I think that the point of J. B. Rye is that an international language should not include phonemes which are rare and difficult to learn for most people in the world. If I had to create my own auxlang, it would only include the following phonemes: /a e i o u l m n p k t s f h/.
]]>Thanks for the article! I am a new Esperantist and I love the language, but I don’t speak and write it well.
Gracias para la artÃculo. Soy nuevo Esperantistador (?) y amo la languaje, pero no la hablo ni la escribo bien.
]]>Mi trovas la rapidecon de lerni miriga.
AnkaŠserĉis mi sur la interreto por kritikoj pri Esperanto. La sola vasta kritiko kium mi trovis, estis ĉi tiun, pri kiun vi verkas. Tiea mi ne pokete konvinkata.
Mi parolas Afrikanso ĉe domo. Tiu n lingvon mi amas multa, sed la lingvo havas tiel da guturalaj konsonatoj. Alia eble trovus tio malbela, sed tio estas siaj opinio.
Dankon pro artiklo kaj fartu bene!
Wynand
—
In case my Esperanto is completely incomprehensible, I supply this English translation:
I apologize, but my Esperanto is truly terrible. I have only been learning Esperanto for 8 days; nothing more.
I find the speed with which I’m learning the language astonishing.
I’ve also searched the Internet for criticisms of Esperanto. The only substantial criticism which I have found, is the one about which you write here. That article doesn’t convince me in the least.
I speak Afrikaans at home. It’s a language I love, although the language has many guttural consonants. Others may possibly find the language ugly, but that is their opinion.
Thanks for the article and stay well,
Wynand
I am also interested in your critiques of my Esperanto usage and style, as it’s the best way for me to learn. So don’t be shy, or think you’ll offend me. Blast away, if you will! (In Esperanto, too, if you prefer.)
]]>>>>I wanted to know that I wasn’t wasting effort learning it.
Yes, it is worth your learning.
No other “artificial” language has any significant power, when compared to Esperanto.
>>>Today, I saw one of those pages in Wikipedia, the “Ranto†of Justin Rye.
Yes, he is a quite original man. I discussed with him few years ago.
His main idea is that Esperanto is good enough to get a lot of interested people,
and good enough to prevent other language projects,
but bad enough to win in the world.
Well, from my long experience I could say: if you choose 1.000 people and try
to get their supprot for Esperanto, you will get maybe only 1,
and the remaining 999 will have 1 original opinion each, for why not to learn Esperanto.
For most esperantists it’s a bore to answer them.
If you are a christian, there is one good example for you:
Jesus is told to be a son of God, and he was also a man with no sins,
and he did many good things to people – but the people chanted: “Crucify him!”.
How could you expect that Esperanto could be accepted better?
>>>It looks like some sort of wind-up-toy Czech/Italian pidgin.
Probably you could even for English say that it looks like
some sort of this and that, and tell in in some ofensive way…
When I was a kid, not as much familiar with English as today,
it seemd to me very ugly language.
>>>Do Slavic people not consider their languages beautiful?
The people I know think that Italian (maybe French) is very beautiful language,
but they all learn English. I think that the feeling of beauty of languages is a matter of habit,
and of quality of your knowing some language.
>>>When you ignore these, there’s nothing left but some alleged errors.
Of course.
>>>I believe that many of his errors assume that Latin is the most beautiful language
…which isn’t true at all…
>>If we need perfection in our international language, we will never have it.
What we need is a quite good quality in the beginning.
And the practice will do the rest.
>>>Someone can always find mistakes, especially if we lack clear standards.
If you don’t like a girl, you can always say something bad about her.
BTW There are many errors and very bad style in your Esperanto translation,
but at the moment that is not important.
Best regards,
Davor