[QUOTE=lunarwinds;1223985]I guess, really the only logical way to settle is is to adopt an international auxiallary language.[quote]
Agreed.
[quote]BUT esperanto and many of the ones prominent today are not fair for the people who speak the languages of asia because most are based on the european languages.[quote]
Then it's a question of relative justice. I speak Chinese too by the way, and have Chinese Friends who speak Esperanto. I can tell you that for a Chinese person, Esperanto is at least 5 to 10 times easier to learn than either English or French. In fact, owing to its grammatical structure, one Chinese friend of mine had found it easier to learn than Japanese. So on a relative scale, though granted a European could learn Esperanto faster than a Chinese could, it still doesn't change the fact that Esperanto would be more in conformity with the principles of justice than either English or French, when we consider that most of my Chinese Esperanto-speaking friends were able to learn it to a reasonable level of fluency within 300 hours of self-instruction! And to achieve a native-like mastery of the language, no more than 900 hours. For a European, you could divide those number by 3. It took me no more than 100 hours of self-instruction to reach basic fluency, and no more than 300 to reach a high level of mastery in the language, again through self-instruction.
According to Claude Piron and certain other linguists, it takes a minimum of 200 hours of classroom instruction for most Europeans to learn another European language well! I think you could agree that a Chinese would rather spend from 300 to 900 ours studying Esperanto on his own than certainly well over 2000 hours of classroom instruction learning English or French.
So on a relative scale, seeing that a common language is obviously essential, then opposition to a language more in conformity with basic principles of justice, even if it isn't perfect, essentially amounts to support, even if not intentional, for a language like English which is even less in conformity with basic principles of justice.
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We would, in theory, have to make a new one that adopts traits from every major language.
I certainly could agree with this. In fact, I'd had many discussions with Chinese friends on this subject, and they pretty well all said the same thing: that in future, we should either revise Esperanto or create a new language, but that in the mean time, opposition to Esperanto is paramount to support for English. While many Europeans oppose Esperanto for the same reasons you just mentioned, the Chinese Esperanto-speakers I'd spoken to (and I'd spoken to many of them) oppose this idea wholeheartedly on the grounds that by opposing Esperanto, they're unintentionally supporting English, which is even more unjust. this might also explain why European Esperanto-speakers are much more in favour of Esperanto than non-speakers are (they've actually had exchanges with non-European Esperanto speakers who condemn the idea of opposing Esperanto unintentionally in favour of English).
Why would it not be possible to support Esperanto or some similar language for now, and then make necessary modifications to it or create a new language in future, rather than impose English on the world? What would be wrong with such an evolutionary approach rather than the all or nothing approach? After all, we will never have the perfect language, but certainly we should always support the most just option available at any given moment.
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Machjo, I am NDP but that doesn't mean that ALWAYS agree or take the stance of a stereotypical NDP. I was just thinking logically of how the world works today. Do you really think that countries would try and construct a language for international use, or would even adopt one and have it taught in schools? Not in this decade, and probably not in decades to come.
Perhaps not in this decade or the next, however, the foundations for the possibility of this in future shall have been laid by the pioneers in this field, and not the pragmatists who say that since it won't happen in this decade we should support the status quo. I remember an anecdote once concerning JFK. It is apocryphal to the best of my knowledge, but it still had a lesson to teach, and it went something like this:
The President asked that a seed be planted for a particular tree.
The gardener or whoever it was responded that it would take years to grow.
The President then answered: 'Then you'd better get going then; we have no time to waste'.
The same applies to any kind of progressive change. If we all say that it's a good idea but we'll only support it when everyone else does, then nothing will ever progress. It's the pioneers who lead.
It is strange to read this from an NDP supporter, considering that the NDP usually thnks of itself as pioneers, as leaders for change, and not just follower of the status quo. Yet when we read the NDP's stance on language policy for example, it is status quo all the way.In fact, it's policy on that front is pretty much identical to that of the Liberals, and even the Conservatives are starting to fall in line with the Liberals on that front.
