From: Josef 'Jupp' Schugt Date: 2003-03-07T03:39:30+09:00 Subject: Re: Internationalization EHLO * On 2003-03-04 20:36 * Mauricio Fern�ndez wrote: > Plus it'd be unfair for all the Japanese developers to have to learn > Esperanto as it's mostly a mix of European languages... I don't agree with this statement. It is right that Experanto has vocabulary taken from different European languages. But there is a list of BUTs ahead. Esperanto's indeed is collected from several European languages but the way in which Esperanto is built up *strongly* reduces the overall amount of vocabulary one has to learn. In comparism to most European languages Esperanto has a very simple grammar and doesn't care wether you put an adjective in front of or behind a substantive. I think that Japanese will have less trouble in learning Esperanto's grammar than anybody speaking a European language because it Esperanto's concept of using prefixes and suffixes is more widely used in Japanese than in European languages. The concept of spelling words is also very familiar to that of Japanese (as far as writing words in Kana is concerned): Write the word in the way it is spoken - compare this to 'leftanent' (lieutenant, British reading). This is more simple than in Japanese where you have to decide if a word has to be written in Katakana or Hiragana. Just my 2 euro cent, Josef 'Jupp' Schugt http://jupp.tux.nu/