Zev Kijana | Re: [LFN] The future

• Autor: Zev Kijana (“zev.kijana”)
• Tema: Re: [LFN] The future
• Data: 2010-08-21 18:26
• Mesaje: 3164 (a supra, presedente, seguente)

Well, the reason I joined this group is that LFN is my favorite constructed
language...

Interlingua certainly seems to have been carefully constructed, and is
probably rather painless to learn. My only objection to relying so heavily
on existing vocabulary from English and other languages is that the spelling
system is not necessarily phonetic.

Esperanto has a very impressive history and active community. But I would
rather see an IAL developed from a more global set of source languages. (LFN
doesn't do this either, of course.) Toki Pona meets this criterion and is
quite fun, even if not a fully developed alternative to Esperanto.

LFN is beautiful--I suggest continuing to work on it!

Zev

On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 2:22 PM, George Boeree <cgboeree@...> wrote:

>
> I've been thinking about the future of "interlinguistics" lately, and
> a number of things occur to me. First, it seems that the only place
> where an international language is likely to become an issue is the
> European Union. If discussions were to begin on the issue, I believe
> I can predict the likelihoods of the various options.
>
> First, the most likely option is the status quo. Most people seem to
> prefer sameness over change, no matter how inconvenient the status
> quo may be.
>
> The second most likely option is English. I know all the arguments
> against English - irregular verbs, a multitude of idioms, and, of
> course, a ridiculous spelling system. English grammar is sufficiently
> simple that learning idioms and irregular verbs are not that great a
> barrier. Spelling is, but don't expect the English-speaking world to
> ever address that issue seriously (see my point about "status quo",
> above). There is also the issue of "cultural dominance" by the
> English-speaking world. But I think that most Europeans have
> sufficient cultural self-esteem that they are no longer threatened by
> the culture of the English-speaking world.
>
> The third most likely option - and it is a very distant third - is
> Interlingua. Esperanto, to anyone other than an esperantist, looks
> alien, antiquated, artificial, and just plain ridiculous. Ido,
> Novial, and similar languages aren't that much better. Occidental and
> LFN look too much like baby-talk pidgins. Interlingua, on the other
> hand, for all its faults from a IAL-lovers perspective, looks to a
> "naive" European like... European! (Don't get me wrong: My own
> favorite is LFN.)
>
> Interlingua is immediately accessible to a speaker of any Romance
> language, and almost as accessible to an educated speaker of English.
> And educated speakers of other Germanic languages shouldn't have much
> trouble with it, either. (I say "educated" not to disparage people,
> but rather to note that anyone familiar with international technical,
> medical, and scientific words will find them in Interlingua.)
> Naturally, speakers of Greek and Slavic and Celtic languages will
> find it more challenging, and speakers of Hungarian, Finnish, and
> Basque even more so. Even so, most of them have long ago reconciled
> themselves to the need to learn other languages for access to broader
> literatures.
>
> One more possibility - one most likely to accompany the first
> possibility (status quo): Machine translation. It is a huge
> challenge, but inevitable. In fact, with a decent mainframe computer
> and a few gazillion man-hours of programming, we should be able to do
> it between two languages already. Once paradigms are established, it
> should become easier and easier to develop effective translation
> machines (at least for use in international government and business).
> My prediction: 30 years tops. Of course, a translation app in your
> iphone is further off.
>
> Just my thoughts. What do you think?
>
> Jorj
>
> No trees were harmed in the creation of this post. However, many
> electrons were terribly inconvenienced.
>
> 
>
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>
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