Re: Question words and word order

From: Manuel M Campagna (fa192_at_FreeNet.Carleton.CA)
Date: 03/12/05 

Date: 12 Mar 2005 21:05:17 GMT

"John Swindle" (jcswindle@msn.deletethispart.com) writes:
> "Lee Sau Dan" <danlee@informatik.uni-freiburg.de> wrote in message
> news:873bv9biqg.fsf@informatik.uni-freiburg.de...
>>>>>> "John" == John Swindle <jcswindle@msn.deletethispart.com> writes:
> John> Esperanto is billed as regular and easy to learn and as
> John> having only sixteen rules. Speakers of European languages
> John> certainly seem to find it easy to learn. But besides rules,
> John> Esperanto also has customary usages, and these take longer
> John> to discover.
>> It is these HIDDEN rules that make it more difficult than it is
>> claimed to be. Those rules are "taken for granted" by Europeans. The
>> fairness claim doesn't hold.
> Yes, it is these hidden rules that make it more difficult than it is
> claimed to be. No, these rules are not necessarily taken for
> granted by Europeans, because European languages do not all
> handle things the same way. Speakers of European languages as
> well as speakers of other languages will find that some of the
> things that they take for granted do not work well in Esperanto.
> The differing ways that languages handle "Kiel vi fartas?" are a
> case in point:
> http://www.lernu.net/lernu.php?loko=/seppik/lec20.php
> On the other hand, it is entirely possible and maybe even likely
> (1) that SOME of the customs or assumptions or "hidden rules"
> in Esperanto are shared European or IE assumptions that are
> not shared by speakers of other languages, and (2) that the
> customs or assumptions or "hidden rules" in Esperanto, taken
> as a whole, are more of a challenge for speakers of other
> languages than for speakers of European languages. If (1) or
> especially if (2) were true, that would indeed invalidate any
> claim that Esperanto is perfectly fair or neutral. I'm not sure
> what the canonical version of that claim is supposed to be.

All language swarm with idioms.

In the case of "Kiel vi fartas ?", this is something that has no
equivalent in some languages, because they don't feel the need to greet,
such as Gaelic (Scots) and Breton and (I'm told) other Celtic languages.
In English, some ask "How are you?", others "How do you do?", others "How
are you doing?". In French we ask "How go you?" or "How that goes?". In
Italian it's "How goes?". In Russian it's "How you live by?". I am told
there is an African language in which they ask "How do you sweat?",
because if they don't sweat right, they must be ill. So Esperanto is the
most straightforward with "How you fare?".

Different strokes for different folks.

Manuel

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