Esperanto can't be sung

On Feb 19, 10:06 pm, Iain <iain_inks...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Suggest to someone that we revive Latin, and use it as the Lingua
Franca for Europe like we did in the Middle Ages, and the worst
reaction you'll get is "Nah, not really practical or economical --
Latin's not especially easy; let's just stick with English, French and
German".

Make a similar suggestion concerning Esperanto, and you get reactions
like that cited by Claud Piron in his (IMO flawed) essay
'Psychological Reactions to Esperanto'

' Take a bird, perhaps one of our lake swans, pluck it completely,
gouge out its eyes, replace its flat beak with a vulture's or an
eagle's, graft on to its leg-stumps the feet of a stork, stuff an
owl's eyeballs into the sockets (...); now indite your banners,
propagate and shout the following words: "Behold the universal bird",
and you will get a slight idea of the icy feeling created in us by
that terrible butchery, that most sickening vivisection, increasingly
offered to us under the name of Esperanto or universal language. '

Vides ut alta stet niue candidum
Soracte ...

Sheer beauty in the poem by Horace,
in Virgil's Georgica, and so on, whereas
Esperanto, although well-meant by it's creator,
is a stiff and stilted language and can't really
be sung, there is no pop group who had a hit
with an Esperanto song, there is no Bob Dylan
and no Dido Armstrong and no ABBA singing
Esperanto. It can't really be sung, and such
a language is doomed.
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: "Synthetic" RMO languages.
    ... "universal language" for all to use for better communication...NO ... Du pajnto estas sur tablo. ... I do not know Esperanto but just looking at it suggests a Slavic ...
    (rec.music.opera)
  • Re: Eventuale vi emus iel reagi...
    ... "Fans of the Esperanto language are in Florence for their 91st World ... Why would artificiality be wrong? ... were told there were literary translations from over 60 languages. ...
    (soc.culture.esperanto)
  • Re: unnatural languages
    ... Esperanto are not a new phenomenon. ... Esperanto-related creoloid variety) as their native language? ... You are entirely ignorant of Irish sociolinguistics, ... generations of Irish speakers by now. ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: unnatural languages
    ... 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. ... 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, ... if idiolects of a natlang like English can remain mutually ... Where you'd expect something like that to be described: in dictionaries. ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Settling an Argument - Assembly *IS* a Language, Right?
    ... convention...be cultural exchange (which mainly involves language ... Esperanto conventions is to encourage the use of Esperanto. ... Most Esperantists believe that using Esperanto as a lingua franca would ... they would be criticized by other critics. ...
    (sci.lang)
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