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Tags: Polyglot bashing | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5302 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes  Speaks: Swedish* | Message 41 of 60 26 November 2010 at 12:49am | IP Logged | |||||
Well, if you can't handle people that think that something you do is a waste of time, then you should probably avoid the internet altegether, at least discussion forums. Having different opinions is the basis of most discussions, if that "offends" you, just switch off your modem, there are no "safe places" on the internet. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 5923 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 42 of 60 26 November 2010 at 1:06am | IP Logged | |||||
That, I think she understands. What she and others of us are taking issue with is that you should not have to worry about being ridiculed for your interest in learning languages or choice of which languages to study on a forum for language-lovers about learning languages. Her point was that out in the "real world" is where you would expect to be criticized for speaking or learning Xhosa, Mongolian, or Esperanto, not here. 10 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6160 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 43 of 60 26 November 2010 at 4:48am | IP Logged | |||||
Perhaps our intentions have been misinterpreted. All Esperanto threads get moved to the Esperanto subforum precisely to prevent Esperanto bashing. The subforum is meant to be a place where Esperanto learners can go without being subjected to the continual debating that seemingly creeps into every Esperanto thread. Now, obviously, that doesn't seem to have worked out so well. Maybe there aren't enough mods that visit that subforum. I don't ever go there for example. In that case it would be helpful if members would report any offending posts so that they are brought to our attention and we can deal with them. Also, I think it may be helpful to have one thread dedicated to debates about Esperanto. Then people can choose to avoid it if they wish. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5302 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 44 of 60 26 November 2010 at 10:14am | IP Logged | |||||
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Another idea: people that are sensitive should just avoid threads that have titles like "is Esperanto a waste of time".
5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5302 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 45 of 60 26 November 2010 at 10:20am | IP Logged | |||||
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By the way, where did anyone riducule someone for learning languages?
All examples so far have just concerned incidents where someone has critized a particular language. Given that Esperanto is a constructed language, put together with a specific purpose, people should be less surprised when the usefulness of this language is question, than if someone were to say that for example Swedish is useless. It may be pretty useless to non-Swedes (unless they're film buffs), but it wasn't constructed, and millions of people have no choice but to use it. Esperanto is like an artificial canal, natural languages are like rivers. Anyone can see that it's much more reasonable to question the building of a canal than the existence of a river. 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6484 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 46 of 60 26 November 2010 at 12:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Actually Esperanto is one of the few cases where the criticism is targeted towards a specific language (for reasons which we have seen again and again, so I don't need to repeat them here for the umptieth time). Another case was the feud between those that found that English has become too intrusive and ubiquitous and those that found that this was the natural order of things, and that comments suggesting otherwise were anti-American. Luckily that discussion has died down, but not because the conflict as such was resolved.
Leaving Esperanto and English aside, the comments in this thread and the forum at large go in two directions: some members think that learning ANY language is justified, and the more exotic and rare the better, and others support a strictly utilitarian line which inevitable will lead to neglect of exotic and rare languages. As long as the arguments is expressed in civil terms this discussion is OK even though it probably leads nowhere. But any claim that a specific language is useless and a waste of time may of course be seen as offensive. And so would claims that blind utilitarism is destroying the world.
True, - but after it has been built the money has been spent and now the canal is lying there. Then the only relevant question is: should we sail on it? In the case of the Suez- or Panama canal some might even say that the original investment was justified. In the case of Esperanto one could say that it is a miracle that anybody took it seriously, but now it has more speakers than most natural languages, and those who speak it seem to be more eager to communicate on a worldwide scale than the speakers of most 'natural' languages. Edited by Iversen on 26 November 2010 at 1:07pm 11 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| maydayayday Pentaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5000 days ago 564 posts - 839 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, SpanishB2, FrenchB2 Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Russian, Swedish, Turkish, Polish, Persian, Vietnamese Studies: Urdu | Message 47 of 60 26 November 2010 at 5:50pm | IP Logged | |||||
Ouch. i assume you mean [amongst others] my recent thread on other "Geekiness" so I can only apologise for any discomfort it caused. Nerd and Geek are valid terms in many dictionaries (and scrabble), and I am happy to be both or either. To be 'out of the ordinary' makes you extraordinary by definition. I believe this site is about joining people who have a particular fondness for languages to others who have the same fondness. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5211 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 48 of 60 26 November 2010 at 7:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Frankly this (IMHO) tempest in a teapot or in French "une tempête dans un verre d'eau" is morphing into a major argument for nothing. For the life of me I don't see what the problem is. Have I missed something? Maybe it's because I'm not into Esperanto. We may have our differences and little verbal flare-ups over certain issues, but I really never have seen or felt that people belittle the language choices of other participants.
Some while back I took particular exception to some positions in a thread on the so-called worst-sounding languages, which I still think is a silly concept. So, we had some heated arguments. But that's what a forum is for. I didn't think anybody was insulted or hurt. Maybe a few feathers ruffled, but at the end of the day it was all about ideas. 8 persons have voted this message useful |
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