Thanks for the clarifications; evidently our viewpoints on work
to preserve native languages don't diverge all that much. Just a
couple of points:
You write:
Anyway, because of this I do think that in practice it is
difficult to get members of native communities who have grown
up ignorant of their community language to learn that
language as an effective second language. Make no mistake;
this bothers me a lot, whereas I'm not so concerned about the
lingua francas as such! These non-speakers may well want to
become speakers for reasons of identity or spirituality -
moral reasons, let us say, as opposed to materialist ones -
but in practice they don't develop the urge to spend their
hours in study and practice, or, if they do, they don't have
the hours to spend. They may manage to memorize some
formulas, even long ones like prayers, but they don't usually
become really fluent.
While this strikes me as a fair description of the status quo in
NA and other Europeanized societies, it is clearly not a
universal law, but a cultural attitude, and therefore one which
can, in principle, be changed - though not quickly. As you imply,
it involves taking on the whole nationalist/monoculturalist
ideology of the state. Yet this is what the whole struggle of
indigenous peoples is about - a refusal to be slotted into
someone else's identity and agenda, a vision of permanent
diversity. The interesting question is not what the status quo
offers, but what alternatives are possible, and how to work for
them. Statements which imply that the status quo is all we have,
for all time, are themselves a contribution to the
assimilationist project, even if your sympathies lie in the other
direction.
On our other point of debate:
I have nothing against Eperanto or Lojban or whatever per se.
It's the arguments for their cultural and linguistic utility
that I deplore. I used to love inventing languages myself,
but I never tried to get anyone else to speak one of them.
This is what I like about Klingon. It was invented as an
amusement and put to use in a well-defined, harmless way,
without any pretensions. Everybody involved knows it's just a
game. Still, if you want to spend time learning a language, I
recommend a real one. A real Salish language, for example, is
more improbably wonderful and entertaining than any work of
linguistic engineering!
I'm sorry, but Esperanto is a real language by every criterion
you want to mention. I agree that a Salish language is wonderful
and entertaining to study, but you're unlikely to get to the
stage of real fluency, where you can play with it. That's the
kind of pleasure Esperanto offers. I speak reasonable Dutch,
halting French, have studied Russian and Spanish, hope some day
soon to tackle Ojibway, and from all these languages I have
gained, and expect to gain, a great deal of pleasure. My
Esperanto is fluent, in a meaningful way: I've dreamt in it,
formed lasting friendships, had profound discussions, read and
written extensively, even acted as a simultaneous interpreter for
the Council of Europe, and this has given me a different kind of
pleasure - one which, I would suggest, goes more to the heart of
what languages are really about.
I personally don't give a damn whether John Koontz, or the
anonymous sender who wrote that "Esperanto is functional
(barely)", ever actually learn the language. What I ask is that
they give it the respect they'd give to any other language, and
find out the facts before making arbitrary statements with no
empirical support. I'm not an Esperanto prescriptivist who tells
everyone he meets that they should learn it, which I find just as
objectionable as John does. All I seek is recognition of
verifiable facts about its actual use. What people do with that
information is their own affair.
-- Mark Fettes | Ech guto malgranda, konstante frapante... 695-B King Edward Ave. | (progresas, ho Dio! - tre lante!) Ottawa, Ontario | - S. Urban Canada K1N 7N9 | (with apologies to L.L. Zamenhof)