orthohawk:

Christa627:Perhaps you have a different criteria of what constitutes a word; to me, if it is in PIV, it's a word.

PIV is (in)famous for including any and all neologismojn no matter what. It is not something to emulate.

My lingvohelpanto for Ana Renkontas told me that it's "verŝajne la plej bona Esperanta vortaro." What am I supposed to believe?

orthohawk:well, then, look at it this way. In boating and in the Navy, "port" and "starboard" are used for "left" and "right." Why they are used isn't really important, but what IS important about these words is that they are SPECIALIZED vocabulary; intended for use in specific situations, or fakoj, if thee will. Use them with the man on the street

I do sometimes use "port" (or "larboard" ) and "starboard"; mostly when I'm talking about driving ("the van always veers to starboard" ), and everyone seems to understand me just fine.

orthohawk:and thee is likely to get a "huh? what's that mean?" and then thee must waste thy (and thy interlocutor's) time by 1. Saying the "normal" word, and 2. explaining the background of the word and why thee chooses to use it(well, maybe the second isn't strictly necessary, but i've found with people who insist on using weird words for no reason other than to be contrary or different more often than not offer the explanation whether it's asked for or not (and based on my experience with my use of "thee" and "thy" it's asked for, and very often quite hostile-ly)).

And I can't help asking (I have been wondering for a while), why do you do that?

orthohawk:I, myself had to look up "mava"

So did I.

AllenHartwell:Feel free to use frida, olda, mava, mojosa, uesto, and every other fiacxa word under the sun.

That is a straw man; apart from mojosa, I have never used any of those words or expressed any approval of them. Some of them I've never even heard of.

Thank you, Erinja. As you said, I don't have a lot of experience. I try to figure things out based on what I read. In the book "Being Colloquial in Esperanto" which was strongly recommended by my lingvohelpanto from Ana Pana, I read,

David Jordan:-It is unclear whether liva = “left” is coming into general use, although we may hope so. Especially in international transportation it would avoid confusion between dekstra and maldekstra, which sound too similar when spoken in noisy environments (for example when road instructions are given in cars).”

This may have led me to believe that the word is more commonly used than it actually is. As I said, I am not interested in speaking "Idaĉo" or anything similar, and I am also not interested in confusing people.

The original subject of this thread is the use or loss of the accusative. On this matter, I have the following experience: my husband started acquiring Esperanto on his own some time back. He knew that I speak Esperanto but at the time I was not very interested in using it. Once he started using Esperanto, I did too. He is Brazilian. Up until recently, his use of the accusative has been reserved for those standard expressions (e.g. bonan tagon! dankon!) But as of recently he has started to use it on his own. I have made a point of not correcting him, since I know from my studies of second language acquisition, that this is of little import to the new speaker (see children being corrected by their parents - in vain). We do not see other speakers a lot - there are not a lot of E speakers around here. But maybe just from hearing me or looking at things on line - he does that a lot, though he never actively takes part in these fora - he has started using the accusative for grammatical objects.
I am not very worried about the future life of the accusative. If humankind decides to use Esperanto, the language will evolve just as other widely spoken languages do. If it remains limited in its speakership, then the "controlling" group, i.e. those who "direct" or "steer" the language, will remain smaller. At any rate, I do not think that conscious direction of any language is of much value. People who want to communicate will use whatever means they find useful - that which is best understood will become the norm and then there will be a new norm and later another new norm. That is just how human language evolves. Mi lasos ĝin live - hehe.

Christa627:Thank you, Erinja. As you said, I don't have a lot of experience. I try to figure things out based on what I read. In the book "Being Colloquial in Esperanto" which was strongly recommended by my lingvohelpanto from Ana Pana, I read,

David Jordan:-It is unclear whether liva = “left” is coming into general use, although we may hope so. Especially in international transportation it would avoid confusion between dekstra and maldekstra, which sound too similar when spoken in noisy environments (for example when road instructions are given in cars).”

This may have led me to believe that the word is more commonly used than it actually is. As I said, I am not interested in speaking "Idaĉo" or anything similar, and I am also not interested in confusing people.

A real Esperanto gathering will be useful to you, whenever you manage to get to one. Books always manage to express the opinions of their authors, and an author's predictions that a certain word is gaining (or losing) currency might not actually turn out to be true, particularly if you're reading the book 10 years after it was published.

There is a diversity of opinions on PIV. "Bona" is a loaded word. You could accurately say that PIV is the most complete Esperanto dictionary, or the most extensive. It contains everything under the sun, including words that aren't in widespread use or aren't recommended. This means that just because a word is in PIV, that doesn't necessarily mean I want to use it; on the other hand, if a word isn't even in PIV, I know it's truly rare!

I am not very worried about the future life of the accusative. If humankind decides to use Esperanto, the language will evolve just as other widely spoken languages do

No it won't. Esperanto is different.

And if Esperanto were to evolve in the chaotic way national languages have in the era before TV, radio, the internet and universal education, then this would undermine one of the main arguments for using a constructed language as a lingua franca.

In any case the '-n' is far too deeply embedded in the language and far too productive to readily disappear.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that a linguist said that it was pointless putting written messages in a 10,000 year time capsule because nobody would be able to understand them when the capsule was dug up.

This seems to me typical of the bumptious arrogance of linguists, who glibly assume that their experience with natural languages qualifies them to have opinions about Esperanto.

The number of professional linguists who are actually aware of the forces at play in the evolution of unique project like Esperanto, I would put at somewhere close to zero.

A lot of talk in this thread about this word "liva" for "left", as a synonym for "maldekstra".

Not that I'm planning to use it, but I'm just curious as to what is the origin of this root?

What language does it come from? Is it an international word?

BoriQa:What language does it come from? Is it an international word?

I would guess slavic lev-, as in Russian левый and Polish lewy

In addition lat. laeuus, engl. left. The similarity comes from inheritance, Indo-European *leh2iuo- [laiwo-] 'left'.

orthohawk:

Kirilo81:It would be SO NICE if the people "defending" the Fundamento would read and understand its Antaŭparolo, which gives the basic instructions how the language works:

-Everyone should use the roots found in the Fundamento (Universala Vortaro + Oficialaj Aldonoj), similarily the rules, BTW.

-Everyone can use additional roots by their pleasure (yes, also liva etc.!), unless they are synonyms to Fundamento roots (mal'dekstr'a is not a root). In the latter case, one needs a Tolerdeklaro (like with dekor' besid dekoraci') or its addition to the UV (like with aŭt' beside aŭtomobil') by the Esperanto Academy.

Nice to see there are still some who choose to go by the "letter of the law" rather than the "spirit."
/tongue removed from cheek

True, maldekstra may not be a root, per se, but dekstr, bon, et al are, and putting those together with the Fundamenta word building principles puts the resulting words in a category that does indeed proscribe beasts like "liva" and company.
And for what it's worth, it's "exegesis" like thine that led to Ido and company in the first place.

"Spirit" is a matter of faith, I prefer matters of fact. Seriously, even taking it less metaphorically, the spirit of a law can not be the mere opposite of its text, and the Antaŭparolo is clear.
Nowhere in the Fundamento, in the use of Zamenhof or the good authors it is said that everything that can be expressed by word formation must be expressed by it. This would be simply crazy (maltago..., and why ŝipo, if you can say surakvofluilo?).
BTW: In the first 30 years of the language, the most new roots, including many "superfluous" ones, were introduced by ... Zamenhof. Seems he didn't know the "spirit" of his language.

sudanglo:In any case the '-n' is far too deeply embedded in the language and far too productive to readily disappear.

Maybe if you were an Ænglisc speaker of the 10th century, you would argue along the same line: "In any case the '-an' for weak nouns is far too deeply embedded in the language and far too productive to readily disappear. The accusative of "tunge" (tongue) is "tungan" and will never be the same as the nominative."
No matter how "deeply embedded" some feature is in a language, given time, it is in risk of eradication.

sudanglo:And if Esperanto were to evolve in the chaotic way national languages have in the era before TV, radio, the internet and universal education, then this would undermine one of the main arguments for using a constructed language as a lingua franca.

Maybe this is why Esperanto hasn't become a lingua franca and is stuck in Academia as an intellectual exercise.
Maybe chaotic evolution is necessary for a language to actually be human.
As Nietzsche put it:

Nietzsche:Ich sage euch: man muss noch Chaos in sich haben, um einen tanzenden Stern gebären zu können. Ich sage euch: ihr habt noch Chaos in euch.

Mi diras al vi: oni devas havi ĥaoson en si, por kapabli naski dancantan stelon. Mi diras al vi: vi ankoraŭ havas ĥaoson en vi.