4 ms·

I could surely learn Dutch to given level of proficiency faster than I could learn Esperanto to the same level of proficiency. And what's really sad about that

I could surely learn Dutch to given level of proficiency faster than I could learn Esperanto to the same level of proficiency. And what's really sad about that for Esperanto is that learning Dutch would give me access to more speakers in more places than learning Esperanto does.

jodrellblank 12y ago
Why "surely"? That's not a great comparison since Dutch is about as close as a foreign language gets to English. And when you learn it you can only use it in the Netherlands and some former colonies. More speakers yes, but ... More places?
- tokenadult 12y ago
  You seemed to be quite confident in your use of the phrase "any native language," so I immediately suggested a counterexample. As the Justin Rye website, already linked above, points out, Esperanto is NASTILY hard to learn for the native speakers of many languages. I by no means accept the statement that Esperanto is easy to learn to a given degree of proficiency unless someone shows me a well conducted study to that effect published outside of Esperantist advocacy publications. (I know for certain that the United States Army investigated using Esperanto as a language for the "aggressor" force in war games, but that practice appears to have been abandoned. Other countries at other times would have had sufficient interest in investigating an easy-to-learn interlanguage that I have to conclude, on the basis of "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence," that Esperanto is not especially easy to learn for actual real-world use with persons who have other native language backgrounds.)
  - jodrellblank 12y ago
    But why surely? What makes you suggest Dutch would be easier than Esperanto to learn to fluency? Dutch looks as daunting as any other natural language to me, whereas the simplified patterns in Esperanto make it much more attractive. No more (goose->geese, but bed->beds). No more (swim->swam, but jump->jumped). No more (row/row) spelling and pronounciation weirdness. (X/malX instead of X/Y) dramatically reducing vocabulary to say the same thing. Looks much easier than Dutch. (Albeit not Easy because how easy can it ever be to learn to say everything in another way?) Other countries at other times would have had sufficient interest in investigating an easy-to-learn interlanguage If they really had "sufficient" interest, they would have funded some linguists and had an interlanguage designed from scratch, then mandated that it be taught in their schools and solved the problem[1]. Language work requires minimal technology, minimal physical resources, and minimal space, so funding from a government scale budget would be a non-issue ... so why haven't they? All of the central European governments with multiple neighbour countries speaking different languages, international organizations like the EU, the UN, WTO, ISO, any of these people - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_intergovernmental_organizations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_intergovernmental_organ... - which of them had sufficient interest to actually try and solve the problem - in whatever way, picking any of the myriads of constructed languages or having their own designed and agreed upon? Your suggestion is that they investigated Esperanto and found it too difficult, right? But why haven't they done anything, except be happy that English or French is good enough for them and ha ha sod the entire rest of the world who find English and French difficult to learn to fluency. [1] I conclude, either the problem of agreeing on a more-simple shared language is unsolvable, or they didn't have "sufficient interest" in solving it.

jodrellblank 12y ago

Why "surely"? That's not a great comparison since Dutch is about as close as a foreign language gets to English. And when you learn it you can only use it in the Netherlands and some former colonies. More speakers yes, but ... More places?

tokenadult 12y ago
You seemed to be quite confident in your use of the phrase "any native language," so I immediately suggested a counterexample. As the Justin Rye website, already linked above, points out, Esperanto is NASTILY hard to learn for the native speakers of many languages. I by no means accept the statement that Esperanto is easy to learn to a given degree of proficiency unless someone shows me a well conducted study to that effect published outside of Esperantist advocacy publications. (I know for certain that the United States Army investigated using Esperanto as a language for the "aggressor" force in war games, but that practice appears to have been abandoned. Other countries at other times would have had sufficient interest in investigating an easy-to-learn interlanguage that I have to conclude, on the basis of "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence," that Esperanto is not especially easy to learn for actual real-world use with persons who have other native language backgrounds.)
- jodrellblank 12y ago
  But why surely? What makes you suggest Dutch would be easier than Esperanto to learn to fluency? Dutch looks as daunting as any other natural language to me, whereas the simplified patterns in Esperanto make it much more attractive. No more (goose->geese, but bed->beds). No more (swim->swam, but jump->jumped). No more (row/row) spelling and pronounciation weirdness. (X/malX instead of X/Y) dramatically reducing vocabulary to say the same thing. Looks much easier than Dutch. (Albeit not Easy because how easy can it ever be to learn to say everything in another way?) Other countries at other times would have had sufficient interest in investigating an easy-to-learn interlanguage If they really had "sufficient" interest, they would have funded some linguists and had an interlanguage designed from scratch, then mandated that it be taught in their schools and solved the problem[1]. Language work requires minimal technology, minimal physical resources, and minimal space, so funding from a government scale budget would be a non-issue ... so why haven't they? All of the central European governments with multiple neighbour countries speaking different languages, international organizations like the EU, the UN, WTO, ISO, any of these people - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_intergovernmental_organizations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_intergovernmental_organ... - which of them had sufficient interest to actually try and solve the problem - in whatever way, picking any of the myriads of constructed languages or having their own designed and agreed upon? Your suggestion is that they investigated Esperanto and found it too difficult, right? But why haven't they done anything, except be happy that English or French is good enough for them and ha ha sod the entire rest of the world who find English and French difficult to learn to fluency. [1] I conclude, either the problem of agreeing on a more-simple shared language is unsolvable, or they didn't have "sufficient interest" in solving it.