🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1993Jan12.114313.15553@infodev.cam.ac.uk>, etg10@cl.cam.ac.uk (Edmund Grimley-Evans) writes:
>|> TITLE: Dialect variation in Esperanto
>The difference are however not large enough or consistent enough to merit
>the title "dialect". .....

A year or two ago I read a book called "La Bona Lingvo" by an apparently
very experienced polyglot called Claude Piron.  As I remember it, the
reason he wrote the book was to protest (perhaps I use too strong a word
here, more likely too weak) at the splitting of Esperanto into two
dialects.

As he saw it, European Esperantists were bent on adding to Esperanto's
vocabulary by using words from classic (Indoeuropean) languages.  This
is done in a bureaucratic way from Europe. The European tendency is to
add words and constructions and to prohibit other kinds of change.
By contrast, the vigourous Esperanto world outside Europe used
the inherent and fruitful agglutination provided by Esperanto
to express new ideas. The non-European tendency is to simplify by
neglecting complexity and exploiting the combinatorial properties
of Esperanto.  (This summarises Piron's book as I remember it.)

I for one hope that the non-Europeans win this battle.  My personal
observations are that the properties and ideals of Esperanto are
of enormous potential value, but that the Esperanto movement, through
a strange kind of conservatism, is making the language more complex,
is keeping it from becoming simpler, and has little idea of how to
promote its product and ideals other than as a kind of exclusive
(and largely ageing) brethren.  The best hope for Esperanto lies
outside Europe.

(I expect these opinions will deeply offend most Esperantists on
the network, who seem from their own group soc.culture.esperanto
to be even more conservative and less agglutinative than the movement
as a whole.   However, I strongly approve of Esperanto and its ideals,
and I appeal to readers of this group to interest themselves in an
unusual area of linguistics with particular modern political and
practical relevance.)
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Neville Holmes                       AARNET: Neville.Holmes@appcomp.utas.edu.au
Dept of Applied Computing & Maths    Phone : +61 03 243 393 or (003) 243 393
University of Tasmania - Launceston  Fax   : +61 03 243 368 or (003) 243 368