Invented languages and their long history of failure.(failuremag.com)
failuremag.com
Invented languages and their long history of failure.
http://failuremag.com/index.php/feature/article/discouraging_words/
5 comments
Agreed. Languages and Frameworks are grown over time, not invented. That is why I have much higher hopes for Jython or Jruby than Groovy or Scala. Similarly all successful frameworks (Django, Rails and PHP) were extracted out of existing software, not invented.
That is the case, but languages grow by adding features from experimental languages.
All language is invented, every time somebody coins a new word they're inventing language. What doesn't work is to raise the barrier so high that people will have to learn a lot of new words at the same time.
Learning language is an incremental thing, and the pressure to learn it is dependent on the installed base.
An artificial language will be hard to spread because there is the chicken-and-the-egg problem, if enough people spoke it then there might be a reason to cross that huge barrier to entry.
Learning language is an incremental thing, and the pressure to learn it is dependent on the installed base.
An artificial language will be hard to spread because there is the chicken-and-the-egg problem, if enough people spoke it then there might be a reason to cross that huge barrier to entry.
Words aren't language; an example of a "natural" languages invented today can be found in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaraguan_Sign_Language. Many creoles follow the same pattern of spontaneous development. This is a distinct difference from the inventedness of Esperanto or Lojban.
Artificial languages don't spread because they don't solve anyone's problem; they solve everyone's problem.
Artificial languages don't spread because they don't solve anyone's problem; they solve everyone's problem.
Some context about Esperanto:
http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/ranto/
http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/ranto/
That is not really context. It's a prejudiced rant.
I went through an Esperanto phase some years ago and read this article back then.
He's basically criticizing the language for not being as simple as it could be.
He completely overlooks the point many people will find Esperanto easy to learn. If you speak an Indo-European language and have never studied another language before, I dare even say that learning a bit of Esperanto will help you learn another Indo-European language.
It's been ages since I've used Esperanto but I definitely don't regret having learnt it (especially since I didn't have to put in much time).
I went through an Esperanto phase some years ago and read this article back then.
He's basically criticizing the language for not being as simple as it could be.
He completely overlooks the point many people will find Esperanto easy to learn. If you speak an Indo-European language and have never studied another language before, I dare even say that learning a bit of Esperanto will help you learn another Indo-European language.
It's been ages since I've used Esperanto but I definitely don't regret having learnt it (especially since I didn't have to put in much time).
The author of that article is well known in the Esperanto world for being the author of that article... and nothing more ;)
A true expert in Esperanto, the linguist and psychologist Claude Piron, debunked that article years ago:
http://claudepiron.free.fr/articlesenanglais/why.htm
A true expert in Esperanto, the linguist and psychologist Claude Piron, debunked that article years ago:
http://claudepiron.free.fr/articlesenanglais/why.htm
The late Claude Piron
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Piron
is known for little else in most online discussions besides writing that article.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Piron
is known for little else in most online discussions besides writing that article.
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Claude+Piron%22
but:
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Justin+B.+Rye%22
but:
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Justin+B.+Rye%22
But Claude Piron wasn't even point-by-point in his reply disagreeing with Rye, which I think can better be characterized as "prejudiced" (from a different reply above in this thread) than Rye's writing, although perhaps not as a "rant."
Just to ask one more informational question, why is it that Esperantists eager to demonstrate how easy Esperanto is to learn and to understand usually don't provide parallel texts in Esperanto with their English-language replies in online discussions of Esperanto? The Chinese saying is " 實事求是 " (conventionally translated, not quite to my satisfaction, as "seek truth from facts"), with the idea that if something is a good idea, it is practical.
Just to ask one more informational question, why is it that Esperantists eager to demonstrate how easy Esperanto is to learn and to understand usually don't provide parallel texts in Esperanto with their English-language replies in online discussions of Esperanto? The Chinese saying is " 實事求是 " (conventionally translated, not quite to my satisfaction, as "seek truth from facts"), with the idea that if something is a good idea, it is practical.
Well, see this:
http://www.esperanto-sat.info/article347.html
Best regards,
http://www.esperanto-sat.info/article347.html
Best regards,
Thank you for the link.
I challenge the accuracy of the statement
"Time needed to reach a standard equivalent to A-level[4]"
1500 hours for a French speaker
150 hours for a French speaker"
found there.
I think this correctly represents what Esperantists believe about Esperanto--that it is "ten times easier" to learn than some important natural language the Esperanto-learner might otherwise have occasion to learn. But I doubt the accuracy of these figures, because I think that the comparable level of language proficiency across different languages is not rigorously defined, and in all cases there are weaknesses in study design
http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html
that don't led confidence to the conclusion that Esperanto is an order of magnitude easier to learn than some other language of interest. I have never seen a conclusion like this verified in
a) a major, peer-reviewed journal of linguistics or language teaching of any kind,
nor in
b) a governmental program for training and testing professional polyglots, such as translators or interpreters.
But even if I accept that statement as true (which I do not), then Esperanto still has a problem. The highest CREDIBLE estimate of the number of Esperanto speakers I have seen is 3 million, some large percentage of whom live in Europe and already speak English or French (or both). A French speaker who learns English enters a speech community with no fewer than 300 million speakers (TWO orders of magnitude more than Esperanto, by anyone's count) and perhaps as many as 1 billion speakers. (Any count of language speakers at a given level of proficiency that finds 3 million Esperanto speakers would find 1 billion English speakers, I am sure.) So the learner, for the learner's time, money, and effort, gets at least TEN TIMES the return on investment of new people to talk to for investment in learning a language from English as from Esperanto. (Similar reasoning would explain why monolingual native speakers of English would rather learn Chinese, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Arabic, or many other languages rather than Esperanto, which is the observed reality of the behavior of language learners.)
Let me explain from what point of view I comment about Esperanto here. If someone who likes Esperanto says, "I have enjoyed studying Esperanto and reading Esperanto publications," I would say, "I have too." When someone tells me about a hobby, for example by saying, "I really like to collect postage stamps," I say, "That sounds really interesting" and congratulate the person on finding an interesting hobby. I might mention one of my hobbies (one of which is learning new languages) in reply to that. I would never say anything bad about someone's hobby in casual conversation, whether than hobby is horseback riding, or oil painting, or composing music, or sky-diving, or rock-climbing, or playing the tuba, or whatever.
But if someone says to me, "I have a serious proposal for solving a world problem," I will ask questions about the proposal. First of all, I will ask basis of knowledge questions to see if the person has some reason for thinking that the proposal will really help with the problem. I might ask follow-up questions to find out which people advocate for that proposal and what interest they may have in the proposal being adopted. I would definitely ask about policy trade-offs such as costs and benefits. I would expect a person who is proposing to solve a problem to have a lot of thoroughly gathered and carefully considered information about different solutions and which solution might be most fitting. I wouldn't rely on just one partisan advocate to convince me what proposal makes the most sense, but would consider many sources of information. If Esperanto is proposed as a way to get people talking to one another who don't share a native language, I want to know a lot of details about how well that has worked in previous attempts.
I challenge the accuracy of the statement
"Time needed to reach a standard equivalent to A-level[4]"
1500 hours for a French speaker
150 hours for a French speaker"
found there.
I think this correctly represents what Esperantists believe about Esperanto--that it is "ten times easier" to learn than some important natural language the Esperanto-learner might otherwise have occasion to learn. But I doubt the accuracy of these figures, because I think that the comparable level of language proficiency across different languages is not rigorously defined, and in all cases there are weaknesses in study design
http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html
that don't led confidence to the conclusion that Esperanto is an order of magnitude easier to learn than some other language of interest. I have never seen a conclusion like this verified in
a) a major, peer-reviewed journal of linguistics or language teaching of any kind,
nor in
b) a governmental program for training and testing professional polyglots, such as translators or interpreters.
But even if I accept that statement as true (which I do not), then Esperanto still has a problem. The highest CREDIBLE estimate of the number of Esperanto speakers I have seen is 3 million, some large percentage of whom live in Europe and already speak English or French (or both). A French speaker who learns English enters a speech community with no fewer than 300 million speakers (TWO orders of magnitude more than Esperanto, by anyone's count) and perhaps as many as 1 billion speakers. (Any count of language speakers at a given level of proficiency that finds 3 million Esperanto speakers would find 1 billion English speakers, I am sure.) So the learner, for the learner's time, money, and effort, gets at least TEN TIMES the return on investment of new people to talk to for investment in learning a language from English as from Esperanto. (Similar reasoning would explain why monolingual native speakers of English would rather learn Chinese, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Arabic, or many other languages rather than Esperanto, which is the observed reality of the behavior of language learners.)
Let me explain from what point of view I comment about Esperanto here. If someone who likes Esperanto says, "I have enjoyed studying Esperanto and reading Esperanto publications," I would say, "I have too." When someone tells me about a hobby, for example by saying, "I really like to collect postage stamps," I say, "That sounds really interesting" and congratulate the person on finding an interesting hobby. I might mention one of my hobbies (one of which is learning new languages) in reply to that. I would never say anything bad about someone's hobby in casual conversation, whether than hobby is horseback riding, or oil painting, or composing music, or sky-diving, or rock-climbing, or playing the tuba, or whatever.
But if someone says to me, "I have a serious proposal for solving a world problem," I will ask questions about the proposal. First of all, I will ask basis of knowledge questions to see if the person has some reason for thinking that the proposal will really help with the problem. I might ask follow-up questions to find out which people advocate for that proposal and what interest they may have in the proposal being adopted. I would definitely ask about policy trade-offs such as costs and benefits. I would expect a person who is proposing to solve a problem to have a lot of thoroughly gathered and carefully considered information about different solutions and which solution might be most fitting. I wouldn't rely on just one partisan advocate to convince me what proposal makes the most sense, but would consider many sources of information. If Esperanto is proposed as a way to get people talking to one another who don't share a native language, I want to know a lot of details about how well that has worked in previous attempts.
You said
---
Thank you for the link.
I challenge the accuracy of the statement
"Time needed to reach a standard equivalent to A-level[4]"
---
Two questions:
1.- Did you have access to the whole study? Can you precise the method, results, etc.?
2.- What about the other thirteen statements? Don't they seem to indicate that Esperanto should be a lot easier than English?
Two questions:
1.- Did you have access to the whole study? Can you precise the method, results, etc.?
2.- What about the other thirteen statements? Don't they seem to indicate that Esperanto should be a lot easier than English?
They are claims, but actual learners in real life find that the thing that helps language learning the most is opportunity to have much interaction with other people who know the language. (The single most important way that people around the world learn new languages is through migration and trade.) Empirically, if Esperanto were easy to learn, more people would be learning it. If a lot of Esperanto speakers were really at an A-level degree of proficiency, they would provide Esperanto parallel texts for their English-language posts in favor of Esperanto.
Those are too many unwarranted assertions and plain non-sequiturs in a single paragraph. At this point it seems clear that I won't convince you, no matter what arguments I employ; and that of course you won't convince me with those theoretical unwarranted assertions and obvious non-sequiturs, as I know from experience that Esperanto is clearly easier than English.
So, at this point, it is better that people interested in getting objective information take some basic course and decide for themselves. Fortunately, there are very good basic courses that can be easily completed in 2-3 weeks.
There is a very good downloadable course at:
http://ikurso.net
Also there are plenty of online courses at:
http://lernu.net
So, at this point, it is better that people interested in getting objective information take some basic course and decide for themselves. Fortunately, there are very good basic courses that can be easily completed in 2-3 weeks.
There is a very good downloadable course at:
http://ikurso.net
Also there are plenty of online courses at:
http://lernu.net
I made the suggestion above
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=736241
that anyone who claims that Esperanto is easy to learn and easy to understand is welcome to post parallel texts in Esperanto alongside statements in English about how much harder English is to learn than Esperanto. People get a lot of practice in English, because of the abundant opportunities to use English to communicate, but few people make much use of Esperanto, even when arguing in favor of Esperanto.
See also my extensive list of factual questions about Esperanto posted further above,
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=734594
which no one has answered in this thread.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=736241
that anyone who claims that Esperanto is easy to learn and easy to understand is welcome to post parallel texts in Esperanto alongside statements in English about how much harder English is to learn than Esperanto. People get a lot of practice in English, because of the abundant opportunities to use English to communicate, but few people make much use of Esperanto, even when arguing in favor of Esperanto.
See also my extensive list of factual questions about Esperanto posted further above,
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=734594
which no one has answered in this thread.
She rocks for writing that book. I definitely want to read it.
I'm pretty sure Klingon is still a failure, but for different reasons.
[1]: they are all invented of course