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Esperanto a waste of time?

 Language Learning Forum : Esperanto Post Reply
351 messages over 44 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 7 ... 43 44 Next >>
Levi
Pentaglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5364 days ago
2268 posts - 3328 votes 
Speaks: English*, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish
Studies: Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese, Italian

 
 Message 49 of 351
11 November 2009 at 6:01am | IP Logged 
Volte wrote:
Gusutafu wrote:
Also, in your list, the last entry was not centrally planned by any government. Unless it was similar to the coloured revolutions in eastern Europe of late (sponsored by Soros).


Speaking of which, Soros is a native Esperanto speaker; his last name means 'will soar' in Esperanto, and was chosen by his father. Irrelevant, but I find it vaguely amusing in the context of this thread.

Is "sori" really an Esperanto verb? I haven't heard it before, and I couldn't find it in either my Esperanto dictionary or the Reta Vortaro.

Edited by Levi on 11 November 2009 at 6:03am
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Chung
Diglot
Senior Member
Joined 6953 days ago
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20 sounds
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish

 
 Message 50 of 351
11 November 2009 at 6:14am | IP Logged 
Levi wrote:
Volte wrote:
Gusutafu wrote:
Also, in your list, the last entry was not centrally planned by any government. Unless it was similar to the coloured revolutions in eastern Europe of late (sponsored by Soros).


Speaking of which, Soros is a native Esperanto speaker; his last name means 'will soar' in Esperanto, and was chosen by his father. Irrelevant, but I find it vaguely amusing in the context of this thread.

Is "sori" really an Esperanto verb? I haven't heard it before, and I couldn't find it in either my Esperanto dictionary or the [URL=http://www.reta-vortaro.de/revo/]Reta Vortaro[/URL].


I always understood "Soros" to be a Hungarian derivation (the root would be "sor" meaning "line" or "row", with "-os" being the denominative suffix) George's family changed the family name from Schwartz to the more Hungarian-sounding name of Soros as a reaction to the rise of European anti-Semitism..
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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 51 of 351
11 November 2009 at 6:47am | IP Logged 
Chung wrote:
Levi wrote:

Is "sori" really an Esperanto verb? I haven't heard it before, and I couldn't find it in either my Esperanto dictionary or the Reta Vortaro.


I always understood "Soros" to be a Hungarian derivation (the root would be "sor" meaning "line" or "row", with "-os" being the denominative suffix) George's family changed the family name from Schwartz to the more Hungarian-sounding name of Soros as a reaction to the rise of European anti-Semitism..


Apparently, it's both; searching shows a few more results. Verbix has it, and the lernu link mentions a physical dictionary containing it. I don't when it became a verb, and it's not a common one, but it is an Esperanto verb at this point.

The Wikipedia article on George Soros also mentions this, as well as how he managed to escape from Hungary in 1944.

His father was an Esperanto poet. While Esperanto certainly wasn't the reason he changed names, I'd be surprised if it had absolutely no influence on the name he chose.

The Esperanto Wikipedia page on George Soros claims that he learned the language while young, but isn't a native speaker; it's the first time I hear that claim, though. Either way, it's uncontroversial that he speaks it and that his father wrote poetry in it.


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Vinbelgium
Bilingual Tetraglot
Groupie
Belgium
Joined 5621 days ago
61 posts - 73 votes 
Speaks: Dutch*, Flemish*, English, French
Studies: Spanish, Russian

 
 Message 52 of 351
11 November 2009 at 10:15am | IP Logged 
I would like to know if the Esperantists here feel satisfied about learning Esperanto. Do you feel it's worth spending time on learning the language?

EDIT: spelling

Edited by Vinbelgium on 11 November 2009 at 10:15am
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Gusutafu
Senior Member
Sweden
Joined 5318 days ago
655 posts - 1039 votes 
Speaks: Swedish*

 
 Message 53 of 351
11 November 2009 at 11:09am | IP Logged 
Cainntear wrote:
Gusutafu wrote:
Sure, we may have words like laptop and marketing, but an Englishman couldn't survive a day without Old Norse: Egg, window, leg, take, weak, they (!), sky, skin, call, law etc, those are real words.

If you think Englishmen like their Norse, you should try speaking to a Scotsman. Edinburgh, East/Mid Lothian and the Scottish Borders were at one time part of Northumbria -- AKA "the Danelaw". They're showing Wallander on BBC4, and sometimes I'll completely understand a sentence. It's kind of weird -- in a good way.


Yes, I've heard of this! It's intriguing to think that in parts of what is now the UK, they spoke a Norse-derived language until the 19th, or at least 18th century. It would be interesting to travel in those old Scandinavian parts, see the place names and possibly hear some norsisms. Isn't for example the Scottish "kenn" of Scandinavian derivation?
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Gusutafu
Senior Member
Sweden
Joined 5318 days ago
655 posts - 1039 votes 
Speaks: Swedish*

 
 Message 54 of 351
11 November 2009 at 11:16am | IP Logged 
Volte wrote:
Gusutafu wrote:
Also, in your list, the last entry was not centrally planned by any government. Unless it was similar to the coloured revolutions in eastern Europe of late (sponsored by Soros).


Speaking of which, Soros is a native Esperanto speaker; his last name means 'will soar' in Esperanto, and was chosen by his father. Irrelevant, but I find it vaguely amusing in the context of this thread.


Surely this can't be a coincidence. It proves beyond a doubt that Soros is the motor behind a New World Order with the aim of turning everyone into good consumers and forcing us to speak Esperanto.
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cordelia0507
Senior Member
United Kingdom
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1473 posts - 2176 votes 
Speaks: Swedish*
Studies: German, Russian

 
 Message 55 of 351
11 November 2009 at 11:39am | IP Logged 
Gusutafu wrote:

I dislike the EU, Schengen and especially the Euro, but even putting that aside your argument seems flawed my dear compatriot! You say that perhaps the EU should force us to speak Esperanto (which as I explained, is more different from Swedish than English is) but that people can still learn English if they want, unlike now when it is force-fed. I don't like the English dominance, but it is anything but force-fed. English prevails because of the reasons you give, plus the incredible amounts of lowest common denominator entertainment (not there isn't a lot of high culture too, only people don't care about that).

Secondly, I can see that Esperanto could come to dominate too if it was forced upon us and/or adopted by the next cultural and economic hegemon. What I can't see is how this could take place without putting Swedish at peril in exactly the way you think (I don't think so) it is now.

Also, in your list, the last entry was not centrally planned by any government. Unless it was similar to the coloured revolutions in eastern Europe of late (sponsored by Soros).


Well my dear compatriot :-) this is not a debate that I was expecting to "win" - and you definitely know what you are talking about, so fair game! If this wasn't a language forum I'd be interested to hear your view on some of the subjects you mention.

Just one thing: Even if Swedish and English have some similar vocabulary (Hmmmm, not fully convinced), Esperanto is still easier because of the 100% regular grammar, lack of strange expressions and pronounciation!


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Gusutafu
Senior Member
Sweden
Joined 5318 days ago
655 posts - 1039 votes 
Speaks: Swedish*

 
 Message 56 of 351
11 November 2009 at 12:13pm | IP Logged 
cordelia0507 wrote:
Just one thing: Even if Swedish and English have some similar vocabulary (Hmmmm, not fully convinced), Esperanto is still easier because of the 100% regular grammar, lack of strange expressions and pronounciation!


Sure, it might still be easier in some sense, except that the lack of material makes immersion difficult. But I prefer English not because it is easy, but because it is at least Germanic, and has close historical ties to our language.

"The Norse loanwords amount to about 2% of all significant vocabulary. However, the Norse words are used more often than the rest of the loanwords put together."

(According ot this source: http://www.knowledgerush.com/kr/encyclopedia/Loanword/)

The reason *Norse words are used so often is of course that they are mostly found among the most imortant words, like sky, father, skin. And not only did English borrow many basic words from us, the phonetic system of English was significantly impacted by Scandinavian rule.



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