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Ranto Appendix - Z

MAILBOX

1997: now that I'm getting traffic from reputable centres of constructed language expertise like Mark Rosenfelder's I'd better admit that I can't claim to be infallible - I haven't even managed to find an up-to-date Teach-Yourself! So mail me - I'll post acknowledgements for corrections; or short specific rebuttals (adding appropriate HTML markup without interpolating smartarse editorial comebacks); or links to other sites for extended counter-arguments.

1998: meanwhile (07-Feb-98) my fellow Edinburgher Geoff Eddy has his own bones to pick with Esperanto [now accessible only via the Wayback machine].

Wael Al-Mahdi (gulfgc, at batelco, a com in bh), 09-Feb-98:

From the outset, I'd like to make it clear that I am not an enthusiastic Esperantist. I always try to be objective.

Your critique is indeed convincing in some points, but perhaps you were a little too extreme and subjective in your attack on Esperanto and Zamenhof. I think your section on phonology is especially convincing. But I still think that you've been too... well, too harsh. It seems you completely ignored all the good points in Esperanto. I myself think it is a beautiful language, flexible and simple. But I don't see any good in Zamenhof's idea of Esperanto being an international language.

Thanks to Don Harlow (01-Mar-98) for pointing out that Polish-born Polish-speakers aren't necessarily Polish.

De Francesco Amerio (f.amerio, che agora, stm en it), 30-Apr-98:

Mia kara,

mi ghojas konstati, ke vi havas ideojn malsamajn ol miaj: la mondo estas bela char ghi buntas!

Sed, mi petas, ne devigu min uzi vian lingvon: mi studis ghin nur dum kvin jarojn kaj mi apenau kapablus per ghi mendi kafon!!

Bonan laboron!

1999: the latest fashion is for blanket accusations of factual inaccuracy, backed up either by no examples at all or by a handful of hopelessly debatable points. The odd part is that these usually turn out to be things I only introduced into my page at the insistence of other Zamenhofites who dictated them as urgently needed corrections!

2000: my ability to participate in 1·5 MB e-mail marathons has been limited lately; but I am still reading my inbox, and I'm grateful to all the friendly pedants, helpful Esperantists and others who have made critical contributions behind the scenes.

2001: to save embarrassment I should warn people hoping to disguise their affiliations that newsgroup posting histories are easy to check...

2002: after a succession of unusually dumb contributions I'm beginning to regret my policy of never quoting people without their permission, but it still holds: if you want me to publish your comments, say so explicitly!

Davor Klobucar (davor.klobucar at ht.hr), 29-Aug-2002:

Even if there are things in Esperanto that could be improved, this is not a reason to reject Esperanto. Even now Esperanto is good enough. This "good enough" means that the language is already very easy to learn, and its structure is already very good and regular. And its sound is as good as the sound of any other language.

Let's first study it, talk it, write in it. Let's first make it live among many millions of speakers. This is what the Esperanto community has already been doing for more than a century, and a lot of this is done well. Then, when its future is stable, we may discuss changes, but systematically, with much care and in a well organized way. Even Zamenhof said that was possible. But until then, Esperanto is developing.

I have done much in/for/about Esperanto. But if another one language would appear, being as easy to learn and belonging to no particular nation, and if that language would have enough strength, money and speakers, then I would be glad to forget my dear Esperanto, and join that new language. But the chance is almost zero, because any new language probably has a lot of problems to solve from the time of its "childhood" to the time of its "maturity", which Esperanto has already done.

What is essential, is the principle, not the particular language. And what is even more important, is to have even today one living language such as Esperanto, at least to show to the world the possibility of such languages and the value of the idea itself.

2003: feel free to mirror this rant elsewhere, but if you're going to take an obsolete edition (complete with 1999 "recently modified" markers), mangle it through Microsoft Front Page and then display it as if I was endorsing your thoroughly dodgy-looking IAL scheme, then I'd appreciate it if you would at least refrain from claiming you owned the copyright. (No link, because they don't deserve the googlejuice).

Dumb Fanatic Cultist (sic; nydube@yahoo.com AKA indoyug@hotmail.com AKA esperado@wp.pl...), 03-Oct-2003:

Hello, you rude, obnoxious, arrogant, uncivilized, racist troglodyte! [...] How dumb am I? [...] I coordinate a project concerning civil society and legislative reform in Central and Eastern Europe. As part of my job, I travel abroad several times a year to attend conferences, make presentations, and meet leaders of the non-governmental sector as well as parliamentarians, supreme court justices, and legal experts. [...] In my 8-page reply (which was returned as undeliverable), I noted [...] that much of your critique involves stating how things are in this or that language and then pointing out that Esperanto does it differently - as if that proves how bad Esperanto is! [...] Yes, Esperanto has its share of oddities, irregularities, and inconsistencies, but they are minor compared to the merits of the language. [...] All told, I've travelled to 35 countries on 3 continents. Where have YOU been, you stupid barbarian??? [...] Don't bother replying - your email will be deleted without being read.

Judge his intelligence for yourselves from the fact he's let me quote him like this. In all he sent eight of these long-winded hodgepodges of boilerplate propaganda and irrelevant egomania, most of which were identical apart from variations in source address and message format (at least I got him to stop attaching them as MS-Word documents). Apparently he imagines this is going to convince me Esperantists aren't "Dumb Fanatic Cultists"... well, I know some of them aren't.

2004: lately I've been deluged with "new global auxiliary language proposals" consisting purely of reformed orthographies for English...

2005: after eight years of bogus "corrections" from zealots who've only read the first Section, as usual it's a non-Esperantist who has spotted the typo in the first sentence! "Bialystok" has either a C or a barred-L, not both... so thankyou david.marjanovic [at] gmx.at. Thanks also to Christopher Culver, who warns not to trust claims that the use of Esperanto would help to protect national languages. In fact this has been a particularly good year for sane and polite correspondents... so I'd better apologise in advance for this Halloween Special. "Any similarity to actual languages, living or undead, is purely coincidental."

2006: nothing special.

2007: just to show cluelessness isn't confined to the pro-Esperanto camp...

Clay Shentrup, 14-May-2007, writing under the Subject line "Esperanto sucks":

I've been learning Spanish over the last two days, and [...] I'm going to start piecing together something better, called "parolim" (pahr-O-leem) tentatively. I want it to be a project based on always finding the coolest sounding (but also appropriate) roots, and going from there.

My suggestion that it might help to have some basic knowledge of topics like, say, syntax met with incredulity:

If I think of how I'd describe a concept like "Mary just came into the room and undressed in front of me...awesome!", I can just engineer the manner in which objects, descriptors, and actions work together in my language to express such a concept. I know how I'd say it in English, which is a handy starting point - a way of seeing how such a thing has already been done, so I'm not starting from scratch. I don't even need to know a language to make my own - it just makes it easier.

And then he insisted I should quote him on this.

2008: an Esperantist correspondent has provided a link for FAQ question (i) - thanks!

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