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My English teacher really hates Esperanto | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Esperanto |  | |
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6944 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes  20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 81 of 194 09 November 2007 at 11:12am | IP Logged | |||||
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With all due respect, I doubt that I could rely on Piron's views any more than I can of Chris Culver's views.
There are some inconsistencies with Piron's background. The French and German wikipedias say that he is a psychologist who is interested in languages and worked as a translator/interpreter at the UN. No mention of his being a trained linguist (i.e. someone who has specialized in "linguistics" at university) The English wikipedia says that he is a linguist in addition to being a psychologist. As such, I'm not sure that his credentials allow him to be objective about criticizing Esperanto-skeptics. The biographical data is inconsistent. What we need is a trained linguist who specializes in creoles or planned languages to publish something. We don't need a translator/psychologist who from an early age fell in love with Esperanto. The bias seems too blatant and the analysis comes off as perhaps amateurish. It would be akin to my feeling justified in professionally comparing English morphology with that of French strictly because I am fluent in both languages even though my training was outside structural or theoretical linguistics. The spirit of Piron's arguments are more apologetic than objective (or at worst they make excuses). Culver's arguments on the other hand are coloured by his personal grudge at the movement which also gives pause. It's this sort of polarity that makes me wary of Esperanto for all of the idealism and relatively level-headed members. Art and furyou_gaijin have brought up some good points. The world does have a sort of inertia which lends itself to using apparently imperfect methods or tools even when apparently superior methods or tools exist. All the power to those who want to study Esperanto. However, as furyou_gaijin posted let prospective students make their own judgements after considering the pros and cons. That's preferable to Esperanto-speakers giving the sense that learning Esperanto and thus finding common ground with other Esperanto speakers is absolutely more enriching than the experience gained by an ESL student who finds common ground with other English speakers. While it's not explicitly stated, I sometimes got that feeling when reading some of Sprachprofi's and remush's posts. For all the enthusiasm of Esperanto, it's precisely the passion that comes out of Esperanto students and its idealists that keeps neutral language students like me wary. Bluntly, keep your passion to yourself instead of thinking that your passion will be equally appreciated by others. Even though I love Polish and Slovak, I don't go about telling my friends or anyone here that they're missing out or somehow condemned to mediocrity by not sharing my passion for these languages/cultures. Everyone has other interests and passions for other things, so it all evens out. This forum is ample proof of that "levelling" Edited by Chung on 09 November 2007 at 11:15am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| remush Tetraglot Groupie Belgium remush.beRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6056 days ago 79 posts - 94 votes Speaks: French*, Esperanto, English, Dutch Studies: German, Polish | Message 82 of 194 09 November 2007 at 12:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
Very true. But who claimed that Esperanto was superior? or Esperantists were superior? BTW, who asked you to learn Esperanto lately? If you do not trust Piron because he is not a professional linguist, can you trust him because he is a psychologist (with a diploma)? (I know your answer: you cannot trust an Esperantist!) Psychological Reactions to Esperanto 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6944 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 83 of 194 09 November 2007 at 1:07pm | IP Logged | |||||
Now look who's being presumptious... To be frank, I would likely trust Sprachprofi more than any other Esperantists. If her posts are any guide, she seems the least evangelical in her views. In other words, while I don't agree entirely with her, I would disagree the least with her. Nothing to do with the fact that I distrust any Esperantist from the very beginning. As it is, I could take Piron seriously if he were talking about psychology or translation. Because he's trying to defend Esperanto, and trying to give the sense to readers that his defense is scientific (or at least acceptable to a linguist) because of his psychological/translation training, this is where I become skeptical. I've encountered similar situations when reading articles by people who try to elevate the Hungarian language to an exalted status. Interestingly, the people who push such fanciful views are non-linguists. A clue about taking Piron's defense (which is a favourite in the canon of Esperantists just as Culver's attack is a favourite in the canon of Esperanto-skeptics) with a grain of salt is that most linguists are taught not to be judgemental of what is a superior or inferior language (be it a natural language or not). When you have people taking sides and saying that one language is easier or better in absolute terms over another, that's a clue that whoever expressing the view is not a linguist and not as objective as one would think. No one has asked me to learn Esperanto. However a friend of mine asked me what I thought about it and since I knew little about it then, I did some digging and found some good and bad sites and inevitably waded into this crap that goes on between supporters and opponents. Just as you were surprised that people who are apparently open to everyone are against Esperanto, I'm just as surprised that people who are apparently open to everyone are against Esperanto-skeptics. What I think some Esperantists unwittingly do that ruins the image of Esperanto is the passion and sense of offense they show when they encounter people who just don't share their passion. There are just people who don't care much about Esperanto (in addition to those who just hate it and gleefully show their disgust with little or no provocation). Just because I don't have any interest in Esperanto doesn't mean that I automatically dislike or distrust an Esperantist. But if the reaction of that Esperantist is unfavourable, it's not surprising that the association between Esperanto and thin-skinned Esperantists will dominate and takes away from the image of Esperanto representing something more benevolent. Edited by Chung on 09 November 2007 at 1:20pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| remush Tetraglot Groupie Belgium remush.beRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6056 days ago 79 posts - 94 votes Speaks: French*, Esperanto, English, Dutch Studies: German, Polish | Message 84 of 194 09 November 2007 at 1:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
Of course they didn't mean it. They thought it was a synonym of 英语 Keep you believes and sleep well! Ooops! I forgot to ask: what is the function of 界in 世界语 ? Was 世语 not sufficient. Edited by remush on 09 November 2007 at 1:31pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| remush Tetraglot Groupie Belgium remush.beRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6056 days ago 79 posts - 94 votes Speaks: French*, Esperanto, English, Dutch Studies: German, Polish | Message 85 of 194 09 November 2007 at 3:24pm | IP Logged | |||||
... pleased to see that you can trust an Esperantist if he is a linguist. You may then hear Doctor Detlev Blanke speaking about the book "Lingvopolitiko kaj lingokulturo" at Pola Radio He is speaking after 11:00 minutes, during about 12:00. He has a pleasant German accent, and is a very funny guy I met in Florence. He reconciled me with the "linguists". If you want to hear well pronounced Esperanto, listen to the beginning of the mp3. The site of Pola Radio in Esperanto is http://www.polskieradio.pl/eo/ I hope you won't get nightmares... Edited by remush on 09 November 2007 at 3:27pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6731 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 86 of 194 09 November 2007 at 5:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
In fairness to Esperanto enthusiasts, there is also a reverse tendency for some people to get blue in the face because Esperanto is not a naturally evolved language and/or because it does not have a traditional culture behind it. One can always argue about "who started it", but a defensive reaction is natural whatever the history and can be seen in both the proponents and the detractors of this language. Good thing I am merely indifferent, at least for now. Edited by frenkeld on 09 November 2007 at 7:17pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6258 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 87 of 194 09 November 2007 at 6:46pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I am glad you find my posts relatively reasonable ;-)
As for students of Polish not promoting the Polish language to others... well, I know a guy who is completely into Icelandic and he does promote it everywhere. But I admit that this attitude is much more common among Esperanto speakers. Why? I can see two main reasons: 1. Polish will be fine even if no volunteer promotes it, because of its big amount of native speakers and also the Polish government's efforts to promote it (as the German government is promoting German, the French are promoting French, the Americans are promoting English and so on). Already the existence of a country where the majority of jobs will require you to know Polish draws some people. And with the resources of a government, any volunteer effort must seem tiny. National languages like German can have subsidised cultural centres all over the world, they can afford several weeks of nationwide TV and magazine ads if the world's interest in German seems to decline, and so on. Esperanto doesn't have any of that luxury. Being neutral comes at a price: no government or religious affiliation also means that there will be no big money coming in, apart from private donations and inheritances from rich Esperantists, of which there are also not all that many because unlike Latin, French and later English, Esperanto became the language of the lower social classes, or the middle class at best. One of the first big groups to embrace Esperanto between 1900 and 1930 were the workers, who desired international contacts and whom the professors and even the League of Nations proclaimed to be too stupid for that. They believed that communication with foreigners should be something left to the educated elites (as it had been for thousands of years) or even the governments, while Esperanto stood for the idea that everybody should be able to communicate with everybody else, because only that would lead to peace. If everybody in Nazi Germany had had personal contacts into Poland, how many do you think would have approved of the invasion? And how long would the propaganda lies have been able to last? It's hard to imagine nowadays how unusual it was at the time to have friends in or from other countries... But I digressed a lot. Not having a big rich brother to do the advertising and also (on purpose) no big community of native speakers to keep it up, standing alone against giants like English, Esperantists know that Esperanto might die if not for their own effort. Then, they also know that it's in their own hands to bring Esperanto closer to realising its ideal. 2. Imagine you try out a new recipe and you love it. Of course you want to share it with all your friends, so that they can enjoy it, too. Esperanto speakers feel like this, but on a much larger scale: they see language barriers, the millions of Asians investing many years and still failing to speak good English, the problem that even if you learn 10 languages there will still be a lot of countries of which you don't speak ANY of the official (administrative) languages (which the natives are most likely to be able to speak comfortably). They know the solution, they know it would save everybody a lot of time and money, they know it works, yet the world is unaware of it or dismisses it out of hand, usually because of prejudices that Esperanto speakers believe they could disspell. Esperantists are frustrated, like doctors forbidden to treat a patient who is visibly suffering.
To answer your unspoken question: on average, it is more enriching for me to meet Esperanto speakers than to meet English speakers. The simple reason is that Esperanto speakers are all linked by the "interna ideo"(internal idea). Actually the internal idea has never been defined, but the term refers to everything that can safely be assumed about you if you learn Esperanto: that you believe in peace, freedom, equal rights and equal respect for people no matter what nationality/race/religion they belong to... people with other beliefs (xenophobes, racists, ravid nationalists, supporters of regimes that censor foreign media...) could never be convinced to learn Esperanto. This already ensures that *no matter what* I will already have a basic understanding with anybody else who speaks Esperanto, whereas an ESL student may (and probably will) encounter at least a couple people with views that wouldn't fit this very basic criteria. But actually there's more to it: because of the nature and aim of Esperanto, it's also clear that the vast majority of Esperanto speakers will be people interested in learning about other cultures - and a big amount are interested in languages or linguistics, as that is a key reason for people to learn Esperanto, except for those people that come to Esperanto through mixed marriages, relatives/friends that speak Esperanto, an interest in ecological living or spiritualism. So on a roomfull of Esperanto speakers I can talk about foreign cultures and travelling with almost everybody and I can discuss languages with at least half. Typically that roomfull will also come from at least 10 different cultural backgrounds, which makes it even more interesting. In this sense, I can truthfully claim that it is more enriching to meet a random Esperanto speaker than to meet a random English (or German!) speaker. If you are already filtering the English speakers for people that closely match your interests, of course the odds are almost the same that you'll find the experience enriching. I say "almost" because in my experience Esperanto meetings for young people still have a special atmosphere to them, an openness, friendliness and easy camaraderie that I haven't experienced elsewhere. Edited by Sprachprofi on 09 November 2007 at 6:53pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Russianbear Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6563 days ago 358 posts - 422 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, Ukrainian Studies: Spanish | Message 88 of 194 09 November 2007 at 8:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Nice post, Sprachprofi.
While I do acknowledge that some esperantists (maybe including a few on this forum) may have been less eloquent in their enthusiasm than they could have been, I am nevertheless surprised to see how eagerly some people dismiss esperantists as a cult - or something very close to a cult. If some people are put off by the esperantists, I am starting to be put off by Esperanto critics - perhaps, to the point that I may take up the language sooner than I thought. Also, I find it strange than Esperanto gets so much flak on a forum that is supposed to be about languages. In my opinion, if one is seriously put off by the very notion of Esperanto, perhaps one is not as big an enthusiast of languages and communication as one thinks. Like Sprachprofi wrote, Esperanto doesn't have a government behind it. It is solely a product of collective good will of those who take their time to learn the language. I don't know if Esperanto will ever be the international language some people think it is supposed to be, but still, I have nothing but respect for the Esperanto community. And finally, just a thought: how do you know that any "natural" language - be it English, Chinese, Arabic or any other language - was not originally a product of a prehistoric Zamenhof, if we go back to the past far enough? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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