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Shippou
March 3rd, 2009, 08:03 AM
Hello... I am just intrigued if anyone here understands, better yet speak, this international language.

Honestly, I find this language very interesting, considering it has a very simple structure. I know I can't fully speak it well, as I am currently learning it myself.

MikeTheC
March 3rd, 2009, 08:14 AM
Good for you! I'm glad to hear you're trying to expand your mind.

Now, that being said, I've never really understood how Esperanto could be positioned to become a significant player in the international language scene. I mean, to all intents and purposes, English (which already is an amalgamation and melting-pot language) is the de-facto international language. Close behind it are French, Spanish and possibly Chinese. I'm not sure we as a species actually need an engineered language in addition to everything else we've already got.

Shippou
March 3rd, 2009, 08:52 AM
I think it is because of the language being simple and easy to learn, unlike English and other national languages with their own peculiarities and quirks. Well, I do not say that English is a bad language, but then it is because of US becoming a very powerful and influential nation that has put English into its position today (just like Greek and Latin was back).

Sorry for the litany there.

RichardLinx
March 3rd, 2009, 09:16 AM
I voted "What is Esperanto, anyway?" I just read most of the wikipedia article on it and think it's a very interesting Idea. (For other people who don't know, the idea behind Esperanto is an "International second language". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto) I may start devoting a little time to learning Esperanto in the future. It's only at an estimated 1.6 million speakers but imagine if it were to become an international second language. I wonder what kind of effect that would have on the entire world.
Very Interesting, thankyou for mentioning this. Maybe we should try and associate Esperanto more with Linux. Universal Language, Universal Operating System.

Nevon
March 3rd, 2009, 09:58 AM
I understand it fairly well, even if my vocabulary is very limited.

Erik Trybom
March 3rd, 2009, 10:21 AM
No, but I do speak English.

Esperanto is an interesting idea, but it fails by focusing on being easy to learn rather than being a good way to express oneself. I don't think "easy to learn" is a very important factor when building a successful language. It is much more important that the language is rich, colourful and easy to describe things in. I've seen the basics of Esperanto, and since I've studied Spanish I can even read a little, but I shudder to translate poetry into it.

English is rapidly becoming a lingua franca in more and more parts of the world, mostly due to historical reasons of course, but also because it's a language that has many words and is useful in many fields. I believe that any language that has evolved naturally has an edge over constructed languages because everything is there for a reason. Redundancy for example, "she likes ice cream", where the s doesn't bring any new information, is often eliminated in constructed languages. What they forget is that the added redundancy makes it easier to interpret a sentence which you didn't quite hear - was it you or her who liked ice cream? Since you said "likes", it must have been her.

To be honest I know too little about Esperanto to go on a rant like this. I just wanted to point out that there are many disadvantages with Esperanto as well, the main one being that very few people speak it.

DMcA
March 3rd, 2009, 10:45 AM
I think it is because of the language being simple and easy to learn, unlike English and other national languages with their own peculiarities and quirks. Well, I do not say that English is a bad language, but then it is because of US becoming a very powerful and influential nation that has put English into its position today (just like Greek and Latin was back).

Sorry for the litany there.

Err, you do realise that perhaps the most powerful Empire in history spoke English prior to the USA's rise to being the world's dominant superpower? Of course that's not to diminish the linguistic influence that the States has but there is a reason that English is spoken in North America.

With regards to Esperanto, it's a great idea in theory but the point of international languages is to communicate and it won't help you with that.

billgoldberg
March 3rd, 2009, 12:25 PM
I think it is because of the language being simple and easy to learn, unlike English and other national languages with their own peculiarities and quirks. Well, I do not say that English is a bad language, but then it is because of US becoming a very powerful and influential nation that has put English into its position today (just like Greek and Latin was back).

Sorry for the litany there.


The reason English is so widely spoken today is for the most part because of the British (and their colonies) and not the US (who only speaks English because of the British).

--

How long has this Esperanto thing been around?

How many people speak it?

--> Fail

Sporkman
March 3rd, 2009, 01:43 PM
Esperanto is like the metric system of languages.

Shippou
March 3rd, 2009, 06:23 PM
@DMcA and billgoldberg: Thanks for pointing out my mistake. (Yes, English originally came from Britain, spoken by the masses, popularized by Shakespeare... you get the idea.)

Also, thanks to Erik Trybom for pointing out the disadvantages of Esperanto and the advantages of using national languages like English. I was also intrigued by what RichardLinx have said: Maybe we should try and associate Esperanto more with Linux. Universal Language, Universal Operating System.

CarpKing
March 3rd, 2009, 06:34 PM
Esperanto is like the metric system of languages.

Except that the metric system is used by everyone except the U.S. and is much better than the Imperial system, while Esperanto has never caught on at all and has few benefits compared to other languages.

Sporkman
March 3rd, 2009, 06:40 PM
Except that the metric system is used by everyone except the U.S. and is much better than the Imperial system, while Esperanto has never caught on at all and has few benefits compared to other languages.

Isn't esperanto designed to be structured methodically, with none of the rule exceptions, special cases, etc that exist in older, established languages?

missbliss
March 3rd, 2009, 06:57 PM
I'd never heard of it until this moment but it just doesn't seem feasable. A language is dominant based on how dominant it's country is. Not so much on ease of use.

WatchingThePain
March 3rd, 2009, 08:21 PM
I would learn it if loads of people were speaking it, but I don't think that's the case. Thats what you get for making up your own language.

Sporkman
March 3rd, 2009, 08:35 PM
Thats what you get for making up your own language.

:lol:

CraigPaleo
March 3rd, 2009, 09:03 PM
I took a couple of on-line courses many years ago. I was able to read and write in Esperanto with the need to only occasionally look up a word. It's all but left me now.

I love the agglutinative nature of the language, which cuts down drastically on the root vocabulary.


http://www.esperanto.no/nje/eo/konkurso.php

jimi_hendrix
March 3rd, 2009, 09:15 PM
i know a little, i was looking at it online over the summer but since i never use it i am rusty (i like how the language is structured and there is next to no conjugation of verbs)

BobLand
March 3rd, 2009, 09:59 PM
English is the most popular language because of its culture - TV, movies, music, sports, technology, video games, Paris Hilton, etc.

Esperanto has no culture, nothing to associate with it, no "face." Hence, it's doom.

bobland

aaaantoine
March 3rd, 2009, 10:41 PM
The Lojban people say that Esperanto is for suckers. [citation needed]

WatchingThePain
March 3rd, 2009, 11:34 PM
Who are the Lojban people?

CarpKing
March 4th, 2009, 03:06 AM
Isn't esperanto designed to be structured methodically, with none of the rule exceptions, special cases, etc that exist in older, established languages?

It is designed to be more easily learned than natural languages, though because of the way it was created it only really succeeds at that for people who speak European languages. So for everyone outside Europe, Esperanto isn't much easier to learn than English and offers the opportunity to communicate with only a small number of people.

Although exceptions exist, historically when people speaking different languages have to communicate regularly, one existing language tends to dominate rather than a new one being created.

Grant A.
March 4th, 2009, 03:19 AM
@DMcA and billgoldberg: Thanks for pointing out my mistake. (Yes, English originally came from Britain, spoken by the masses, popularized by Shakespeare... you get the idea.)

Also, thanks to Erik Trybom for pointing out the disadvantages of Esperanto and the advantages of using national languages like English. I was also intrigued by what RichardLinx have said: Maybe we should try and associate Esperanto more with Linux. Universal Language, Universal Operating System.

Linux already has a language, it's called BASH. ;)

MarblePanther
March 4th, 2009, 03:28 AM
English is the most popular language because of its culture...Paris Hilton

bobland


Errrr.....must....keep dirty joke....inside......eeeek....

WatchingThePain
March 4th, 2009, 01:08 PM
Lol, what Paris speaks English so English is the main language?.

Anyway you guys don't forget that when you learn a language you are not just learning words..you are learning a culture.
I can say this because I have taken a language course and visited other countries.
When I was in Germany although most Germans can speak fluent English they refuse to. One of them said 'this is German soil so we only speak German here'.
Esperanto would have went down like a s*#t sandwich.
My point is what's the culture behind Esperanto?.

will1911a1
March 4th, 2009, 02:58 PM
I don't speak it and don't really feel the desire to learn.

I know some Japanese though.

SunnyRabbiera
March 4th, 2009, 03:22 PM
I only heard about it here and there, seems interesting but I have tried to learn other languages before and well..
not very good at it.

Erik Trybom
March 4th, 2009, 04:25 PM
I should have added a disclaimer to my earlier post: This quote is, in part, why I don't like Esperanto:


'It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Of course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well. It isn't only the synonyms; there are also the antonyms. After all, what justification is there for a word which is simply the opposite of some other word? A word contains its opposite in itself. Take "good", for instance. If you have a word like "good", what need is there for a word like "bad"? "Ungood" will do just as well -- better, because it's an exact opposite, which the other is not. Or again, if you want a stronger version of "good", what sense is there in having a whole string of vague useless words like "excellent" and "splendid" and all the rest of them? "Plusgood" covers the meaning, or "doubleplusgood" if you want something stronger still. Of course we use those forms already. but in the final version of Newspeak there'll be nothing else. In the end the whole notion of goodness and badness will be covered by only six words -- in reality, only one word. Don't you see the beauty of that, Winston? It was B.B.'s idea originally, of course,' he added as an afterthought.

Do you know where it's from? ;)

Sporkman
March 4th, 2009, 04:45 PM
I should have added a disclaimer to my earlier post: This quote is, in part, why I don't like Esperanto:



Do you know where it's from? ;)

1984, of course.

wmcbrine
March 4th, 2009, 05:16 PM
I mean, to all intents and purposes, English (which already is an amalgamation and melting-pot language) is the de-facto international language. Close behind it are French, Spanish and possibly Chinese.Don't forget Arabic -- spoken from Morocco to Iraq.

Chinese has a huge number of native speakers, but not many people speak it as a second language. It's not really "international" the way those others are.

I've had a copy of Incubus -- the only feature film made in Esperanto, starring William Shatner! -- on my shelf for a while, but I haven't watched it yet. So, if you ask "What's the culture of Esperanto?"... yeah, it's there, but it's pretty limited.

DMcA
March 4th, 2009, 09:03 PM
Lol, what Paris speaks English so English is the main language?.

Anyway you guys don't forget that when you learn a language you are not just learning words..you are learning a culture.
I can say this because I have taken a language course and visited other countries.
When I was in Germany although most Germans can speak fluent English they refuse to. One of them said 'this is German soil so we only speak German here'.
Esperanto would have went down like a s*#t sandwich.
My point is what's the culture behind Esperanto?.

What?? what part of Germany did you to? That doesn't match up with my experience of Germany or Germans at all even a little bit and I've been to Germany a lot. Not everyone in Germany speaks English but the majority have at least a basic grasp, far more than your average native english speaker does of their first foreign langauage at any rate, and well educated Germans usually all speak excellent English.

However, never once have I come across someone who wouldn't speak english because they were in Germany. I suspect the only people who said that were people associated with your language course or people who had been told only to talk to you in German because you were meant to be learning it. Germans usually assume english speakers can't speak german will therefore happily converse in english and many of them actively like doing so to help themselves practise.

In fact I find it a real problem when trying to improve my German. Last time I was there for three months but my language skills hardly improved at all because whenever I got into a conversation with someone, we'd usually switch to english fairly quickly. I'd tell people to speak to me in German but if you're actually trying to talk to someone properly it gets very tiresome very quickly when you know you'd both understand each other better in another language. I find it highly amusing when I walk into a fast food shop, place an order in German and every reply I get from the guy behind the counter is in flawless English. I mean, their english is definitely better than the people who staff the same fast food shops in Britain.

The sort of attitude you mention is far more prevalent in France in my experience. There, people don't speak english quite as well as in Germany but even if they do some will refuse to use it when english speakers don't know any french.

Grant A.
March 4th, 2009, 11:17 PM
I should have added a disclaimer to my earlier post: This quote is, in part, why I don't like Esperanto:



Do you know where it's from? ;)

Well, esperanto is simple so that people of more than one language can communicate with one another. If you want to avoid things that were in 1984, quit using pneumatic tubes, camera phones, and video messaging, because B.B. might sneak up on you in the night!

Faolan84
March 5th, 2009, 04:18 AM
Why use a constructed language for international use. A constructed language will never have the full spectrum of one that came through existience through the process of evolution. Instead I would propose that we use a dead language or one that hase ancient roots. We could revitialse the lexicon -- adding to it if necessary then just make it required knoweldge to recieve a diploma from a public institution.

And it's not like there is a shortage of dead or antiquitated languges either:
+ Sanskrit -- very organised grammar structure too
+ Sumerian languages
+ Egyptian
+ Latin -- another favorite. large lexicon. simple but descriptive grammar structure
+ Hebrew -- I hear it's fairly easy to learn
+ Greek -- One of the oldest continuously spoken languages

Or if you wanted a language to use that has no indoeuropean ties you could always designate a Native American language as a world language.

Anyways, as far as constructed languages go I think Quenya is one of the best. Tolkien had some good ideas about how language should be formed. I'm actually thinking of learning it for the heck of it.

Grant A.
March 5th, 2009, 04:46 AM
+ Hebrew -- I hear it's fairly easy to learn


That's the official language of Israel along with Arabic.

And well, as for all of the others, Esperanto was made by combining factors of all (or most) Indo-European languages to make a very simple and easy to learn language for Europeans, which TBH, the EU does need it the most due to the vast majority of languages its member states have. North America and South America could use it aswell, since the northern half of North America is dominated by English (save for Creole and French), while the Americas host a large amount of countries that speak other languages, such as: Dutch, Portuguese, etc., and could really need a simple pidgin such as this to communicate. I could easily see this as a nice commodity to Western Civilization. Although a language that connects all languages would be nice, this will have to do considering that Indo-European languages are the most diverse in a small area. Furthermore, Latin and Greek can't be used due to the fact that Greek's & Latin's words and syntax are very alien to Non-Germanic and Non-Romance language speakers in Europe. Actually, because Germanic languages' verbs do not conjugate, Romance languages are hard to begin with (save for English speakers, due to the fact that 50% or more of English uses Latin/French based words).

Esperanto is the only truly successful pidgin other than Creole that seems to have a shot at the big time. It has even won endorsements from the original Ayatollah of Iran, and both Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

I was kindly directed to a lovely tutorial website by the people in ##esperanto on freenode. You can find it here: http://en.lernu.net/ And it even has pages in different languages so that you could learn it in your own native language. It's quite cool. :D

Firestem4
March 5th, 2009, 08:55 AM
This may be a moot point but I just wanted to add that, as someone had previous said English is an amalgamation of languages that evolved over hundreds of years. It contains words, syntax, roots, and many other grammar specific objects from Many types of evolved languages from Early Germanic, Latin, and Greek, (among others). All of which formed the Anglo-Saxon language (What we call today Old English).

This melting pot of words is one of the reason english is so highly popular (In addition to Brittain's expansion during their Imperial reign.) But it has a little bit of every language.

I'm not really sure what to think with concerns to a constructed language. I have nothing against it. And my personal interests rely in German (as it is my heritage).

But...for anyone who wants to take a long walk down a short road. check out Klingon =P

Darkhack
March 5th, 2009, 06:32 PM
I'm actually in the process of learning a language called Ido. It is based on Esperanto but includes a number of improvements that make the language even simpler. In fact, the creator of Esperanto, Zamenhof, has acknowledged a lot of these changes as being beneficiary but was unable to implement them into Esperanto due to other factors such as resistance from current speakers and the fact that the language had already been standardized and they didn't want to put it into a state of "constant reform".

While the the argument of "constant reform" does hold water, I don't think that this fear should cause us to completely ignore well known problems of a language. What makes a language good can be very subjective but there were a lot of objective problems with Esperanto and Ido improves upon those and now that Ido itself is standardized, one no longer has to worry about the constant reform problem. Here are some of the major improvements.


Adjectives in Ido do not 'agree' with the nouns they qualify (the same way English works). In Esperanto, adjectives have to agree in number.
Ido eliminates the obligatory use of the accusative ending -n in the majority of cases where a verb has a direct object.
Ido uses only Latin characters and has the same alphabet as English. This makes it easier for typing and is ASCII compatible. Esperanto uses unusual characters only found in unicode which slows down one's typing.
Eliminates combinations of consonants which cause unnecessary difficulty. Examples: eksciti, eksedzo. Those words do not exist in Ido.
Nouns are gender neutral. Esperanto assumes the masculine and adds an affix for feminine. In Ido, the word is neutral and can mean either gender. One must apply an affix to make it specifically masculine or feminine and does not assume masculine by default. For example, Esperanto would have a word for brother and than an affix for sister. In Ido, they use a word like sibling and then add an affix to specify brother or sister.
In Esperanto, all pronouns end in -i. In scenarios such as a crowded setting or when speaking to someone with a thicker accent, this makes the pronouns harder to distinguish. Pronouns like 'mi' and 'ni' would be difficult to tell apart when speaking on the telephone. Ido avoids pronouns which rhyme or sound too much alike.
Ido has a gender neutral pronoun (lu). Think about how many times you've typed he/she or s/he in English and wished for a word like this.
Certain affixes in Esperanto have more than one meaning depending on whether they are being used with a noun or a verb. Example: the suffix -ado.
Simpler negation. Many consider the fact that prepending 'mal' to a word in Esperanto is an advantage but it does have a few draw backs. It can create unnecessarily long words which are hard to pronounce. It gets even worse when you also have to add a suffix to produce the word. The word for 'trouble' in Esperanto is 'maltrankviligas'. In Ido, it's 'trublas'. You can still negate words with a prefix in Ido. That means you lose none of the advantages while still eliminating the complex words.


Because of these improvements, I prefer Ido over Esperanto. Yes, a language can get stuck in a constant reform state, but Ido is now standardized and is a better Esperanto. Unfortunately, many Esperantists are very attached to their choice of language and resist Ido. As such, it has a much smaller following. I really hope this changes in the future. The statistics I've heard are that Esperanto has between 100,000 and 2 million speakers. Less popular languages are very difficult to measure in popularity which is why the estimates on Esperanto vary so much, but with Ido, I haven't heard of a single stat that puts it above 50,000 and Wikipedia cites the number of speakers as less than 5,000. I have hard time believing the number of Ido speakers is THAT low.

I imagine it's just hard to measure because of it's small popularity and the fact that it's international as oppose to natural languages that exist in cultures. Counting the number of speakers for Navajo and Zulu are probably easier since you can go to locations with a concentrated number of speakers and do a census. Ido doesn't have that advantage.

wmcbrine
March 5th, 2009, 06:52 PM
Ido has a gender neutral pronoun (lu). Think about how many times you've typed he/she or s/he in English and wished for a word like this.English has a gender-neutral pronoun: "it". It's just that people don't like applying it to people. :)

MikeTheC
March 5th, 2009, 07:20 PM
I still am of the opinion that this whole thing is a solution in search of a problem to correct.

Besides, it's much more fun to hear people speaking in Klingonese (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klingon_language).

Grant A.
March 5th, 2009, 11:22 PM
...

Well, very good arguements, but that sounds like a language that is easiest for English speakers to learn. Sure it may be easy for you, but how easy is it for someone speaking another Indo-European language? Ido has many of the problems that English gives to non-native speakers, such as gender neutral words, no adjective-noun agreements, etc. These may seem like nothing for Germanic language speakers, but Greek & Latin based language speakers have a lot of difficultly picking up things such as these. Also, the special non-ASCII characters were added to make sure that every sound in the language had a unique image.

I wish you luck learning Ido, but a simpler language for one person isn't always good for another person. From what I can tell, Ido is less of a universal Indo-European deriviate, and more of a Germanic-based language.

Although, I do wish you the best of luck in learning Ido.

Note: There is a neutral pronoun in English, "They" can be used as both a singular and plural neutral pronoun, just be sure to conjugate the be verbs in the plural form. ;)

However, for inorganic objects, or objects with no clearly defined sex, "it" is the a neutral pronoun to use, and it conjugates with the singular form of the be verbs.

Shippou
March 6th, 2009, 01:01 AM
Isn't esperanto designed to be structured methodically, with none of the rule exceptions, special cases, etc that exist in older, established languages?

Yes. That's why it is so simple and easy to learn.

E.g.:

all nouns end in o.
plural nouns end in j.
adjectives end in a.
present tense verbs end in as.

you get the idea.

e.g. "I am eating pears."
Mi estas manĝas persikojn.

Shippou
March 6th, 2009, 01:18 AM
I'm actually in the process of learning a language called Ido. It is based on Esperanto but includes a number of improvements that make the language even simpler. In fact, the creator of Esperanto, Zamenhof, has acknowledged a lot of these changes as being beneficiary but was unable to implement them into Esperanto due to other factors such as resistance from current speakers and the fact that the language had already been standardized and they didn't want to put it into a state of "constant reform".

While the the argument of "constant reform" does hold water, I don't think that this fear should cause us to completely ignore well known problems of a language. What makes a language good can be very subjective but there were a lot of objective problems with Esperanto and Ido improves upon those and now that Ido itself is standardized, one no longer has to worry about the constant reform problem. Here are some of the major improvements.


Adjectives in Ido do not 'agree' with the nouns they qualify (the same way English works). In Esperanto, adjectives have to agree in number.
Ido eliminates the obligatory use of the accusative ending -n in the majority of cases where a verb has a direct object.
Ido uses only Latin characters and has the same alphabet as English. This makes it easier for typing and is ASCII compatible. Esperanto uses unusual characters only found in unicode which slows down one's typing.
Eliminates combinations of consonants which cause unnecessary difficulty. Examples: eksciti, eksedzo. Those words do not exist in Ido.
Nouns are gender neutral. Esperanto assumes the masculine and adds an affix for feminine. In Ido, the word is neutral and can mean either gender. One must apply an affix to make it specifically masculine or feminine and does not assume masculine by default. For example, Esperanto would have a word for brother and than an affix for sister. In Ido, they use a word like sibling and then add an affix to specify brother or sister.
In Esperanto, all pronouns end in -i. In scenarios such as a crowded setting or when speaking to someone with a thicker accent, this makes the pronouns harder to distinguish. Pronouns like 'mi' and 'ni' would be difficult to tell apart when speaking on the telephone. Ido avoids pronouns which rhyme or sound too much alike.
Ido has a gender neutral pronoun (lu). Think about how many times you've typed he/she or s/he in English and wished for a word like this.
Certain affixes in Esperanto have more than one meaning depending on whether they are being used with a noun or a verb. Example: the suffix -ado.
Simpler negation. Many consider the fact that prepending 'mal' to a word in Esperanto is an advantage but it does have a few draw backs. It can create unnecessarily long words which are hard to pronounce. It gets even worse when you also have to add a suffix to produce the word. The word for 'trouble' in Esperanto is 'maltrankviligas'. In Ido, it's 'trublas'. You can still negate words with a prefix in Ido. That means you lose none of the advantages while still eliminating the complex words.


Because of these improvements, I prefer Ido over Esperanto. Yes, a language can get stuck in a constant reform state, but Ido is now standardized and is a better Esperanto. Unfortunately, many Esperantists are very attached to their choice of language and resist Ido. As such, it has a much smaller following. I really hope this changes in the future. The statistics I've heard are that Esperanto has between 100,000 and 2 million speakers. Less popular languages are very difficult to measure in popularity which is why the estimates on Esperanto vary so much, but with Ido, I haven't heard of a single stat that puts it above 50,000 and Wikipedia cites the number of speakers as less than 5,000. I have hard time believing the number of Ido speakers is THAT low.

I imagine it's just hard to measure because of it's small popularity and the fact that it's international as oppose to natural languages that exist in cultures. Counting the number of speakers for Navajo and Zulu are probably easier since you can go to locations with a concentrated number of speakers and do a census. Ido doesn't have that advantage.

Good arguments there.

As I see it, Ido is far more simpler than Esperanto. But then. I think the resistance comes from the fact that Ido was introduced somewhat later than Esperanto, and it is a modified version of Esperanto. Therefore, the veteran Esperanto speakers will resist it and view it as a "renegade" language.

As an analogy: what will you feel if something unique to the Linux world is imported over to the Windows and Mac worlds? A good example is our very own package repositories.

Just an analogy though.

MarblePanther
March 6th, 2009, 02:33 AM
English has a gender-neutral pronoun: "it". It's just that people don't like applying it to people. :)

There is also "one".
e.g.
'One may find that the air is thinner at higher elevations'.



Note: There is a neutral pronoun in English, "They" can be used as both a singular and plural neutral pronoun...

"They" should not be used as a singular pronoun. It is only plural.
e.g. 'Someone walked to the bar. They were thirsty'. <--This is wrong.

Grant A.
March 6th, 2009, 03:22 AM
There is also "one".
e.g.
'One may find that the air is thinner at higher elevations'.



"They" should not be used as a singular pronoun. It is only plural.
e.g. 'Someone walked to the bar. They were thirsty'. <--This is wrong.

Actually, you're wrong there, that is correct English. "They" isn't taught in many foreign schools due to difficulties in translation. Perhaps it's just a Texas English thing, but everyone I know says that it is correct grammar, even all of my past teachers.

MarblePanther
March 6th, 2009, 03:24 AM
Actually, you're wrong there, that is correct English. "They" isn't taught in many foreign schools due to difficulties in translation. Perhaps it's just a Texas English thing, but everyone I know says that it is correct grammar, even all of my past teachers.

My college professor would disagree with you.

It is not--as far as I'm concerned--correct.

You are right, it is used all over this country. Go to England and you'll find nobody says "they" in the singular context.
I believe it arose out of the gender rights debacle in the seventies to be politically correct.<---this may just be speculation I've heard.

Here is a little snippet I found: http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/they.html


Americans seldom avail themselves of the otherwise very handy British “one” to avoid specifying gender because it sounds to our ears rather pretentious

MikeTheC
March 6th, 2009, 07:52 AM
My college professor would disagree with you.

It is not--as far as I'm concerned--correct.

>snip<

Here is a little snippet I found: http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/they.html
Two things:

1. Simply saying "It's wrong because, as far as I'm concerned, it's wrong" is circular logic at best. What makes you right?

2. Your "little snippet" doesn't support you. It actually supports Grant's position.


Also, don't go around so glibly putting words in your professors' mouths. My experience suggests presumption is the lesser part of valor and the greater part of ignorance.

"They" is appropriate to use as a singular third-person pronoun. Here are my references:

Wikipedia: They (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They)
Dictionary.com: They (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/they?qsrc=2888)
Merriam-Webster.com: They (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/they)

Also consider...


The Concise Oxford Dictionary, Ninth Edition, Page 1448

they pron. (obj. them; poss. their, theirs) 1 the people, animals or things previously named or in question (pl. of HE, SHE, IT.) 2 people in general (they say we are wrong). 3 those in authority (they have raised the fees). 4 disp. as a third person sing. indefinite pronoun meaning 'he or she' (anyone can come if they want to; if you have a friend you want to invite, feel free to bring them along). [Middle English thei, obj. theim, from Old Norse their nominative pl. masc., theim dative pl., of sá 'that']

Darkhack
March 6th, 2009, 05:56 PM
Languages evolve. Especially a language like English. I've always been taught that 'they' is plural, but in the past few decades it has evolved to the point where almost everybody uses it as a gender neutral pronoun in the singular. It has become so common that some english professors will now consider it correct grammar. I use 'they' in the singular all the time to avoid the exact problem I spoke of earlier.

So in a way, you are both correct. The old usage of 'they' is plural only, but its usage has changed so much with the general population that the rule is relaxed and in an "in-between" state of whether or not it is actually a rule. Older textbooks will say it is, newer ones are less likely too.

That's not to say I encourage people to butcher English just because they feel like it, but I find using 'they' in the singular solves the lack of a gender-neutral pronoun for people (calling someone 'it' is considered very rude). So I think it's an improvement.

Or maybe we could return to old-english and use 'thy' and 'thou'. :)

As for using 'one' as a singular pronoun. It doesn't really work. Given your example, this sentence wouldn't make a lot of sense.
"Someone walked into the bar. One were thirsty"

We typically only use 'one' to refer to a generic person. We would say, "One must always buckle their seat belt." In the above sentences I've chosen a particular person as my subject, so it doesn't work.

Darkhack
March 6th, 2009, 06:46 PM
Well, very good arguements, but that sounds like a language that is easiest for English speakers to learn. Sure it may be easy for you, but how easy is it for someone speaking another Indo-European language?

It's probably easier for them than someone speaking English. Ido is based off Esperanto which in turn uses a lot of Latin root words. Spanish, Italian, French, etc, tend to use Latin root words that are closer to the original form than English.

In other words, those speaking a European language other than English are likely to do better with Ido. The main group of people who would see a bias in Ido are Asians. But Ido was designed for simplicity and the western languages tend to be simpler. That's not to trash eastern languages, it's just that in terms of grammar and writing, western languages have the upper hand in simplicity.


Ido has many of the problems that English gives to non-native speakers, such as gender neutral words, no adjective-noun agreements, etc.

You consider those problems!? I consider that to be a huge advantage. Try learning Polish which has seven genders and tell me which is easier. The primary reason I'm learning Ido is because of these massive advantages. It makes learning and using the language much simpler. Why do you see a problem with it? Is it because they "aren't used to it"? Even if you're used to genders and number with your nouns/adjectives, I imagine you'd get over it very quickly. Or is there some other reason you frown upon it?


Also, the special non-ASCII characters were added to make sure that every sound in the language had a unique image.

True. I really admire the idea of "one character, one sound". It makes a lot of sense and is very elegant. However I'll accept digraphs if it makes typing easier (which it does) and the fact that it uses ASCII means it's compatible with nearly all keyboards. It's a trade off I'm willing to make, but I understand fully why Esperanto avoided digraphs.


I wish you luck learning Ido, but a simpler language for one person isn't always good for another person. From what I can tell, Ido is less of a universal Indo-European deriviate, and more of a Germanic-based language.

Interlingua (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlingua) seems to be something you'd like better. I recognize that Ido does have a bias. I disagree that this bias makes it hard for Indo-European speakers to learn, but I do agree that a bias exists.


Although, I do wish you the best of luck in learning Ido.

Thanks. :D


I think the resistance comes from the fact that Ido was introduced somewhat later than Esperanto, and it is a modified version of Esperanto. Therefore, the veteran Esperanto speakers will resist it and view it as a "renegade" language.

That's true. I understand those feelings 100%. However, I believe that Ido's improvements are worthwhile. Obviously, one does not want to be too frivolous in forking a language, but I think Ido's reasons for doing so made sense.

wmcbrine
March 6th, 2009, 06:54 PM
4 disp. as a third person sing. indefinite pronoun meaning 'he or she' (anyone can come if they want to; if you have a friend you want to invite, feel free to bring them along).What's the meaning of "disp." in the key? I'm assuming it's "disparaged".


Or maybe we could return to old-english and use 'thy' and 'thou'.That's the old second-person singular, that's been displaced by "you", originally only the second-person plural. Perhaps someday, "he" and "she" will be displaced by "they" in the same way.

CarpKing
March 6th, 2009, 07:14 PM
Or maybe we could return to old-english and use 'thy' and 'thou'.

That's actually early modern English. Old English looks pretty much like misspelled German.

DMcA
March 6th, 2009, 09:06 PM
Latin -- another favorite. large lexicon. simple but descriptive grammar structure

What? I assume you've never studied it in any depth. 'Simple' and 'Grammar' should never been used in the same sentence when referring to Latin.


Actually, because Germanic languages' verbs do not conjugate

Err, what?


Go to England and you'll find nobody says "they" in the singular context.

********

edit: that's a swear word now?? anyway, the quote is nonsense


Americans seldom avail themselves of the otherwise very handy British “one” to avoid specifying gender because it sounds to our ears rather pretentious

No one in Britain says 'one' either because it sounds extremely pretentious. I use it very rarely and only when it's absolutely necessary to be unambiguous.

jackmcslay
March 6th, 2009, 09:48 PM
It sounds interesting, tho I'm trying to focus on japanese right now.

seems to be a good languaga for relatonal learning too, mixes a bunch of languages and is simpler than latin

Darkhack
March 6th, 2009, 10:43 PM
No one in Britain says 'one' either because it sounds extremely pretentious. I use it very rarely and only when it's absolutely necessary to be unambiguous.

Since when is using 'one' pretentious? I use it all the time. In fact, I use the word 'one' for the sole purpose of avoiding sounding pretentious. For example, if a friend is doing something stupid I would say "one should never drink and drive" to refer to all people in general instead of singling them out by using the generic 'you'. If I single them out with 'you' it seems like I am talking down to them. Using 'one' avoids that.

In the end though, it doesn't really matter since 'one' and the generic 'you' can almost always be used interchangeably. Sometimes I use 'you' generically, and other times I use 'one'.

chriskin
March 6th, 2009, 10:56 PM
by the way, i use "one" a lot as well

Faolan84
March 6th, 2009, 11:05 PM
What? I assume you've never studied it in any depth. 'Simple' and 'Grammar' should never been used in the same sentence when referring to Latin.

I've studied Latin to a fairly great extent and have found it to be a very easy language. In fact, I've delved into Spanish which many say is easy and found it to be much more difficult than Latin due to exceptions and levels of "politeness" in speech. Latin on the other hand was very structured and predictable.

It's not like it's that hard to remember 50-odd endings for nouns and verbs. After a few days of study it just comes natural.

DMcA
March 7th, 2009, 11:18 AM
Since when is using 'one' pretentious? I use it all the time. In fact, I use the word 'one' for the sole purpose of avoiding sounding pretentious. For example, if a friend is doing something stupid I would say "one should never drink and drive" to refer to all people in general instead of singling them out by using the generic 'you'. If I single them out with 'you' it seems like I am talking down to them. Using 'one' avoids that.

In the end though, it doesn't really matter since 'one' and the generic 'you' can almost always be used interchangeably. Sometimes I use 'you' generically, and other times I use 'one'.

The argument put forward earlier was that 'one' sounds pretentious to americans but that brits use it far more. I'm disputing that because, as a british person, I would find it extremely odd if someone used it regularly in conversation, it would catch my ear if it were used at all really. The only time you regularly hear the use of the word is when the queen or someone is making a speech on the Radio and that's usually to refer to herself. Even within the upper classes it's not used often, at least not conversationally between young people - I do mix with quite a lot of posh young brits.

I suspect you make some sort of semi-concious effort to use the word because you prefer being precise, which is fine. I'd be surprised if it was used extensively in america but I've never been there so I suppose I shouldn't comment. And I agree it is almost always interchangeable with 'you', although not when used in the royal sense of course.



by the way, i use "one" a lot as well

Are you a native speaker? I'm curious as to how it's taught in other countries, especially when the first language has a direct translation that is in far more common usage such as 'man' in German. I rarely hear Germans say 'one' so I guess they're usually taught to say 'you' instead.

DMcA
March 7th, 2009, 11:31 AM
I've studied Latin to a fairly great extent and have found it to be a very easy language. In fact, I've delved into Spanish which many say is easy and found it to be much more difficult than Latin due to exceptions and levels of "politeness" in speech. Latin on the other hand was very structured and predictable.

It's not like it's that hard to remember 50-odd endings for nouns and verbs. After a few days of study it just comes natural.

When you say it comes naturally after a few days I do hope you're exaggerating. Maybe if you have a Classics degree? I studied Latin for 5 years and the more one studies the language the more complicities and intricacies one discovers. 50-odd endings is scratching the surface, Latin is full of irregular words and exceptions to the rules. These are meant to follow their own rules but then there's exceptions to exceptions as well of course. And that's not even going into all the linguistic constructions that have other rules and yet more exceptions.

Try reading some classic latin prose or better some poetry, like Catullus maybe. Then tell me it's easy. The skill with which the Latin poets used the language is sometimes quite breathtaking.

chriskin
March 7th, 2009, 01:02 PM
Are you a native speaker? I'm curious as to how it's taught in other countries, especially when the first language has a direct translation that is in far more common usage such as 'man' in German. I rarely hear Germans say 'one' so I guess they're usually taught to say 'you' instead.


i'm not a native speaker but i was taught how to speak by a teacher who prefers everything to be said the British way - since he was from Britain himself. it is not like i am trying to use it either ; if you were to search through my posts you would find it more than ten times.

the direct translation in greek is not used that often, yet it does seem a little like "one"

pol666
March 7th, 2009, 01:41 PM
hahaha, it's very difficult to me speak english, I don't think that I can talking in other idiom.

(I wrote this phrase in 1 minute, I'm a loser LOL)

chriskin
March 7th, 2009, 01:42 PM
how come and you have 960 posts if you cannot speak english well? :O

Grant A.
March 7th, 2009, 06:40 PM
The argument put forward earlier was that 'one' sounds pretentious to americans but that brits use it far more.

Remember that the U.S. hosts a lot of different dialects of English due to its large size. What's said in one part of the country, isn't always true for another part.

Ex: "Y'all" (sometimes spelt "ya'll") is a very common way to say "you guys" in the South, but it is replaced by "yous guyses" in the Northern Midwest.

keynell
March 7th, 2009, 07:02 PM
I've been learning esperanto, and Ubuntu's flexibility with language certainly helps!

Faolan84
March 7th, 2009, 07:24 PM
I don't have a classics degree (history and philosophy were my majors with a focus on India and the Orient), I just like Latin. Maybe I've studied it so much in high school and college that it seems easy. I held the highest grades consistently for Latin class. Maybe I was Roman in a former life? :P Also, I enjoy poetry over prose: my prose studies is quite limited. And yes, I am aware of the special forms, but they are fairly predicable.

Anyways, I plan on eventually learning Sanskrit someday so I can read the Vedas and Gita in their original form -- assuming there is much difference between the languages.

MikeTheC
March 7th, 2009, 08:15 PM
Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combination, I always say... ;)

All this effort and focus on Ido and Esperanto seems very curious to me. Isn't the main purpose of learning a language (beyond the aspect of it being some kind of intellectual challenge) the ability to communicate with others? That being the case, since the world is quite obviously neither bent upon learning Esperanto/Ido nor even really learning any one single "natural" language (for lack of a better way of describing English, French, German, Japanese, etc., etc.) isn't it basically a waste of time, effort and energy to learn one of these other "constructed" languages?

I mean, what's the difference between learning Esperanto, Ido, Klingon, Quenya, Telerin, Adűnaic, Valarin, or any of the many other Middle-Earth languages constructed by Tolkien? One could arguably take any of these languages and adopt them as a standard, fleshing them out as necessary to make them 100% usable by anyone. Yet, you don't see that happening. By no means am I trying to be either an English snob or an American snob, and had things historically gone differently than they did, this could be a whole different discussion, but wouldn't it just make sense, if this "standardization" is as valuable as many people make it out to be, to just make American English the standard language of the world? English itself, in it's many divergent forms, is as near to being a "universal standard" as any language has ever been in the history of the world, and certainly of greater global scope than Latin, Greek, or the rest of the "classical empires of old".

DMcA
March 7th, 2009, 10:06 PM
Remember that the U.S. hosts a lot of different dialects of English due to its large size. What's said in one part of the country, isn't always true for another part.


Ex: "Y'all" (sometimes spelt "ya'll") is a very common way to say "you guys" in the South, but it is replaced by "yous guyses" in the Northern Midwest.

Of course, the same is true in Britain as well, probably even more so, despite its size.

My point is that in Britain, anywhere in Britain, the 'one' is very uncommon, unless one is counting, naturally.

emshains
March 7th, 2009, 10:36 PM
It was made to use in the internet. Then they realised there was the english language, thus realizing the simple fact, that they have just failed.

CarpKing
March 7th, 2009, 11:14 PM
had things historically gone differently than they did, this could be a whole different discussion

Actually, I find it more likely that regardless of the path of history this would probably be the exact same discussion, except that it would be taking place in some other language and discussing whether that language was enough of a de facto standard to make constructed languages irrelevant.

Grant A.
March 7th, 2009, 11:46 PM
Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combination, I always say... ;)

All this effort and focus on Ido and Esperanto seems very curious to me. Isn't the main purpose of learning a language (beyond the aspect of it being some kind of intellectual challenge) the ability to communicate with others? That being the case, since the world is quite obviously neither bent upon learning Esperanto/Ido nor even really learning any one single "natural" language (for lack of a better way of describing English, French, German, Japanese, etc., etc.) isn't it basically a waste of time, effort and energy to learn one of these other "constructed" languages?

I mean, what's the difference between learning Esperanto, Ido, Klingon, Quenya, Telerin, Adűnaic, Valarin, or any of the many other Middle-Earth languages constructed by Tolkien? One could arguably take any of these languages and adopt them as a standard, fleshing them out as necessary to make them 100% usable by anyone. Yet, you don't see that happening. By no means am I trying to be either an English snob or an American snob, and had things historically gone differently than they did, this could be a whole different discussion, but wouldn't it just make sense, if this "standardization" is as valuable as many people make it out to be, to just make American English the standard language of the world? English itself, in it's many divergent forms, is as near to being a "universal standard" as any language has ever been in the history of the world, and certainly of greater global scope than Latin, Greek, or the rest of the "classical empires of old".

Well, the problem with English is that it is a very, very, borked language. It doesn't follow it's own rules half of the time, and is a very difficult language to learn (current average for the amount of time to pick it up entirely is 7 years) due to it's unequal distributions of Germanic, Romance, and Greek words. However, Esperanto only takes a year to master.

Redache
March 8th, 2009, 12:51 AM
Well, the problem with English is that it is a very, very, borked language. It doesn't follow it's own rules half of the time, and is a very difficult language to learn (current average for the amount of time to pick it up entirely is 7 years) due to it's unequal distributions of Germanic, Romance, and Greek words. However, Esperanto only takes a year to master.

I completely agree that English is a fairly damaged language. It's my 2nd Language, although I speak it like it was my first .This is because I'm from Wales and I learned Welsh as my first Language. There is next to no similarity between both languages on a Spoken Level, but in the last 50 or so years the Welsh Academics have made the written language more compliant with an English structure. I think this is probably done to aid learning as Welsh can be cumbersome to Learn (Complex Gramatical rules that are difficult to explain and even harder to learn). I did Welsh at A-Level and we studied what is now defined as "Old Welsh" Which was based on texts from around the 11th Century which was interesting if compared with how Welsh is now, back then the Alphabet was completely different, due mostly to it being a purer Celtic Language, and none of the words were similar to what they are now.

I think that being able to speak 2 languages from the get go has helped me pick up bits of other languages and I plan to finally finish learning my German as I have let it slide alot since leaving School.

I find language interesting and I'm slightly obsessed with alternate cultures to my own.

I also feel very strongly that English should not become an International Language as it is built with far too many redundancies, we have more than one word for everything, which for somebody who comes from a contextual language (say German) it can be infurating to learn our lexicon.

An interesting side note; because I'm from Wales and I learned English after starting to learn Welsh, whilst I have a Welsh accent to my word forming I do not use a regional dialect, which I didn't notice until I moved to London. I guess I could say as English is my Second Language it is my "Academic" language as I have learned to speak it from books rather than with my parents or grandparents (My grandfather couldn't speak much English).

Shippou
March 8th, 2009, 02:47 AM
Two things:

1. Simply saying "It's wrong because, as far as I'm concerned, it's wrong" is circular logic at best. What makes you right?

2. Your "little snippet" doesn't support you. It actually supports Grant's position.


Also, don't go around so glibly putting words in your professors' mouths. My experience suggests presumption is the lesser part of valor and the greater part of ignorance.

"They" is appropriate to use as a singular third-person pronoun. Here are my references:

Wikipedia: They (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They)
Dictionary.com: They (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/they?qsrc=2888)
Merriam-Webster.com: They (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/they)

Also consider...


The Concise Oxford Dictionary, Ninth Edition, Page 1448

they pron. (obj. them; poss. their, theirs) 1 the people, animals or things previously named or in question (pl. of HE, SHE, IT.) 2 people in general (they say we are wrong). 3 those in authority (they have raised the fees). 4 disp. as a third person sing. indefinite pronoun meaning 'he or she' (anyone can come if they want to; if you have a friend you want to invite, feel free to bring them along). [Middle English thei, obj. theim, from Old Norse their nominative pl. masc., theim dative pl., of sá 'that']

"They" can be also used as a collective noun, right? (yeah, collective pronoun, if you would like). Therefore it can be used as a singular pronoun in its collective interpretation.

This is only my opinion; don't lean too much on it. :)

Shippou
March 8th, 2009, 03:00 AM
I've studied Latin to a fairly great extent and have found it to be a very easy language. In fact, I've delved into Spanish which many say is easy and found it to be much more difficult than Latin due to exceptions and levels of "politeness" in speech. Latin on the other hand was very structured and predictable.

It's not like it's that hard to remember 50-odd endings for nouns and verbs. After a few days of study it just comes natural.

I think you are talking about Classical Latin (or maybe Modern Latin or Pidgin Latin or Dog Latin or whatever). I am not an expert on languages (that's why I am cautious on posting about things in this thread), but then I do think Latin in itself is a complex language, esp. during the times when there is the difference between idioma and grammatica (remember the first death of Latin?)

Of course, you can always say that there are other languages more complex than Latin, e.g. Sanskrit and Egyptian Hieroglyphics, and to some extent, Greek. But then I do think that this is all about our preferences and the way we are taught about languages... patterns help, right?

After all, almost all European languages are derived from Latin. (Remember the word "almost").

Btw, what do you think if Mandarin were one of the international languages today? It was proposed to be one in the past...

Oh yeah, just an FYI, here are the other proposed international languages:

Interlingua
Solresol
Volapük
Latino sine Flexione

More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auxiliary_language

Darkhack
March 8th, 2009, 03:59 AM
All this effort and focus on Ido and Esperanto seems very curious to me. Isn't the main purpose of learning a language (beyond the aspect of it being some kind of intellectual challenge) the ability to communicate with others?

Yes, but a constructed language is far easier to learn than a natural one. Wouldn't you agree that an international language be as simple to learn as possible? The current natural languages don't fit that description.

However, there are other reasons to learn a language, as you mentioned with the intellectual challenge. The primary reason I'm learning Ido is not because I somehow think it will catch on as an international language with love and peace and all that hippie stuff, but because I've always wanted to learn a second language but was frustrated by how difficult Spanish was. I live in the United States, so Spanish is the most logical second language here. I felt that learning all the verb forms was a complete waste of time since I knew it wasn't necessary. I even grew to hate my own native language for all the inconsistencies in it. I'm learning Ido because it's probably the easiest language to learn in the world and because Ido's grammar and overall structure models my thoughts almost perfectly. Ido feels like a language I would have designed if I were creating one. I enjoy expressing myself in Ido. The whole learning experience thus far (less than a week) has been very pleasant. I took Spanish for three years in high school and I probably speak better Ido after only a week of study.


That being the case, since the world is quite obviously neither bent upon learning Esperanto/Ido nor even really learning any one single "natural" language (for lack of a better way of describing English, French, German, Japanese, etc., etc.) isn't it basically a waste of time, effort and energy to learn one of these other "constructed" languages?

Probably. Because you are correct. Even the UN doesn't have a single language they standardize on. People like to make the claim that English is becoming the international language but with the massive growth in China's economy it looks like English won't be the single defacto language.


I mean, what's the difference between learning Esperanto, Ido, Klingon, Quenya, Telerin, Adűnaic, Valarin, or any of the many other Middle-Earth languages constructed by Tolkien? One could arguably take any of these languages and adopt them as a standard, fleshing them out as necessary to make them 100% usable by anyone. Yet, you don't see that happening.

If one were going to arbitrarily pick a standard they'd probably pick English. These conlangs are all competing with each other in being the easiest to learn. So while you could pick any one of them to be the standard, the whole point would be for them to compete first and let an expert group of linguists perform studies on each one to find which is easier to learn.

But you're right. You don't see that happening. The reason is because it doesn't matter what language they picked or how many studies exist showing its superiority, there would be a massive backlash. Just look at Ido vs. Esperanto. It's easy to see why Ido is better but the Esperanto community treats their language like a religion and almost ignores Ido.

Granted, I'm bias because I prefer Ido and I am learning it. However, I fully acknowledge that there may be a better language than Ido and it is certainly possible to create one that improves upon Ido. But, what I can say with certainty is that Esperanto should not be the international standard for language. It has very clear faults which the community seems to ignore.

In summary: I think Ido is the best language I've come across. Perhaps there is a better option out there and I'll graciously accept that, but Esperanto is NOT it.



By no means am I trying to be either an English snob or an American snob, and had things historically gone differently than they did, this could be a whole different discussion, but wouldn't it just make sense, if this "standardization" is as valuable as many people make it out to be, to just make American English the standard language of the world? English itself, in it's many divergent forms, is as near to being a "universal standard" as any language has ever been in the history of the world, and certainly of greater global scope than Latin, Greek, or the rest of the "classical empires of old".

There are good arguments for making the already popular English the international standard, but I think that's a swift kick in the balls to non-native speakers who now need to learn an extremely complex language with many faults. It gives native speakers an unfair advantage. While English is probably the most popular language in the world (among all speakers, not just native) one still has to consider that a majority of the entire world's population doesn't speak any English.

Imagine if China said "we have billions of people and are a global power, Mandarin should be the international language." How happy with that would you be? I'd be mad. Mandarin is an extremely complex language with an even more difficult writing system.

It's actually easier if everybody has to spend a year learning a language like Ido instead of appeasing 20% of the population by forcing 5+ years of study down the throats of the other 80%.


It was made to use in the internet. Then they realised there was the english language, thus realizing the simple fact, that they have just failed.

Esperanto was created in 1887 and Ido in 1907. Far before people even thought about the internet or computers.

Shippou
March 8th, 2009, 05:32 AM
I'd be more than happy if Japanese be one of the International languages. But not Mandarin, please.

Also, there is an option in the *nix installer if you want to use Esperanto as the default language, so it is not only for the Internet.

Please read the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto

DMcA
March 8th, 2009, 10:09 AM
People keep saying english is difficult to learn. While I accept it is extremely difficult to master, and even native speakers struggle to achieve technically correct advanced grammar and with the vocabulary, most people with a european first language seem to find it relatively easy to pick up the basics.

Shippou
April 1st, 2009, 06:02 AM
Hello again people.

Long time no post from me.

Anyways, I have found a very good video on YouTube about Esperanto:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvGvO9agRaQ

Mithradates
April 2nd, 2009, 03:49 PM
Esas tre interesanta vidar diskutado hike pri la linguo quon me tante prizas (it's interesting to see discussion here on the language that I like so much).

That's what Ido looks like. Works just fine in conversation too (I've used it in person as well, not just online).

Stefanie
April 2nd, 2009, 07:39 PM
there are a few options lacking in the poll - like "I know very well what Esperanto is and I choose to stay far away from it"

those esperanto diehards just seem to ignore a few basic facts about the way language works. i wouldn't compare it with ubuntu, but with DRM: defective by design :-p