Re: CONLANG: Esperanto / Why?

[pardoej@lonnds.ml.com (Julian Pardoe LADS LDN X1428)]

> Quoth Mr. Grimley-Evans:
> 
> >> Nonsense. No change was possible after the Fundamento was adopted in 1905,
> >> except if it was so peripheral that it could not be considered a change.
> >> Esperanto died in 1905, as far as being a real language.
> 
> >Presumably that last word should read "conlang" rather than
> >"language". Linguists generally agree that Esperanto became more of a
> >"real" language with the growth of a community using Esperanto,
> >particularly after the death of Zamenhof.
> 
> No, I meant "language." Most linguists would sat that no language is real
> if its grammar is not determined by its speakers, but rather by a nearly
> 90-year-old document that must be obeyed.

I'm sorry but this is getting tedious.  If you think that Esperanto "as she
is spoke" is determined by "a 90-year-old document" (or even the Akademio)
rather than by its speakers you don't know much.  Try going to an IJK or an
IS.

But, of course Esperanto isn't a living "language" ... so it's non-existent
speakers can't have any control over it can they!

And as for what most linguists would say, where does that leave Sanskrit?
Sanskrit went through its golden age at a time when it was no longer
anyone's mother tongue.  Like Latin in the Middle Ages it was a language
learned by an educated minority.  It's "rules" were codified in grammars, of
which the most famous is Panini's.  Sounds like classical Sanskrit wasn't a
real language -- rather a shame for all those composing literary and religious
works in it, I'd say.   ...and a shame for all those who developed modern
linguistics on the basis of their studies of Sanskrit.  Whoops!  Shock
horror tradegy!  Linguists discover that the basis of their studies isn't
real and vanish in a puff of smoke.

-- julian (I've lost my patience with Phil Hunt; who's next?) Pardoe --

(Too many ciders and a row with my boyfriend!  That's the explanation.)