Esperanto vs. Pandunia

Esperanto has been the most popular constructed auxiliary language for over a century since the 1890s. That's why all new auxiliary languages are rightfully compared to it.

Esperanto has been criticized over the years. Many of the recurring points of critique are included in Justin B. Rye's article Learn Not to Speak Esperanto. It has been replied in detail by Vítor De Araújo and more broadly by Claude Piron among many others.

Despite all the critique, Esperanto has its merits, and its relative success among auxiliary languages is undeniable. But does it really deserve its success? Is Esperanto really an ideal world language? In this article we will review the most important points of critique and compare Esperanto to Pandunia.

Alphabet

The alphabet of Esperanto is as follows:

A B C Ĉ D E F G Ĝ H Ĥ I J Ĵ K L M N O P R S Ŝ T U Ŭ V Z
a b c ĉ d e f g ĝ h ĥ i j ĵ k l m n o p r s ŝ t u ŭ v z

People often criticize the letters with "hats" because they are not included in the standard keyboards of typewriters, computers and smart devices. The letters with hats really are a problem that could have been avoided.

What is often overlooked is that there are two sets of letters: big letters and small letters. Both do the same basic task: they represent spoken language in writing. It is like using two different hammers to hit one nail. Most writing systems in the world get by with only one type of letters. For example the writing systems of Arabia, India, China, Korea, Japan and Ethiopia don't differentiate large and small letters.

The alphabet of Pandunia uses logically only the small Basic Latin letters.

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p r s t u v x y z

Pronunciation

The sounds in Esperanto and the rules that govern how they go together are primarily based on Polish, with additional influence from other European languages like English and German, with little regard for how easy they are to pronounce internationally. This gives rise to consonant clusters that are difficult to pronounce for most people, especially at the beginning of words, such as kn as in knabo, kv as in kvar, mn as in mnemonika, ŝr as in ŝranko, and sc as in scii /stsi.i/.

Pandunia's word structure is designed to balance between keeping international words recognizable and to make them easy to pronounce for as many people as possible. Thus, the only consonant cluster permitted at the beginning of a word is a stop or fricative plus a liquid, such as kr as in kristal.

Eurocentrism

Eurocentric grammar

Esperanto and most other Western auxiliary languages are pretty much the same. They have largely the same Western European vocabulary (with minor differences) and they repeat the same Standard Average European features of grammar, that are shared by French, English, German, Spanish and other languages from West and Central Europe.

1. Word class is defined by suffixes. Verbs, nouns, adjectives and adverbs have their specific endings.
2. Nouns (or at least pronouns) are inflected for cases such as nominative, dative and accusative.
3. Verbs are inflected for tense, person and/or number.
4. There are definite and/or indefinite articles.
5. Singular and plural forms are separate. The plural form is used redundantly also after numerals. For example in English one cat, two cats and in Esperanto unu kato, du katoj.
6. Prepositions are used instead of postpositions.
7. There is a specific polite form for 2nd person singular pronoun.
8. There are separate gender-specific 3rd person singular pronouns.
9. The perfect tense is made up of to have or to be and a participle. For example in English I have talked and in Esperanto mi estas parolinta.
10. The passive is made up of to be and a participle. For example in English I am seen and in Esperanto mi estas vidita.
11. The normal word order is subject–verb–object.
12. The word order in questions deviates from the normal word order.

Both English and Esperanto have all of the above listed features except number 7. Ido, Novial and Interlingua have all of them. In contrast for example Chinese has only features 8 and 11, and the former is apparent only in the written language – because of Western influence! (In Chinese there are three characters for the 3rd person singular 他 ('he'), 她 ('she') and 它 ('it') but all of them are pronounced the same, tā.)

Standard Average European features are not bad just because they imply Western bias. Some (not all) of them are bad because they are illogical or simply difficult for those who are not used to them in their native language. Many learners stumble with articles and "difficult" personal pronouns. The world language should be free of such unnecessary features and rules.

Pandunia has only features 1 and 11. These are also main features of Esperanto. But otherwise Pandunia diverges greatly from Standard Average European grammar in general and from Esperanto in particular. So grammar-wise Pandunia is not Eurocentric, unlike Esperanto.

Western or global vocabulary?

Esperanto boasts with its international vocabulary. At a closer look it's not so international. Most Esperanto words come from Western languages. Esperanto chooses a European word even when no international Western word can be found. Such words are birdo ('bird', similar only in English), vosto ('tail', from Russian хвост) and knabo ('boy', from German Knabe).

Isn't it narrow-minded to create a language for the world without looking beyond your own neighbourhood? It was in the spirit of the time, the time of colonialism, when Esperanto was created.

Pandunia acknowledges that there are many stocks of international words: Western, Indian, Sinitic and Perso-Arabic being the major ones. Hundreds of words are borrowed from each of them. Pandunia's vocabulary is evenly global.

Word class marking

Simple word class marking with final vowels is an ingenious idea, and it fits well together with the root-and-suffix word pattern, which is typical for Indo-European languages. But the way different word classes relate to each other can be confusing if not handled carefully.

Esperanto roots have inherent word classes

One of the most confusing things in Esperanto is that, while it has distinct word class markers, all roots belong to word classes already by default. What's even more confusing is that roots, which seemingly belong to the same class, can have a different underlying word class.

For example, the adjectives blua, brula, ferma and naska seem similar on the surface, but in reality they have different inherent word classes. Fundamentally blu- is an adjective, brul- is an intransitive verb ferm- is a transitive verb, and nask- is an action noun. As a result, deriving other words from them is different. Therefore their direct derivatives are distributed asymmetrically. In the table below, direct derivates are in bold cursive and indirect derivatives, which include additional derivative suffixes, are in normal cursive.

Word type	blu-	brul-	ferm-	nask-
Noun	blu-o	brul-o	ferm-o	nask-o
	'color blue'	'burning'	'closure'	'birth'
Adjective of relation	-	-	-	nask-a
				'natal'
Adjective of being	blu-a	brul-a	ferm-a	nask-it-a
	'blue'	'burning'	'closed'	'born'
Verb of being	blu-i	-	-	-
	'be blue'
Verb of becoming	blu-iĝ-i	brul-i	ferm-iĝ-i	nask-iĝ-i
	'get blue'	'burn'	'be closed'	'be born'
Verb of doing	blu-ig-i	brul-ig-i	ferm-i	nask-i
	'make blue'	'make burn'	'close'	'give birth'

Pandunia roots are classless

The roots are classless in Pandunia. There's no need to memorize for example kluz- whether is fundamentally a verb or an adjective. It is neither! Word class is only indicated by adding the appropriate ending: -i for adjectives or stative verbs, -a for agent-oriented verbs and -u for patient-oriented verbs.

Word type	nil-	pir-	kluz-	nat-
Noun	nil-e	pir-e	kluz-e	nat-e
	'color blue'	'burning'	'closure'	'birth'
Adj. or verb of being	nil-i	pir-i	kluz-i	nat-i
	'blue'	'burning'	'closed'	'born'
Verb of becoming	nil-u	pir-u	kluz-u	nat-u
	'get blue'	'burn'	'get closed'	'be born'
Verb of doing	nil-a	pir-a	kluz-a	nat-a
	'make blue'	'make burn'	'close'	'give birth'