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Do All Journalists Speak Esperanto Now? | ||
Tags: Esperanto | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Esperanto |  | |
| Marc Frisch Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6669 days ago 1001 posts - 1169 votes  Speaks: German*, French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Persian, Tamil | Message 9 of 45 02 August 2009 at 12:00am | IP Logged | ||
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The question "Why Esperanto?" has been debated thousand of times, no use of repeating the same old arguments over and over again; I think the positions are fairly clear.
What's more interesting is the question "Why Esperanto and not another conlang?" is much more interesting. As paranday said there exist many other conlangs which are "better" than Esperanto in the sense that they are less eurocentric, more logical (why the accusative ending -n???), etc. But I think that's not really the point. Esperanto is the conlang that has established international networks; it's by a large margin the most spoken conlang and simply has proved that it works as a tool of communication. It's the only viable option for a conlang to actually succeed as an IAL and I really believe that anyone who believes in the idea of an IAL should support Esperanto in order to create enough momentum for it to succeed. Another important question is "Why now?". The linguistic situation in the world is rapidly shifting at this very moment. English is losing ground rapidly, as languages like Chinese, Arabic, and Spanish are becoming more important in international affairs. There's no doubt that English will keep its status as the language of business for quite some time, but as the world becomes more and more interconnected thanks to the internet and population and economic growth in the developing countries (according to "The Economist" the BRIC countries Brazil, Russia, India, and China will contribute 75% to global economic growth in the years to come), an easy tool to communicate becomes more desirable. Also, the European Union has become some sort of a new Babel with its 20-some official languages and desperately needs something like an IAL to evolve (I strongly disagree with the idea that English will become the lingua franca of Europe, there are just too many strong nationalist sentiments against it, e.g. in France, Italy and Spain.) Last but not least, Esperanto is one of the languages that has benefited the most from the new media. It's very present in the internet and there is a vast amount of free learning resources of high quality available. When has it ever been so simple to learn Esperanto? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Britomartis Groupie United States Joined 5813 days ago 67 posts - 74 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 10 of 45 02 August 2009 at 4:09am | IP Logged | ||
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This topic touches close to home for me because I wrote a paper about Esperanto, opposing any global use of it. I'm pretty sure that this is just a media fad though. There used to be such hopes surrounding Esperanto (hence its name), and it was pretty popular many decades ago, but that didn't last, so I suspect that this turn likely won't last either.
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| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5842 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 11 of 45 02 August 2009 at 12:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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Just to say I really enjoyed reading Marc's response.
It's occurred to me "Why don't we see Esperantists pushing the language a bit more?" For instance, there could be advertising in public places, if only free noticeboards; handing out leaflets perhaps; or why not some strategically placed newspaper ads. Esperantists could visit schools or offer a free lecture at a university. The ways in which the language could be promoted are endless. Personally I have seen nothing of this. Is it against the ideals, perhaps; or are the Esperantists very laid back about it? English is pushed by the ubiquitousness of American entertainment (which is actually a very commercial (some would say politically supported) phenomenon. Obviously Espereranto has no such machinery to promote it, but it's got a winning ideology at least. If I do manage to learn it, I'll definitely be evangelising it. I hope it's time has finally come! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| qklilx Moderator United States Joined 6190 days ago 459 posts - 477 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Korean Personal Language Map | Message 13 of 45 02 August 2009 at 12:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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It says the lecture is on the 9th, at 12 PM. Is Edufire detecting my time zone or should I ask which time zone "12 PM" is located in? I'm quite interested in seeing this...
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| 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 14 of 45 02 August 2009 at 12:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's at 9pm CET (Berlin, Paris, ...), so that would make it 8pm London time, 7pm GMT without daylight savings, 3pm EST. When you are logged in, Edufire shows you the times in your local time zone. Otherwise I believe it defaults to San Francisco time, not sure, it doesn't do any detection afaik.
Cordelia, the majority of Esperanto speakers do try to promote the language wherever they see an opportunity, but running ads typically costs lots of money. Volunteering to teach courses locally is very common, but maybe you live in an area where the local Esperanto speakers are too busy or too inept at marketing those courses. If you contact the nearest Esperanto club they should know what's going on. Edited by Sprachprofi on 02 August 2009 at 12:55pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6015 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 15 of 45 02 August 2009 at 1:17pm | IP Logged | ||
Here's the argument for/against English as a global language Con: Eurocentric (Indo-European language, wide latinate vocabulary); not the most logical language in the world. Pro: Most spoken 2nd language by a large margin; has proved it works as a tool of communication (see air traffic control) It's exactly the same justification. If you're going to ignore the euro-centricity and lack of logic, English beats Esperanto hands down. For one thing, while there may be more speakers of Esperanto than any other conlang, if you think how many speakers a successful IAL would need, the current number of Esperanto speakers is so small as to be insignificant. I know this might seem harsh, but despite all the talk about ideology, I get the feeling that most Esperantists are now so culturally wedded to the language that they have in fact sacrificed the ideology in order to protect the language itself. If they really wanted to see an international auxiliary language being used, wouldn't it be better to all learn a newer, more neutral and more scientific conlang that would be easier to "sell" to the world at large? 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 16 of 45 02 August 2009 at 2:02pm | IP Logged | ||
Some of the main arguments always brought up against conlangs is that "they don't work", "they don't have a culture" or "they don't evolve". Because of this, I believe that a new conlang would have a harder time convincing skeptics than Esperanto does. People can't claim that Esperanto doesn't work (well, some do claim it, but there is 100 years worth of proof to the contrary), and Esperanto has evolved, has developped a culture. There are still hundreds of conlangs being invented every year. Apart from the problems mentioned above, they also have four issues that make them unpopular even with people who are convinced that a conlang is the solution. 1) Everybody has a different idea of what "as easy and logical as possible" is. For example people arguing for/against a plural, definite article, Accusative and other cases... 2) While there are discussions about the language, and the vocabulary and grammar change widely within 5 years (or just look unsettled), people won't invest any time learning it. I hold this to be one of the key ingredients for Esperanto's success. People knew the language was settled and mature because the Fundamento cannot be touched, so you can learn what's in there and be sure that it will not change. The rest of the language evolves naturally, so there is enough room for new words and expressions and even new ways of saying things when they become necessary. A beautiful compromise, leaving the language neither too ephemeral nor too inflexible. 3) What happens when the inventor dies? Modern conlangs typically die at that point, if not earlier. Again Zamenhof avoided the problem by making his language open-source, telling people to run with it, play with it, use it for whatever purpose, and he rejected positions of authority in the movement even though they were offered to him. 4) Will this conlang be worth it? With Esperanto you have some kind of insurance, because it is already the most widely accepted conlang and you can have a good time using it even if it should never become more (the centerpiece of the Raumists' manifesto). With a brand new conlang, nobody can tell whether other people will join in, whether the trend will be there to stay. Edited by Sprachprofi on 02 August 2009 at 2:04pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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