<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; ">Sorry, but I cant understand what youre getting at---Esperanto has word stocks from 3 or 4 other languages, agreed, But you then ask about its phonetics and say: "<SPAN lang="EN-US" style=""><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Times New Roman">However, on the phonetic level Esperanto is in no way different from any natural language." But its phonetic components also come from the same set of languages, so its difference from its components may be the same for its phonetics and lexis?</FONT></SPAN><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Times New Roman">If that is so, your quoted sentence above will apply at any level----at each it's a language that is a mix-of-languages and a mix of languages may be, in every way, "<SPAN lang="EN-US" style="">in no way different from any natural language" whatever that means: there is even a word for it "macaronic". I am still puzzled by your emphasis on phonetics.</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Times New Roman">YW</FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Times New Roman"><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Times New Roman"><BR></FONT><DIV><DIV>On 8 Sep 2007, at 14:13, Juliana Tambovtseva wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"> <CENTER><SPAN lang="EN-US" style="FONT-SIZE: 16pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: RU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA"><FONT color="#000000"><FONT size="3">Dear Corpora colleagues, We have been reading with great pleasure some of the theoretical discussions on the Corpora net. We wonder what do you think of Esperanto? Is it an artificial language from the viewpoint of phonetics? Is it possible to compare Esperanto with the natural languages? Some linguists may say it is not possible to compare an artificial language with a natural language. Let us consider if Esperanto is really an artificial language on the phonetic level. It is artificial on the lexical and syntax level, because different word stocks are mixed, different affixes from different languages are taken and so on. However, on the phonetic level Esperanto is in no way different from any natural language. Thus in this respect it is quite a natural language. Its speech sounds are the same as the speech sounds in the natural languages. Thus, from the point of view of phonetics Esperanto is the same sort of object as any other natural language. It has the same phonetic features as a natural language. Esperanto's speech sounds may be classified in the same way as the speech sounds of any natural language. What is your opinion? We are looking forward to hearing to both addresses, but first of all to </FONT><A href="mailto:yutamb@mail.ru"><FONT size="3">yutamb@mail.ru</FONT></A><FONT size="3"> Remain yours sincerely Yuri Tambovtsev and Juliana Tambovtseva</FONT></FONT></SPAN></CENTER><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV> <DIV> <SPAN><DIV><Праздник_фон.jpg></DIV></SPAN>_______________________________________________</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Corpora mailing list</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="mailto:Corpora@uib.no">Corpora@uib.no</A></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="http://mailman.uib.no/listinfo/corpora">http://mailman.uib.no/listinfo/corpora</A></DIV> </BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR></DIV></BODY></HTML>