Esperanto - Why need to create it?

[Kdar]

Well, maybe some people know about Esperanto, made up or "constructed" language.

Anyways.. I don't really get why it was created? It seems really similar to Spanish or some other language from Western Europe. So why bother trying to push it to be international? When probably 2/3 of the other languages are completely different from it.

What are your ideas and thoughts on this?

[3rdalbum]

It's a skunkworks attempt to get a slightly-modified Spanish recognised as "the international language".

Klingon is a more international language, because it doesn't have heritage in any other language.

[murderslastcrow]

I really don't see the point. Let's just find the most efficient language, not the most popular, and popularize it to death! Certainly, it couldn't be English?

[schauerlich]

I really don't see the point. Let's just find the most efficient language, not the most popular, and popularize it to death! Certainly, it couldn't be English?

Esperanto was created to be an efficient language that was regular and easy to learn. It's natural that someone who grew up speaking Russian would pull heavily from Indo-European roots in constructing their own language.

[darsu]

If you read the Wikipedia on Esperanto and constructed languages you'll get a much more intelligent and informed picture of the issue than the averaged writerbase of this forum can ever give you.

[Dayofswords]

what if we all spoke in pgp encryption, be cool huh, yell at some one across the room and only they knew what you said

eh... rot13 would be fine

[szymon_g]

It's a skunkworks attempt to get a slightly-modified Spanish recognised as "the international language".

did you even bother to check it? in which way it resambles spanish?


Klingon is a more international language, because it doesn't have heritage in any other language.

BS.
language is international because it isn't similar to anything else?


If you read the Wikipedia on Esperanto and constructed languages you'll get a much more intelligent and informed picture of the issue than the averaged writerbase of this forum can ever give you.

i do not like this, but:

+1

[earthpigg]

I really don't see the point. Let's just find the most efficient language, not the most popular, and popularize it to death! Certainly, it couldn't be English?

it isn't english, it's esperanto.

example:

(english, esperanto-like)
(cow, cow)
(bull, cowo)
(herd, cowa)
(calf, cowu)

(bitch, dog)
(dog, dogo)
(pack, doga)
(puppy, dogu)

et cetera.

those arent the actual words, but those are examples of how Esperanto works.

if ____o designates a male critter, it designates a male critter for all critters.

no irregular nouns.
no irregular verbs.

etc.

[Kdar]

If you read the Wikipedia on Esperanto and constructed languages you'll get a much more intelligent and informed picture of the issue than the averaged writerbase of this forum can ever give you.

been there, done that :)
However, I want to hear the opinion of people on this forum about this subject.

[Kdar]

did you even bother to check it? in which way it resambles spanish?

It seems that a lot of vocabulary is very close to Spanish, French or German.

[earthpigg]

It seems that a lot of vocabulary is very close to Spanish, French or German.

or, to a German, very close to English. everything is relative.

or, perhaps, Russian? it's creator's native language?

[Khakilang]

And there is espresso, latte, capuchino and so forth. Are this is Spanish, Italian or some made up eastern Europe language?

[MicrosoftFan]

Well the parallel between this topic and operating systems is interesting :)



no irregular nouns.
no irregular verbs.


Yes, although it would soon start accumulating them if the language was used commonly.

[t.rei]

Actually I like the Idea of esperanto alot.

Too bad I cant really see myself learning a language without having some people to speak it, too.
I'm kindof a learning-by-doing/needing person.

[Kdar]

or, to a German, very close to English. everything is relative.

or, perhaps, Russian? it's creator's native language?

well, true. everything is relative, most western European languages have common parent.

However, as a Russian speaker, I don't see many similarity in Esperanto. I studied Spanish and a little bit of German before, and when I heard Esperanto, it sounds more like a mix of Spanish and German to me.

[TheNessus]

Well, maybe some people know about Esperanto, made up or "constructed" language.

Anyways.. I don't really get why it was created? It seems really similar to Spanish or some other language from Western Europe. So why bother trying to push it to be international? When probably 2/3 of the other languages are completely different from it.

What are your ideas and thoughts on this?

It seems you know nothing about Esperanto.

Not only was it made to be the international language - it's an especially easy language to learn, because the written Esperanto and the Spoken Esperanto are identical. meaning, unlike many other languages.

For example, in English, the word Knife will be pronounced "nayf". In french, the name Jaque would be pronounced "jak".

In esperanto they're the same, so a person with any accent can read a word in esperanto and pronounce it perfectly like any other person with a different accent.

But it was the advent of the English language as an international langauge, so the attempt failed. Only about a million or more people speak Esperanto these days.

[Kdar]

It seems you know nothing about Esperanto.


Well, why are you assuming I know nothing about it?


Not only was it made to be the international language - it's an especially easy language to learn, because the written Esperanto and the Spoken Esperanto are identical. meaning, unlike many other languages.

I feel that it fails to be international, since it doesn't cover everyone on this planet (doesn't cover all languages). It was engineered by some intellectuals, who randomly picked grammar rules and words (based on other language). Based on few languages in Europe. Sounds mostly like mix of German and Spanish, or some other western-Europeans languages.
Does it cover languages of Asia, Middle-East or Africa? It even doesn't really reflect any Slavic based languages. What kind of motivation will those people have in learning this language?

written and spoken pronunciations coincide in other languages too. Which does, make it easier. For example Russian, or even some Asian languages. And I feel even Spanish falls under this category.


For example, in English, the word Knife will be pronounced "nayf". In french, the name Jaque would be pronounced "jak".

[Lightstar]

It's Useless.

There's already enough language barriers between countries and cultures, wanting to add another language is stupid.

If we wanted an official language, we'd pick one of the bases. Like latin, base for alot of european languages, or chinese from asian languages.

[MooPi]

Can I get Rosetta Stone software for it? :-)

[TheNessus]

It's Useless.

There's already enough language barriers between countries and cultures, wanting to add another language is stupid.

If we wanted an official language, we'd pick one of the bases. Like latin, base for alot of european languages, or chinese from asian languages.
Latin?
Do you have any idea how difficult latin is? too many inflections. No wonder Latin died and other easier languages formed on its structure.

You didn't get it, it was an attempt to make everyone know a second, international language, much like English is today. If everyone knew this language in addition to their native one, it's not a barrier, on the contrary.

[Lightstar]

Latin?
Do you have any idea how difficult latin is? too many inflections. No wonder Latin died and other easier languages formed on its structure.

You didn't get it, it was an attempt to make everyone know a second, international language, much like English is today. If everyone knew this language in addition to their native one, it's not a barrier, on the contrary.

Not everyone can or have the will to learn a second language, and in the case of 'second language' why not continue with english? it seems well started.

[MooPi]

I can't relate my experience with learning another language because I only speak and write in English. This Esperanto does seem easy to learn as I just visited the learning site. The concept is intriguing but can easily see how Asian, African and Slavic speakers may have more trouble picking it up. The words are very similar to English and Spanish which are familiar to me. But I think I'm going to make an attempt to learn it as it intrigues me. I just occurred to me that Ubuntu and Esperanto have similar themes of purpose. to help humanity communicate freely without barriers. Hmmmmm.

[TheNessus]

Not everyone can or have the will to learn a second language, and in the case of 'second language' why not continue with english? it seems well started.
Look, you got things wrong here.

Esperanto was invented pre-WW1. English wasn't the international language back then. French wasn't either, Spanish too. No language had a real dominion like English has now.

If you ask why make esperanto an international language NOW, I will agree with you it's useless, and better continue with English. But BACK THEN it was a great idea, but did not work (a good idea, but no real interest in promoting it).

[Kdar]

yes. exactly. Why reinvent the wheel? English is not that difficult language and already is an international language. And if not English, well, then the Spanish might be on the second place and it is also not that difficult to learn (at least if compare to other languages).

And I don't see what is wrong with well developed grammar. It makes language beautiful and well structured.

Another problem with Esperanto is that it based on something. Its can't be truly international, because someone, with nationalistic ideals will reject it. And I believe that Esperanto is still easier to learn it for people from Europe than for people from let say Asia or Africa (who's language's vocabulary is completely different).

[MooPi]

Actually I like the Idea of esperanto alot.

Too bad I cant really see myself learning a language without having some people to speak it, too.
I'm kindof a learning-by-doing/needing person.
Lets learn it and I'll talk to you :D

[TheNessus]

yes. exactly. Why reinvent the wheel? English is not that difficult language and already is an international language.

Why must I repeat myself?

When Esperanto was invented in the beginning of the 20th Century, ENGLISH WAS NOT as widely spoken as it is now. There was no international language THEN. back then, it was a good idea. Now it is not.

ok? must I repeat myself a third time?

[MooPi]

Why must I repeat myself?

When Esperanto was invented in the beginning of the 20th Century, ENGLISH WAS NOT as widely spoken as it is now. There was no international language THEN. back then, it was a good idea. Now it is not.

ok? must I repeat myself a third time?
Go for it I'm listening.

[Kdar]

Why must I repeat myself?

When Esperanto was invented in the beginning of the 20th Century, ENGLISH WAS NOT as widely spoken as it is now. There was no international language THEN. back then, it was a good idea. Now it is not.

ok? must I repeat myself a third time?

Haven't seen your reply. Jee.


Go for it I'm listening.

:popcorn: Lets eat popcorn and listen

[infestor]

if there should ever be a 'deep' international language it should not be only based on germanic lang. families.
that's why: esperanto: fail!

[Kdar]

if there should ever be a 'deep' international language it should not be only based on germanic lang. families.
that's why: esperanto: fail!

yes. exactly.

I bet it is still will be as hard for a Chinese person to learn Esperanto as it is English. Yes, maybe grammar is more simple, but he/she will still have to learn the same amount of vocabulary, which probably will be completely different from his/her language.

Plus why would he/she be interested in it? (if he/she had a chose) It have no reference to Chinese.

[Lightstar]

Why must I repeat myself?

When Esperanto was invented in the beginning of the 20th Century, ENGLISH WAS NOT as widely spoken as it is now. There was no international language THEN. back then, it was a good idea. Now it is not.

ok? must I repeat myself a third time?

so, the moral of the story is, it failed.

[TheNessus]

if there should ever be a 'deep' international language it should not be only based on germanic lang. families.
that's why: esperanto: fail!
Esperanto derives a lot from Latin languages. More so than on Germanic langs. As well as some slavic.

You sure "that's why: fail" ?

[TheNessus]

so, the moral of the story is, it failed.
well yes. It did. But that's no reason not to learn it or speak it, otherwise... why learn Latin? Why revive Celtic? etc.

The attempt to make Esperanto internation faild, but it's spoken by more than 2 million people. Failed but alive.

[Kdar]

well yes. It did. But that's no reason not to learn it or speak it, otherwise... why learn Latin? Why revive Celtic? etc.

The attempt to make Esperanto internation faild, but it's spoken by more than 2 million people. Failed but alive.

Well, Latin is used in academia and can be useful for someone (practically useful). Plus, it being the forefather of most European languages, it can be also a good language for general enrichment of knowledge about your own language (culturally too).

[TheNessus]

Well, Latin is used in academia and can be useful for someone (practically useful). Plus, it being the forefather of most European languages, it can be also a good language for general enrichment of knowledge about your own language (culturally too).
Yet it is a very difficult language.

Let me ask you this:
Because Esperanto failed becoming an international language, that makes it a reason not to use it?

Doesn't it remind you of something like... Linux? Why use linux if Windows is international...

It's all I'm saying.

[Simian Man]

Unfortunately the internet really cemented English into the closest thing we have to a standard international language. It's sad too because English is one of the most complicated, ambiguous languages out there. You don't even need to look to Esperanto to find something better; Spanish and German for example are much simpler than English.

It's kind of like Windows or x86, it's become a standard due to happenstance rather than any actual merits it has.

[Kdar]

Yet it is a very difficult language.

Let me ask you this:
Because Esperanto failed becoming an international language, that makes it a reason not to use it?

Doesn't it remind you of something like... Linux? Why use linux if Windows is international...

It's all I'm saying.

well, yes. I agree with you here.

but then it is a little bit different from linux too. Esperanto is just one. But Linux have so many distributions :D
I want to have my own distributions of Esperanto, lol

[bruno9779]

It seems to take a lot more from classical latin than anything else.

The construction reminds of French a lot, especially the questions.
It make sense if you think that 19th century russia looked a lot at France, and it wasn't uncommon for intellectuals to use many of french expressions mixed with russian.

[undecim]

Forget esperanto, let's just popularize Lojban. If not for speaking, then for technical communication (documentation, for example)

[TheNessus]

well, yes. I agree with you here.

but then it is a little bit different from linux too. Esperanto is just one. But Linux have so many distributions :D
I want to have my own distributions of Esperanto, lol
let's put it this way: there's English and there are other languages. There's Windows and there are other OSs :)

Not that I speak Esperanto, ya? but I want to, once I graduate uni I guess.

[Kdar]

Unfortunately the internet really cemented English into the closest thing we have to a standard international language. It's sad too because English is one of the most complicated, ambiguous languages out there. You don't even need to look to Esperanto to find something better; Spanish and German for example are much simpler than English.

It's kind of like Windows or x86, it's become a standard due to happenstance rather than any actual merits it has.


It's sad too because English is one of the most complicated, ambiguous languages out there. You don't even need to look to Esperanto to find something better; Spanish and German for example are much simpler than English.

Really? I find English to be much more easier than some other languages.

Much easier than Russian or German in my mind. I believe German is much more complex than English.

Spanish could be viewed on same difficulty level with English.

[Simian Man]

Forget esperanto, let's just popularize Lojban. If not for speaking, then for technical communication (documentation, for example)

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/lojban.png (http://xkcd.com/191/)

[Grenage]

yes. exactly. Why reinvent the wheel? English is not that difficult language and already is an international language. And if not English, well, then the Spanish might be on the second place and it is also not that difficult to learn (at least if compare to other languages).

Lol, what? English is a bloody nightmare of a language, it's all over the place and a bitch to learn. I pity our European friends who need to learn it.

[Kdar]

Lol, what? English is a bloody nightmare of a language, it's all over the place and a bitch to learn. I pity our European friends who need to learn it.

I don't know, I find English pretty easy. It is much easier than other language, especially grammatically, (for example Russia, Chinese, Japanese or Arabic, or even German), much more simple, not a lot of conjugations or forms (like he, she, it forms).

[bruno9779]

Spanish and German for example are much simpler than English.

What???? Spanish is an extremely ambiguous language (same word for "tomorrow" and "morning", for "late" and "afternoon" etc)

It has many regional variants, that make studying it with an international scope, not trivial.

Spanish scores quite poorly in many situations. Take subtitles as an example: Whenever I have tried watching a movie subtitled in Spanish, I ended up not seeing almost anything else on the screen. The average Spanish word is 2- 2.5 times longer than an english one.

And German, is far more difficult than english to learn

PS: I am trilingual in Italian SPanish and English, with basic knowledge of Portuguese, German and French.

[Kdar]

I think German's grammar is pretty complex, probably on the level of Russian.

[Simian Man]

Really? I find English to be much more easier than some other languages.

Much easier than Russian or German in my mind. I believe German is much more complex than English.

Spanish could be viewed on same difficulty level with English.

Well the hardness of a language is very dependent on how comfortable you are with similar languages. For example a German person would likely find English easier than Turkish, while an Arabic speaker would find Turkish easier.

But English is definitely more complex than other European languages, because it started as an amalgam of Germanic and French Latin. That has given us far more words than most languages have because we pretty much pull from both sources which have very different styles. Most English words with two or fewer syllables have Germanic roots, while the longer words usually have roots in French Latin.

Add to that the fact that we have much more irregular rules for pronunciation, spelling and grammar than German or Spanish (and likely others, but those are the ones I know well enough to judge), and English is a tough beast to learn. I love English because I know it very well, it is expressive and beautiful and lots of literature would be much more clumsy if expressed in other languages. But I feel bad for the rest of the world having to learn it :(.

BTW what is your native language?

[bruno9779]

@ simian man

Grammar in English is nonexistent compared to German, Italian or Spanish (Spanish grammar is very similar to italian but simpler)

English has no Verb conjugation. Italian has :

8 Indicative times
4 Conjunctive
2 conditional
1 imperative
3 not finite times

each of them has a different word ending for every person (7).

This has to be multiplied for the 3 families of verbs, and doesn't include irregular ones


I admit that English spelling is very ****up , so much that a foregneir to speak decent english has to learn it twice: once reading and once speaking

[MicrosoftFan]

Grammar in English is nonexistent compared to German, Italian or Spanish (Spanish grammar is very similar to italian but simpler)

English has no Verb conjugation. Italian has :

8 Indicative times
4 Conjunctive
2 conditional
1 imperative
3 not finite times

each of them has a different word ending for every person (7).

This has to be multiplied for the 3 families of verbs, and doesn't include irregular ones

I admit that English spelling is very ****up , so much that a foregneir to speak decent english has to learn it twice: once reading and once speaking

This. I've always thought of English as easy to learn but difficult to master. It's true that the irregular pronounciation is an early stumbling block, but the fact that English grammar is syntax- rather than inflection-based, together with not having genders and almost no verb conjugation, means there aren't dozens of word affixes to learn like other languages. English tenses are probably a little more complex than most other languages, but that's a more advanced topic and by that time the speaker can make themselves understood easily enough.

Every language has its easy & difficult aspects but almost all the people I've asked, from all over Europe, have said they thought English was a pretty easy language to learn.

[Simian Man]

English has no Verb conjugation. Italian has :

8 Indicative times
4 Conjunctive
2 conditional
1 imperative
3 not finite times

each of them has a different word ending for every person (7).

This has to be multiplied for the 3 families of verbs, and doesn't include irregular ones

That's true, but the patterns are very regular. Also a beginner doesn't have to learn all of those tenses as some are fairly rare.

And English *does* have verb conjugations. Why do we say "I am" "You are" and "He is"? Or "I eat", "I ate", "I have eaten" and "I am eating"? It's just that in English the rules are more arbitrary so we don't think of it as conjugation.

[earthpigg]

Actually I like the Idea of esperanto alot.

Too bad I cant really see myself learning a language without having some people to speak it, too.
I'm kindof a learning-by-doing/needing person.

where would you want to travel while you practice? free lodging... :\

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a8/PasportaServo2.0_Map.png

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasporta_Servo

[DeadSuperHero]

To make a Dungeons and Dragons allusion, Esperanto was created to be like Common. In D&D, everyone can speak Common, but everyone has their own localized languages based on their countries as well.

The whole purpose of Esperanto is not to replace the current language and become the "Global Language", it's supposed to serve as a secondary language that anyone can speak to communicate. It eliminates many of the problematic setups of the English language and comes across as a very simple, efficient, clean language.

It's a good idea on paper, but I doubt that it's gotten much adoption in the real world.

[Kdar]

Speaking about International language.
Is simplicity really so important (for a language that would really be a good substitute as a internatiol, possibly one that was developed to meet the modern changing word).
Listen to my opinion and then tell me what do you think.

I speak Russian and English fluently. Studied German in middle school and later Spanish in High School. Then I was trying to learn Japanese about 1 year and also Chinese for few month to just get the feeling and understand of the language (and the culture).

And the more I looked at different language, the way they were contracted, their grammar rules, some other nuances, the more I realized that maybe the truly good and useful international language should not be just simple, at least not simple on every level. I especially think that maybe that language need to be a language with ideograms. Just like Chinese.

And Chinese seems like almost perfect for that category (or at least maybe something that the international language should be based off, or be similar to in someway, especially in how it generally works, not necessary the pronunciation).
The grammar in Chinese is very simple (most simple grammar that I know of). It have no conjugation what so ever (if you want to change a tense or do some grammatical change in sentence, just use special grammatical Chinese character, one could be for past, another for future tense.... etc).
Even hanzi (the Chinese characters) are not that complex when you realize how to use them, how to write them, how to recognize them. The writing rules are very simple and can make writing even most complex character easy. Then, each hanzi is made up of radicals, so it makes recognition of them fairly simple, and also , if you know those radicals.
Of course, I am saying not everything is perfect in Chinese. The counters are pain in ***, everyone object have it's own counter. Then there are tones, which can be easy or hard to learn, depending on the person. But general structure of language does sounds good to me like a replacement of international language.
Number of Hanzi, I do not count like a negative thing, on contrary probably good thing. This ideographic alphabet contain more information than what can do the Latin based alphabet.

Each hanzi is connected with some kind of meaning (and also, each radicals which build the particular hanzi, can have meanings which relate to this hanzi). So here comes question about how much data or information can be contained on one space. The same text written in English is usually longer than the text which was written in Chinese.
Text in Chinese can express it's meaning or goal in shorter space and possibly more precise than English.

Maybe we need to have a language, which writing system can be like a data collector, with each character being more than just a letter or sound, but possibly contain the some meaning, just like it is in Chinese. Not just be simply based on Latin alphabet like all European languages (and Esperanto as well), representing a simple sound.

What do you think? Is complexity in writing system a good or bad thing?

Of course, such language might be hard for most population to learn and adapt. But I think it can end up more useful in future (more technically practical).

[MooPi]

It's a known fact that persons well versed in multiple languages pick up additional languages with much more ease. Stepping stones you might say.So if you already posses lingual skills picking up another spoken tongue shouldn't be a stretch. A common tongue would foster better communication skills across the board and breakdown barriers that language creates. For the betterment of man :D. Now everyone hug!

[the yawner]

I wonder, if Esperanto had been successful a language, would it be able to stand against the degeneration/corruption of words that is constantly occuring in our more widely used language here?

I only have english as my second language. I'd love to learn french or any other romance language but I think I'll be having a hard time mastering the pronounciations.

[3rdalbum]

I highly doubt that Esperanto is really a "living" language.

A language that is "alive" is one that is constantly changing. English is alive because new words and phrases are invented. Esperanto is governed by a specific set of documented rules that are not allowed to be broken; so if one person create a new Esperanto word, nobody else will use it because it doesn't conform to the written specification.

Result: Esperanto is a non-living language, like Latin. Sure, people can speak it (just like they can speak Latin), but it doesn't evolve.

[Kdar]

I wonder, if Esperanto had been successful a language, would it be able to stand against the degeneration/corruption of words that is constantly occuring in our more widely used language here?

I only have english as my second language. I'd love to learn french or any other romance language but I think I'll be having a hard time mastering the pronounciations.

Yes. Thats good point too. It probably would, just like any other language. And probably would evolve different from place to place (if it was used all over the globe).

PS.What do you guys think about importantce of writing system which I asked a bit earlies. What do you think is good as a model for writing system of international language? Ideograms or what we have now in English and other languages (Latin alphabet).

Which one do you think can be more productive?

I think with language with ideograms can group several distinct languages one. Maybe each sub-group will speak a little different, but writing system will be universal.

[bruno9779]

Result: Esperanto is a non-living language, like Latin. Sure, people can speak it (just like they can speak Latin), but it doesn't evolve.

Latin is considered a dead language because no one uses it as his first and main language anymore.

If there are communities out there that teach esperanto to newborn children as first language, then it cannot be called a dead language.

(I dunno if there are..)

[Hwæt]

It even doesn't really reflect any Slavic based languages.

Don't read a one paragraph summary of the language and act like you're an expert. The pronunciation set is from a Slavic language. The alphabet and its pronunciations are near exact copies of Belarusian!

[Kdar]

Don't read a one paragraph summary of the language and act like you're an expert. The pronunciation set is from a Slavic language. The alphabet and its pronunciations are near exact copies of Belarusian!

I speak Russian. And while listening to some speeches and dialogs on Esperanto and it doesn't sound anywhere close to Slavic language. (sure, some letters are borrowed from Slavic, like, Č, J.. etc)

I am not acting like an expert, but growing up in Russia, I have idea how Slavic language sounds.

You speak Belarusian?

[chillicampari]

I was always under the impression that Esperanto was meant to be a basic common communications tool instead of trying to be an organic living, mutating language.

It would have been cool if it had been adopted, if I had the money for travel I could visit various places like Prague, India, Korea, etc. and be comfortable that I could get around a lot easier.

[3rdalbum]

Latin is considered a dead language because no one uses it as his first and main language anymore.

I was under the impression that Latin is a dead language because it doesn't evolve. There are languages that are still spoken in some parts (as a main language) that are considered "dead" because nobody allows any new words.

In any case, nobody uses Esperanto as a first and main language... unless what I said earlier is correct, and Esperanto is just a slightly-modified Spanish.

[the yawner]

I was always under the impression that Esperanto was meant to be a basic common communications tool instead of trying to be an organic living, mutating language.

I wonder if it could also solve the problem with semantics.

As for evolving, it being a constructed language, how hard could it be to include new ideas to the language?

[Kdar]

Who would be in charge of making those changes too? This can probably end up as a problem.

[chillicampari]

http://www.akademio-de-esperanto.org/

[rbp]

Esperanto is governed by a specific set of documented rules that are not allowed to be broken; so if one person create a new Esperanto word, nobody else will use it because it doesn't conform to the written specification.


I learnt Esperanto a few years back and can tell you this is COMPLETELY FALSE. There are lots of new Esperanto words, in fact far too many in my opinion which makes the language harder for people starting now.

New words need to follow the Esperanto grammar system (nouns end in o, adjectives in a, etc) or it won't feel right and people will reject them.
But the same applies to English or any other language when adopting/creating new words.

[rbp]

It would have been cool if it had been adopted, if I had the money for travel I could visit various places like Prague, India, Korea, etc. and be comfortable that I could get around a lot easier.

So far I have used Esperanto to visit Vietnam, Japan, Czech Republic, and Poland. This year I plan to visit Esperanto people/events in South Korea and Cuba.

[chillicampari]

So far I have used Esperanto to visit Vietnam, Japan, Czech Republic, and Poland. This year I plan to visit Esperanto people/events in South Korea and Cuba.

That's really cool!

[rbp]

it is a little bit different from linux too. Esperanto is just one. But Linux have so many distributions :D
I want to have my own distributions of Esperanto, lol

Esperanto has distributions too, the most infamous being Ido (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ido)!

[rbp]

That's really cool!

Yearly Esperanto world (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Congress_of_Esperanto) and youth (http://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/IJK) congresses

[rbp]

I bet it is still will be as hard for a Chinese person to learn Esperanto as it is English. Yes, maybe grammar is more simple, but he/she will still have to learn the same amount of vocabulary, which probably will be completely different from his/her language.


I have met Chinese people who learnt both English and Esperanto and all agreed Esperanto was much easier. (though only certain kinds of people learn Esperanto / use Linux...)

One reason is the grammar system means you don't need to learn so many words, as post #8 by earthpigg (http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=8874240&postcount=8) demonstrated.

[rbp]

Well the parallel between this topic and operating systems is interesting :)

:)
I'll try to make the link - you can use Esperanto on your Ubuntu desktop, as I do: http://ubuntu-eo.org/

[rbp]

If there are communities out there that teach esperanto to newborn children as first language, then it cannot be called a dead language.

(I dunno if there are..)

I have met a few people whose native language is Esperanto. I think usually they come from a marriage between 2 Esperanto speakers with different native languages.

[gsmanners]

Seems to me that the parallels are between speaking languages and programming languages. So, for example, speaking English would be like using C and using Esperanto would be more like using Python.

[reyfer]

yes. exactly.

I bet it is still will be as hard for a Chinese person to learn Esperanto as it is English. Yes, maybe grammar is more simple, but he/she will still have to learn the same amount of vocabulary, which probably will be completely different from his/her language.

Plus why would he/she be interested in it? (if he/she had a chose) It have no reference to Chinese.

And English does have reference to Chinese?

[rbp]

I feel that it fails to be international, since it doesn't cover everyone on this planet (doesn't cover all languages).

Would you learn such a language? I imagine it would be a mess.

Some related articles from Piron (http://claudepiron.free.fr/articles.htm):

Esperanto, a western language? (http://claudepiron.free.fr/articlesenanglais/westernlanguage.htm)
Esperanto: european or asiatic language? (http://claudepiron.free.fr/articlesenanglais/europeanorasiatic.htm)
Why Esperanto, since we have, by default, a world language English? (http://claudepiron.free.fr/articlesenanglais/whyesperanto.htm)
Psychological Reactions to Esperanto (http://claudepiron.free.fr/articlesenanglais/reactions.htm)



It was engineered by some intellectuals

Correction, 1 intellectual (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._L._Zamenhof)

[nrs]

Esperanto may fail as an international language, but I think it's useful for people who want to learn other languages. I don't know how to explain it, the language itself is almost completely useless, but it's easy to learn and in the process you learn how to effectively learn. :P

At least I did.

[fajro]

This thread is so full of BS (except for the posts of rbp). ROLF!

:popcorn:

[Mahngiel]

Never has a community been so self righteous, so full of themselves, so condescending to others that they fail to smell their own fecal matter.

[Mahngiel]

Only about a million or more people speak Esperanto these days.

Oh ya? And how many people speak pig latin?

etgay away ifelay.

[LaPingvino]

I would like to know what kind of results would render a language useless for you, or failed.

Mostly because of Esperanto, I speak about 9 languages now (and can understand a lot more in writing), am engaged to a brazilian girl and speak Portuguese and Esperanto with her (mostly Portuguese, but without Esperanto it wouldn't be half as fluent as it is now!), have learned a big lot about other cultures in a way I never did with English, and have quite some friends internationally with the language including an even broader network of soulmates I can ask for a favor when needed.

This way I cannot say Esperanto is a faillure, not at all. And considering it has been growing ever since it has been made, with exceptions only due to the World Wars, I dare say we shouldn't speak about faillure but maturing use of the language. It has a reasonably big Wikipedia which I regularily use for information, quite a lot of translations of literature and software (where I have a share for example in translating Ubuntu), also original literature, software and websites (lernu.net, klavaro, abcTajpu) where the software and websites stand out for being quite multilingual.

Also the real value of Esperanto actually has a great deal to do with it being largely invisible: everybody should speak his/her personal language when possible, and where needed Esperanto can be a great help.

Also, the people who are not to ignorant to get to learning Esperanto mostly aren't too stupid to learn English (and even to quite a reasonable level) as well. But I don't know a lot of Esperantists who'd rather speak English, including British native speakers of Esperanto (and yes, there are some 2000 native [all bilingual, trilingual or polyglot] native speakers of Esperanto).

At least you could install the Esperanto packages of your ubuntu-distro (it is in Language Settings I believe) to see how it looks and to impress your friends.

I don't have the illusion that Esperanto is the World Language, but then, neither is English, and international it certainly is, being the product of more than a hundred years usage by an international community. Quite like your usage of Ubuntu just can help a little to make the world a better place, even if not everyone uses it.

[gsmanners]

This thread is so full of BS (except for the posts of rbp). ROLF!

:popcorn:

Care to be specific, or are you just trolling (in which case, never mind)?

[robert leleu]

Merci à "La pingvino" pour ses claires explications. Normalement j'utilise les forums en français, ma langue natale. Puis, mais il sont rares, les forums en espéranto, appris en 50 heures il y a quelques années. Et si nécessaire en anglais, appris pour mon métier de raffineur de pétrole. De très nombreux forums sont en anglais, plutôt basic, mais malheureusement utilisés aussi par des anglophones de naissance....qui jargonnent, et sont bien difficiles à comprendre pour les étrangers! En espéranto le jargonnage est beaucoup moins fréquent...

Dankon al la Pingvion por liaj klarigoj. Principe mi legas francajn forumojn, kiuj uzas mian denaskan lingvon. Due, sed ili raras, esperantajn forumojn. Kaj se necesas, anglajn forumoj, ĉar mi lernis la anglan por mia fako, la purigo de petrolo. Malbonŝance tiajn forumojn ankaŭ enskribas denaskaj angleparolantojn, kiuj multajn fakvortojn uzas, kiujn fremduloj ne facile komprenas. Esperante la fakvortojn ne ofte oni uzas.

Thanks to la Pingvino for his explanations. Usually I consult french (my mother language) forums. Then if any, but there is not many o them, esperanto forums (Within 50 hours I learned esperanto some years ago). And only when necessary english forums, since I used english for years as a petroleum refining enginer. However english forums are fulle of colloquialism, idiotism, job phrases, used by native english speakers, that are difficult ton understand for others. Using esperanto we do not use such words; that's easier.

[the yawner]

@LaPingvino
I imagined Esperanto could be a possible gateway for me to learn some other languages. How did it worked for you?

@robert leleu
Do you mean to say Esperanto speakers did not developed colloquial expressions as they've become more accustomed to the language?

[Tom Collier]

What do you think? Is complexity in writing system a good or bad thing?

In the 1920s, when the Chinese academic community was considering various methods to apply the Roman alphabet to Mandarin Chinese, one of the scholars wrote a 93-word essay, in which every word is pronounced "shi". The only variation is in the four tones applied to Mandarin phonemes. Unless you have the written characters in front of you, the story is essentially incomprehensible. Only when you see the written characters, do you discern that the "story" is about "ten stone lions." The scholar, whose name escapes me at the moment, was emphasizing that because of vast number of repeated phonemes in Mandarin, Romanization of Mandarin Chinese was an exercise in futility. It wasn't until 1979 that the Mainland government promulgated "pinyin" as the "official" Romanization.

[gsmanners]

I think the widespread use of Arabic numerals rather than Roman numerals lends some credence to the notion of simplicity over complexity with respect to writing systems.

[Kdar]

What do you think? Is complexity in writing system a good or bad thing?

In the 1920s, when the Chinese academic community was considering various methods to apply the Roman alphabet to Mandarin Chinese, one of the scholars wrote a 93-word essay, in which every word is pronounced "shi". The only variation is in the four tones applied to Mandarin phonemes. Unless you have the written characters in front of you, the story is essentially incomprehensible. Only when you see the written characters, do you discern that the "story" is about "ten stone lions." The scholar, whose name escapes me at the moment, was emphasizing that because of vast number of repeated phonemes in Mandarin, Romanization of Mandarin Chinese was an exercise in futility. It wasn't until 1979 that the Mainland government promulgated "pinyin" as the "official" Romanization.

well, yes. thats true. I hated those tunes when I was learning Chinese. But ideographs sometimes seems like good idea.
I was just saying maybe something similar to Chinese (in terms of it's writing, not pronunciation). pronunciation is really hard in Chinese. Especially those tones, I never could get them right.

I wonder how it was with Egyptian. I mean the connection between phonetics and ideographs.

[Kdar]

I think the widespread use of Arabic numerals rather than Roman numerals lends some credence to the notion of simplicity over complexity with respect to writing systems.

yes.. maybe you right.

Heck, maybe one day we will speak in 1s and 0s, and have some chip in our brain do the translation :D

[flukeairwalker]

I like the idea of Esperanto, but I'm not happy with its use of western letters. I think I'll fork Esperanto and using the Korean alphabet instead.

[LaPingvino]

@LaPingvino
I imagined Esperanto could be a possible gateway for me to learn some other languages. How did it worked for you?


At the start, it mostly showed me that I actually am able to learn languages, just the way school teaches you languages is not so much of fun and thus not working. Esperanto was the first language I learned enjoying it.

Afterwards, I could see my actual level in e.g. English was higher than I thought, and nowadays I just use any language I need for as much as I know it, using Esperanto as a reference and example of how to do it, and also as a gate to other people and cultures so to get more of a taste of it before jumping in.