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The last language you would want to learn | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Adamdm Groupie Australia Joined 5438 days ago 62 posts - 89 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Dari, German, Spanish, Russian, Arabic (Written) | Message 209 of 346 17 June 2010 at 3:32am | IP Logged | |||||
Yes, I thought that too ... Recently, I had a good day at a second-hand book shop. The estate of a deceased linguaphile must have just arrived - I scored lots of books in/about various languages, dictionaries, etc etc - including some in (as I later figured out, while examining my haul at home) Esperanto - one volume on the subject of ancient Akkadian, another on Gallic. A lot of the stuff written in Esperanto seems to be about language and philology. Rather ironic, if you think that the aim of Esperanto was to replace the wonderful diversity of natural languages, that Esperantists were so interested in languages. Kind of like a Christian missionary documenting the heathen rites of the savages he is trying to convert. Anyway, the great thing is that you don't need to 'learn' Esperanto to be able to read it. If you have a bit of knowledge of some Europena (principally Romance) languages, you will understand it easily. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| irrationale Tetraglot Senior Member China Joined 6051 days ago 669 posts - 1023 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese | Message 210 of 346 17 June 2010 at 4:27am | IP Logged | |||||
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Chalk up another vote for Esperanto.
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| shahvlad Newbie Belgium Joined 5310 days ago 19 posts - 38 votes | Message 211 of 346 17 June 2010 at 4:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
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From the top of my head: indigenous African languages, Dravidian and Turkic languages, Thai, Vietnamese and Japanese. And last but not least, Esperanto. And any other artificial language for that matter.
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| Levi Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5568 days ago 2268 posts - 3328 votes Speaks: English*, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese, Italian | Message 212 of 346 17 June 2010 at 7:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
Chalk me up as another person who thinks this thread serves no purpose other than getting people mad. Why not list your reasons why you don't want to belong to this or that ethnicity, why you don't want to learn about this or that culture, why you don't want to live in this or that country? It's pointless and just asking for offensive comments.
Wait, what? Since when was Esperanto about replacing the diversity of natural languages? Zamenhof's goal in creating Esperanto was to have a worldwide second language so that people of different linguistic backgrounds could communicate with each other. It is a misconception that Esperanto was intended to be used as a first language to displace other languages the way that English and other major languages are currently doing. Edited by Levi on 17 June 2010 at 11:23pm 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| chucknorrisman Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5449 days ago 321 posts - 435 votes Speaks: Korean*, English, Spanish Studies: Russian, Mandarin, Lithuanian, French | Message 213 of 346 17 June 2010 at 11:13pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I have interest in all languages even if it's just a little bit, but I have set priorities, and I don't think I will be able to get to learn all of them before I die. I don't have any languages in the "to never learn" list, but the languages that are in my "to learn later" list are just most artificial languages, except Esperanto and Lojban.
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| Ubik Senior Member United States ubykh.wordpress.com/ Joined 5317 days ago 147 posts - 176 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Latin, Arabic (Egyptian), German, Spanish | Message 214 of 346 17 June 2010 at 11:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
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There is absolutely nothing wrong with this thread or its intent. People are so quick to get their panties in a bunch and in a lot of cases (especially people in the US), we are "programmed" to go through the motions of being insulted because thats whats driven into our skulls from the media and politics (one and the same mostly). If it wasnt crammed down our throats to get insulted at stuff like that, most people wouldnt even think for a second that something so harmless is actually insulting. Now, I cant speak for individuals who might come in and say something like "I dont want to learn Spanish because I hate MExicans!" or something -- thats obviously a racist statement (which no one thus far has made thankfully)
As for my opinion, Esperanto is an obvious choice. Its like a test-tube baby. Its just not natural -- not the real thing. Down from that, if my native language wasnt English, I would say English. But my "real" choice would be French because among other reasons to learn a language (usefulness, resource availablity, and culture to name a few), the language also has to be aesthetically pleasing which usually means the sound of it, but to me it also means grammar, and for me most importantly: grapheme:phoneme ratio (which is the worst in that regard that I can think of -- other than maybe English). Pronunciation is very important to me, and for some reason that creates a mental block for me when I cant get beyond that step. Its probably due to my OCD (getting "stuck"). I also dont like tons of different diacritical marks on letters (for some reason this doesnt apply to completely different letters and scripts, but only to the Roman alphabet) Now, I do love the culture (most notably the film industry), but also art, literature, etc. French cuisine is good, and most French people Ive met are cool so its not a personal thing. I just cant stand the language. Another minor reason is that its already so popular. Its not that I want to learn something really weird because of chic factor, but the opposite *does* apply unless there are other reasons that outweigh the "everyone-speaks-it-so-whats-the-point" factor. Spanish is a perfect example of this. There are enough positive factors about it that even though "everyone already speaks it" I still want to learn it (granted not right away). Some people have chosen theirs based on availability of resources or speakers or whether or not a language is dead or nearly extinct. I picked my choice based on personal preference. 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Adamdm Groupie Australia Joined 5438 days ago 62 posts - 89 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Dari, German, Spanish, Russian, Arabic (Written) | Message 215 of 346 18 June 2010 at 3:05am | IP Logged | |||||
Thank you for putting me straight. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| dmaddock1 Senior Member United States Joined 5434 days ago 174 posts - 426 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, Esperanto, Latin, Ancient Greek | Message 216 of 346 18 June 2010 at 3:39am | IP Logged | |||||
Agree with you there, pretty much.
Also agree with you. I personally like Esperanto and yet I'm able to read about the above folks who think it sucks without commenting. Ah crap! ;-) 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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