Page:Sambahsa - Complete Grammar.pdf/11
clear because reforms will not be accepted! Sambahsa is a unique language amid auxiliary languages, what would be the fun if this language were one more of the same?
IS SAMBAHSA DIFFICULT?
Maybe you'd heard that Sambahsa is difficult. Is that true? The problem is that people observe the language superficially and then got the wrong idea. I am not going to be cynical in saying that this fame is unjustified, but let's try to understand this situation.
Try to imagine the work in learning a language like Spanish or German. Now remove all variations of this language – in the case of the ones spoken in different countries – and irregularities; Sambahsa basically is in this way. It's like Robert Winter said in his “Sambahsa: Guide to Pronouns and Articles”, “Sambahsa is right on the limit of the degree of difficulty that is practical for an international auxiliary language”.
The language can be mastered in a mater of very few months if you have a minimum of dedication, you only have to know what are your priorities of study and to know how to study and what to study! Doesn't make sense decorate all declension cases from dative if you use them a very few times! Also, you must have in mind that the fact of this language is easy doesn't mean that you will be writing philosophical treatises in three weeks, but maybe you can do it in four or six months.
People complain that Sambahsa has difficult sounds to learn, but all languages have different sounds to be learned, even other auxiliary languages that try to be the simplest. Soon after, there are a few of the languages most studied by Americans and their sounds that don't exist in the General American English (the ones in italic are used in Sambahsa).
Spanish (European Castilian) – [β], [x], [ɲ], [ɣ]
German – [ç], [ʁ], [x], [ʏ], [ø], [œ]
French – [ʁ], [ɥ], [œ], [ø], [y], [ɑ̃], [ɛ̃], [œ̃], [ɔ̃]
Maybe Sambahsa could have simpler sounds (simple for whom?) or less “extra sounds”, but wouldn't the language be poorer? The sounds are easily learnable and I'll show you that you can be pronouncing all of them in a week or less.
And look that, learning these “difficult sounds” you'll end learning the sounds of other languages, which means that if you want to learn French or German in the future you'll already have mastered their pronunciation even before learning them!
I'm still going to teach the pronunciation of words, but let me show you right now a few words, just to you judge whether they are difficult or not. Obviously that you will need to learn some new sounds, but you will see that it's not rocket science. Let's start with the simplest ones, which are the overwhelming majority:
There is a lot of explanation because it's not easy to explain the pronunciation of other languages using the American English orthography (that may vary a lot!), that's why I ask for your understanding
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