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Esperanto Opinions | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Esperanto | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| Blunderstein Triglot Pro Member Sweden schackhandeln.se Joined 5422 days ago 60 posts - 82 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, EnglishC2, FrenchB2 Studies: German, Esperanto Personal Language Map | Message 17 of 51 05 April 2010 at 6:09pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
Actually I'm glad that someone missed my point, because it (hopefully) means that you haven't experienced cultural imperalism. An example from Sweden: the Saami minority has almost lost their language, since there was much pressure from the authorities to not speak Saami. For instance, Saami children would be beaten at school if they spoke Saami. Hundreds of Native American languages are in a similar position, and many have died out. It wasn't just pressure against the languages: entire cultures were erased. Nowadays many minority languages make a comeback. One of the most successful is Catalan in Spain.
You are right, Esperanto hasn't gained such traction, and it might well be that it never will. From my point of view, that is not a reason not to study Esperanto. Most languages have no chance of ever becoming world languages, but they are still worthy of study.
I don't agree completely. Using a national language such as English always gives an advantage to people who speak this language natively. For instance, very few people reach a truly native level in their English, if it's not their native language. I've heard from many Esperantists that in Esperanto, everyone can reach a very high level. Those few "native" Esperantists that actually exist are said to not have an advantage. I'm a beginner, so I can't speak from experience. However, this is one of the things that motivate my studies: I hope to reach "native level" in one more language. Also, if there is a conflict and you are forced to speak the language of the opposing side, you might not enjoy that. A neutral language would have advantages.
Thanks for the suggestions. However, signing up for a course requires that you dedicate quite a lot of time to the language, and that you find a suitable course. By the way I did study French at "Franska Institutet", an equivalent of Alliance Française. I also took French in high school. After studying French for several years, and reaching a reasonable level (B2), I still need to make an effort if I want to find someone to speak French to. If it wasn't for the French-speaking friends that I've made, it would be quite difficult. You may or may not trust me on this, but it's my experience. The next Esperanto meeting close enough for me is on Wednesday... and I've studied Esperanto since December. If you feel like organising the French-speakers, please go ahead. The Esperantists are already organised. I look at this from a practical point of view. If I were to study some other language (which, most likely, I will do in the future), one of my concerns would be "how easy is it to find people to talk to in that language?". 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| Minlawc Newbie United States Joined 6536 days ago 24 posts - 56 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese | Message 19 of 51 05 April 2010 at 10:26pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
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I find Esperanto very clunky. Let's just say, I can think of the best aspects for an international language, and Esperanto falls way off the mark. Of course, I can't think of any language that fits the right specifics.
Get rid of about 8 consonants and the awful clusters like "Knabo" and "Scienco", reduce the phonotactics to a simple CVCV like structure. Simplify the grammar and remove sexist language(I'm no feminist, but for some reason this is a big problem for me). No real language I know of takes the word for "Father" and constructs the word for "Mother". Do all the things I mentioned in this paragraph and I would learn it. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| Blunderstein Triglot Pro Member Sweden schackhandeln.se Joined 5422 days ago 60 posts - 82 votes Speaks: Swedish*, EnglishC2, FrenchB2 Studies: German, Esperanto Personal Language Map | Message 20 of 51 05 April 2010 at 10:59pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
There are other constructed languages which might suit you better. Some of them are built on Esperanto, but "improved". Ido is probably the most well-known. However, as far as I know none of them has a following even close to what Esperanto has. In my opinion, there might well be better solutions from a linguistic point of view. However, there also needs to be a community of people who speak the language, and an interesting culture. By the way, I agree about the "feminist" aspect. Too bad that wasn't changed early on. With luck, perhaps Esperanto will change over time and new words for "mother", "woman" etc will be introduced. As for the "intellectual" side of Esperanto, the Esperantists appear to be a very intellectual bunch. At least that is my impression after three months. Then again, I suppose that it varies from place to place. There is a lot of variety among Esperantists (that's the point of the language, after all). 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 21 of 51 05 April 2010 at 11:13pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
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Everybody has different ideas for what the ideal international language would look
like, that's why there have been so many attempts at designing one. I did not intend to get into this discussion again because everything has been said in the previous threads on Esperanto, which Chung took the trouble to find and which everybody here should read if they're in the mood to discuss it more. This topic is really getting old. Anyway, Minlawc brought up one thing I hadn't read before.
How'bout Arabic for a prominent example. Also, Esperanto has the prefix vir- or the suffix -iĉo to turn things from neutral to male, just the majority of Esperanto speakers chooses not to use them at this point - it may change in the future. And since I'm replying already... somebody mentioned only being able to find several hundred Esperanto books. It's true that at Esperanto events the selection of books can be bad, depending on where the event is, because somebody has to ship all those books between countries and arrange them in limited space as well. We can't build a bookstore everywhere we go. However, the online catalog of UEA at http://www.uea.org enables you to order more than 25,000 available books (worldwide shipping), and that doesn't include many of the early works; some jewels of Esperanto poetry are only now getting digitized so that they could be republished - read the book "Concise Encyclopedia of the Original Literature of Esperanto" (728 pages) for an overview. Considering the language is smaller than Lithuanian and has only been around for about 100 years, it is fascinating how much literature and how much valuable literature has been produced in it, and little of it is available in English. Edited by Sprachprofi on 05 April 2010 at 11:27pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| whipback Groupie United States Joined 5598 days ago 91 posts - 118 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, French | Message 22 of 51 06 April 2010 at 11:14pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
Well obviously our ideas of culture are different, and again it is an invented language based on other languages with grammar that could be invented by almost any language enthusiast...that's NOT original. How hypocritical of you to say I don't know anything about them when you don't know anything about me or what I know. Please don't be rude. No one else was being rude...just stating their opinions. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| Blunderstein Triglot Pro Member Sweden schackhandeln.se Joined 5422 days ago 60 posts - 82 votes Speaks: Swedish*, EnglishC2, FrenchB2 Studies: German, Esperanto Personal Language Map | Message 23 of 51 07 April 2010 at 1:13pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
"I do not respect a language that has no culture or originality..." If that is not a judgmental statement, what could possibly be judgmental? It also shows that you know next to nothing about Esperanto. Perhaps you are an expert on dozens of other topics, but claiming that Esperanto has no culture is a completely ignorant statement.
Your statement is also (in my opinion) very rude. Imagine if somebody wrote about some other language that he didn't respect it because it "has no culture or originality". Just try to imagine the reaction from some other minority, if somebody made that statement about their language. What is unique about Esperanto is not that it's a constructed language (there are lots of others), but the community of people who use Esperanto to express themselves. Like many other small groups, we strive to strengthen our culture. If nothing else, this thread has given several examples of Esperanto culture. You might also want to check out the Esperanto Wikipedia (http://eo.wikipedia.org/) which currently hold about 127 000 articles. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| whipback Groupie United States Joined 5598 days ago 91 posts - 118 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, French | Message 24 of 51 07 April 2010 at 10:44pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
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Okay let's look at this. Esperanto is a language that takes from other languages with a grammar that could be made up very easily. This is not unique at all and that is looking at specifically the language, not the culture. The culture doesn't make the language...the language(among other things) makes the culture. So your statement about Esperanto being unique because of the people who speak it makes no sense.
Esperanto was made so people from different cultures could speak to each other. It wasn't created for or by a certain group of people with a common culture. This is where my statement that Esperanto has no culture comes into play. There are made up languages that were designed for a group of people and have a culture behind them. The most notable would be the languages in the Lord of the Rings. J.R.R. Tolkien made up those languages, gave them a group of people, and a way of life. In my eyes that is what a cultural language is. Of course there are people called Esperantists who are called this because they speak Esperanto, but I really wouldn't call that a culture. They could be French, German, English, Russian, etc. who may not have anything in common or even like each other. These are my opinions and sorry to whoever I have offended. I wasn't trying to be rude and wasn't calling names especially when I know nothing about you like you were to me. I really shouldn't have said Esperanto has NO culture because if there are people who truly consider themselves Esperantists, and who share different aspects of their lives in common then they have a culture. But looking at Esperanto from the start without a common people in mind is where I was basing my term for culture off of. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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