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Esperanto a waste of time? | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Esperanto |  | |
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6441 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes  Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 41 of 351 10 November 2009 at 8:14pm | IP Logged | |||||
Esperanto allows you to communicate a lot better with a lot less root words than any other language I'm aware of, due to its rather productive affix system. Some natural languages have rather rich affix systems, but I'm unaware of any that are as regular and powerful as that of Esperanto. The core grammar can be learned in less than a day if you have a linguistic background. I've played with quite a few natural languages. Learning a second Romance language is a lot harder than learning Esperanto. The difficulty does depend on your native language - but I'm unaware of any mutually-unintelligible language pair of which the second language would be faster to learn than Esperanto for a speaker of the first. Esperanto isn't effortless, or flawless, or a panacea, but it is about as easy a language can be. 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Vinbelgium Bilingual Tetraglot Groupie Belgium Joined 5826 days ago 61 posts - 73 votes Speaks: Dutch*, Flemish*, English, French Studies: Spanish, Russian | Message 42 of 351 10 November 2009 at 8:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
Because English has a much greater influence than Esperanto. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5840 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 43 of 351 10 November 2009 at 9:14pm | IP Logged | |||||
Ok - I think it would take LONGER for Esperanto to kill Swedish, Dutch etc... It doesn't have Hollywood films, 95% of all popular music played on the radio.... etc behind it. And if Swedish was eventually to get "killed", I would rather it got killed by Esperanto (a neutral, equal language) language... than by English, the language of global imperialism etc in various forms since the 19th century.... 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5523 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 44 of 351 10 November 2009 at 9:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
This is also the reason why it won't ever be big! Or how do you imagine that Esperanto will come to be the principal language of intercommunication without there being movies and magazines? I think you are trying to have your cake and eat it.
I'd take English any day. English is Germanic and in addition contains an astounding amount of Norse loanwords. The time under Norse rule even affected the way the pronouns sound! Thus far, Scandinavian languages have had much greater real influence over English than vice versa. Sure, we may have words like laptop and marketing, but an Englishman couldn't survive a day without Old Norse: Egg, window, leg, take, weak, they (!), sky, skin, call, law etc, those are real words. 8 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5840 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 45 of 351 10 November 2009 at 10:03pm | IP Logged | |||||
Oh, it took less than 40 years for English to become the dominant foreign language in continental Europe. People like my grandparents (.se) studied German and French in school. NOT English. The position of English in Europe right now is down to the legacy of WW2 plus the resulting American influence. Before that, French etc were more common second languages. Theoretically it could be achieved pretty simply. Because it's so easy to learn, it wouldn't be difficult to get to a point where people were as comfortable with Esperanto-as-a-second-language as English-as-a-second-language. In order to "force" adherence you'd have to make it a requirement for university entrance, add it as a mandatory school subject... and a artificially boost it in a few other ways for a while, until it gained its' own momentum. Exactly the same things that happened with English, basically. We already know how to make this happen - the older generation has watched it during their lifetime. The only difference if the EU did it, would be that it would be on our own terms, not outside influence. In the long run it would be in our interest since it's a superior language for many reasons. And anyone who still wanted to learn or speak English could still do it - it just wouldn't be rammed down your throat in the way that it is now... And since Esperanto is so much easier, regular people wouldn't have to waste ridiculous amounts of time "perfecting it" for career purposes --- as happens with English --- which is a real hassle for French, German and Spanish people right now (obviously I don't mean people on this forum). Huge time savings across the continent. Big projects have been done before and succeeded: The Euro Schengen Switching from left to right hand traffic in some countries Dismantling socialism in Eastern Europe... This COULD be done if we wanted it. I for one do. If we are serious about European unity and the future of the EU, then 1) We should have a common language 2) It should not be English. Edited by cordelia0507 on 10 November 2009 at 10:05pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6013 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 46 of 351 11 November 2009 at 12:05am | IP Logged | |||||
If you think Englishmen like their Norse, you should try speaking to a Scotsman. Edinburgh, East/Mid Lothian and the Scottish Borders were at one time part of Northumbria -- AKA "the Danelaw". They're showing Wallander on BBC4, and sometimes I'll completely understand a sentence. It's kind of weird -- in a good way. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5523 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 47 of 351 11 November 2009 at 12:55am | IP Logged | |||||
I dislike the EU, Schengen and especially the Euro, but even putting that aside your argument seems flawed my dear compatriot! You say that perhaps the EU should force us to speak Esperanto (which as I explained, is more different from Swedish than English is) but that people can still learn English if they want, unlike now when it is force-fed. I don't like the English dominance, but it is anything but force-fed. English prevails because of the reasons you give, plus the incredible amounts of lowest common denominator entertainment (not there isn't a lot of high culture too, only people don't care about that). Secondly, I can see that Esperanto could come to dominate too if it was forced upon us and/or adopted by the next cultural and economic hegemon. What I can't see is how this could take place without putting Swedish at peril in exactly the way you think (I don't think so) it is now. Also, in your list, the last entry was not centrally planned by any government. Unless it was similar to the coloured revolutions in eastern Europe of late (sponsored by Soros). 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6441 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 48 of 351 11 November 2009 at 3:09am | IP Logged | |||||
Speaking of which, Soros is a native Esperanto speaker; his last name means 'will soar' in Esperanto, and was chosen by his father. Irrelevant, but I find it vaguely amusing in the context of this thread. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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