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[ShoesandHats]

As I haven't seen a general thread for the discussion of language, I decided there might as well be one.

Want to complain about how irregular English is? Cool.
Want help on your Spanish homework? Nice.
Want advice on translating something? Raaadical.
Just want to speak your native language without derailing some other thread? Spectacular.

Basically, anything related to language, be it in general or in reference to something in particular.

[Telgin]

Ah, this is timely since I've recently been trying to learn Esperanto on Duolingo.  Esperanto is a very refreshing learning experienced compared to the French I took in high school.  French is cool and I still like it, but everything is so nice and consistent in Esperanto.  At least there are some cognates from French in it, which probably has helped me learn it a bit.

Speaking of inconsistencies though, I've recently been thinking that I might support some of the movements to simplify English.  In particular there are some aspects of the language that I think we could do away with, since they're largely pointless and nobody seems to know how they work.  Apostrophes for example.

But since this isn't a grammar thread I'll avoid launching into a rant about that particular topic.   

[Arx]

I don't know about that. Hey, apostrophe, you make sense, right?

Oh, you didn't mean that kind of apostrophe.

PTW. There are a handful of specific language speaking-threads around too, for your fourth point there.

[ShoesandHats]

Grammar talk is fine too, considering that it's an aspect of language.

The only problem with constructed languages is that there will never be a large base of native speakers. That's partly how an artificial language stays artificial, in fact. If there were enough people who spoke Esperanto as a first language, you'd see mutations within decades. Eventually, it'd just be another natural language, but maybe with a few less exceptions than other languages.

Plus, apostrophes are cool! How're you goin' to signify a contraction or indicate possession within a language that's had these grammatical conventions for centuries?

[Telgin]

Plus, apostrophes are cool! How're you goin' to signify a contraction or indicate possession within a language that's had these grammatical conventions for centuries?

Oh, I agree, but there is a disturbing number of people who think that making a noun possessive in English is the same as making it plural.  I get very, very sad every time I see someone write something like, "the trucks tire went flat."  See, it really ought to have an apostrophe there, but many people don't understand that and apparently get by thinking that this is how it works.  People do the opposite too, like writing, "I bought a pair of shoe's."  That one is even more bizarre but it still happens and people technically understand...  And it seems that about 75% of people don't know the difference between its and it's, so those might as well be the same word, you know?

It's almost becoming the rule because of the fact that so many people misuse the apostrophe and technically understand what was meant.  I forget the term for things that become accepted practice despite being technically incorrect, and I'm pretty sure there is a term for that.

There are some other language features that seem a bit unnecessary too.  Capital letters, for example.  They signify the start of a sentence and I guess may make it easier to read a paragraph, but their use for proper nouns seems a bit pointless.

Anyway, rant over!  Yeah, you're probably very correct about why Esperanto has remained fairly pure over time, and I'd be interested to see how it mutated if it was very commonly spoken.  The rise of the internet makes it much more available and easier to get access to learning material, but the motivation to do so is still pretty much nonexistent so I doubt that's going to happen.  English has largely taken the place of Esperanto's goal of being an international language, and it's going to be hard to displace it.

[Telgin]

Nope, but I have a friend who knows a lot more about Spanish than I do and they have told me plenty of other interesting things about Spanish.  It's very unusual in its varied regional dialects, down to the point that apparently conjugation can be different in different places.  I can't imagine what it would be like if American and British English were so different.

It guess it's a common feature of languages to have unused "warts", such as unpronounced letters and unnecessary grammatical conventions.  It's pretty interesting considering that we're all pretty lazy at the core.