AllenHartwell:I see. All I can say, then, is do what you want. Feel free to use liva. Feel free to use frida, olda, mava, mojosa, uesto, and every other fiacxa word under the sun. Especially feel free to stop "learning" (destroying) Esperanto and find a planlingvo more suitable to your tastes. Have you considered that every beginner who sees you use this idiotic "words" will assume that it's normal? You do a disservice to the entire community each time you use them. As I said though, nobody can or will prevent you from doing so. It's really your choice to join as a real member or become yet another crypto-Idist obstacle. But I really do recommend checking out some other planlingvo that doesn't have a real shot at success. Might I suggest Interlingua?

By your definition the English language has been murdered billions of times. Heck, William Shakespeare should be jailed for all the new words he brought into common use.

I understand that most languages like Esperanto get killed by reform movements, but adding vocabulary is the one area where a langauge MUST change to survive. Latin died (outside of academia and its descendant languages) for THIS VERY REASON.

sparksbet:By your definition the English language has been murdered billions of times. Heck, William Shakespeare should be jailed for all the new words he brought into common use.

English is a totally different scenario. It's a natural language that changes drastically over time. As a constructed international auxiliary language, Esperanto is supposed to remain relatively consistent if it is to be of any use.

I understand that most languages like Esperanto get killed by reform movements, but adding vocabulary is the one area where a langauge MUST change to survive. Latin died (outside of academia and its descendant languages) for THIS VERY REASON.

I only agree to an extent. We can't just make up new roots all will-nilly, but it is definitely highly necessary in terms of specialized language (ex: anatomy, chemistry).

Rejsi:

sparksbet:By your definition the English language has been murdered billions of times. Heck, William Shakespeare should be jailed for all the new words he brought into common use.

English is a totally different scenario. It's a natural language that changes drastically over time. As a constructed international auxiliary language, Esperanto is supposed to remain relatively consistent if it is to be of any use.

I understand that most languages like Esperanto get killed by reform movements, but adding vocabulary is the one area where a langauge MUST change to survive. Latin died (outside of academia and its descendant languages) for THIS VERY REASON.

I only agree to an extent. We can't just make up new roots all will-nilly, but it is definitely highly necessary in terms of specialized language (ex: anatomy, chemistry).

I agree with most of your points, but Esperanto has a large enough community that some degree of natural language evolution will (and indeed must) happen over time. It has a small enough community with enough knowledge of/respect for the language that its grammar will most likely stay the same in most respects -- to reference the title of this thread, the accusative "getting phazed out" is one of the things that I'm fairly certain won't happen anytime in the near future -- but small changes in the grammar will take place and many new roots will come into use as they are needed.

You say we can't just make up new roots all willy-nilly, and I agree, but language evolution has its own sort of natural selection when it comes to new vocabulary. To use "liva" as an example, it was proposed as a synonym to "maldekstra" because having the words for "right" and "left" sound similar would cause confusion in situations when giving directions or orders, especially in situations in which it would be difficult to hear. However, Esperanto is generally not used in such situations, so the root hasn't been necessary, isn't used, and hasn't yet been added to the language. An Esperantist can make up words and roots willy-nilly, but only those that fill a lexical gap and are accepted by other speakers of the language will catch on.

Using unestablished neologisms or otherwise peculiar words may confuse others in conversation, but will not cause the death of the language, as some others in this thread seem to think. Esperanto has survived for a long time, and it has survived far greater changes than the additions of a few superfluous roots.

don't mind me; just testing something

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.

Two doubtful assumptions here.

1. That any conclusion about changes in a language in our time, can be drawn from historic changes in language in an era when most people couldn't read or write, there was little movement of people, very few books, and no unifying forces like TV, radio and universal free education.

2 That Esperanto (a constructed language) must follow the same evolutionary paths as a natural language.

sudanglo: Two doubtful assumptions here.

1. That any conclusion about changes in a language in our time, can be drawn from historic changes in language in an era when most people couldn't read or write, there was little movement of people, very few books, and no unifying forces like TV, radio and universal free education.

2 That Esperanto (a constructed language) must follow the same evolutionary paths as a natural language.

+1

sudanglo:2 That Esperanto (a constructed language) must follow the same evolutionary paths as a natural language.

If Esperanto isn't allowed to follow a path "compatible" to the paths of human languages, can it ever become a human language or will it be forever an academic subject?

sudanglo:Two doubtful assumptions here.

1. [...] universal free education.

Now this is a doubtful assumption if I've ever heard one. I am not quite sure if the two of us share the same planet.

English is a good example of how little mass communications mean in the spoken word. Labov (one of our more famous linguists) has occupied himself extensively with the development of dialects in the US. Instead of becoming more alike, our dialects are gaining strength. In come cases, there are even conscious movements to maintain and further construct dialects, like the one spoken on Martha's Vineyard, used by natives to distinguish each other from visitors - or Ebonics (documented by many scholars, linguists or not). I know that I have (unconscously) acquired the local dialect which is heavily influenced by Spanish - to the point that when I am in North Florida, people often assume that I speak Spanish. If you want an interesting watch, take time to see "Do You Speak American?" It is a fascinating 3 hour film.
On the other hand, this thread is proof that I am still capable of reading and writing English and being understood by others. But English orthography is quickly becoming like Chinese characters with only vague similarities to the spoken word. My university students, on the other hand, even in class have trouble writing international English. They often use emailrite (my name for it).

robbkvasnak:English orthography is quickly becoming like Chinese characters with only vague similarities to the spoken word

Did yuo kown that yuo cna raed wrods when the lettres aer all messed up liek this?

We often think that Chinese is a hard language to learn yet our writen language is basically a set of symbols.

I think it wud be better if wee cud rite fonetically in Inglish beecuz it wud be eezee for people.

This is exactly what I'm saying. Speak it right or not at all. Learn real Esperanto or stop "learning" it. I've tried to be diplomatic but I keep seeing these same kinds of threads over and over. Hey this language is great but I think we should start using blin as the indefinite article and add tenses to the conditional. Ultimately it comes down to how much you respect the language and its goals. If you don't, then GTFO and find something else to ruin. I can't state it more clearly than this.