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Why learn Esperanto? | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Esperanto |  | |
| delectric Diglot Senior Member China Joined 7185 days ago 608 posts - 733 votes  Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: German | Message 73 of 140 17 August 2007 at 10:08am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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@furyou_gaijin
I actually think your sometimes sour comments add quite nicely to this thread. Definately some of the replies to your criticisms have helped me to further understand Esperanto. awake Thanks, you did understand my second question and you answered both fully. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6474 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 74 of 140 17 August 2007 at 1:13pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Okay, let me address more comments and unanswered questions before they are buried in this fast-moving thread. If I forgot any, please let me know.
Let me make this clear: I don't mean illogical in the sense that they shouldn't be there; I have studied the evolution of languages and understand how they come to be. I mean illogical in the sense that they do not conform to logic, they can't be entirely predicted. You may or may not consider them beautiful, but they definitely make natural languages harder to learn and the average person on the street (not necessarily the average member of this forum) would gladly abolish any irregularities in foreign languages he has to learn. Esperanto wasn't meant as a language for the elites to communicate in, unlike French and Latin were in the past, one of its specific goals was to be a language that ANYBODY could learn, not just the talented or those who can effort expensive teachers. In the same spirit, Esperanto courses and online tutors are often available for free or at cost, thanks to the help of foundations (including the European Union Youth program) and volunteers who enjoy sharing their language with others.
When you love a natural language, you just have to put up with things like that, but when you have the chance to create a language that might one day be studied by everybody everywhere, I don't see people voluntarily introducing unnecessary difficulties such as these. Especially since some people complain that Esperanto could still be easier, with the understanding that it should be as easy as at all possible. (for those interested, I explained some pages back why I believe Esperanto is a better solution than a fictional easier language) Allowing for creative use of affixes speeds up the learning immensely and makes it much more fun to express yourself in Esperanto.
I don't believe in 'value' of languages. Piraha and other tiny languages like it are just as valuable as English, German, Chinese and so on, imho. Protecting endangered languages and encouraging language diversity is also in the spirit of Esperanto; Esperanto aims to become everybody's voluntary second language, not to replace any native ones, whereas a lot of European languages were or are being promoted at the expense of local languages. Why do the Americas speak English, French, Spanish and Portuguese? Why is French so common in Africa? How come even the black South Africans I met couldn't say anything in an African language? If I ever said Esperanto was 'better' than another language, I meant strictly for the purpose of being used as a worldwide lingua franca - and maybe for the learner's enjoyment, who is less frustrated in his study and has this rich system of expression at his fingertips after just a few months of unintensive study, when in German or Russian he'd still be struggling with basic grammar and everyday words. Re: the translation of Esperanto words into English and Japanese I can't understand Japanese, but the English translations provided do not really mean or convey what the Esperanto words do. For example, of course you could say "human" instead of "homarano", but then, "homo" is Esperanto for "human" (as in Latin). "homarano" additionally conveys the notion that we're all equal, all part of a whole. And "eldenti" is a very expressive way of saying what basically amounts to "to say", except it's done through teeth and you can see the picture in your mind from the way the word is made up.
As Esperanto speakers come from very different cultural backgrounds, it is not possible to take over strong culture-specific associations with single words, other than by using affixes and composite nouns. Also, Esperanto's history is quite short in comparison so there are less events that Esperanto speakers can commonly draw on. However, the impulse is definitely there, e. g. the verb "kabei"(to leave the movement) refers to Kabe, a man who supported Esperanto very actively in its first years, doing a lot of great translations, and becoming inactive in the movement very suddenly without giving reasons. Also you may hear people use expressions like "ĝis la nokto nokto fin'" instead of "ĝis la fino de la nokto" or "dum la tuta nokto" (in reference to a famous song by Esperanto Desperado), things like that. You can find a glossary of Esperanto slang and idioms at http://www.geocities.com/wfpilger/slangou8.htm - I try to avoid using words idiomatically though, especially when talking to African or Asian Esperanto speakers (a lot of the expressions are similar in European languages, so it's not as much of a problem with people who natively speak a European language).
"sento de manko"
Most of the sounds for the extra letters shouldn't be new: ŝ = sh as in "ash" ĉ = ch as in "chair" ĝ = g as in "giant" ĵ = same but without the leading d-sound, like j in French "je" ŭ = w as in "water" or "bow" ĥ = ch as in "Bach" (the only real difficulty for English speakers) As you can see, it's even easy to guess which extra letter corresponds to which sound. The only reason for introducing them (as opposed to writing "sh" for example) was so that Esperanto's pronunciation is 100% predictable and there's a 1:1 relationship between letters and sounds. There's only one way to pronounce each letter and only one way to write each sound. If "fiŝo"(fish) was spelled "fisho" in Esperanto, it would be ambiguous: should it be pronounced "fi-sho" or "fis-ho"? Mind you, extra letters a pain to type if you don't use a Mac (Mac supplies an Esperanto keyboard) or use special input software. So in chats and e-mail you will sometimes see Esperanto speakers put an X behind an accented letter to mark it (x doesn't have a use in Esperanto and therefore doesn't make it ambiguous) or alternatively an H. So you can spell Esperanto that way if you prefer.
Preterami can mean what you said and there's no tradition to these words, they are ad-hoc compositions that were noted for beauty. You won't find them in any dictionary, but that's fine because you can understand them immediately, just as you can create them immediately, without having seen them before. That's what I consider the true beauty of Esperanto, that you're able to come up with beautiful and very fitting words without having heard them before.
Please do not call Esperanto a sect unless you can prove it. Esperanto is a language and a lot of its speakers (not all) feel connected, just like speakers of Tagalog may. Maybe they react just a little stronger to meeting other Esperanto speakers because Esperanto speakers are scattered around the world, there are very few places where it's spoken every day (Esperanto centres, Esperanto aid projects and Esperanto families). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| delectric Diglot Senior Member China Joined 7185 days ago 608 posts - 733 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: German | Message 75 of 140 18 August 2007 at 2:39am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Is there an Esperanto keyboard for the pocket PC?
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| tmesis Senior Member Mayotte Joined 6652 days ago 154 posts - 146 votes Speaks: English* | Message 76 of 140 18 August 2007 at 12:07pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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- Edited by tmesis on 17 February 2008 at 2:41pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Marc Frisch Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6669 days ago 1001 posts - 1169 votes Speaks: German*, French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Persian, Tamil | Message 77 of 140 19 August 2007 at 1:02pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
That's a bit lame though ;-) I'd consider the German 'Sehnsucht' a pretty close translation. I know that 'saudade' is often claimed to be intranslatable but in all the languages I know I can easily come up with a rather close translation. The actual problem is that very very many words (in particular abstract words) in ANY language are 'intranslatable' in the sense that they evoke very specific connotations in the original language which are lost in translation. For example, the word 'libéral' in French is obviously translated by the English word 'liberal', but its meaning in France couldn't be more different than its meaning in U.S. In the former it denotes 'right-wing extremists' and in the latter 'left-wing extremists'!! Edited by Marc Frisch on 19 August 2007 at 1:02pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| awake Senior Member United States Joined 6640 days ago 406 posts - 438 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Esperanto, Spanish | Message 78 of 140 19 August 2007 at 2:34pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
senti mankon literally "to feel an absence" is a usual way to express that you miss something (or someone) in Esperanto. There's also a stronger word, sopiri which would mean "to long for, to yearn for" which connotes something a bit stronger than just missing. You could also add the diminution suffix -et to come up with something a bit closer to senti mankon, that is, sopireti -to yearn for something, a bit :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Frakseno Newbie Joined 6314 days ago 23 posts - 28 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Esperanto | Message 79 of 140 22 August 2007 at 10:26am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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I found an interesting article while browsing yesterday, and it immediately brought to mind this thread. Psychological Reactions to Esperanto
I'm pretty new to Esperanto and completely new to discussions among polyglots and wannabe polyglots, but I must say I have been taken aback by the emotional reactions to discussion of Esperanto. I've been very surprised, though perhaps I shouldn't have been. Edited by Frakseno on 22 August 2007 at 10:26am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| T0dd Diglot Newbie United States Joined 6553 days ago 17 posts - 106 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto Studies: French | Message 80 of 140 31 August 2007 at 6:55pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I see that this topic has cooled down, but I just want to add a couple of thoughts. Concerning the "sectarian" or "cultish" aspect of the Esperanto speaker community, it may surprise you to learn that many Esperantists share your dislike. Although it's not easy to say what's sectarian and what isn't, I think those of us who have used the language can all give examples of Esperanto weirdness. In my own experience, this is a fringe element. One may feel a strong emotion of "homecoming" the first time one attends a Kongreso and finds oneself in the midst of hundreds or thousands of other Esperanto speakers. I don't take that to be a sign of cultishness. Perhaps you regard Esperanto as "sectarian" because of its somewhat Utopian or messianic aspirations: to solve "the language problem" and bring "peace and brotherhood" to mankind, etc. In response to this, I would point out that the language Esperanto, like any other language, of course has no aspirations. It is true that Zamenhof did have them, and many Esperantists today still have them, to various degrees. Again, it may come as a surprise to learn that there are many Esperantists who don't. I am one of them. My decision to learn Esperanto (20 years ago) was based on surprise that it was still around (I also had internalized the vague rumor that it "died out" sometime in the past), and curiosity. I wanted to see what it was all about. Once I started learning, my progress was so rapid that it became intrinsically rewarding. I simply enjoyed the feeling of acquiring a language so quickly. After about a month of very part-time study, I was able to read books and magazines pretty well--I was also pleasantly surprised to learn that books and magazines were available to read! Conversational ability took longer, but it came. I was struck with the difference between this and my study of French. I still study French, and use it when I can. But my ability to use Esperanto quickly surpassed my ability to use French or Spanish. For at least some of us, the appeal of Esperanto has nothing much to do with aspirations for it to become the world's bridge language. We like it for what it is now. We like the experiences we have with it. We especially like the way it works and the way we can express ourselves with it. This is hard to explain to non-speakers, but Claude Piron did a good job in his (Esperanto) book La Bona Lingvo. Writers like to write in Esperanto; they certainly don't do so to get rich. Although Ido had a good start, and Interlingua has a few thousand speakers, for some reason these languages don't seem to tempt writers the way Esperanto has done from the very early days. I can't explain that (I don't know Ido and Interlingua very well) but it's interesting. Please don't make the mistake of supposing that learning Esperanto is tantamount to affirming a creed. It just isn't. As for the claim that "time is better spent learning a natural language," that all depends on what you like to do with your time. To me, Esperanto is a unique achievement in human history. It's a language created by one person that has survived the death of its creator, and generated its own literature, traditions, and a diaspora of speakers that may number millions (Nobody really knows, and I take all such estimates with a strong dose of skepticism). Although Ido, Interlingua, Volapuk, and a few others are out there, Esperanto has achieved an unmatched level of success for a constructed language, even though it is far from a success if "success" means being the acknowledged bridge language of the world. I am personally very glad that I am able to participate in this unique phenomenon. ------- A couple of points in reply to the "difficulty" issue. There is one difficulty of Esperanto that I think no one mentioned. It has a pretty large number of consonants, which sometimes occur in clusters that are difficult for some to master. I don't take this to be a fatal flaw, but it's worth mentioning. It's true that it takes many people a while to get used to the accusative, and I think most of us make mistakes with it from time to time. It's also true that in ordinary conversation, people tend to default to subject-verb-object syntax. What I have found, however, is that the value of the accusative is more evident in more complex written Esperanto. There, the distinctive endings really help the reader to track the sentence structure. The agreement of adjectives with nouns is, strictly speaking, superfluous, as has already been pointed out. But I have found it to be helpful in spoken Esperanto, not so much because I need the endings to know what the adjective modifies, but because it audibly echoes the grammatical category of the noun, giving me two chances to hear it, in effect emphasizing it. So when I hear "bluajn okulojn" I don't just hear "blue eyes" but I hear in an emphatic way that it's plural and being used as a direct object. In a language meant to be used by speakers of very different native languages, this bit of redundancy can be helpful. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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