Re: Settling an Argument - Assembly *IS* a Language, Right?


Christopher Culver wrote:
"Raymond S. Wise" <mplsray@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
By what reasoning should "[t]he main point of an Esperanto
convention...be cultural exchange (which mainly involves language
exchange), with Esperanto as a handy backup language"? The point of
Esperanto conventions is to encourage the use of Esperanto.

But preserving the diversity of national languages is paramount, and
Esperanto should take a back seat to that. The only way that Esperanto
can coexist with language preservation is by reserving this artifical
language as a last resort.


Preserving the diversity of natural languages is *not* the paramount
idea of Esperanto. The paramount idea of Esperanto is that *humanity is
one huge family whose members should be able to communicate with each
other on an equal basis.*

Most Esperantists believe that using Esperanto as a lingua franca would
accomplish this better than using a natural language such as English,
and this may be so, as I will explain below. However, any lingua franca
that is spoken throughout the world is going to accelerate the demise
of some languages, especially minority languages (that term is used out
of our current perspective--in a world with an established universal
lingua franca, *all* other languages would in effect be minority
languages). That is because using such a language allows one to live
and work where one could not do so before. I've believed since reading
Mario Pei's comments on the matter that an international language will
lead to the demise of some languages, and John McWhorter, in his book
*The Power of Babel,* brings up a point I had not considered before.
People who share only the lingua franca as a common language will get
married and use only the lingua franca in the home. This happens now in
the case of people who come from villages where different languages are
spoken, to live in a city where a majority language is spoken. In such
a case, the majority language acts as a lingua franca for the
outsiders, and allows them to live and work where they could not have
done so otherwise, and to fall in love with people they would not have
considered marrying if they did not share a common language.

I've discussed such matters with other Esperantists, and I have come to
agree with them that one advantage which Esperanto has over a natural
language such as English used as a lingua franca is the point about
equality. It is much more likely that a person can gain a
native-speaker fluency in Esperanto compared to a native speaker of the
language than it is for a person learning English as a second language
to gain a native-speaker fluency.



Think about it: If you had Esperanto conventions where most people
spoke in national languages most of the time, then you would find
critics criticizing Esperantists on *that* score!

Again, you are showing that worshipping Esperanto is your biggest
priority. Think more about how you can practise national languages
with the foreigners you meet before you think determining the public's
view of Esperanto's capabilities.


It's the public we have to convince.

I made that point because you're setting up a situation where
Esperantists are damned if they do and damned if they don't. If they
use only Esperanto at conventions, they get criticized by people like
you. If they use Esperanto only as a last resort at such conventions,
they would be criticized by other critics. Since, as I am convinced,
there are more of that other sort of critic than there are people who
make the criticism you have been making, from a public-relations
standpoint, there is no advantage to adopting the method you propose.



I could say "Linguistics is a cult, simple as that," and make as much
sense as that statement of yours.

Linguists don't condemn and ostacize people curious about other
fields, botany and mathematics for example. Many Esperantists,
however, claim that wanting to practise other languages is a betrayal
of their values. Linguistics doesn't have hymn-like communal songs
about how great their pursuit is and how it's the salvation of
mankind, the Esperanto movement does.


Esperantists don't "condemn and ostracize people curious about other
fields, botany and mathematics for example." That this is so can be
seen in the efforts by Esperantists to get experts in various such
fields to get together and standardize the Esperanto terms needed for
such fields.

Your objection to the songs is just silly. If they are hymns--and some
are indeed called "himnoj" by Esperantists themselves--there's no
reason to compare them to the hymns of cultists. It makes more sense to
compare them instead to *mainstream* Christian hymns and patriotic
songs used by everyday, ordinary people. I've seen Methodist hymns and
Lutheran hymns used in religious services, and have heard patriotic
songs used among large groups of Americans (at sports events, for
example), and Esperanto hymns are no more cultish than are those.

And the main allegiance of Esperantists is not, I contend, with the
language, but instead with the human family.


--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA

E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com

.

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