
From Esperanto to ET: Artificial Languages in the Internet Era (2004) - diodorus
http://www.bewilderingstories.com/issue104/conlangs.html
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skriticos2
I speak Esperanto (at least used to, I grew up with it), but I have come to
learn the practicality of a language is in it's usage, and so English wins out
(I'm from Germany, so English is not my first language either).

English is also an interesting language, as it's a funny mix of other
languages in it's history and shaped out fairly leanable (limited number of
weird inflections, usage of an alphabet, etc.).

Furthermore English stopped to be strongly correlated to a single country
during the colonization era and England's diminishing influence thereafter.
This makes it well suited to be an accepted international language.

Anyway, what I wanted to say is that in most cases the objective of these
artificial languages used to be to create an independent and easy to learn
language for human communication, but in reality a language that fulfills this
purpose grew out of an existing language and at the same time it uproots is
origins and becomes this collectively shaped something. History is full of
irony indeed. :)

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throwaway7645
I'm learning Esperanto and it is extremely easy to learn as everything is
regular (that I've seen so far)and no trilling "r's"...etc. English has so
many gotchas and exceptions. English has become a lingua franca only because
of economics. French used to be for the same reason. Esperanto would be far
more natural though and even ease communications at the UN. Everyone has just
one language to translate to.

~~~
skriticos2
I heard this opinion before.. but I also speak Hungarian from birth and a tiny
bit Japanese (out of hobby). English is rather simple. Not as simple as
Esperanto mind you, but simple enough (comparatively) that it beats most
alternatives that don't try to bootstrap something new. Also, Hungarian has a
lot of rolling "r's", so I wouldn't complain about English in this respect
ever.. really.

Esperanto has it's perks though, so I do encourage you to learn it. It makes
learning other languages that much easier and the community is nice and
global, though somewhat eccentric. ;)

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fsiefken
* Most Alien-like conlang: Ithkuil [http://www.ithkuil.net/](http://www.ithkuil.net/) [http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/12/24/utopian-for-beg...](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/12/24/utopian-for-beginners)

* Most SF-like conlang: Lojban [https://mw.lojban.org/papri/Lojban](https://mw.lojban.org/papri/Lojban)

* Most practical conlang: Elefen [http://elefen.org/](http://elefen.org/)

* Most fascinating natural language: Piraha [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirah%C3%A3_language#Recent_co...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirah%C3%A3_language#Recent_controversy) [http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/04/16/the-interpreter...](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/04/16/the-interpreter-2)

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vorg
> cultural neutrality is a fiction because all auxlangs inevitably reflect the
> culture of their inventors

Good examples would be the immediately preceding examples of vocabulary
simplification:

> the equivalents of “good,” “better,” and “best” would come out as “good,”
> “gooder,” and “goodest.”

Why not "good", "a-little-better", "a-lot-better", and "goodest" ? Using three
steps in such comparisons is a cultural choice.

> “black,” “gray,” and “white” could be “black,” “semi-black,” and “anti-
> black.”

Why not "white", "semi-white", and "anti-white" ? Using black as the base form
is a cultural choice.

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anotheryou
Another tiny new language:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toki_Pona](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toki_Pona)
"14 phonemes and 120 root words"

~~~
throwaway7645
Toni Poka is neat, but not very expressive (as the intent. It makes a fun
little language to learn though. Engadget (think it was them) did a lengthy
write up awhile back. I'd rather learn something mind expanding like Lojban
than restrictive like Toki Pona. However, I did read that it can be a useful
exercise to come up with phrases to explain a concept/word your language
doesn't have. Toki Pona probably doesn't have "computer", but maybe you can
represent that with "glowing communications box"?

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anotheryou
I chose it because the effort is so low and I wondered what thinking with such
limited vocabulary feels like.

Computer might be: ilo sona - device of knowledge

~~~
throwaway7645
Haha. Glad you were able to translate that.

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kiba
If we're going to communicate to aliens, the idea would be to use the periodic
table as a basis?

Or physical constants?

Or math?

~~~
cooper12
NASA has you covered:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record#Playback](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record#Playback)

