto does show some developments, as if the community was addressing design issues from its original design. From the top of my head: /x/ seems to be losing phonemic status.
And? What is that for an argument?
It is an argument against how Esperanto was designed. It is not an argument against (or for) its usage, although it’s one of the factors behind it. Drop down the defensive tone and you’ll see.
It has 16 rules, which are still 16 rules, which are rooted in how other languages do their thing.
It has a bazillion rules, as any speakable language. Complexity is intrinsic to human linguistic communication; the very fact that Esperanto works shows that it does not have “just 16 rules”. Except that those rules are not usually acknowledged by the linguistic community, even if they were the ones making them.
And which features Zamenhof took from those other languages can be criticised. For example: the article + case mark combo. It’s unnecessary - you need to know two systems to be able to proficiently use the language, when one would do.
Then the rest of the booklet which the inventor of the language published was full of exercises to show the implicit rules.
Let’s call wine “wine” and bread “bread”: implicit = hidden.
Still, these rules are useable and give people enough to learn the language.
Esperanto as designed back then was not useable, without plopping ad hoc rules borrowed from the community’s native languages. And it’s currently useable because of those rules being incorporated into the language, even if implicit = hidden.
One could even argue that the 16 rules are not just 16 of the kind, even when reading them they have sub-parts, are longer than just say “-o marks nouns” or something. Criticizing Esperanto because of them is just an act of ill will. “Look ma! They are not just 16 rules … looolz!” no shit Sherlock!
And I could argue that orange is blue or that potatoes grow on trees.
And, again, I’m criticising Esperanto’s design.
TL;DR: I’m calling the claim “poorly designed” as nonsense and ANY re-iteration of it as trolling or dishonest attempt to derail any rational investigation of Esperanto as a language.
And curiously enough, in no moment you actually addressed the claims. Instead you:
threw some argumenta ad hominem - attacking JBR instead of either his claims (or mine - refer to the rest of the thread);
minced words in a way that fakes some qualitative distinction between “poorly designed” and “not perfect enough” (the diff is quantitative, and arbitrary)
throwing what reads like a tantrum. Or worse, soapboxing - rather fitting, since the activity in your profile boils down to “jump at any opportunity to talk about Esperanto, assume that the world is against it, and defend it from them”.
claiming that I’m trolling or being dishonest.
Rational investigation requires criticism, like it or not.
(By the way. I believe that a lot of the design issues that I mentioned will be eventually addressed within the language, not by ditching Esperanto but by slowly changing it, in a mix of natural evolution and co-designing.)
Rational investigation requires criticism, like it or not.
Rational investigation requires criticism, like it or not. Yes it does. But your response and your whole argumentation is not criticism but trolling, just designed to provoke an emotional response which you can then tear down and enjoying while doing it. Like what you did earlier and also on my reply.
As I wrote disproving JBR or making any response to him is like responding to an anti-vaxxer. I don’t have the damn time, nor could all my responses be trusted, because I’m not a linguist, so who cares anyway? Musing all day about the details of where JBR was right and where he talked as an English speaker out of his ass, just to piss off more people – brings what exactly? Those people who already made up their opinions will still stick to them, those who will learn Esperanto anyway will learn it anyway. The damage has already been done, because those who are undecided will not learn it or even consider it a language at all. WELL DONE!
And reactions then like yours always boils down to the “bad Esperantist”, who reacts pissed off to shitty ideas, shitty opinions thrown around by people who should shut their mouths for good.
minced words to fake some qualitative distinction between “poorly designed” and “not perfect enough” (the diff is quantitative, and arbitrary)
No it’s not. A poorly designed pocket knife for example will hurt you, a not perfect knife is just lacking a feature which you would like, but which does not harm you.
First off. You’re clearly assuming that I’m arguing against Esperanto usage, when I’m mostly talking about its design demerits.
I really tried to not assume that, but the way you argumented, how you twisted my response all lead me to the conclusion that you are argumenting against the usage of Esperanto at all as most people who follow the exact argumentation chain do. Using JBR as valid source would be one point in that chain. Like as I quote some news article of Russia Today to prove that the war of Russia against the Ukraine is right, because Ukraine is full of national socialists.
just designed to provoke an emotional response which you can then tear down and enjoying while doing it.
You’re assuming again the intentions of another person.
As I wrote disproving JBR or making any response to him is like responding to an anti-vaxxer.
You’re again drawing an association of someone with anti-vaxxers, without having grounds to do so.
And reactions then like yours always boils down to the “bad Esperantist”
Now you’re simply making shit up.
You’re insistently behaving in ways that you were warned against. And even without that, your overall behaviour across this thread has been uncivil and irrationally defensive right off the start; I cut you some slack because it was towards me, but it’s clear by your profile that you’re expected to behave the same way towards other users in this community in the future, and also to use the community to soapbox if allowed.
As such, you’ve been deemed unfit for this community, and hereby banned from it, accordingly to the Lemmy’s code of conduct that this instance follows.
I’ll keep your comments visible for the sake of transparency.
Now, speaking as a user discussing with another user:
First off. You’re clearly assuming that I’m arguing against Esperanto usage, when I’m mostly talking about its design demerits, and how they descriptively impact its usage. Specially Esperanto as designed by Zamenhof back then; that, as yourself highlighted, is not the “same” Esperanto as now, and being promoted by plenty Esperantists under the incorrect claim that “you only need to learn 16 rules! It’s so easy~” [more on that later].
And keep in mind that what I’m saying comes from the PoV of a conlanger, not the PoV of someone soapboxing which language people should use. When it comes to prescriptions of which lingua franca people should use, I’m simply lukewarm towards Esperanto.
With that out of the way: some of the claims in JBR’s page are garbage, but some are actually sensible, even if you dislike them. (And some are as outdated as its layout.) It’s still good discussion material about the language, regardless on how it affects its community.
The difference between “poorly designed” and “not perfect enough” is solely where you arbitrarily place the quality threshold. And the exact same argument that you’re using can be used against you:
So, where do you put that bar? And more importantly, why you put it there instead of higher or lower?
I’m not going to assume what Zamenhof “wanted”, regarding design, but the idea is rather curious. Contemporary Esperanto does show some developments, as if the community was addressing design issues from its original design. From the top of my head: /x/ seems to be losing phonemic status.
It is an argument against how Esperanto was designed. It is not an argument against (or for) its usage, although it’s one of the factors behind it. Drop down the defensive tone and you’ll see.
It has a bazillion rules, as any speakable language. Complexity is intrinsic to human linguistic communication; the very fact that Esperanto works shows that it does not have “just 16 rules”. Except that those rules are not usually acknowledged by the linguistic community, even if they were the ones making them.
And which features Zamenhof took from those other languages can be criticised. For example: the article + case mark combo. It’s unnecessary - you need to know two systems to be able to proficiently use the language, when one would do.
Let’s call wine “wine” and bread “bread”: implicit = hidden.
Esperanto as designed back then was not useable, without plopping ad hoc rules borrowed from the community’s native languages. And it’s currently useable because of those rules being incorporated into the language, even if implicit = hidden.
And I could argue that orange is blue or that potatoes grow on trees.
And, again, I’m criticising Esperanto’s design.
And curiously enough, in no moment you actually addressed the claims. Instead you:
Rational investigation requires criticism, like it or not.
(By the way. I believe that a lot of the design issues that I mentioned will be eventually addressed within the language, not by ditching Esperanto but by slowly changing it, in a mix of natural evolution and co-designing.)
Rational investigation requires criticism, like it or not. Yes it does. But your response and your whole argumentation is not criticism but trolling, just designed to provoke an emotional response which you can then tear down and enjoying while doing it. Like what you did earlier and also on my reply.
As I wrote disproving JBR or making any response to him is like responding to an anti-vaxxer. I don’t have the damn time, nor could all my responses be trusted, because I’m not a linguist, so who cares anyway? Musing all day about the details of where JBR was right and where he talked as an English speaker out of his ass, just to piss off more people – brings what exactly? Those people who already made up their opinions will still stick to them, those who will learn Esperanto anyway will learn it anyway. The damage has already been done, because those who are undecided will not learn it or even consider it a language at all. WELL DONE!
And reactions then like yours always boils down to the “bad Esperantist”, who reacts pissed off to shitty ideas, shitty opinions thrown around by people who should shut their mouths for good.
No it’s not. A poorly designed pocket knife for example will hurt you, a not perfect knife is just lacking a feature which you would like, but which does not harm you.
I really tried to not assume that, but the way you argumented, how you twisted my response all lead me to the conclusion that you are argumenting against the usage of Esperanto at all as most people who follow the exact argumentation chain do. Using JBR as valid source would be one point in that chain. Like as I quote some news article of Russia Today to prove that the war of Russia against the Ukraine is right, because Ukraine is full of national socialists.
[Speaking as a moderator]
You’re assuming again the intentions of another person.
You’re again drawing an association of someone with anti-vaxxers, without having grounds to do so.
Now you’re simply making shit up.
You’re insistently behaving in ways that you were warned against. And even without that, your overall behaviour across this thread has been uncivil and irrationally defensive right off the start; I cut you some slack because it was towards me, but it’s clear by your profile that you’re expected to behave the same way towards other users in this community in the future, and also to use the community to soapbox if allowed.
As such, you’ve been deemed unfit for this community, and hereby banned from it, accordingly to the Lemmy’s code of conduct that this instance follows.
I’ll keep your comments visible for the sake of transparency.