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Adding Esperanto as a "side dish"? | ||
Tags: Esperanto | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Esperanto |  | |
| Michael K. Senior Member United States Joined 5730 days ago 568 posts - 886 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 17 of 23 20 March 2012 at 8:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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I don't know anything about Indonesian, but Hebrew was spoken natively from 2500 BC to about AD 100 and became a liturgical language after that. Modern Hebrew was revived in the late 1800s and they had to fill in the gaps in vocabulary with other languages. From what I understand, Modern Hebrew and Classical Hebrew are very similar, kind of like the similarities between Koranic Arabic and MSA. I also understand that Jews don't see Hebrew as a modern version and an ancient version of the language, and Muslims see Arabic the same way. Hebrew's history and origins don't resemble Esperanto's in any meaningful way and to call it a conlang would be risible. It's really more like grammarians tinkering with the language than starting from scratch.
Something similar is happening with Latin (filling in gaps in vocabulary), some have unsuccessfully tried to revive it, and it's mainly used as a liturgical language or to read ancient writing. Once again, it's risible to call revived Latin a conlang, and what's going on is more like tinkering with it. What's Indonesian's story, anyway? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Gallo1801 Diglot Senior Member Spain Joined 4903 days ago 164 posts - 248 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), Croatian, German, French | Message 18 of 23 21 March 2012 at 12:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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Long story short, Bahasa Indonesia was more or less the government trying to create a
prestige dialect that would be easy for most citizens to learn, and keep the regional languages such as Javanese etc. Sort of like Hindi, but more systematic. Bahasa Malaysia is rumored to be very mutually intelligible with Bahasa Indonesia. Not a conlang either, just another language regulating body codifing a prestige dialect. Who would say French or Spanish are artificial simply because the RAE and AF? So much discussion! I guess that's what happens when someone asks about Esperanto. Not trying to discredit it here; the fact that most people say it's so easy I take as a good thing. Of course, you can make most language "difficult" with literature and poetry etc, but Esperanto, more than easy as we are accustomed to saying, maybe should be denominated to be accessible, meaning that it's a full-blown language (obviously) that is easy to get your feet wet with quicker than most organic languages. I could write a book equally as well in Arabic or Esperanto, but it will most definitely take less time to get to that point of ability in the latter. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Michael K. Senior Member United States Joined 5730 days ago 568 posts - 886 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 19 of 23 21 March 2012 at 1:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for the lesson on Indonesian.
A lot of people are passionate about Esperanto, so you're going to get a lot of discussion when it comes up. Like someone told me when I first started out, it's better to think of Esperanto as "easier" than "easy" because it still takes effort to learn. Sure, maybe it takes a fraction of the effort to learn a natlang, but it's still a serious effort. Of course, if you want to be a world class writer or orator in Esperanto, it will take far more effort than if you just wanted to chat informally with other Esperantists. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Gallo1801 Diglot Senior Member Spain Joined 4903 days ago 164 posts - 248 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), Croatian, German, French | Message 20 of 23 23 March 2012 at 12:30am | IP Logged | ||
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Yeah. The same could be said for said for a Spanish speaker learning Portuguese or
Catalan. In no way are they going to be easy (portuguese false cognates. oh my...), but from where you are standing, it's easier than say picking up Hmong casually. Is there a CERFL official test for Esperanto?! I wouldn't mind being B1 or so. Don't need to take an official test, just thought it'd be cool if they exist. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Michael K. Senior Member United States Joined 5730 days ago 568 posts - 886 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 21 of 23 23 March 2012 at 2:06am | IP Logged | ||
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You can take tests on lernu. They have A, B, and C tests, and offer an A test in Esperanto culture. Once you past the C test, you can be a tutor on lernu.
I have no idea if you can get a B1 in Esperanto or not. Edited by Michael K. on 23 March 2012 at 2:08am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6471 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 22 of 23 23 March 2012 at 1:09pm | IP Logged | ||
Yes there are official CEFR exams for Esperanto ("KER ekzameno") and you can usually take them at Esperanto events of >200 people, or after taking an intensive course. They are primarily useful in countries like Hungary, where you can use Esperanto for your foreign language requirement in the baccalaureate, or also if you're planning to teach Esperanto at an institution... or for your personal record. The Lernu tests do not correspond to the CEFR, but they are still useful to see where you stand. If you want a quick opinion of where you stand in terms of the CEFR levels, I can test you. Edited by Sprachprofi on 23 March 2012 at 6:15pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Midnight Diglot Groupie Czech Republic Joined 4640 days ago 54 posts - 111 votes Speaks: Czech*, English | Message 23 of 23 23 March 2012 at 6:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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I find the language very easy, since I already use accusative in my native language and German as well. All these prefixes and suffixes make it even easier, but still there are dictionaries containing thousands of words ( 20000 for example). Of course the fact that you don't conjugate the verbs with 3 different patterns plus irregular ones means you can use it immediately after you've learned it. It's easier than most of the languages of today, but it's still a language and you just can't work with limited amount of words for long. However, it's really one of the languages you can study alongside your main subject. Good luck with your studies.
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