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Esperanto and language diversity. | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Esperanto |  | |
| ennime Tetraglot Senior Member South Africa universityofbrokengl Joined 5908 days ago 397 posts - 507 votes  Speaks: English, Dutch*, Esperanto, Afrikaans Studies: Xhosa, French, Korean, Portuguese, Zulu | Message 1 of 15 12 November 2008 at 8:40am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I just came across this article, it was posted on soc.culture.esperanto
http://www.christopherculver.com/en/writings/esperanto.php It's a very critical article about esperanto and the danger it presents to language diversity according to the author (note: who was active in the esperanto movement before 2005). I thought it quite interesting, because it raised several points I do agree with to a certain point. Among others the taboo among esperantists regarding krokodilado, but also the fact that the movement itself doesn't seem to work actively on working towards language diversity... (as far as I have seen with several years of esperanto-movement experience). I don't think they are reasons to oppose the language esperanto, but I do feel esperantists should critically look at their movement (not the language). Any other thoughts. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7160 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 2 of 15 12 November 2008 at 11:47am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I agree with most of Culver's points. The main thing that stops me from agreeing completely is that his article gives off a little more emotion than I'm comfortable with. Moreover, language diversity in itself is neither bad nor good since language has both cultural and communicative aspects. It depends on how closely one wishes to link language with culture. Russian is spoken as a mother tongue all over Eurasia even by people who are not ethnic Russians. That doesn't mean that, for example, Tatar or Ukrainian culture will inevitably disappear because of the use of Russian alone.
In any case, reading his article makes me somewhat relieved why I'm not learning Esperanto. It has always seemed to me that by learning Esperanto, I'd be doing more than just learning some language, but also making an overt non-linguistic judgment that human conflict could be minimized if more of us speak a common idiom. Yet insults hurled in English between two Americans are just as bad as insults hurled in Esperanto between two Esperantists. 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 3 of 15 12 November 2008 at 12:29pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Culver is bitter, because he did not get certain positions in the Esperanto movement that he applied for. There's a counter-essay here if you care to hear both sides.
From my personal experience - which was mostly with events for young Esperanto speakers in Europe I must admit - the vast majority of Esperanto speakers is also interested in other languages and enjoys practicing these. I have never seen hostility towards krokodiloj except when somebody present wasn't able to follow the conversation because of this. I greatly enjoy the aligatorejo part of international conventions, where Esperanto is forbidden and so is your native language, so that everybody speaks other foreign languages. Throughout events, people are invited to share their culture and to teach their language. At the last Internacia Seminario (New Year's party lasting 7 days), that included lectures on Arpitan, Catalan, Chinese, German, Russian and some Caucasian language that I had never heard of. I go to Esperanto events mainly to meet other language lovers; it's the most sure-fire way of having a very diverse group with many native languages, and a group that mixes well, rather than people of one native language sticking together and people of another native language sticking together too.
You don't have to believe that Esperanto reduces human conflict, that's up to everybody. I tend to believe it though, though not in the sense that you suggested. I simply believe that if say an Arab has a lot of Israeli friends, he's less likely to believe that Israelis are evil, no matter what other people say. However, as it is, to make Israeli friends you first have to learn Hebrew, and you probably wouldn't learn that if you didn't already think well of Israelis. The solution is a neutral language, which allows people from everywhere to meet without preconceptions, on the basis that everybody has made a small effort to come together (rather than one making an enormous effort and the other condescending to correct mistakes). This doesn't just go for Arabs and Israelis of course. And even if you learn Esperanto without setting out to overcome prejudices, you just might find yourself dropping them after accidentally meeting people from a certain country during a congress. I know I discovered a lot of lies and half-truths about other countries that the media had fed me... 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| J-Learner Senior Member Australia Joined 6034 days ago 556 posts - 636 votes Studies: Yiddish, English* Studies: Dutch | Message 4 of 15 12 November 2008 at 1:11pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I must say that the neutral language is more likely to be English than Esperanto however, Sprachprofi. I think the reality shows this also. I don't think it is languages that bare grudges but human hearts. A smile, a charitable act, this is the international language.
Esperanto may be a good idea. But I can't imagine it being the only language. There is a saying: A word may kill or save a life. Wasn't Esperanto created by a Jew? hmmm Shalom/Salaam, Yehoshua. 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 5 of 15 12 November 2008 at 1:30pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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English neutral? America is well-known to support Israel, and besides there are many people that dislike America or refuse to speak English for other reasons. English is no more neutral than any other national language, maybe less so because of everything it's associated with.
Languages of course don't bear grudges, but they hinder people from getting to know each other and learning about the other side. In this way, they facilitate grudges. If you could and regularly did talk to people from the most diverse backgrounds, it would be much harder to be prejudiced against a group.
? Esperanto does not want to be the only language. People should keep and protect their native languages and they should learn several if not many foreign languages of their own choice. Obviously they can't become fluent in all the languages of the world, or even just the widely-spoken ones. For those situations there's Esperanto.
The creator was a Polish Jew who spoke many languages. However, as soon as the idea had sparked, he released the language into the public domain and refused to become an adored figure of the Esperanto movement. For over 100 years Esperanto has evolved with its speakers, and today it's quite far from Zamenhof's initial draft. Edited by Sprachprofi on 12 November 2008 at 1:31pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6443 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 6 of 15 12 November 2008 at 1:36pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
There are a couple of issues here. Absolutely no one is claiming that Esperanto should be the only language (the closest is Culver's strawman argument, but it's simply untrue). I've found Esperantists to be quite tolerant of 'crocodiling', and, as Sprachprofi said, to be language enthusiasts in general. English is not a neutral language. I run into evidence of this daily. Many people aren't comfortable using English, and many others who have to use it make serious mistakes - some are bothered by this. Concrete examples: - I've just proofread about 40 pages over the last couple of days (a PhD thesis proposal), for a friend, because he's not entirely comfortable with his written English. - The only other girl at my office simply refuses to speak English unless it's absolutely necessary. I've heard her speak it, but not more than a handful of times in the last year; she sounds fluent, but she's deeply uncomfortable with it. The vast majority of non-native English speakers never reach a native level in English - and, consequently, they're at a disadvantage in a large number of situations. English has a large body of native speakers, and is the language of several countries; both of these facts keep it from being neutral. Esperanto is, quite frankly, a lot easier than English. It has fairly phonetic spelling, all verbs are regular, etc. More than that, it's a very stylistically free language; 'orange' can be a verb, word order and preposition use are highly subject to personal taste, etc. There's no indefinite article - a simple grammatical feature which trips up almost every native speaker of Arabic/Japanese/Slavic languages that I know who learned English as an adult. Some people who are quite into languages and talented at them, such as the deceased Claude Piron (a native French speaker and former UN translator), have written convincingly about how much more comfortable they feel in Esperanto than in English, simply because it's so much more regular and logical, and because there is no large group of native speakers with an inherent advantage in the language. Esperanto is generally learned as a choice, by adults, and it's not an official language anywhere. I don't believe a language can be entirely neutral, but both of these factors make Esperanto a lot closer to neutral than any other language with at least as many speakers that I'm aware of.
Relevance?
Yes; he lived in a city in Poland where 4 languages were spoken, and there was a lot of tension due to sheer inability to communicate. His children were later killed by the Nazis, who oppressed Esperanto speakers, as did the Soviets, on the grounds that they had an accessible means of international communication. Why? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6443 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 7 of 15 12 November 2008 at 1:48pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Without getting into politics, I would argue that English is more neutral than many national languages. The high percentage of non-native speakers, and the wide geographical distribution both lead me to consider it so. The politics of a country don't, in and of themselves, make a language more or less neutral, in my opinion.
Agreed. It's very easy to underestimate linguistic barriers, but they're absolutely huge. I'd suggest to anyone who wants to understand this to spend some time in an expat community in an area where he/she speaks none of the commonly spoken languages by the native population (regardless of official status of the languages), or, for a milder experience, to study in another language.
Here, I do have to mildly disagree with you. As long as Esperanto is spoken by such a small percentage of the world's population, it's only usable in a fairly small percentage of such situations. On the other hand, if Esperanto were actually spoken by most people, I think it would have a deleterious impact on other languages; most people show no signs of learning more languages than necessary (to the point where children sometimes forget languages they've learned if they can), weird as that may seem from the perspective of someone into languages enough to use a forum like this. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7160 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 8 of 15 12 November 2008 at 3:11pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I don't think that it's true that one must speak another's native tongue in order to be his/her friend. Look at yourself Sprachprofi, I'm sure that because of Esperanto you have been able to meet others whose native language is not one of the languages that you already know. You just communicated in what you shared: Esperanto. In a similar way, I have Polish friends who have good friends in Italy. The Italians don't speak Polish, while the Poles don't speak Italian. So they do the logical thing and use a shared language - in this case English. Their friendships are no less worthy than the ones you would have with Esperantists who don't speak a language that you're comfortable in. As long as two sides can communicate in something common, then the possibility for friendship is open. It doesn't matter what the language is, and in any case humans will find a way to communicate with each other when the need arises even if they want to insult each other. Esperanto isn't indisputably the better or more neutral way from a linguistic viewpoint. Is there an objective scale in linguistics that determines neutrality? (cf. subjective arguments about which language is "better"/"easier"/"more sophisticated" than another) An Arab doesn't necessarily need to learn Hebrew in order to make Israeli friends if both the Israelis and the Arab can communicate with a shared language. Whether that intermediary language is English, Arabic, Hebrew, Greenlandic or Esperanto is irrelevant. Odds are rather high these days that this hypothetical Arab and the Israelis would use English, Hebrew or Arabic as the intermediary tongue. However that's not to diminish the role of other languages that could fulfill the same role if these people were to use something other than these languages. What I suspect is that Esperantists are only human and some still seek validation that what they're doing is approved or supported by others thus giving them the sense they're part of a popular movement or the "winning" team. It can make for something powerful when people feel that they belong to something that's greater than themselves. After all, the Esperanto conferences come across as a meeting of the minds with a pep rally kind of atmosphere and aren't like staid linguistic conferences that focus on topics in sociolinguistics or rather esoteric topics in morphology, phonology or corpus planning. This attitude makes me most uncomfortable as I feel that I'd be making a non-linguistic or political judgment merely by studying Esperanto. The old arguments by furyou_gaijin with some of the Esperantists on this forum remind me of how "non-linguistic" Esperanto can be. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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