From: JLIECHTY@UCS.INDIANA.EDU (Jon Liechty)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.esperanto
Subject: Re: Interlingua?
Date: 20 Aug 92 14:39:19 GMT
Distribution: inet
Organization: The Internet


	The "fact" that "Esperanto simply isn't catching on" is pretty
doubtful to me.  Granted, here in the U.S. the movement isn't that strong,
and granted, Esperanto still doesn't have nearly as many speakers as English
or Chinese, but that doesn't mean that the movement isn't growing.  Membership
in the UEA has been increasing steadily over the past several years, and
shows no sign of a downturn; a television course in China drew an estimated
audience in the tens of thousands.
	The complaint that "Esperantists spend too much time talking about
Esperanto, and not enough time using it" is one that we hear on this list
every other month; we might as well get used to it.  I don't know about the
others on the list, but I have subscriptions to four magazines in Esperanto,
ALL of which are about issues other than language.  And I've become a
(perhaps too-) frequent customer of the ELNA book service, where the
stuff that I buy is almost NEVER concerned with Esperanto or the movement
itself--most recently I bought a spy novel and Amplifiki's latest album.
So I'd venture to say that there is at least ONE Esperantist out here who's
using the language for LOTS more than talking about how good Esperanto is.
	This is another important side to this issue, however.  Esperanto
is not a language, like English, in which a few scholars examine the vast
array of dialectical variants and spoken forms, and select the variant(s)
to be taught as standard based on their own prejudices.  Part of the basic
idea of Esperanto (to me) is that it retains what regularity it has because
of the consent and cooperation of ALL of its speakers, not because a handful
of academics decided it would be this way.  The price of such democratic
participation is that we have to spend time discussing things--the payoff
is that use of the language remains for the most part consistent around the
globe.  Even the fact that arguments tend to be repeated is sort of
encouraging: the reason it's necessary to go through things many times is
that there are _new people coming in to the discussion_ who missed the
earlier debates.  And if people sometimes get tired and wander off to do
something else (like using the language instead of talking about it),
that's fine, too.
	I don't know about the ELNA convention; but I was at a much
smaller affair in Kalamazoo this summer in which Esperanto was the
main language used.  All presentations were in Esperanto, and when
I sang a translation of "The Scotsman", everybody laughed--which
to me strongly suggests that they understood enough to get the joke.
If you want to accuse some of Esperanto's strongest supporters of
not knowing the language well enough to use it, you're going to have
to name names if you expect me to believe you.  On this list we have
some of the most important people in the U.S. movement; they post
in Esperanto all the time.  So the evidence _I_ have is that the
people who lead the Esperanto movement here are leading by example.
	Finally.  If you don't want to be seen as bashing Esperanto, I
suggest posting pro-actively.  Instead of telling us that because of its
illogic Esperanto can't possibly work (remember, I use it for something
or other almost daily), try telling us instead what your experiences with
Interlingua have been like.  Got a poem or story in Interlingua to share?
Post it.  Is there an Interlingua magazine about science, music, politics,
or what-have-you that we should know about?  Tell us about it.  Any radio
stations broadcasting in Interlingua?  Send us the times and frequencies.
Is there a pop band doing Interlingua material?  Where can we get their
stuff?  You'll reach a receptive audience; I've seen lots of stuff posted
here about other planned languages, and for the most part it's been quite
well-received.
		-Jon
Organization: Cntr for Design of Educational Computing, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA