On Wed, 28 Jan 1998, Marcos Franco wrote (small excerpt):

> On Tue, 27 Jan 1998 23:28:41 +0200, Allan Kiviaho
> <[log in to unmask]> wrote (excerpt):

> >                                 For a constructed language like
> >Esperanto with its ugly diacritic signs and still uglier "kaj", "jes",
> >-aj, -ajn, -oj, -ojn etc?
>
> Well, why not Ido, then?

    One might argue for Ido over Esperanto on various grounds.  As
a matter of practicality, the E-o accented letters are somewhat
problematic, although in this age of computerized typesetting and
electronic communications, they should be less of a difficulty.

    Some of the other complaints often lodged against E-o I believe
to be without merit insofar as E-o may be considered as a *global*
auxiliary.  (Yes, Bruce, I know that you and I disagree over this
matter.)  Many of the things considered "ugly" about E-o are simply
the victims of local biases.  To a non-Indo-European speaker, whether
a conjunction is "kaj," "e," or "blarf" may not mean much, because all
of them will be equally "strange" to his/her native language habits.
Similarly with plurals, and so on.

    Whether or not a feature is "ugly" is so personally-biased that I
think we need not give much consideration to it, unless one can show
that it is so contrary to the native habits of so many people that it
becomes a stumbling block for just aboput everyone.

    I have read complaints about the "Slavic" features of Esperanto.
Is this a bias against the Slavs and their languages?  Why is a -j
plural somehow intrinsically inferior to an -s plural, say, to a native
Semitic speaker?

Paul                             <[log in to unmask]>
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