Roy McCoy wrote:
 
> Michael Farris <[log in to unmask]>:
>
> >I hate that loss of smart-assedness that starting to
> >write in Eo brings about (I've started practicing but I'm not ready to
> >post yet).
>
> Vi ja estas! Chu vi shatas chokoladon
 
> Mi loghas en Nederlando. Kie vi loghas?
>
> Mi estas 49-jara. Kiom agha vi estas?
>
 
Mi esti kvardek jara usonanicho, sed nun mi loghi en Poznan en la okcidento de
Pollando. Mi labori en la universitato de Adam Mickiewicz, kie mi instrui angla,
la pola signolingvo (gestlingvo?) kaj lingvistiko. (mi shati chokolado, sed ghi
ne shati min)    : (
 
 
Jes, tio mi povi skribi, sed ankorau mi ne povi skribi pri planlingvoj.
 
 
 
> >I say let's start heavy
> >(unself-conscious) use and see what drops out, maybe nothing, maybe a lot.
>
> I'm intimately familiar with this attitude. I don't share it, as my "let's"
> includes Asia, and for one thing I simply haven't got enough nerve to
> propose an auxlang to the Chinese that I know to be many times easier for
> me than it is for them.
 
Do vi ne esti fano partizano de la scola naturalistique? Mi ankau ne. Pro tiu
mema kauzo.
 
>
 
> The question of lexicon is *extremely* difficult
> and I know that very well, but it still has to be adequately addressed - at
> least before I myself can enthusiastically say, "Let's use this language."
>
 
My "let's" also includes Asia. I honestly don't think vocabulary is as much of a
problem as some people do. It's the part of language that people are the most
familiar with, and arguably, the least important (definitely the least stable).
 
A carefully chosen 1000 roots can be learned easily enough in six months to a
year and allowing for paraphrase, can allow someone to talk about anything they
wish.
 
Oni kutimighi lerni nova vortoj, oni lerni ighi dum la tuta vivo. Oni *ne*
kutimighi lerni nova gramatiko. Por tio la planlingva gramatiko devi simpli kaj
fleksebli. Se iu fakulo dezirus lerni pli komplikitajn formojn, tiam bonvolu, ghi
lernu ighin. Mi suspekti, ke Chinano pli dankemus por manko de fleksio ol por
chagrenigho pri vortaro.
 
Brief aside: The idea that people are interested in learning a second language
(any second langauge) to become eloquent in that language is false. Most people
want to be able to communicate on a basic everyday level and save eloquence and
fine literature for their first language.
 
Yes, it's nice if the IAL can be used to create fine literature and eloquent
oratory, but that's not the main goal for most folks (whether Asian, European,
African or other)
 
 
> >"raumismo" isn't in my dictionary
>
> I saw the definition Yves posted to you, and it isn't inaccurate. It seems
> fairly clear, however, that Yves doesn't hate "raumismo" as I do - or if he
> does, he hides it well. To me it's a complete selling out of the legitimate
> original purposes of the Esperanto movement. When the movement failed to
> attain its goals, many of its members - instead of rolling up their sleeves
> and getting to work on figuring out what was wrong and how to correct it -
> simply declared that these goals didn't matter and started flattering
> themselves as being members of a significant cultural elite.
 
Mi certi, ke Doktoro Z nervozigitu, mi ghoji, ke pri tio li ne scii.
 
> This shows up
> in all sorts of ways, and I really hate it.
>
 
Learning about IALs has been a continual surpise, but the fact that most Eists,
aren't interested in promoting Eo as an IAL continues to be the biggest. I
detected this very early on about Esperantujo (not individual Eists, mind you,
the few I've met, online and off, are all nice people) but collectively ....
 
> >I've been told by Eists, that ge- requires -j.
>
> That's a common opinion, but it's wrong. At least it's not supported by the
> Fundamento, as far as I know.
>
 
Al mi shajni, ke la Esperantistoj respekti la fundmento nur tiam, kiam ighi
deziri.Chu vi havi alia klarigo de "Xismo"?
 
 
> >or I wrote it so
> >badly that no one could understand it, not sure which
>
> I don't remember seeing the message you refer to, but you might be right if
> it included sentences like "Besides, this makes it harder to talk about
> people in general than males", which I didn't quite get.
>
 
What I mean is that currently their is a gender hierarchy in Eo as marked by
endings.
 
A common concept in anthropological lingusitics is the idea of the "unmarked"  or
default category. Usually this is a category that a particular group feels to be
more normal or better than the "marked" or exceptional category.
 
In traditional Eo, the unmarked category is male, since nouns referring to human
beings are felt to be male unless the specific feminine marker -ino appears. The
flipside of this is that any noun with -ino is described as "a female x" where as
nouns without -ino would never be described as "a male x-ino".
 
For example everyone knows that an aktorino is a female aktoro. No one would
describe an aktoro as a male aktorino.
 
Using ge- as an epicene, merely reinforces the idea of maleness in the forms with
no gender affix.
 
patro       father
patrino    mother (literally "female father", which shows Zhof did not have a
good understanding of biology)
gepatro    father of either gender ????
 
having a masculine affix makes nouns with no gender marker neutral  (I like -icho
best, but one could make a case for vir- , if  one also decides to replace virino
with something else, maybe ulino.)
 
patro    parent
patricho    father (literally "male parent"
or
virpatro    same
patrino    mother (literally "female parent" which is _much_ better than "female
father")
 
 
 
 
 
> >For my taste, mi and ni are just too darn close
>
> All of the one-syllable pronouns are problematically close in
> pronunciation, and I've experienced a lot of temporary misunderstandings
> because of this.
>
 
Eists like to deny this. Do inexperienced learners ever confuse li and shi? I've
been assured that this is not a typical mistake, but it is in every other
language that has gender that I've come across.
 
> >Ankorau mi shati vorto 'ci' kaj 'ici', sed mi kompreni, ke
> >ebla ci ne ... pardoni, vi ne. I guess it's like my unfulfilled dream for
> >mivi and
> >mighi.
>
> Let it stay unfulfilled, as far as I'm concerned.
 
I'm willing to accept a far cry from what I consider ideal. (sigh)
(And some people say I'm not flexible)
Perhaps this isn't the time to mention an idea I once had about pronouns
Namely, drop shi and ghi and use li as a universal third person pronoun (like
'ta' in Chinese, 'o' in Turkish, 'o"' in Hungarian, etc.) If one really wanted to
indicate gender, then -ino and -icho could be added (lino, licho) but this would
not be encouraged.
the personal pronouns would then be completely regular.
mi    imi
vi    ivi
li    ili
 
I like this idea but realize it has no chance of success.
 
 
 
> It's very much to
> Esperanto's credit that the familiar second-person pronoun was virtually
> discarded through non-use. Having to decide whether the person you're
> addressing is "vi" or "ci" is useless and annoying, unless you're used to
> it in your native language.
>
 
I guess you're right (sigh). Even with ci around, I would still suggest almost
universal use of vi and ivi, with ci,ici, reserved for family, lovers and (maybe)
best friends.
 
> >From current Eists, of course not. I'm not really interested in them though.
>
> Well, they're the only ones who could really understand or practice your
> idea of a "liberstila" Esperanto.
>
 
YEah, that's a big ole problem. Unfortunately, the necessity of  rigid conformity
to "traditional" Eo usage is one of the main founding myths of the community.
 
> >That's what I'm suggest you do with
> >Esperantujo. Follow you're own program and ignore "party headquarters".
>
> I appreciate the suggestion, thanks, but it's kind of hard to do that when
> I work at "party headquarters" every day.
>
 
You should come to Poland and learn the fine art of sabotage, (just kidding, I
think).
 
> >I think
> >it's pretty clear that the great bulk of Eists are irrelevant in the goal of
> >promoting an IAL. That could all change of course, but that's how things
> >stand now.
>
> Interesting, that we disagree completely about that. I think that they
> would be irrelevant if things changed, but that in the absence of such a
> change they are very relevant indeed.
 
If what you say about raumismo, is true, they've withdrawn from the fray which
makes them irrelevant (in terms of what they accomplish). I would love to be
proven wrong about this, but most of what's written *in* Eo is *about* Eo
(including Esperantujo) as long as that's the case, you have a closed circle.
 
This is where Interlinguists have a big advantage as I was told about a web-site
in Interlingua that prohibits discussion of the language. A wonderful idea, one
that Eists should take up.
 
Mi fughi,
Mike Farris