Those are the kind of freaks I like.

Edit: Welcome to Plime!

Make sure to take a look at our FAQ and stuff (right over there ---> )

Happy Pliming!

Thanks! (Indo-European: Prijejo tewom!) I like the wiki format here and the fact that being a constructive user for a long time seems to mean a lot.

I agree. I'm very interested in P.I.E.*



*Stop it.

So we've all agreed to forego the using of Esperanto as a lingua franca then?

GREAT! Another language I'm going to have to learn... Like I didn't have my plate full with English, Spanish, French, Japanese to now add PIE to the stack...

Thanks a freakin' lot!

One interesting point mentioned by the creators of the grammar is that the only language that has succeeded in being revived has been Hebrew, which was a reconstructed and not constructed language, so no modifications were made to make it easy for anyone to learn. Also, that was well after Esperanto and Ido and the rest were made, so even in spite of all the other options the new country went with the more difficult language.

I'm a supporter of just about every linguistic project though (learned Ido in 2005 and can get by in Esperanto even though I've never really studied it), and Hebrew is just a single example so it's hard to project a trend from that alone.

There's always room for pie. MMMMMmmmm pie.

You forgot Chinese ^__^ heh heh

谢谢你

你也会讲国语吗？太好啦！快去吃一点儿P.I.E.吧

My knowledge of Mandarin is limited... I learned enough to be polite... :D

^_^ Hats off to you, because I know the first things I learned were dirty words and cuss words ha ha! I think you should reward yourself with some pie :-D

I travel a lot... so it pays (with freebies) to be polite and appreciative of my host country...

As much as I like the idea of being able to speak to everyone on the planet, I don't see the point in constructing an entirely new language. Why not pick an easy language that a lot of people know already?

I'm voting for English (and that's not even my native language)

As an official language or the official/preferred language?

Not every EU member nation has an Indo-European language. Hungary, Finland, and Estonia have languages in the Fino-Ugric family. If Turkey ever joins, Turkish isn't Indo-European either.

The EU is based on Geography, not on some sort of Indo-European racial or cultural identity.

If there is going to be any one language that nobody cares about that is going to be important, then at least lets make it some sort of artificial language like Esperanto.

True, but there is an easy counterargument there too: IE languages are the mother tongue of about 95% of people in the EU besides those countries mentioned (although note that Swedish is technically an official language in Finland), and if the EU and much of the world has accepted a language originating from one rainy and cold part of a small island country in the Atlantic as the lingua franca, then why all the fuss all of a sudden when a new language is brought in that encompasses almost the entire continent? Where was this concern when the rest of the continent was bending over backwards to perfect a language that people from the UK grew up speaking?

But yeah, constructed languages are good too. The one I prefer is one called Occidental though not many speak it.

Who says English is ok and accepted? If its accepted then its a big mistake imho.

English is a clumsy language. I have never heard anyone praising how pretty it sounds. It didn't get popular because of any elegance or practicality ,or ease of learning, or any other virtuous trait on its part, but because some trading/colonial empire nations happened to speak it at the right time.

If there is to be a world language, then lets make it one where there are as few exceptions to rules as possible, and lets try to get one which has good, logical rules. I heard Esperanto is particularly elegant, but I don't personally know. Its probably more elegant than English though. It would have to be really awful to be worse than English.

stick it to the man- use bad grammar and spelling!

Right, and this is exactly my point. Even a language that originally represents a tiny part of an island in the Atlantic and spread through colonialism has still managed to get partially accepted. My post above was only in response to the idea that a language has to represent 100% of a continent in order to be accepted - the question that follows is why said continent has already somewhat accepted the idea that a language that represents only a tiny sliver of it might be the preferred candidate for a common tongue. If opposition to proposed language X is based on the idea that it doesn't represent them then surely opposition to English must be that much greater.

I prefer Ido and Occidental but Esperanto's pretty good too and it's the only one where you can gather a few thousand people together at one time. I found it rather artificial for a while until I took a look at Lithuanian and realized how similar they are in some aspects.

By the way, one of the reasons why I oppose English as an international language is because I like it the way it was. I don't want to see it become an international creole or begin to be regulated by those that don't speak it as a first language. There comes a point when the ratio of L1 speakers becomes so low that they change from arbiters of good grammar into mere annoyances.

You make it sound like 3 member nations don't even count. If the situation was reversed, would you support some sort of 'Proto-Finno-Ugric language' to be the preferred language? And seeing as artificial languages don't really place anyone above anyone else, wouldn't you say that those languages would be 100% representative? Why settle for an inferior solution like English when there are far better solutions right at your fingertips?

Who says anybody actually accepts English? I'm sure everyone would be much happier if their own language became the preferred language- they are really forced into 'accepting' English by the expected standards. And I don't think that really counts. If one wants that counted, then one must also say that everyone should use Windows. Its the same logic- everyone should just do what the majority does just because they are the majority.

Oh yeah. I'd love that. I've actually discussed that quite a few times online with others and if the governments of Finland/Estonia/Hungary decided to seriously fund something like that I'd be on board in a second.

I think you're misunderstanding here - I'm not arguing for the legitimacy of English, I'm saying that

IF English is already accepted by SOME, and
SINCE English is really just a tiny branch of a single family tree,
THEN arguments that Proposed Language X that represents 95% of the tree are non-representative are moot by *those people* because they have already accepted a language that represents perhaps 5% at most, and why were those people not making the same argument before?

I'm not arguing for English *at all* - the exact opposite, in fact. I'm arguing against those that say English is a done deal.