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In a message from Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>
dated Mon, 11 Sep 2000 13:50:03 +0200, my mailer made me see:

->
-> There's even an adaptation of the Shaw alphabet to Esperanto! Someone (don't
-> remember who, unfortunately) sent me a little booklet with a story in
-> Esperanto that progressively introduces more and more Shaw alphabet letters.
-> There's also a little addendum which introduces some ligatures for such
-> common combinations as -oj -aj, -is -as -os -us, etc.
->
-> > Esperanto has the further advantage of being neutral, with
-> > no nationalistic overtones.
->
-> <snicker> Let's hear you say that on the newsgroup sci.lang. There's a
-> regular there, Lee Sau Dan (from Hong Kong, I believe) who says Esperanto is
-> very Eurocentric, from the sentence structure, mandatory adjective-verb
-> agreement in case and number, the use of plurals which have to be marked,
-> etc. etc. Basically, while Esperanto is supposed to be governed by the 14(?)
-> rules of its grammar, he says that there are more, unwritten, rules which
-> also apply to European languages and so are natural to speakers of those
-> languages, but not to speakers of e.g. Asian languages -- yet they are
-> equally binding. Whether that's true or not, I cannot really determine,
-> since I know too little about idiomatic Esperanto.
->
-> Cheers,
-> Philip
->

Hi,

I actually thought about applying Shavian to Esperanto but very quickly determined it was not needed. Esperanto is fine being represented in Roman characters since it does not suffer from the spelling problems English has.

I do not know about Lee Sau Dan but from your descriptions he is correct. Esperanto really is based on European languages (especially Latin). There are 16 rules of grammar except if you are a programmer like me you would break down the rules even further to come up with more because things like: "nouns end in -o and plurals add -j and there are only two cases" is one rule in the "official" grammar but would be three for me.

The important thing about Esperanto is that it is logical in that is follows these simple rules, and it is much easier to learn than any other language. So, even if there are things that make it Euro-centric or male-centric (as is argued by making feminine with -in (and therefore spawning yet another language)), it is still a very good way for two people from different cultures to be able to start communicating (which is Esperanto's whole purpose anyway).

--
Scott Harrison

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Rahther not bother, in RP: /ra:D@ nA.t bA.D@/, or some such, in ASCII IPA.
(Do you rhyme those two words?)

Sorry I don't know the low-ASCII convention for IPA. "Rather" has the ae
vowel of "cat". Bother and father rime exactly. - The pronunciation "rawther"
exists in my speech community, but is considered affected.

>>In this part of the world (Australia), Shavian (or any similar scheme)
would have no hope if it was forcing people to spell words the way Americans
pronounce them. I'm not knocking American accents, but we don't talk that way.
<<

Let's hear it for diversity. Or as an Australian I worked with (learned most
of what histochemistry I know from him) used to say, I'm nawt a bloody Pom!
(What's the word for an American at this, uh, level of diction?)

Bob Richmond
Knoxville, Tennessee USA

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In a message from "A.M.Callaway" <acal@...>
dated Sun, 10 Sep 2000 23:42:57 +1000, my mailer made me see:

->
-> No, I dont agree, actually. It is my opinion that computers are here to help
-> us, not the other way around. If a search engine cannot handle different
-> pronunciations, then it clearly isn't doing its job. If it is forcing the user
-> to modify her/his behaviour, then it has lost the plot.
->

This is not realistic. Currently you probably type the word "phone" into the search engine and get what you want. However, if you type the word "foan" into the same search engine would you get the desired results.

The argument is that if there is a standard, people should be expected to use that standard. Luckily for us English is pretty standard. There are differences in spelling between American and British English like "color" and "colour", but these can be handled by the search engine so if a Brit types one in, things that a Yank writes will be found. However, if there is no standard spelling someone may expect typing "culler" into the search engine would give back desired records, but in reality how could it?

There is a similar problem when searching for "hue" and hoping for records with "color" in them. However, this is a different type of problem that Shavian does not solve.

I am for a standardized version of Shavian spelling. However, I know that there will be dialectal variations. In fact, yesterday I saw a sign for sun glasses and "battries" and I chuckled slightly. It appears the person who made the sign spelled the word like it is pronounced in this local dialect. Therefore, I would imagine seeing his Shavian version appear different from the way I would expect to read it in a novel for the English-speaking world. This is acceptable from my viewpoint, but I still think there should be a standard that is used in mass communications (and search engines :-) ).

--
Scott Harrison

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In a message dated 9/11/00 5:46:16 AM, scott_harrison@... writes:

<< Esperanto has the further advantage of being neutral, with
-> > no nationalistic overtones.
->
-> <snicker> Let's hear you say that on the newsgroup sci.lang. There's a
-> regular there, Lee Sau Dan (from Hong Kong, I believe) who says Esperanto
is
-> very Eurocentric, from the sentence structure, mandatory adjective-verb
-> agreement in case and number, the use of plurals which have to be marked,
-> etc. etc. Basically, while Esperanto is supposed to be governed by the
14(?)
-> rules of its grammar, he says that there are more, unwritten, rules which
-> also apply to European languages and so are natural to speakers of those
-> languages, but not to speakers of e.g. Asian languages -- yet they are
-> equally binding. >>

Absolutely true.

If you want a truly easy to learn language structure, take a look at Chinese
(minus the tones -- just the grammatical structure) or Indonesian. Esperanto
is highly Eurocentric. But I truly doubt that a successful (universal)
conlang can be invented which doesn't lean heavily towards one language
family or another.

By the way, are we discussing Shavian or conlangs?

Bill

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In a message dated 9/11/00 4:19:57 AM, acal@... writes:

<< Maybe, maybe not. In this part of the world (Australia), Shavian (or any
similar scheme) would have no hope if it was forcing people to spell words the
way Americans pronounce them. I'm not knocking American accents, but we don't
talk that way. >>

Thus, the need for an international standard.

Bill

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In a message dated 9/11/00 6:26:00 AM, scott_harrison@... writes:

<< I am for a standardized version of Shavian spelling. However, I know that
there will be dialectal variations. In fact, yesterday I saw a sign for sun
glasses and "battries" and I chuckled slightly. It appears the person who
made the sign spelled the word like it is pronounced in this local dialect.
Therefore, I would imagine seeing his Shavian version appear different from
the way I would expect to read it in a novel for the English-speaking world.
This is acceptable from my viewpoint, but I still think there should be a
standard that is used in mass communications (and search engines :-) ). >>

Scott -- you are right on target!

Bill

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Someone wrote something to the effect of:

<< Chinese is the most widely spoken language, and I don't think the Chinese
will be so easy to boss around. >>

Chinese has the largest number of speakers, but English is the most widely
spoken. There is a major difference. Anyone who learns Chinese does so
specifically to deal with the Chinese because Chinese is largely confined
(with few exceptions) to China itself. A great number of people learn English
without any intent to deal with the English. English is the de facto
international language in numerous fields: business, avionics, science, etc.
People all over the globe are earger to learn English for very pragmatic
reasons.

I have traveled throughout Asia, Africa, South America and Europe and never
once been without a native person present who could speak English. As for the
Chinese, they are also eager to learn English. I was recently in Beijing with
my wife (who is Chinese) and once people there learned she is fluent in
English, they drove her crazy -- wanting to learn more English from her.

Bill

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In a message dated 9/11/00 4:20:08 AM, acal@... writes:

<< One project I have
planned for the future, is an artificial language based on English. Given that
English is becoming more and more widespread, I thought the best idea would be
to create a 'logical English' with regular grammar, a regular vocabulary and
regular spelling. Being very similar to English, it would be a lot easier to
learn than Esperanto, Interlinga or Volapuk. >>

Something with a relationship to natural English similar to that between
Dutch and Afrikaans? (Afrikaans is a natural language -- the uneducated
speech of Boer farmers raised to a national standard.) This has already been
attempted numerous times as most conlangers can tell you. I think native
speakers would feel uncomfortable saying "I runned" rather than "I ran." And
people who learn your simple English, like those who learn Basic English,
would use it as a stepping stone to natural English. They would naturally be
drawn to the greater prestige of the natural language.

Bill

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In a message dated 9/11/00 6:07:11 AM, RSRICHMOND@aol.com writes:

<< Let's hear it for diversity. >>

Bob: no one is knocking diversity. A standard doesn't mean that dialects
could not be written. Indeed, it might make writing dialects easier. mark
Twain might have done better writing in Shavian than in Roman, but I doubt he
would have shunned a literary standard.

The call for a standard is not an attack on dialects, but it is a call for
unity so as to enable us to be able to communicate with one another. It would
be ironic if the success of Shavian means that a group like this, drawn from
all over the world, would be unable to meet in some Shavian future because we
can understand each other and no longer recognize one another as speakers of
the same language. Some may desire such a future. I don't.

Bill




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In a message dated 9/11/00 6:07:11 AM, RSRICHMOND@aol.com writes:

<< Let's hear it for diversity. >>

Bob: no one is knocking diversity. A standard doesn't mean that dialects
could not be written. Indeed, it might make writing dialects easier. mark
Twain might have done better writing in Shavian than in Roman, but I doubt he
would have shunned a literary standard.

The call for a standard is not an attack on dialects, but it is a call for
unity so as to enable us to be able to communicate with one another. It would
be ironic if the success of Shavian means that a group like this, drawn from
all over the world, would be unable to meet in some Shavian future because we
can understand each other and no longer recognize one another as speakers of
the same language. Some may desire such a future. I don't.

Bill