4 ms·

Uhm.. I tend to disagree, I think this rant is not based on such elaborate and architected arguments. Are there some references about them? The criticism I usu

by myth2018 8y ago

Uhm.. I tend to disagree, I think this rant is not based on such elaborate and architected arguments. Are there some references about them? The criticism I usually hear is something in the lines of Esperanto has been defeated in the international language championship and now refuses to shut the mouth up and go back home.

jcranmer 8y ago
The author says somewhere in that rant explicitly that Esperanto is a Romance/Germanic/Slavic creole and there are already too many of those, which is a pretty clear restatement of what I referred to as the second theme. Most of the rant itself is essentially a lot of nitpicking at the corners of the language. For example, the complaints about the passive voice structure or the gerunds in Esperanto, or the entire discussion of the difference between tense and aspect. This discussion can generally be simplified as "linguistics is more complex than is presented by its author." http://jbr.me.uk/ranto/b.html http://jbr.me.uk/ranto/b.html gives a more thorough elaboration on this topic in particular by going line-by-line through the Fundamento and pointing out some of the misconceptions of linguistics embedded in it (among other things).
- myth2018 8y ago
  Those are very interesting theoretical points, but in practice nobody who actually speak the language complains about them. So, I don't know if they are relevant on a practical standpoint. One may demonstrate that Zamenhof overpromoted his product (maybe out of ignorance, given Zamenhof was an amateur linguist). But the thing works beautifully well anyway and the criticism around there seems not to care about this.
  - em-bee 8y ago
    the rant does contain a number of interesting arguments, when each is looked at by itself. but for most arguments there is no attempt at actually solving the discussed problem, so we are stuck taking the authors word for it. a few are obvious and really should be solved. gender neutrality for example. given todays climate, that is a real problem that other languages like english and german are dealing with now, and esperanto will have to follow suit. but most others are more an issue of the perfect being an enemy of the good. sure, those issues could be fixed, but is it worth the effort? from an idealistic perspective maybe yes, but as long as english dominates, and there are no viable alternatives to esperanto that actually are better, the whole argument is rather moot. either solve the problems and come up with a better solution, or put up with what we have. everyone else is putting up with english, so surely dealing with the issues that esperanto has can't be that hard. for certain, a better language is conceivable, but i'll rather use esperanto despite its few faults than wait for that perfect language that may never materialize. and if it does, then knowing esperanto will make it easier to judge said new language.

jcranmer 8y ago

The author says somewhere in that rant explicitly that Esperanto is a Romance/Germanic/Slavic creole and there are already too many of those, which is a pretty clear restatement of what I referred to as the second theme. Most of the rant itself is essentially a lot of nitpicking at the corners of the language. For example, the complaints about the passive voice structure or the gerunds in Esperanto, or the entire discussion of the difference between tense and aspect. This discussion can generally be simplified as "linguistics is more complex than is presented by its author." http://jbr.me.uk/ranto/b.html http://jbr.me.uk/ranto/b.html gives a more thorough elaboration on this topic in particular by going line-by-line through the Fundamento and pointing out some of the misconceptions of linguistics embedded in it (among other things).

myth2018 8y ago
Those are very interesting theoretical points, but in practice nobody who actually speak the language complains about them. So, I don't know if they are relevant on a practical standpoint. One may demonstrate that Zamenhof overpromoted his product (maybe out of ignorance, given Zamenhof was an amateur linguist). But the thing works beautifully well anyway and the criticism around there seems not to care about this.
- em-bee 8y ago
  the rant does contain a number of interesting arguments, when each is looked at by itself. but for most arguments there is no attempt at actually solving the discussed problem, so we are stuck taking the authors word for it. a few are obvious and really should be solved. gender neutrality for example. given todays climate, that is a real problem that other languages like english and german are dealing with now, and esperanto will have to follow suit. but most others are more an issue of the perfect being an enemy of the good. sure, those issues could be fixed, but is it worth the effort? from an idealistic perspective maybe yes, but as long as english dominates, and there are no viable alternatives to esperanto that actually are better, the whole argument is rather moot. either solve the problems and come up with a better solution, or put up with what we have. everyone else is putting up with english, so surely dealing with the issues that esperanto has can't be that hard. for certain, a better language is conceivable, but i'll rather use esperanto despite its few faults than wait for that perfect language that may never materialize. and if it does, then knowing esperanto will make it easier to judge said new language.