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Esperanto a waste of time? | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Esperanto |  | |
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5519 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes  Speaks: Swedish* | Message 337 of 351 26 November 2010 at 2:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
But what is grammar if not the habits of the community of language users? The task of creating a regular language is doomed to failure, as soon as people start using it, habits will form from usage, and not being the result of conscious efforts by zealous reformers, but rather unconscious and spontaneous, and hence impossible to force into the procrustean bed of an entirely regular description. Thankfully, for this is precisely why language is interesting, because it is not regular, not rational, but human. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5519 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 338 of 351 26 November 2010 at 2:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
Some may want to study it, for political or other reasons, but it is certainly much less interesting to the general public. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5343 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 339 of 351 26 November 2010 at 4:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
My position all along has been that a language is not simply a set of rules that enable communication, but that its worth and interest for a language learner like myself reside in its being a vehicle of expression for a people, i.e., in its historical, cultural, social, human development. An Esperanto grammar tells me as little about the content of the language as defined above as an English or German grammar would lead one to "logically" deduce Shakespeare or Goethe, Rule, Britannia! or Deutschland über alles. Just as you can't tell the content of a book by its type of binding or paper, you can't appraise the contents of a language by its number of declensions or verb tenses. Or perhaps you can contradict me and deduce Russia's history and character from the fact that today its language employs six cases? Some people may find Esperanto's history and output fascinating and engrossing, so for them it would make all the sense in the world to learn it. And good for them, too. For me though, it doesn't rise above being the code of an association. Note that this makes no mention of its functionality, which is the standard which you put forward but which I have dismissed as unimportant and besides the point. That is regarding Esperanto's cultural interest for me. Then there's the question of its agenda, which others might consider. All this put together, is it surprising that Esperanto generates an above-average level of controversy? Funny I got involved in this, as frankly outside this forum I hadn't given the topic any thought at all. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5343 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 340 of 351 26 November 2010 at 4:13pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Maybe out of equality with its fellow conlang someone could start a thread entitled Klingon a waste of time?.
I also notice that Klingon is not included in the languages someone may add to his or her profile. This iniquity should also be redressed. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6468 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 341 of 351 26 November 2010 at 4:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
European languages move in the direction of more regularity; Esperanto just anticipated the development. For example, 50 years ago the past tense of German "backen" was "buk", but now people say "backte", -te being the regular past tense marker. Similarly, a good percentage of Americans are now saying "I seen" or "I have ate" - it hurts my ears, but it is another indicator of the move towards reduction of irregular forms, in this case, the simplification of having just one irregular form instead of two (see - saw - seen; eat - ate - eaten). It's a very slow development, but it can be observed in one's lifetime. Even Esperanto is no exception to this natural development. For example, Zamenhof equipped Esperanto with 6 participles: one active and one passive for each of the three tenses. -inta and -ita for the past tense (-is is the related verb ending) -anta and -ata for the present tense (-as is the related verb ending) -onta and -ota for the future tense (-os is the related verb ending) As you can see, the participles pick up the vowel that characterizes the verb tense. Apart from -is, -as and -os there is another verb ending though: -us for the conditional. Yet neither Zamenhof nor the other early supporters of Esperanto planned on having a matching participle; I'm not aware of any language that has a conditional participle. Well, nowadays Esperanto speakers sometimes use the predictable -unta and -uta as conditional participles to mend this perceived gap, fixing something that could be perceived as an irregularity. Like all modern vocabulary, this is something that organically entered the language, not through a petition or organized movement. It's not in the official grammars yet, but I'm sure that the Academy of Esperanto will add it shortly; they generally take the lead from the community (unlike the Académie française that likes to prescribe things). La responduta demando - the question that would have been answered Edited by Sprachprofi on 26 November 2010 at 4:28pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6548 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 342 of 351 26 November 2010 at 7:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
...fixed that for ya. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| lingoleng Senior Member Germany Joined 5296 days ago 605 posts - 1290 votes | Message 343 of 351 26 November 2010 at 8:00pm | IP Logged | |||||
This kind of fake citations is really bad style, to say the least ... . 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| rafaelrbp Pentaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 7011 days ago 181 posts - 201 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Spanish, English, French, Italian Studies: German | Message 344 of 351 26 November 2010 at 9:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
I'm going to list every time I came across to Esperanto or Esperantists, not considering this forum or the Internet: 1) A friend of mine here in the work receives an Esperanto magazine every month. 2) Two colleagues are planning to learn it soon. 3) There is a Congress project to bring Esperanto to the schools. Of course it's only a project, and it is hardly going to be accepted. 4) Near my house there is an Esperanto teaching course. I've studied just a bit of Esperanto some years ago, and I would really prefer to learn Ido or Interlingua, or some simplification of them, or an even more regular language. But it's definitely not a waste of time for a lot of people. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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