For now, we have the following observations:
1. Our target demographic is relatively small, educated, and (incidentally) westernized. The last point is incidental and will likely change, but for now it provides a useful focus, not only by simplifying the design task but making our auxlangs mutually intelligible for the most part.
2. This means we can use Outcome Neutrality as our model, allowing greater ease of learning for the comparatively few who actually need an auxlang (or at least want it enough to learn it).
3. But even Outcome Neutrality doesn't work for everybody. There are Eternaj Komencantoj for every project, and they can't practically be made to learn any one auxlang.
4. However, if multiple auxlangs are allowed, most people can probably find one that works for them.
5. The mutual intelligibility already mentioned means that even if you have trouble with one or two auxlangs, you can probably still understand them. So if you do well in an auxlang the other guy just can't master (and vice versa), you can still each use your preferred auxlang and be understood--and with less overall effort than achieving any real fluency in a natlang.
Thus it's possible to master one or two common auxlangs and just passively understand the rest: a multiple-auxlang solution.
On the other hand, Eternaj Komencantoj will doom the Onelang idea, because although they are a minority, they feed a common meme: Auxlangs Don't Work.
Think about it: we've heard that at Esperanto Kongresoj (or whatever), participants can't communicate and eventually have to use English (French, whatever, but usually English) like everybody else. We have been told that Volapükists couldn't really speak their auxlang either, and that too is a lie.
But Eternaj Komencantoj furnish real anecdotal evidence for the claim, so they are far more important than their numbers justify. If any auxlang does at all well, I guarantee that EKs will appear in the news to debunk it. But if there are several auxlangs, sincere EKs (not those with an axe to grind) can be challenged to try one of the others. That will probably do the trick, and a converted EK can be damning to critics.
All this requires a willingness to consider auxlangs seriously, however, which leads where everyone familiar with my thinking knew it would: the Auxlang Epiphany, also known as the next post.
Showing posts with label eternaj komencantoj. Show all posts
Showing posts with label eternaj komencantoj. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Why I Reject the Onelang View: 2 - Eternaj Komencantoj
Last time I observed that neutrality doesn't work. Even if Initial Neutrality does work by leveling the field, it does so by making the learning task too hard in general, which isn't good. (I've seen projects that were deliberately made unnecessarily hard for the sake of neutrality.) Outcome Neutrality is good in theory, but people vary, so what works for some doesn't work for others.
This leads us to the Eterna Komencanto or Eternal Beginner. Though most noticeable among Esperantists (simply because there are more of them), such people can be found in all auxlangs large enough to be subject to the laws of probability. And even a little reflection shows that the phenomenon is even more common among natlang learners.
Think about it: we've all seen (even perhaps been) the one who just doesn't get some language. I think I first personally witnessed it in high-school French, though there were indicative incidents in Spanish class as well. The intensity of the condition ranges from lack of confidence for active use to total inability to learn, though passive ability is generally good enough to understand at least the gist of a text.
Someone will no doubt object that anyone can learn any language, if it's properly taught. That's technically true. But there's a difference between technicality and practicality: the only reason some people know even their native language is from years of uninterrupted immersion as children--an extreme measure impractical for most adults, especially if the language has relatively few speakers. In theory, any auxlang could be forced on everyone. In practice, people will only willingly learn an auxlang whose difficulty does not exceed their interest, so an auxlang must be incredibly easy or incredibly interesting. And since interest requires either practicality (and thus a large user base that will not appear out of nowhere overnight) or a personal appeal that will be present for some people but not for others, it's a shaky rationale anyway.
Given all this, we may ask where the global user base for any given auxlang will come from. Most projects I've seen simply assume that users will appear; the projects are often ill-suited to attracting users strongly enough to invest the time and effort to master the auxlang. "Hey, that's clever" isn't enough.
And consider that many people, though strongly motivated to learn some natlang, barely achieve intelligibility. English has plenty of Eternaj Komencantoj, probably more than there are Esperantists of any kind.
The conclusion? Some people will always be left out of any given auxlang, but it won't be quite the same group for all auxlangs taken as a whole. This will normally be considered unacceptable, but I'll argue next that it's completely acceptable once we drop the Onelang idea of a single auxlang for everyone.
This leads us to the Eterna Komencanto or Eternal Beginner. Though most noticeable among Esperantists (simply because there are more of them), such people can be found in all auxlangs large enough to be subject to the laws of probability. And even a little reflection shows that the phenomenon is even more common among natlang learners.
Think about it: we've all seen (even perhaps been) the one who just doesn't get some language. I think I first personally witnessed it in high-school French, though there were indicative incidents in Spanish class as well. The intensity of the condition ranges from lack of confidence for active use to total inability to learn, though passive ability is generally good enough to understand at least the gist of a text.
Someone will no doubt object that anyone can learn any language, if it's properly taught. That's technically true. But there's a difference between technicality and practicality: the only reason some people know even their native language is from years of uninterrupted immersion as children--an extreme measure impractical for most adults, especially if the language has relatively few speakers. In theory, any auxlang could be forced on everyone. In practice, people will only willingly learn an auxlang whose difficulty does not exceed their interest, so an auxlang must be incredibly easy or incredibly interesting. And since interest requires either practicality (and thus a large user base that will not appear out of nowhere overnight) or a personal appeal that will be present for some people but not for others, it's a shaky rationale anyway.
Given all this, we may ask where the global user base for any given auxlang will come from. Most projects I've seen simply assume that users will appear; the projects are often ill-suited to attracting users strongly enough to invest the time and effort to master the auxlang. "Hey, that's clever" isn't enough.
And consider that many people, though strongly motivated to learn some natlang, barely achieve intelligibility. English has plenty of Eternaj Komencantoj, probably more than there are Esperantists of any kind.
The conclusion? Some people will always be left out of any given auxlang, but it won't be quite the same group for all auxlangs taken as a whole. This will normally be considered unacceptable, but I'll argue next that it's completely acceptable once we drop the Onelang idea of a single auxlang for everyone.
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