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in reply to Re: is XML too hard?
in thread is XML too hard?

In fact esperanto is claimed to be really simple, much simpler than any natural language. I believe it was based on French rather then latin.

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Re:^3: is XML too hard? esperanto
by janx (Monk) on Mar 18, 2003 at 09:36 UTC
    And German, English, several easter European languages and a bad idea, IHMO.

    It's like saying: Hey lets make a language out of Ruby, Python, Awk, Perl3, Perl4 and a little bit Perl5, throw in a good measure of BASIC, a bit Lisp, stir and puke. Oh you don't like it? Well, it's not going to change, you know. That's that. And good riddance.

    janx

      How can you create an artificial language not basing it on existing languages? You mean you would like something entirely new? Look how Perl is build - you have a bit of shell, a bit of C, a bit of awk and many other languages.
        That's all to well. Of course does artifcial mean to take something existing (conciously or unconciously).

        But, IMHO there's more to a succesfull language/system than the sum of the parts.
        Almost every language has its strong points which others lack. What I mean is that you don't necessarily get a better language by combining the strong points.

        One major success factor is the evolution of a language. It has to adapt to its users - and Esperanto IMHO doesn't do that.
        I'm comfortable using English as the lingua franca in the technical world. I most often prefer it to my mother tongue German for clarity and simplicity.
        However I'm also aware that English has its roots (at least partly) in old germannic languages (Disclaimer: I'm no expert here - Input appreciated.) and thus is also based on other languages.

        Well, from this point on I would repeat myself, as I just became aware of, but you get my point ;-)

        janx