kinoko Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 6638 days ago 103 posts - 109 votes Speaks: Italian*, English, Japanese, Spanish Studies: German
| Message 49 of 194 07 November 2007 at 10:46am | IP Logged |
Posts like this sometimes make some students of Esperanto sound more like members of a cult than language students.
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frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6945 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German
| Message 50 of 194 07 November 2007 at 10:46am | IP Logged |
remush wrote:
I am not able to read crystal balls. |
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remush,
I thought when you said, "and when it starts selling, believe me, you'll adjust your engine", you were making a prediction. What did you otherwise mean by that?
Edited by frenkeld on 07 November 2007 at 10:46am
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remush Tetraglot Groupie Belgium remush.beRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6270 days ago 79 posts - 94 votes Speaks: French*, Esperanto, English, Dutch Studies: German, Polish
| Message 51 of 194 07 November 2007 at 2:07pm | IP Logged |
When?
frenkeld wrote:
remush wrote:
I am not able to read crystal balls. |
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remush,
I thought when you said, "and when it starts selling, believe me, you'll adjust your engine", you were making a prediction. What did you otherwise mean by that?
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Karakorum Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6571 days ago 201 posts - 232 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written)* Studies: French, German
| Message 52 of 194 07 November 2007 at 2:10pm | IP Logged |
Wow man, is it possible for an Esperanto thread to be less than 5 pages long?
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Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6441 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese
| Message 53 of 194 07 November 2007 at 2:10pm | IP Logged |
remush wrote:
When?
frenkeld wrote:
remush wrote:
I am not able to read crystal balls. |
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remush,
I thought when you said, "and when it starts selling, believe me, you'll adjust your engine", you were making a prediction. What did you otherwise mean by that?
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4th post on the previous page of this thread, posted yesterday.
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lloydkirk Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6415 days ago 429 posts - 452 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Russian
| Message 54 of 194 07 November 2007 at 2:58pm | IP Logged |
remush wrote:
Indeed, there is no critical mass yet in favour of Esperanto. It's true that English is about to have the same acceptance as French had not so long ago, before it was dethroned. |
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I don't follow. French never attained the acceptance english has throughout the world today. Not even close...
Edited by lloydkirk on 07 November 2007 at 2:58pm
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Art Newbie Russian Federation Joined 6536 days ago 24 posts - 24 votes Speaks: Russian*
| Message 55 of 194 07 November 2007 at 3:20pm | IP Logged |
The Decline and Fall of Esperanto:
... A proposed standard, no matter how simple, logical, and well designed, may have difficulty displacing an imperfect but functional "real life" system. ...
... Recognition of communication chaos, the proposal of neutral standards and their attempted dissemination, failure of the standards to achieve universal approval, and reluctant acceptance of flawed but workable substitutes -- these are common themes for both Esperanto and informatics. The bottom line seems to be that a proposed standard, no matter how logical and well intentioned, will not flourish if it overlooks the practical issues inherent in "real life" systems. As one informatics guru remarked, "You can design all the standards you want, but in the end you have to do it Microsoft's way." This statement represents both a degree of hyperbole and a dose of reality. ...
Does The World Need Esperanto?:
... The other much vaunted advantage of Esperanto over English is, as I mentioned, that it's neutral. ... This is not quite the case, of course. It is in reality, an Indo-European language, reflecting in a stripped-down, regularised way, how a Russian speaking Jew from Bialystok in Tsarist Poland saw the world; it bears no relation to how a Hopi Indian sees the world or a native Bantu, Arabic or Korean speaker. It is the very model of the highly determined Indo-European way of seeing: The world is gendered, there are subjects and objects, the feminine flows from the masculine, actions must be defined as past, present or future. There are inflexions for number and tense, the vocabulary is Latin or Germanic for the most part, with all the baggage those words bring with them. So to speak Esperanto is to look at the world through European eyes. ...
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If somebody is still delusional about Esperanto, do a search in The New York Times for articles in 1905-1908 about Esperanto. You'll be amazed, that nothing has changes about Esperanto and this language is nothing, but the tool of an utopian dream about cosmopolitism with some traits of communism.
"Real life" is "real life" and we should deal with real.
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William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6274 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French
| Message 56 of 194 07 November 2007 at 3:43pm | IP Logged |
(Excerpt from a post elsewhere)
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I knew a member of a small English Communist grouping who was an Esperanto enthusiast. He knew no foreign languages. I had the impression he would have been at home in the overly rational environment of Huxley's Brave New World. I think real, living languages were too messy for him.
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