Im posting this on this board because it has a number of Esperantists but is not explicitly a page in favor of Esperanto. I would like to avoid a flame-war please but am knowingly asking a sticky question. My own training in regards to languages is as a philologist; thus the attitude towards what is a language is primarily functional in the sense that if a definite group of people use something and say its a language and it has the attributes of language, we accept that it is in fact a language and potentially study it. Thus I have always regarded Esperanto as an artificial language. I had the good fortune to marry a linguist. (Both linguists and philologists study languages and language but do so differently.) Her attitude and apparently that of the majority of her colleagues is to regard Esperanto as simply not a language but effectively a code. Weve discussed it a few times and increasingly Im persuaded to her professional pint of view. So Im going to present her argument in a succinct form (and perhaps simplified, its faults being my own) Im curious how Esperantists would address the issue. Here goes: When a person learns Esperanto (ES) and then uses it, ES has no cultural baggage. Thus, word order, connotations and social aspects of language (perhaps among other things) are all provided not by ES but by the learners mother tongue. Thus a Japanese person who uses ES will mirror Japanese language and culture in how they use ES. Similarly, an English speaker from Australia will mirror Australian English in their use of ES. In mathematical terms then the mother tongue and culture of any given speaker is simply represented through ES. This does not apply to a person using for example English as a second language because English does have word order, connotations, cultural associations, etc., of its own. So again what do Esperantists say to the idea that Esperanto is effectively an elaborate code?
Posted on: Thu, 30 Oct 2014 18:20:28 +0000
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