tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8553389900691953796.post3557492375773918770..comments2016-11-28T06:01:33.965-08:00Comments on Espectaculos en inglés: Preparing for next year's tour! (and reflecting on this year...)Fifth Businesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07885339924969867787noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8553389900691953796.post-77045299270641296492009-05-06T03:07:00.000-07:002009-05-06T03:07:00.000-07:00Michjo, thanks for your information on Esperanto.....Michjo, thanks for your information on Esperanto... I hope you weren't too offended with the crass "artificial language experiment" status I attributed to it.<br /><br />I imagine the variants of irregular verbs would be kept within the groups of children, as "slang". <br />The sentence should read "added a feature to THEIR Esperanto: irregular verbs". <br /><br />Esperanto undoubtably has an inclusiveness behind it that would, of course, suppress the irregular verbs from becoming common... a unique feature of Esperanto as a language.<br /> <br />The theory that was being discussed was not so much "Esperanto" as the (built in?) use of irregularities in languages for exclusion. If you are interested, I will try to get more precise information on the case that Swan spoke of.Fifth Businesshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07885339924969867787noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8553389900691953796.post-91259340296991339462009-04-28T18:00:00.000-07:002009-04-28T18:00:00.000-07:00Swan's rebuttal... is that there is only one langu...<I>Swan's rebuttal... is that there is only one language without irregular verbs: Esperanto, the artificial language experiment.</I>Esperanto may have been both artificial and an experiment in the beginning a bit over 120 years ago, but it has since gone way past that to being a natural, living language in every respect.<br /><br /><I>... the first "native" speakers, the children of the original Esperanto speakers, added a feature to Esperanto: irregular verbs.</I>There are now about 2,000 native speakers of Esperanto, who tend to be from either couples who meet through Esperanto and have only Esperanto as a common language (the most common scenario), or couples who decide to speak Esperanto at home out of principle. If any native Esperanto speakers added irregular verbs, it's the first I've heard about it, and they certainly didn't last long, because Esperanto has, to my knowledge, <B>never</B> had irregular verbs.<br /><br />Besides, doesn't this contradict what was said in the preceding sentence ("there is only one language without irregular verbs" vs. "added a feature to Esperanto: irregular verbs").<br /><br /><I>Swan suggested that irregular features of a language serve to separate "us" and "them".</I>Interestingly, this statement confirms Esperanto's inclusiveness, which stems from its vocation as a second language for everyone.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com