Re: unnatural languages

Jens S. Larsen wrote:

Ever heard of linguistic immersion?
Only in the context of English-speaking Canadian children learning French. But I suppose the many international Esperanto conventions can be described as something similar -- and why not include the local conventions, there are foreigners all over the place anyway.

So you think meeting people at conventions is linguistic immersion?

Why not?

There you go, replying apples to oranges, and when asked how are apples
oranges, answering 'why not'. The burden to prove apples are oranges is
on *you*.

If there's a model you want to imitate, you can be conscious about it all the way to identical pronunciation. Of course, any language changes over time, both towards convergence and divergence, even when hardly any of its speakers are aware of it,
but it seems to be a much slower development. For instance you could hardly shift over to a different language unconsciously; but there's no specific difference between that and maintaining your language under the same name, but in another form.

Now and again, you completely disregard quantitative differences between things, and seem to think that just because something *can*
happen in a given way, it's reasonable to say it happens that way.

As long as we are discussing the matter in the abstract, quantitative
differences have no bearing.

What does that even mean? What matter are we discussing, can you tell?
So we can be enlightened as to what it is?

If as you repeatedly claim, differences between languages are of no bearing, what are you even doing in this discussion, which is about the way a 'conlang' differs from a natural language? You're trying to say it doesn't differ by changing the object of contention. That's what's boring about this.
Differences between languages can be important, just as the weight of one's body. Still it's normal to say that the obese and
the anorectic (foreground) are of the same kind: homo sapiens (background). Why should language be different from this?

Why do you choose to ignore the whole argument, which is precisely about *differences*?

Because the differences in question have no quality, only quantity, as you readily admit. Conlangs and natlangs are made of the same stuff. So, if idiolects of a natlang like English can remain mutually
comprehensible in England and New Zealand, then idiolects of Esperanto can too -- and if NZ English is doomed to become a language
entirely different from British English, then so is Esperanto.

....with the difference (which this discussion is all about) that NZ
english is a language spoken by a community to which one can turn to
learning and analysis. Whereas any 'conlang' in existence is either:

1. a short description of a grammar and a dictionary
- which is not a language but a very incomplete description of one

2. a language in use by disperse groups of people, drawing on those
groups' lingusitics ability to turn (1) above into a full-fledged
language, and of course different groups will come up woth different
solutions, they even do with natural languages, where the amount to fill
is much smaller
- in which case, the finalised 'conlang' is much more than (1) and
it's deceiving to treat (1) and (2) as if they were the same

Where are the idioms (say) of Eo described?
Where you'd expect something like that to be described: in dictionaries.

And who put them there?

I'm one. I'm working on a new Danish-Esperanto dictionary at the moment, together with half a dozen other people here in Copenhagen. The last Danish-Esperanto dictionary is from 1949, so a new one is sorely needed. We base our work on a database derived from Eckhard Bick's Esperanto-Danish dictionary from 1997.

Give us a couple of examples, please.

How comprehensive are the dictionaries?

The one we're coming up with won't be as big as Erich Dieter Krause's
new German-Esperanto; he has more than 160 000 words and phrases on
1679 pages (see <http://www.tinyurl.dk/969>). It is claimed to be
the most comprehensive Esperanto dictionary up till now; until this year, the biggest ones were from Chinese and Japanese. The first edition of the major monolingual dictionary "Plena Ilustrita Vortaro"
from 1970 (I'm sitting here with a reprint from 1977 and a
supplement from 1987) is around 1300 pages; the second, enhanced
edition came out a few years ago.

How are new idioms formed?

By the same mysterious and unfathomable process applied by languages
as Danish, English or Portuguese. Let's just say that someone gets a
brilliant idea and then is imitated.

So you can just cobble words together, defying grammar and semantics,
and there you have a new idiom?

The problem actually isn't epistemological limitations, but the lack of epistemological constraints. Astronomy has constraints: those who claim that the earth is flat are not respecting them, for instance. But for some obscure reason, such scientific constraints are typically not held in high esteem in the community of linguists. Social/ individual, natural/artificial, for communication/for expression -- in each of these claims about
the essence of human language, there is one that is as true as the round earth, and another as false as the flat earth. We cannot just sit on our butts waiting for the data to dictate us the answer, for conscious about it or not, we interpret data in the light of a theory.

Now that you've been presented with the eight possible basic theories of language (we can call them SNC, SNE, SAC, SAE, INC, INE, IAC, and IAE for short), which one would you choose as a starting point for linguistic research?

And now that you've embarked on an issue that has no relationship at all to what I was arguing, why should I follow you?

I'm trying to determine what theory you want to discuss the matter in: SNC, SNE, SAC etc. I insist on INE, and if you prefer another one
of the eight, we should be discussing the relative merits of those theories in stead of conlangs versus natlangs.

We should, should we? But why should we? If the matter is A, why should we be discussing T?

If we don't agree what
language is in the first place, there's not much sense in trying to
make a judgement on specific languages.

Just to make you happy, I'd say SNE is passable. Now, what's that all go
to do with the matter being discussed? I repeat, can you state what the
matter being discussed is?

I didn't have to invite anyone to my home to learn Esperanto either. 13 years old I borrowed a textbook in the library, and half a year later I popped up in a meeting in the local club in Århus, where a Scot talked about Ireland. I understood enough of his speech to ask why the cars drive on the left side in Ireland - that's the first thing I said in Esperanto to somebody else.

And so you think you have full competence in Eo? Who has?

Define "full competence". It means something completely different in
SNC, SNE etc.

And there you go again. Answer the question, don't hide behind such
meagre stuff.

Mind you, I can get along communicating with english-speaking people quite well. That doesn't mean any 10 year old english speaker can't immediately spot me as a foreigner, and I'm not talking about pronunciation.

I've been taken as a native English speaker by a 10 year old from England.

If it's not 'I'm usually', it doesn't count.

Once I thought I had spotted a Bornholmer, but it turned up she was a
Dutch speaker of Danish. Foreignness is never a question of language
alone.

Of course, such an experience should be enough to make me think that Esperanto is such a wonderful thing that it's only the dark forces of violence, hatred and ignorance in this world that holds
it back. I soon learned, though, that it doesn't come quite
that easily for everyone - but also that it's more of a
difference between individuals than between nations.

OK, this paragraph clearly betrays you.

What do you think it betrays?

What *I think*?

1. Esperanto is a wonderful thing (yuck)
2. Esperanto is being held back, and by the 'dark forces of violence, hatred and ignorance in this world'

A person believing (1) just can't have a sense of taste (sorry, I didn't mean to offend you, but that how it goes, and of course it's 'subjective', just as much as disliking rotten eggs is subjective).

A person believing (2) is delusional.
--
am

laurus : rhodophyta : brethoneg : smalltalk : stargate

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