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Esperanto - Do People Really Use It? | ||
Tags: Usefulness | Esperanto | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Esperanto |  | |
| Michael K. Senior Member United States Joined 5526 days ago 568 posts - 886 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 9 of 32 18 June 2012 at 3:18am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I'm still a komencanto, and I've dabbled on and off with Esperanto for about a year. I've learned a lot about Esperanto and Esperantists in that time.
I agree with Volte that Esperantists are very enthusiastic about the language and are very helpful and supportive to beginners. That is one thing you may not get in a natural language, but in a language like Esperanto that most people learn because they want to, it is very common. I used to think that Esperanto was not as easy as Esperantists claimed it to be. Then I dabbled with Latin and Russian, and found Esperanto to be a breath of fresh air when I recently returned to it. I've never been to Europe, but I doubt many people will try to speak to you in Esperanto unless you're wearing a green star, and even then odds are probably pretty low. I've never met an Esperanto speaker in real life, and I don't know how to find one IRL, either. I'm not sure that there's even a club within a two hour's drive of my home. I've met plenty of Esperantists online, however, and the opportunities to practice are there. It's just like any other language: its usefulness is in how you use it. I've even heard some Esperantists say they've used Esperanto more often and it has proved more useful than other, larger languages they've tried to learn. Edited by Michael K. on 19 June 2012 at 10:31pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| catullus_roar Quadrilingual Octoglot Groupie Australia Joined 4365 days ago 89 posts - 184 votes Speaks: Malay, Hokkien*, English*, Mandarin*, Cantonese*, French, German, Spanish Studies: Italian, Latin, Armenian, Afrikaans, Russian | Message 11 of 32 19 June 2012 at 11:36am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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In everyone's opinion, what is the reason why Esperanto isn't 'getting the support that it needs'? Also, does everyone feel that it is a good idea to try and introduce constructed languages? I know this is a major point of tension in linguistic communities, but is it true that a language which is allowed to evolve naturally will end up becoming more successful than a constructed one? Eg. Spanish etc evolved from Vulgar Latin over a period of time. Is it realistic to expect constructed languages (eg. Esperanto) to ever, even after thousands of years, achieve the same influence as a 'natural' language does? :)
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| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6236 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 12 of 32 19 June 2012 at 12:33pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Your questions are basically answered by the size and influence of a speaker community, rather than the origin of a language. Esperanto is a relatively small language: it has more speakers than Basque or Frisian, but far less than French, English, Spanish, German, Italian, Russian, Polish, etc. It's easier to learn than any of them. However, compared to the largest languages, there are less people you can use it with, and less material in it. Esperanto is already more "successful", in terms of the number of speakers, the number of books, the number of films, the amount of bands, etc, than the large majority of non-constructed languages on Earth. It also has more influence than most languages: you're not asking this question about Makonde or Bhojpuri, and probably haven't heard of either, despite the latter having 38.5 million native speakers. What Esperanto doesn't have is the same amount of influence as the most influential world languages. To expect that of a language invented by a Russian eye-doctor and mainly spread by enthusiastic hobbyists over the course of a bit over a century is a rather lofty idea. That it has an original literature, perhaps 2 million speakers, and not only a handful but thousands of native speakers is already rather unbelievable, yet true. Edit: as for "the support that Esperanto needs", that's a rather contentious topic. I'll stick to saying that it's an uphill battle for a language spoken over a large geographic region and which isn't used in political or business leadership of any particular region or sector to gain speakers. People who speak Esperanto have been disagreeing for over a century about whether or not trying to have political support in teaching more people Esperanto is possible or desirable; such support so far has generally been a relatively minor factor in the growth of Esperanto. In an era characterized by language extinction rather than the growth of small languages, it's amazing that Esperanto has speakers. Edited by Volte on 19 June 2012 at 1:47pm 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Michael K. Senior Member United States Joined 5526 days ago 568 posts - 886 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 13 of 32 19 June 2012 at 2:19pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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There are really two main types of conlangs. The first type is called the IAL, or international auxiliary language. They are supposed to be easy to learn and be used as a bridge by people speaking different languages. These are like Esperanto, and two other competitors that have several hundred to a few thousand speakers, Interlingua and Ido, with Ido being a reformed version of Esperanto that never really caught on. There are many other IALs out there, but support for them is very low.
The second type of conlang is the artlang, like Tolkien's Elvish languages, Sindarin and Quenya, and languages used in movies like Klingon and Na'vi. All of these languages have a community of users, but they were never intended to be used for communication between people. The original intent of their creators was to be used by a fictional race in a work of fiction. As far as your question goes, I personally think people should think really hard about creating new IALs, because there are hundreds, if not thousands of them, and only Esperanto has had any real lasting success (Volapuk was successful before Esperanto, but its support also trickled off, and now there are only a few Volapuk supporters left). The supply of IALs is far greater than the demand. I think artlangs are very interesting, and if I ever wanted to study one, it would be one of Tolkien's languages, because he was the master artlanger. I have no qualms about people creating artlangs like some people would create poetry, because an artlang is a work of art in itself. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 4927 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 14 of 32 19 June 2012 at 3:25pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
As you noted, all this is due to actual speakers, mostly hobbyists. A quick Google search turns up virtually no higher education institutions that offer comprehensive instruction in the language. You might find a few classes here and there offered by accredited institutions, but nothing comprehensive. I think if we saw it offered more in colleges and universities, it would have much more influence. But that would need some political pull that's just not currently available to the language. As it stands, the Esperanto community is what's keeping the language alive, no matter how good the body of literature may be. I would be interested in learning the language, but it just doesn't seem all that useful outside of the Esperanto community itself. I just don't see any enthusiasm for it outside this (very enthusiastic) sphere. For good or bad, English is what seems to be most useful for people wanting to communicate internationally. R. == 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6236 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 15 of 32 19 June 2012 at 9:55pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Agreed. It it offered in some school systems; in Hungary, it seems to go between 2nd and 4th most popular foreign language judging by Nyelvvizsgáztatási Akkreditációs Központ, behind English, usually German, and sometimes French. Aside from that, I can point to isolated university teaching of Esperanto in the USA, such as NASK, Esperanto ĉe la Universitato de Roĉestro, Esperanto at Stanford University: Classes in Conversational Esperanto, etc. Worldwide, there are small numbers all over the place; Esperantoland mentions courses at three Korean universities, for instance. People are also working on more programs at various levels. There's even an Esperanto university, although I don't think it has full-time students.
No language is particularly useful outside its language community. And yes, English is more useful in practice today. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 4927 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 16 of 32 19 June 2012 at 10:57pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Well, yes and no. As far as literature goes, most of the major languages and a fair number of minority languages have had their most popular literature translated into other languages. That doesn't really seem to be the case with Esperanto literature, although I truthfully don't know. Quickly reading the Wikipedia article on Esperanto literature, I see there are a number of original Esperanto works, but mostly it's other major literature translated into Esperanto. I don't know if these original Esperanto novels have been translated to other languages. Thinking about it, I wonder if there were more original works translated from Esperanto to other languages if that wouldn't increase interest in the language. That said, Esperanto's a fairly young language, so maybe given more time for the original literature to flourish, more interest will come. R. == Edited by hrhenry on 19 June 2012 at 10:59pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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