philh comments on The rational way to name rivers - Less Wrong

2 Post author: PhilGoetz 06 August 2014 03:41PM

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Comment author: Alejandro1 06 August 2014 04:29:54PM 7 points [-]

On the other hand, it is kind of awesome that people with no knowledge of Esperanto but knowledge of two or three European languages can immediately understand everything you say--as I just did.

Comment author: philh 06 August 2014 05:15:05PM 0 points [-]

And this is 'knowledge of' in a very loose sense - I don't know any European languages except English, and I could still work it out. (I did take 'parolas' from French 'parler'.)

Comment author: garabik 08 August 2014 12:59:15PM 1 point [-]

You'd like Interlingua then:

Iste non es le problema maxime. Le problema major es que paucos homines parla Esperanto. Io non lo usa desde longe tempore.

(caveat: I do not speak Interlingua at all. This is just what I managed to put together from a grammar handbook and a dictionary)

Had Zamenhof created his language to be more like Interlingua, we might be using this in international communication by today. Compared with Esperanto, it's easier for Romance speakers, but adequately more difficult for the others.