Steve,

I don't remember what specific reasons Claude Piron
offered for not liking the word "anstataux", but at
the time I liked any word which was like one I already
knew from German, so I liked it.  Perhaps as a result
of that experience, however, I've come to think it's
longer than it should be, but again, I don't give too
much stock to my own thoughts on these matters.

> > My experience with Esperanto, however, is far
> > more focused on worrying about how I can get
> > the most out of using it than what the
> > defects are.  
>
> Of course. If you were not, I guess you wouldn't
> use the language anymore.

That's not necessarily so.  When I use Interlingua, I
am far more aware of "defects", yet I continue to use
the language.  BTW, this doesn't mean that IA is more
defective than Eo, only that I'm more *aware* of the
defects.

It's worth pointing out that you continue to use
English, Spanish, German, etc, in spite of the fact
that you've encountered "deficiencies" while learning
them.  Surely there are reasons for this, but I think
it points out that all languages have "deficiencies",
and many times, one man's deficiency is another man's
essential feature.

> Of course it would be nice if they checked if the
> language has successfully been tested in practice
> and in this regard Esperanto has done a better job
> than any other auxlang to date. I think however that
> Ido and Interlingua have suficiently proven their
> aptitude as well.

I am inclined to agree with this last sentence, to
an extent.  I recently discussed this with Antony
Alexander.  He argued that Esperanto has already been
thoroughly tested and that there was no sense in
testing it any further.  (To be clear, when I say
"test", I mean "to prove in practice", as I think you
did in the cited paragraph above.)  Would you agree
that all of these languages can benifit from all the
"testing" they can get?

> I'd like to point out that if one day governing
> bodies would consider the adoption of an auxlang
> they would probably criticize the same things
> criticized by the Delegation 100 years ago.

Again, I'm inclined to agree somewhat here too, except
that the word "if" hides a lot of necessary conditions
for getting to that point which could mitigate this
to a great degree.

It's interesting, though, to look at the things that
people were concerned about around 1894 when it comes
to reforms in Esperanto.  Many of them were the same
one's we're tired of hearing about today.  Others
seem pointless or just plain nutty -- like the
suggestion that it would be better to have "regular"
words like mij, cij, and lij in place of the "less
regular" ni, vi, and ili, respectively.  All of the
replacements suggested for the correlatives still
left them as a table.  Nobody was chomping at the bit
to adopt the Delegation's solution.  So, times do
change, even if you are largely correct.  Whether
"criticism" necessarily means "rejecting" or "labling
as unworkable" remains to be seen.

> I have no faith that Esperanto in its current form
> would ever be adopted as is. I believe Zamenhof too
> doubted this very much. That's why he wrote: 
[snip the well known passage from the Fundamento about
a once-and-for-all revision of Esperanto.]

That's a reasonable interpretation of Zamenhof's
motivation.  It could also be that he thought that
by saying these words, he could get people to stop
talking about revisions.

> And if some of these changes were to be made, the
> result would be quite close to Ido.

Or not.

> That's the main reason why I would not "oppose"
> adoption of Esperanto, as I think that then, the
> "necessary changes" would be done.

That sounds a lot like what I will say about Ido.  I
don't oppose people getting involved with Ido, because
in so doing they more or less learn Esperanto anyway
since the languages are similar.  As for the
differences, the Idist often ends up learning those
too when he decides he wants someone to talk to.  :-)

> In the meantime I prefer to use Ido, because I think
> the odds are pretty bad that an auxlang will be
> adopted within the next decades and consequently
> Esperanto will continue to live with its netushebla
> fundamento.

It's amazing what a difference perspective can make.
To me, living with a netushebla fundamento is a good
thing.  Clearly you intended this to sound bad.  I
recall that in my early contacts with Ido, there was
a discussion calling for "ullaspeca fundamento" (or
similar... my Ido isn't all that great), and Kjell's
experience being labled as a "reformer" of Ido
(because of mistakes he made while writing) suggests
that Ido has it's own netushebla fundamento, even if
just a de facto one.

Amike salutas,
Thomas/Tomaso ALEXANDER.
www.NightinGael.Net
---Anything below this line is not from Thomas ---

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com