LL-L "Language politics" 2004.09.27 (11) [E]

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From: Daniel Prohaska <danielprohaska at bluewin.ch>
Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2004.09.27 (02) [E]

I realise Reihard doesn't want to continue the Esperanto thread, but I
thought I'd throw this in as well.

Grietje Menger wrote:

>>If you put 5 or more Esperanto speaking (but no other communal language)
>>together on a desert island with a good mix of male/female so procreation
>>would ensue and children would be born whose first language would be
>>Esperanto. How long would it take, do you imagine, before Esperanto would
>>display exactly those features that other natural languages have? That is,
>>colloquialisms, "secret" speak (like Cockney rhyming slang). How long
>>would it take, in other words, for it to loose its neutrality?

I don't know about actual existing communities, but I met a Lady some years
ago who had Esperanto as her native language. She had a Polish father and a
Dutch mother (or the other way round, I can't remember). Both her parents
were Esperantists and they met on one of the international meetings, fell in
love, got married and had a daughter. The home language was Esperanto. The
daughter has been living in Vienna for years and her German and English is
flawless - and so is her Esperanto. I heard her speaking it on the phone and
it had a slightly warped Spanishy sound ro it. She also spoke it very
rapidly, so I suppose that's the first thing that happens when an auxiliary
language or a pidgin 'goes native'.

If there were a community with two or more generations using the language
most of the time I'm sure idiom would develop within the first generation of
native speakers.

Dan

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From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at scotstext.org>
Subject: "Language politics" [E]

>
> From: Grietje MENGER <grietje at menger.fsnet.co.uk>
> Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2004.09.27 (02) [E]
>
> Various things Esperanto:
>
> I've tried to learn a bit of Esperanto on my own, after I found Audrey
> Childs-Mee Saluton! in a second hand bookshop in Glastonbury. The funny
(or

Did you learn the local BSL sign for "Glastonbury" while you were there?
It's a good one  :)

> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Language politics
>
> I don't really want to encourage much continuation of this Esperanto
thread
> (which is marginal to us, at best, except in opposition to English as a
> universal lingua franca), nor do I want to deride what the Esperantist
> movement has achieved.  Nevertheless, I can't resist adding a few words to
> Grietje's and Sandy's.

This is the trouble, Ron - it's getting off topic, but hard to resist! Since
you asked a question at the end, I'll continue!

I think your comments about Eurocentricism really hit the nail on the head
as far as a potted guide to Esperanto goes.

> The Soviet Union, Mainland China and North Korea encourage or used to
> encourage the use of Esperanto simply because they thought that chosing a
> "neutral" world language was in keeping with their interpretations of
> Marxism.  There was no more "neutral" language that was viable and was not
> directly associated with the Capitalist enemies.

I never thought of this interpretation, but I suppose it's right. This may
be perhaps another factor in my personal dislike of the idea of a world
language - shades of big brotherism, 1984, politically motivated
pseudo-science, eugenicists on the rampage...

> But how can you convince people that English is, potentially at least,
> neutral enough to serve as a global lingua franca?  How can you allay
fears
> of "Anglicization" and "Americanization" as parts of the process rather
than
> as separate processes?

Something I tend to come back to again and again these days when pondering
the idea of a world language (not that I think a world language is a good
thing, just that it's interesting to think about what the "best" or
"simplest" language might be like, theoretically) is that perhaps American
Black English such as in its written form in Alice Walker's "The Color
Purple" is a quite substantial step in the direction of a simpler sort of
English. Of course it's quite irregular, but it does show how irrelevant
things like tense and plurals might actually be.

But it's just theory. This sort of thing might be better solved by changes
of attitude in terms of tolerance and a genuine interest in human diversity.
It's not a question of allaying fears of "Anglicization" and
"Americanization" but allaying any sort of xenophobia - of not caring
whether somebody's language is different, as long as it's mutually
comprehensible, learnable or translatable?

Sandy
http://scotstext.org/

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