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English protects languages | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Esperanto | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| randy310 Senior Member United States Joined 7069 days ago 117 posts - 117 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 33 of 46 12 August 2005 at 12:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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You are still missing Socrates' point. Esperanto was created over a short period of time a product of one person's imagination. Whereas languages like English, French, and Ialian have evolved over long periods of time to become what they are today. They are the products of civilizations and their changes over time. Trying to compare the child of one couple who grew up speaking Esperanto as a native speaker to entire civilizations of native speakers growing up speaking a language even being defined by it is ludicrous. Of course languages never stop evolving. Todays major languages will be unrecognizable a millenium from now. Allowing a child to grow up speaking no real language may border on child abuse.
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| Giordano Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 7178 days ago 213 posts - 218 votes 3 sounds Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Cantonese, Greek | Message 34 of 46 12 August 2005 at 12:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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I believe you are missing the point, Randy and Socrates. Esperanto does not exist so you can read poems and listen to pop music. It exists as a neutral tool for communication across many different languages.
Also, it was not just created out of thin air, but was based on other languages. It is a furthering of their evolution. As I said before, Hebrew was created by a single man, based on ancient Hebrew and the Hebrew spoken by European and North African jews. It is now spoken by 6 million people, and many of them speak it as a first language. Indonesian is another language that was created in a short amount of time. It was based on Malay. It is the lingua franca of 100 000 000 Indonesians, most of whom speak it. It is the mother tongue of few, if any. If both of these languages, which, just like Esperanto, were created in a short period of time by one person or just a few people, and based upon other languages, are now considered real, true, (and, to many, "natural") languages, then why can't Esperanto be one? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| KingM Triglot Senior Member michaelwallaceauthor Joined 7195 days ago 275 posts - 300 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Russian | Message 35 of 46 12 August 2005 at 5:01pm | IP Logged | ||
It's not that it can't, it's that it isn't. If modern Hebrew or Indonesian hadn't been adopted by their respective nations, they wouldn't be either. But they were, so they are. Esperanto hasn't been, so it's no more real in my mind than Klingon or Elvish. It's interesting, sure, but not in the same way that Italian or Hindi or Japanese is. I know that others may be of a different opinion and that's fine. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| randy310 Senior Member United States Joined 7069 days ago 117 posts - 117 votes Speaks: English* | Message 36 of 46 13 August 2005 at 1:24am | IP Logged | ||
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Klingonese is more of a language than Esperanto by my previous definition. I think esperanto should be given a decent burial and forgotten about.
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| Darobat Diglot Senior Member Joined 7192 days ago 754 posts - 770 votes Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: Latin | Message 37 of 46 13 August 2005 at 10:11am | IP Logged | ||
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Hmmm...
Klingon * No vocabulary to communicate every day things * No literature published in Klingon * No native speakers of Klingon Esperanto * Enough vocabulary to communicate anything, even scientific or technical * More than 25,000 books published in Esperanto plus hunderds of magazines * Anywhere from 200-2000 native speakers of Esperanto I'm not sure where you're getting your facts from, but Klingon is far less of an actuall language than Esperanto. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| randy310 Senior Member United States Joined 7069 days ago 117 posts - 117 votes Speaks: English* | Message 38 of 46 13 August 2005 at 11:49am | IP Logged | ||
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Darobat, did you not follow Star Trek the Next Generations? Klingon history was well documented. Their civilization is much older than our own with a more diversified literature and many more native speakers than even Mandarin here on earth. Ok! I am speaking tongue in cheek here! Seriously though a civilization is intertwined with it's history and liturature. Esperanto does not have that history it did not evolve from anything else. Someone just made it up and its liturature comes from leaching from the liturature of real languages. It is kind of an amalgamation. Check out what the polyglot Barry Farber had to say about it.
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| Darobat Diglot Senior Member Joined 7192 days ago 754 posts - 770 votes Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: Latin | Message 39 of 46 13 August 2005 at 1:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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[REMOVED - inflammatory]
Let me take your comments one by one. "Darobat, did you not follow Star Trek the Next Generations? Their civilization is much older than our own with a more diversified literature and many more native speakers than even Mandarin here on earth. Ok! I am speaking tongue in cheek here! Seriously though a civilization is intertwined with it's history and liturature" Klingon's history is completely made up. If someone made up some history for Esperanto, it would suddenly be a language? Crazy. And just because it has a made up civilization to go along with it, that makes it no more language. The dictionary defines language as "Communication of thoughts and feelings through a system of arbitrary signals, such as voice sounds, gestures, or written symbols.". That in no way has anything to do with culture. "Eperanto does not have that history it did not evolve from anything else." A quote from esperanto.org
"Someone just made it up and its liturature comes from leaching from the liturature of real languages." That's so wrong it's not funny. Esperanto has numerous authors who wrote authentic literature in Esperanto. Numerous famous things have been translated, but they've also been translated into English. Is English just full of leached literature because we have "Crime and Punishment", "War and Peace", "The Firm", "The Communist Manifesto" and millions of other translated works. No. Oh, and by the way, English has German roots. That means were not a real language because all we did was leach from German and call ourselves a language. Randy, you may not like Esperanto, but it is a language. It has official classification as a real language. It has Language Codes, and a few international organizations actually use it as the official language. Even if you don't like it, Esperanto is a language that people use to communicate in. People do write original literature in it, and despite what you want to think, Epseratno has evolved since it was created, which classifies it as a living language. Edited by administrator on 14 August 2005 at 3:14am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7209 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 40 of 46 13 August 2005 at 2:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think the premise of this thread is specious. I
guess I put more credence in what Ardaschir said on the topic. Not only is he perhaps one of the more knowledgeable people in this area in the world, his thoughts ring of truth, rather than fancy. As for Esperanto, its value as a teaching tool is documented. It's goal as being a neutral bridge language is respectable too. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propedeutic_value_of_Esperanto 1 person has voted this message useful |
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