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Esperanto a waste of time? | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Esperanto |  | |
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6476 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes  Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 145 of 351 16 December 2009 at 5:56pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Must-have news sites in Esperanto:
Eventeo - everyday news from around the world in Esperanto[/url] Le Monde Diplomatique in Esperanto - monthly magazine with more in-depth analysis Libera Folio - most comprehensive source of news about the movement 12 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Juan M. Senior Member Colombia Joined 5905 days ago 460 posts - 597 votes | Message 146 of 351 16 December 2009 at 6:09pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I don't recall preventing anyone from learning Esperanto. I only gave my opinion. About which, if not for voicing competing views, what do we have the forum for then if we must all agree on everything? Given Esperantists' sensibility though I don't see a point in carrying this further. Have a nice time learning the language and taking part in the movement of your choice! Edited by Juan M. on 16 December 2009 at 6:10pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6445 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 147 of 351 16 December 2009 at 6:54pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I fully agree that Esperanto is often badly and over-evangelically promoted. As for citations - I've found out more about Frisian literature through Esperanto than any other language. Esperanto isn't the primary language of any major topic I'm aware of, and minority languages tend to be under-cited: it's easy to point to examples of groundbreaking work published in minor European languages and Esperanto and ignored because of the language it was published in. For Esperanto, pioneering work on jet streams was ignored for decades because almost no one relevant heard of it. It's not a matter of quality, but of visibility - Erdős, one of the most famous mathematicians who ever lived, had a lot of publications which people had trouble finding because he'd publish in minor local journals - I should point out clearly that this is not a matter of Esperanto (which, as far as I know, is irrelevant here), but simply to point out that publishing in minor languages and/or with minor publishing houses or in minor publications usually makes excellent work be ignored. Perhaps the most famous Esperanto author was William Auld - he "was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature from 1999 until his death in 2006." Original Literature in Esperanto is a rather large book (only available in English); it's nowhere near exhaustive, either. If I'm not mistaken, your primary literary interests are historical/philosophical. In this case, you mainly read in an area which is underrepresented in Esperanto literature, which in turn is a relatively small minority language - so it's not that surprising you haven't run into citations for literature in it.
Here, we disagree. My human experiences with Esperanto strike me as authentic, rather than synthetic in any way. It's a real language, regardless of its origins; people play and work and celebrate and mourn in it. There's nothing technically circumscribed about it. It has more speakers and literature than Frisian or Navajo. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Juan M. Senior Member Colombia Joined 5905 days ago 460 posts - 597 votes | Message 148 of 351 16 December 2009 at 7:10pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Volte, while I don't share your passion for Esperanto I certainly enjoy reading your replies.
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| Envinyatar Diglot Senior Member Guatemala Joined 5542 days ago 147 posts - 240 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: Modern Hebrew | Message 150 of 351 17 December 2009 at 1:43am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Speaking about literature: Esperanto by definition has idioms at minimum right? If this is true then what would be the difference between reading Esperanto literature in Esperanto and reading it translated to a normal language?
What would be really lost in translation? Edited by Envinyatar on 17 December 2009 at 1:44am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Dainty Newbie United States Joined 5491 days ago 38 posts - 53 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 151 of 351 17 December 2009 at 4:15am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I have yet to study Esperanto, but if I might venture a guess I'd say that it sounds like reading in translated Esperanto might be more cognitively relaxing than reading the same piece in a language filled with idioms. It seems like the brain would simply have less thinking to do when everything is literal rather than switching between literal and figurative. It also seems that it could be helpful for those on the autistic spectrum, who generally have a difficult time with idioms even in their own mother tongue, and attempts to figure out such phrases are often a source of constant frustration. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| rapp Senior Member United States Joined 5737 days ago 129 posts - 204 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Esperanto, Spanish | Message 152 of 351 17 December 2009 at 6:22am | IP Logged | ||||||||
{slaps forehead} 1 person has voted this message useful |
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