Constructed languages

[al8]

I've searched for thread on this issue but nothing has come up. I'm mainly intersted here in constructed langagues (conlangs) that are meant or could be viable as an egalitarian international auxiliary language.

They are sometimes refered to as planned languages, made-up or artificial languages as opposed to natural languages; which are all the languages we now have that just evolved 'naturally', such as; English, French, Swedish, Bask and so forth. Some natural languages though have resently become planned languages, where a standard dialect is set and the language is reformed to fit with a nation-state.
And that is really the knife in the cow. Present languages are maybe one of the strongest forces for nationalism there is. Conversly an international language could become one of the strongest forces for internationalism.

Provided it be a smartly constructed language lacking all the inefficiencies of the old ones, as well as being just as easy/difficult for every human on the planet, It could work out great. But if it should allow any willful andvantage to one language learner over another on the basis of language origins, I think a big intent of an internationalist language gets defeated. That would in a way codify and carry on an existing cultural imperialism onto the international auxilliary language.
For that reason that I do not particularly like Esperanto, Ido, or the more recent Interlingua. They are heavily latin based, and indo-european-centric. They do have undeniable progressive features, making them way better than most natural languages, but they still fall short in important respects.

I am however more positve towards Lojban and Ilaksh/Ithkuil. Lojban aims to be easily learnable, taking statistical sampling of the most pronounceable sounds of six major languages, asiatic as well indo-european, into considerations when choosing words for the new language. So it's in that respect more eqalitarian than Interlingua. But there are still some aspects that I have not delved into as of yet with Lojban. Mainly its claim to be structured in the way of predicate logic. Maybe Rosa would be interested to investigate and see if it makes any sense; http://www.lojban.org

But what I find most impressive is Ilaksh and Ithkuil, which are highly concise and gramatically complex languages. But then as a downside they are very difficult to pronounce and learn. But yet again a highly impressive language design. I suggest John Quijadas webpage on Ithkuil and Ilaksh where the languages are better explained; http://www.ithkuil.net/index.htm

Now maybe I'm overly impressionable, I sertainly was with esperanto at first. So the latter three languages might have problems, if they have (else then lack of spread and support) I'd like to know. Besides that conlanging seems a very worthy project and something communist should legitimately be looking into.

[Potemkin]

I think much of the criticism of Esperanto not being egalitarian is off base. Obviously, you are already familiar with it. I think it has a great balance of idealism and practicality: it was created to be a universal second language to facilitate world peace through understanding, has a rich history, and is the most widely spoken constructed language, with up to a few million speakers worldwide.

Many people think that because Esperanto uses a western character set that it puts native Asian-language speakers at a disadvantage. However, quite a bit of the grammar is similar to the workings of Asian languages. Esperanto makes extensive use of prefixes and suffixes. In addition, Esperanto identifies direct objects by altering the word (adding -n to the end), allowing it to be placed almost anywhere in a sentence and still retaining the same meaning. In my understanding, this is similar to Asian languages.

Lastly, while there might be different learning curves depending on native language, Esperanto is still much easier to learn, for a person of any language, than perhaps any other non-constructed language.

For those interested, there is an Esperanto user group on RevLeft that talks about some of the revolutionary history of Esperanto, its benefits for the revolutionary left, and resources to help you start learning: http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?groupid=78

[al8]

But how would you answer guys like this; Let's not speak esperanto (http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/ranto/)?

[Potemkin]

Hmm... there's certainly a lot on that site. I don't think there's really anything you could say, without trying to refute all of his claims. There's certainly not the room for that here. I will address a couple of them, though:

One of his arguments is that there are only a few million speakers of Esperanto, and that any auxiliary language cannot hope to be successful ("Even its proponents estimate there to be barely a million Esperanto speakers in the world [largely Central/Eastern Europe]... So the result of Zamenhof's labours is that it's inconceivable that any artificial 'Interlang', however good, could succeed.").

I think, in radical contexts, we cannot accept these premises for the simple fact that, especially with Esperanto, the history of auxiliary languages parallel that of revolutionary struggle.

Esperanto was suppressed in Hitler's Germany as proof of a global Jewish conspiracy, and suppressed in Stalin's USSR (after first being celebrated after the revolution). Additionally, both French and English speaking countries have opposed Esperanto at one time or another, as they had an interest in making their national languages an international standard.

This is the same argument that could be thrown at any of us: Only a few million people are anarchists/radicals/revolutionaries/marxists, therefore those ideas can never work. This doesn't take into account histories of repression, and says that anything marginal can never be anything other than marginal -- obviously fallacious.

For Esperanto, no, it has not yet become the universal second language it was meant to be. But that doesn't mean that it's a complete failure. Its use has been shown to improve comprehension of other languages, and many groups use it to solve the language problem within their own organizations. The UN has a favorable position towards Esperanto, and it has developed its own unique and friendly international/anational culture. And it still has the potential to become a universal second language.

Moving on, in the "Politics" section, he has a weird idea of Esperanto being as non-neutral as English, which is a pretty weak claim. His idea is that Esperanto only deems "national" languages as being non-neutral (which is incorrect), and that it would be hypocrisy for Esperanto to be officially adopted by a nation, but other international standards have only become international because many nations adopted them. The Republic of Congo lists Interlingua as one of its national languages -- does this mean Interlingua is no longer neutral?

Esperanto should be adopted by many nations, but it would never be the primary language of the nation, keeping its neutrality intact. This can be extended to his argument that, by Esperantist's own assertions, non-national languages, such as Kurdish, would be an acceptable substitute for Esperanto as an international language. Obviously, all of these natural, native languages represent specific groups of people, and are inseparably linked to their respective cultures. This diversity is a great thing that Esperantists recognize and encourage, which is why Esperanto's purpose is to serve as a secondary language for international communication.

As we can see, many of his arguments are misrepresentations of the Esperantist position, and many others are the common arguments against Esperanto (sexist, non-neutral, Western-oriented, etc.), all of which I feel are refutable.

[al8]

I think you answer many of his viewpoints well. I was not aware of the inter-imperial dynamics of the resistence to constructed languages. It hadn't occurred to me, although it makes perfect sense within an imperial logic.

I still have my reservations though. How have you come to the conclusion that Esperanto is more fitting for the than f.ex. the more recent Lojban or some other conlanguage? ...Interlingua or Ido even?

[kiki75]

I love the idea of an international language. However, I am not interested in it as a replacement, just an enhancement.

[Potemkin]

In my analysis, Esperanto has the most potential to fulfill the role of an international second language. It was created specifically to fulfill this role and it is one of the oldest constructed languages -- meaning that it has more speakers, more resources for those wishing to learn, an exciting history, etc.

For me, it fulfills both the idealistic aspect (universal second language) and the practical aspect (it has the most number of speakers, great learning resources, etc.). In my view, if one of these languages were to take off, it would be Esperanto, and interest in the language has seen somewhat of a resurgence, especially with propagation over the Internet.

These are the primary reasons. So, when choosing a language to advocate among radicals, it is Esperanto for me. However, if a movement for another language (Interlingua, or anything that is easy to learn, accessible to all, etc.) developed substantially, I would definitely support it.

Lastly, kiki: I do not know of any movement for a universal language that wants it to replace all the languages. The idea is to have a universal language that we can all tap into to speak directly with anyone else on the earth that doesn't speak our native language.

[piet11111]

perhaps i am just being lazy but i much prefer english as the international language.

i already have it as my second language and it is probably the only language you can speak in any country and still have a very good chance someone will understand you.

chinese probably has numerical superiority but that is mostly confined to the PRC or the ROC and because of that its not nearly as international of a language that english is.

[Potemkin]

Well piet, we've already identified that English is one of the most difficult languages to learn for a majority of the population of the planet. Aside from this, it is an imperial language that has historically been forced onto English and American colonies, displacing much of their (the colonized people's) culture in the process. It is not neutral, in that there are native and non-native speakers, which is a barrier to communication and understanding.

Wouldn't the best situation for a proletarian be to learn their native language along with one, simple, inclusive language, and be able to communicate substantively with everyone?

It's possible to have this, if we advocated it in our movements and organizations. In the meantime, it would give us a tool for direct communication with comrades the world over, without translators or anything else.

[piet11111]

it might not be neutral but its certainly far more practical to continue with a language that a lot of people already speak (and is the primary internet language)

but that is just my 2 cent.

[al8]

It might seem practical on a personal level to go along with the status quo, but Piet1111, you should have the largeness of mind to know why we should endeavor not to. That is try to brake the apathy and change that which is flawed even though it is a tradition, something that is already existing.

[Cult of Reason]

One of my biggest problems with Esperanto, while still being generally in favour (I mention it in my article (full report) on the areas of the world where Communism is likely to be possible -- see my signature), is the orthographic question, particularly with respect to computers and compatibility. Ideally, a modern conlang would use ASCII script so that no real modification would have to made to accomodate it to the digital world (this is one advantage Lojban has), but Esperanto, since it has such a history, might find it difficult to change due to intertia.

Also, I look for a language not for the whole world, but for particular areas of it only, i.e. those where I think post-scarcity is currently possible. This means that the ideal conlang for Eurafrasia/Marispatria (an area stretching from Portugal to Japan, Ivory Coast to Greenland and surrounding the Mediterranean, Black, Red and Caspian Seas and the Persian Gulf) would NOT have any concessions to Mandarin or Hindi vocabulary, phonology or grammar. The aim here is for a working language easily learnable by only the inhabitants of the area, in order to make a highly integrated economy for the whole area easy to administrate. Whether it "sits on top" of native languages as an second auxiliary language or replaces them altogether is irrelevant: what is important is easy communication from Abidjan to Tokyo.

For those reasons (and the fact that speakers of Romanse languages have very little difficulty with it), I think that Interlingua is a very good fit for the Americas.

In addition, while I currently think that Esperanto is probably the most easily implemented language as a world or Marispatrian language, a more modern one informed by modern linguistics (and using ASCII, damnit!) would be desirable.

[piet11111]

It might seem practical on a personal level to go along with the status quo, but Piet1111, you should have the largeness of mind to know why we should endeavor not to. That is try to brake the apathy and change that which is flawed even though it is a tradition, something that is already existing.

i know but like i said rejecting a language that already is spoken around the world and certainly has a number base of people using it that beats all artificial languages combined seems highly impractical.

impractical to the point where i doubt that a majority of people would actually accept an artificial language over English.

[al8]

i know but like i said rejecting a language that already is spoken around the world and certainly has a number base of people using it that beats all artificial languages combined seems highly impractical.

impractical to the point where i doubt that a majority of people would actually accept an artificial language over English.

Well it would be a big project, and maybe hard to visualize the path to success, just as with a revolution. But I it's on our shoulders to have innitiative, to lay the ground and build towards a critical mass.

The benefits of an a-national/international language are obvious from our standpoint, and they have already been mentioned. The only point of impracticality is lack of spread. So we deal with the lack of spread, by either learning the language and perhaps teach it, or advocate it, have conlangs mensioned and recognized in our manifestoes, ect. Whatever it takes to brake the barriers.