Such as Esperanto, [1][2][3] I cited lots of evidence earlier and you completely ignored it.

So by that logic. I can just stand with someone speaking mandarin and then understand them "overtime" without effort? That will never fucking happen. in fact, I'd give up long before then.

I didn't say anything about grammar prescribing stuff. I just said that having an unclear grammar can make comprehension harder.

and i'm not a fucking imperialist. I'm not going around in africa or china colonizing them.

The grammar of esperanto isn't a guideline like the grammar of english, it's a ruleset. Quit talking over me.

Designed in a polish house for 30 years actually, not a lab; and also with 30 years of criticism.

Where do you think the "natural" languages came from? simple, they were also planned up: by primitive monkeys millions of years ago. where do you think English came from?

---

Once again, you keep citing not a SINGLE source for your claims. they'll be unsubstantiated until you even remotely attempt to back them up. Nor do you read any of my sources. you parrot the same claim over and over again.

Here is a very good source. READ IT!: https://web.archive.org/web/20191027044103/http://remush.be/rebuttal/index.html#artificial

flank/ont/o • al/salt/as • mi/n
flank - side [or flank]
ont - ending of future active participle in verbs
o - ending of nouns (substantive)

al - to
salt - jump
as - ending of the present tense in verbs

mi - i [meaning me]
n - ending of the objective; also marks direction

literal - "side is jumping me"
"rudimentary english" - soldiers bombing, demos bombing, scouts in

----------------

po/duopo • pus/as • ili
po - at, at the rate of, by
duope - by twos "pairs"

pus - push
as - ending of the present tense in verbs

ili - they

literal - "they're pushing in twos(pairs)"
"rudimentary english" - both scouts in, soldiers double bomb, flanks pushing, etc.
depending on scenario you would use different terminology that can all be shortened down to two-four words

cannot believe i just looked through grammatical rules and a glossary to able to write it out, and yet i was still able to come up with potentially shorter sentences.
don't even quote me, this is my only post. i think this entire conversation is pointless because nobody is going to want to learn a new language to "maximize talking efficiency/brain processing speed". people arent computers, they dont have data tables that output certain emotional or physical reactions based on the syllables they hear. get a grip jesus christ.

The English translations are not communicating the full sense. they are communicating something very different from what the esperanto sentence communicates. the future participle "flankonto" and "min" are ignored completely, even when "min" could easily be included. (into "soldiers bombing me", "demos bombing me" "scouts in me")

"Soldiers bombing" only communicates that the soldiers are doing bombings. I still wouldn't know the time or the target.

The above goes for "Demos bombing"?

"scouts in" scouts in what? in a house? or flank? in what?

overall, all you did here is remove the target (me) and the future participle! That's not expressing in english; that's butchering the translation of the sentence!

Stop. "soldiers double bomb" can easily communicate something else: that is soldiers bombing twice, or doubling a bomb.
Now if you added "in" to the above translation (to create "soldiers in double bomb"), you'd be able to remove those ambiguities.

That is, however, at the expense of introducing more radicals and completely butchering the original sense! Focusing on shortness to a dogmatic degree makes the sentence hard to process properly.

Also, "soldiers double bomb" is not shorter than the Esperanto sentence, its longer than the Esperanto sentence:

"Poduope puŝas ili" is 17 characters long
"soldiers double bomb" is 20 characters long.

Indeed, I didn't say that at all. learners are going to want to be able to communicate better, not primarily "think better".

(Ugh, I really should have worked on this particular reply some more. lots of edits I should have added on at the start...)

no

Noam Chomsky:

"The interest of linguists, as linguists, in universal language was based on an illusion, which linguists had but no longer have. That was the illusion that Esperanto is a language, and it isn’t. Yeah, Esperanto has a couple of hints that people who know language can use based on their own linguistic knowledge to make a language out of it, but nobody can tell you what the rules of Esperanto are. If they could tell you that, they could tell you what the rules of Spanish are, and that turns out to be an extremely hard problem, a hard problem of the sciences, to find out what’s really in the head of a Spanish speaker that enables them to speak and understand and think the way they do. That’s a problem at the edge of science. I mean, a Spanish speaker knows it intuitively, but that doesn’t help. I mean, a desert ant knows how to navigate, but that doesn’t help the insect scientist. [...] To be puzzled by simple questions is a very hard step, and it’s the first step in science, really. And the same is true about the nature of Esperanto, or Spanish, on which it’s based, and so on. We don’t know the answers to the questions of what the principles of Esperanto do because if we did, we would know the answer to how language works, and that’s much harder than knowing how a desert ant navigates, which is hard enough. So, now it is understood that Esperanto is not a language. It’s just parasitic on other languages."

"But there are people, serious scholars, who think that everyone should speak Esperanto, 'cause it's so simple, that there's an illusion that Esperanto is a language. Esperanto is not a language. It's a couple of simple rules which pre-suppose that you know Romance languages, and then you use all your knowledge of Romance languages to sort of figure out what's going on. But none of this means anything."

Trying to talk about which languages are "simpler" or "easier" in a vacuum completely misses the relationship between language, culture, and human action. I'll take it that Esperanto is "simpler" than English, based on what you've said and what Chomsky says here, but this doesn't matter. You're taking a value-free statement about the "simplicity" of something and turning it into a value judgement about "better" or "worse" for a given problem. This is called the "is-ought fallacy." What you're doing is like saying that math equation x is simpler than equation y, and that we should therefore use equation x. It doesn't make sense.

So, to try to argue for Esperanto in TF2, it can't be based on how "simple" it is, or any of the factual qualities of Esperanto, since that's fallacious. You might ask: "How am I supposed to argue in favor of Esperanto, then?" and that's my point: you can't. We don't speak because we have some goal in mind (like "simplicity"), because the ability to think about goals like simplicity requires the ability to speak in the first place. Therefore, any argument based on some abstract "quality" of a language like simplicity is circular and nonsensical.

The only argument you can make in favor of a language cannot be based on the "language itself," for the reasons I've explained, but because of some "outside reality," i.e., "Chinese could be useful to learn in case we go to war with China," or "You should learn ancient Greek so you can read Plato in his own words," or "You should learn Esperanto because it's fun." That is, an explanation of the "practicality" or "usefulness" of a language can only be based on some pre-existing, empirical judgement that we choose to make ourselves, or that rests on some outside source of "usefulness," like the desire to read Plato. But how does this look in TF2? People in Europe communicate using English in TF2 because many of them already speak English. If enough of them already communicated using Esperanto, then people would learn Esperanto. Notice how the "language in and of itself" (if such a thing even exists) doesn't come into play here.

Furthermore, the very fact that non-native speakers choose to speak English when playing TF2 proves that it's the best option for communication right now. The term for this in economics is called "revealed preference." As David Gordon writes, "When you make a choice, it’s usually among a few options. The choice is an action, and the action demonstrates, or reveals, that the option, or preference, that you choose ranks higher than the competing options." People in Europe have chosen English over Esperanto, and therefore, for whatever reason, they prefer to speak English over Esperanto. I think this is the idea Brody was getting across when he said you were rejecting the "human impact on the use... of things like language." And what could be more human than Europeans' choice to speak English over the other options? By saying something like "Esperanto should be the language of EU competitive," you're saying that Europeans themselves would prefer Esperanto over English. I ask: do they? They have chosen English despite the difficulties you've mentioned. As James Buchanan wrote:

"The market economy, as an aggregation, neither maximizes nor minimizes anything. It simply allows participants to pursue that which they value, subject to the preferences and endowments of others, and within the constraints of general “rules of the game” that allow, and provide incentives for, individuals to try out new ways of doing things. There is simply no “external,” independently defined objective against which the results of market processes can be evaluated."

You can apply what he's saying here to the "market of second languages" in Europe, or even about language itself. It would read like: "Language neither maximizes nor minimizes anything. There is simply no 'external,' independently defined objective against which language can be evaluated."

These are some thoughts I wanted to give on this topic.

By the way, pro tip: If it's impossible to enter esperanto letters with accents (ĉ ĝ ĥ ĵ ŝ ˛ŭ), there's the h-system that allows you to express these letters in ASCII-only environments (ĉ=ch, ĝ=gh, ĥ=hh, ĵ=jh, ŝ=sh, ŭ=u).

Of course, it's absolutely possible to enter in the accented letters here, so I'd recommend using copy and paste to type those letters properly.

you are arguing about callouts and shorthand in a game you seem? to have very little experience in. someone calling a "soldier double bomb" is pretty universally agreed upon that it means two soldiers are bombing at the same time

also dont know how to feel about an american telling me to learn another language after the english already forced everyone to

Maybe if you can’t even type the characters without copy pasting it isn’t the most practical choice lol.

Also love the entire premise being “if everyone in Europe sinks over a year into learning this useless language, then they can *maybe* be slightly more efficient in communicating” without considering if it’s even something people want (calls are already extremely efficient, anyone who actually plays comp knows)

“Noooo this meme language I wasted my time learning can’t be useless, these players just don’t know what’s good for them!”

https://i.imgur.io/4xGhBrt_d.webp?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&fidelity=medium

Also FYI you don’t need a citation to prove the points people are arguing against you, it’s just basic logic lol you’re supposed to argue against the ideas they are saying.

as an ESL guy I would like to personally thank brody & toads_tf for breaking down in no uncertain terms why this idea is delusional

special mention goes to Jw for killer post

not all heroes wear capes

I haven't said that once! I can type the characters just fine. I was actually talking to elektro, who didn't actually type in the characters properly.

What? A citation is there to show reference to previous evidence already formed.

-------------

I was talking about primarily ASCII only environments; where no other language (like Spanish or Russian, certainly not mandarin) can easily be enkoded.

Actually, you only need a few months to learn it. Not as much as english, which takes 10s of years. Slightly?

"Efficient calls" my ass! I've seen terms like al-quaeda which relates NOTHING to their traditional term. This makes it harder for english learners, not easier.

Esperanto terms are already quite short. and it isn't a "maybe" it's a fact.

Wasn't useless for me! I actually met another esperantist in game.

and you're also forgetting that it was developed only 100 years ago. No language can quickly(in terms of years) grow to millions of speakers without lots of time, definitely not any "natural" language lol.

So by that logic. I don't need to cite evidence of climate change against climate change deniers, I'm supposed to recreate the evidence myself?

All that talk about how I'm "not reading properly" (which I've done once) yet y'all manage to miscomprehend my own responses multiple times. lmao

While being wrong at the same time and not even studying our language (which aint hard btw). You all rush to call me an idiot without even fact checking your own claims!

Likewise, you're arguing with me about a language you don't understand and haven't studied.

Universally agreed by long term comp players yes, but what about the learner who has to learn that beforehand? what about the learner who maybe just learned what "double" means in english class?!

Uh, 400 million people is not everyone; there's 7 8 billion people. and English takes forever to learn it properly. also, that was because of settler colonialism.

Here's a question: how much time did y'all spend learning english? (in total, don't lie or cheat).

STFU STFU STFU STFU STFU NOW NOW NOW

Ne /ŝerco

You repeatedly impute your own shortcomings to everyone else in a really insulting way

Wow. you blame everything and the difficulties of mandarin and english and spanish, exacerbated by an awful education system, on me. straight up victim blaming...

And how exactly am I insulting? You all have been insulting me after that "übersaw is overrated" post (which I have since moved on from).

This really boils down to cost-benefit analyses for both languages.

English:
+ Financially lucrative by opening career options
+ Access to English-language media
+ Many speakers in your age/regional cohort
+ You were probably taught it in school and have some familiarity
- On the margin, it is harder to learn

Esperanto
+ On the margin, it is easier to learn
+ Greater grammatical precision
- Nonexistent financial return
- Little/no works produced originally in language, compared to English
- Few other speakers

(Sidenote: Even if the requisite effort to learn Esperanto is much smaller, you can't just ignore the number of current speakers. I would be shocked if the collective study time for all competitive players to learn Esperanto with the exclusive purpose of more precise comms (a contested issue to begin with) is less than what is required for the non-English speakers who lack career or cultural incentive to learn to do so for TF2)

You may sincerely believe that the positives for Esperanto matter a lot. But as revealed to us from the continued incumbent status of English, people don't agree with you. You presented your case against the status quo and are seemingly offended that people have justifications for why the status quo is what it is. I'm learning a language other than English because it's good for my career, not because I think it's the Best Language or that we'd be better off if everyone spoke it. That's the main reason people learn languages--anything about its grammar or syntax is a tertiary issue to me.

This guy is the exact person that you're supposedly trying to make things better for. He's telling you in no uncertain terms that he thinks your idea is unrealistic. He could have learned Esperanto, but when he ran the cost-benefit calculation, he opted for English. Rather than assume he's just not Educated enough, try to understand why he made the decision he did. Allow information from people who actually make these choices to shape your views--that's how you learn how things work.

http://esperantoilustrita.blogspot.com/2012/11/esperantista-entreprenisto-premiita-en.html

Actually, capitalist esperantists end up teaching professionals Esperanto, over getting some unexperienced anglo because it's easier and faster that way. and there is a Chinese capitalist "Ĉielismo" that uses Esperanto: https://youtube.com/watch?v=jH2nCF_-4R4

There is tons of esperanto works, like 40000. Enough to be impossible to read in a single life... and esperantists can make more works! easier than in english!

of course, you won't read any of them because you don't even want to study the language itself!

So I think setting up a little experiment is a good idea for this. Why don't we go on ahead and discuss how we should do it?

Here is also a poll: https://web.archive.org/web/20191027044103/http://multivote.sparklit.com/poll.spark/3142. Yes, I know online polls are notoriously unreliable, but there have also been IRL polls.

because its wrong and I've proven it wrong multiple times in this whole thread.

Then understand esperantists (like me) before you make arrogant proclamations about esperanto!

You derived that from someone who has not even bothered to explain his reasoning, and hasn't even bothered to study the language! he could have been reasoning something entirely different.

and likewise, understand why Im responding to you like this. you arrogantly state incorrect misinformation about our language, while not even speaking it. and you don't even check my evidence by other esperantists!

And Please don't butcher my quotes like that:

actually everyone should switch to swedish. less learning for me and you all get to learn a better language

TAND ET LJUS DOM DOM DOM DOM DOM DOM DOM DOM DOM

and mocking me doesn't do much for your points.

How exactly is it better than esperanto?

i speak it

That doesn't make it better.

I also speak esperanto. here, I can make an audio clip of me doing so.

do you have a source to support this statement?

no sorry i dont need that thanks though

i think an audio clip of him speaking esperanto would probably reveal his position to us better than another several quote bomb quadposts

The Public has spoken. Record yourself speaking esperanto and We shall judge whether it is fit for a language to be used in eu competitive

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally%E2%80%93Anne_test