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Question to Esperantists - Its cleverness | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Esperanto |  | |
| 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 9 of 18 29 April 2009 at 6:28am | IP Logged | |||||
Let's look a little more at the points you mention: +Nobody has an unfair advantage. Debatable at best. For example it is well-known when learning Esperanto that native speakers of Romance or Germanic languages have an advantage over those who do not have any ability in languages from those families. Similar kinds of bias or advantage can be observed with Slovio (given its reliance on characteristics and words in Slavonic languages) or Interlingua (given its reliance on Romance languages). +No nation is culturally dominating any other through a conlang. Again very debatable. A conlang is a creation by someone or a group of people. "Conlangers" by necessity create their language using their frames of reference or with structures that are familiar or known to them. A conlang would also indirectly reflect at least something about the culture(s) which is (are) familiar to the creator(s). If we split hairs, a nation might not be culturally dominant, but something greater than a nation could become dominant. Erasing dominance by a nation with something greater than a nation isn't by default "better". +Nobody can be offended by the choice of language if it is a conlang. This again is a debatable assertion. Is it problematic that there is a choices between conlangs? Ido for example arose as a reformed or "improved" version of Esperanto. It's not impossible to see that some Ido-speakers would be offended if Esperanto were chosen over Ido when we know that Ido was conceived as an "improvement" over Esperanto based on various criticisms. Another potential weakness in your statement could be exposed by Slovio, the Slavocentric conlang. It's not much of a stretch to see resistance or even offense to the choosing of Slovio from people who don't speak Slavonic languages or find little in common with the Pan-Slavic or even subtle Russocentric undertone of that conlang's being. +Significantly less time is wasted on learning the "lingua franca" if it was Esperanto instead of English. A neutral way of saying is "less time is used". Its original formulation contains a value judgment and is a less-than-subtle jab at English. This assertion is relative but it is true that Esperanto-learners who already have advanced command of a Romance or Germanic language can reach basic fluency in Esperanto in less time than if they were studying a natural language, all else equal. +Esperanto has easier words, better grammar and no complicated sayings or illogical spelling. By this point I can't even take your reasoning seriously as you've presented a series of opinions and assertions that upon a little reflection are far less air-tight than you make them to be. This last assertion in particular is meaningless in serious analysis as languages - natural or constructed - do not have "easier words", "better grammar", "illogical spelling" nor do they lack "complicated sayings". Talking about language in this way is common among dilettantes, politicians and politically-motivated linguists. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| minus273 Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5769 days ago 288 posts - 346 votes Speaks: Mandarin*, EnglishC2, French Studies: Ancient Greek, Tibetan | Message 10 of 18 29 April 2009 at 10:56am | IP Logged | |||||
I guess the term "conlang" is more often used for "art languages"/"künstliche Sprache" (we say "artlang" also), and Plansprache should be called auxlang (for auxiliary languages) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Lemanensis Bilingual Pentaglot Groupie Switzerland hebrew.ecott.ch Joined 5928 days ago 73 posts - 77 votes Speaks: French*, English*, German, Spanish, Swedish Studies: Modern Hebrew | Message 11 of 18 29 April 2009 at 12:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
You have every right to be skeptical. I was. But then I learnt Esperanto - up to a level where I was reading 'original' novels (i.e. written in Esperanto) and writing my own current events articles. I was won over - by the language but not by the Movement. There are many similarities in the more advanced E-o grammar with the Slav languages and, I am now finding, with Hebrew (makes sense as it was created by a Polish/Russian Jew). Just because you learn one language, it doesn't mean you cannot/should not learn another. I'd give E-o a try - but don't expect it to be done in a couple of weeks. E-o is easier than natural languages but it is far from simplistic, still has its own complications, richness. There are some things that can be said very elegantly in Esperanto and much less so in other languages. I no longer practise E-o actively, and I have lost a lot of vocabulary over the past few years, but I remain convinced that it is a language in its own right and does what it says on the box and more. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5842 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 12 of 18 29 April 2009 at 3:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Chung, the point is that learning English can not be a hobby or a choice for a non-native speaker. Fail English and you can forget University or serious career options in the future...
This is a serious problem for large numbers of people in Europe who practically feel like second class citizens becuase they have no "ear for languages" and speak poor or no English. By the time English has been successfully mastered (phew-my future is safe!) the learner might be so thoroughly fed up with glossaries and grammar books that he is put of language learning for a very long time to come. But despite all his efforts, the non-native speaker is still at a disadvantage compared with a native English speaker. I like languages because of the opportunities that come with knowing them. I don't care much at all for the learning process itself - the less time I can spend on it the better. I just think a levelled playing field would be much nicer. But I guess I should count my blessings that the lingua franca is not (yet!) Chinese, Hindi or a non-European language. I really sympathise with people from China, Korea, Japan etc 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| will72694 Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5708 days ago 59 posts - 60 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 13 of 18 01 May 2009 at 3:07pm | IP Logged | |||||
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The way I see it is that Esperanto could be the "Lingua Franca" of Europeans -- of which, only significantly
Germanic and Romance language speakers. Esperanto is still as hard for a Chinese man, a Swahili speaker, Finns, Arabs, etc etc... Should the time that they would take to learn Esperanto in the hope that it may one day become the "lingua franca" not be better used by learning the current lingua franca? Anyway, just my view. And please correct me if I'm wrong :) 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 14 of 18 01 May 2009 at 3:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
I have a great deal of difficulty reading this sentence. Do you mean that it's easiest for speakers of Germanic and Romance languages, and harder for non-Europeans? If that is what you mean: yes, but not by much. The grammar is about equally foreign to all of them. Speakers of Romance languages can recognize more vocabulary passively at first than speakers of other languages. However, the vocabulary isn't all instantly transparent to anyone, and the affix system hugely reduces the amount of words needed (some people say by a factor of 10, and I'm inclined to agree) to communicate in a relatively nuanced way. "Malsanulejo" is a word which Esperanto speakers will instantly understand, while people who haven't studied it will not, regardless of their linguistic background. This word is not particularly exceptional in this regard. In short: yes, Esperanto is easier for some people than others, but the difference is probably much smaller than you think.
False dichotomy. Most people who learn Esperanto don't do it with 'the hope that it may one day become significantly more common. Also, many/most of them wouldn't be using the time for another language (including English) anyhow - would you say "don't learn to skateboard, you could spend the time improving your English?" And finally, learning Esperanto to basic fluency takes a ridiculously short amount of time compared to any natural language, via conventional study techniques. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| will72694 Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5708 days ago 59 posts - 60 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 15 of 18 01 May 2009 at 5:28pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I know little about conlangs and I was just saying what I have speculated. Thanks for the info though, Volte
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| paparaciii Diglot Senior Member Latvia Joined 6340 days ago 204 posts - 223 votes Speaks: Latvian*, Russian Studies: English | Message 16 of 18 01 May 2009 at 6:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Esperanto is bullshit.
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