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What are Esperantists like? | ||
Tags: Esperanto | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Esperanto |  | |
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6280 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes  Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 17 of 39 07 March 2010 at 9:25am | IP Logged | |||||
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I started Esperanto with similarly low enthusiasm. I was 14 and wanted to eventually
learn all the languages in the world. I read a popular science book about linguistics (language change, proto-language, conlangs, etc.), which described Esperanto as really easy if not really useful. I figured that if it was that easy, I could add it to my list of languages without much effort, I'd get the benefit of knowing one more language and I'd be one step closer to speaking all the languages in the world. ;-) I was not enthusiastic about Esperanto and really didn't expect to get anything out of it apart from an easier time learning other languages. Since I was also learning three languages at school, I decided to just learn the language while it was easy and stop it as soon as it would get hard or infringe on my study time for the others. The thing is, it never did. I picked up the language so quickly and painlessly that it was motivation in itself. Pure bliss, compared to French and Latin, even though I liked Latin. Apart from that, it turns out that Esperanto has a lot more practical value than I could have imagined. Now I'm one of the people enthusiastically talking about Esperanto on the forum, because I think everybody should give it a try, say for a month or so. A couple years back there was actually a 6 Week Challenge for which several forum members studied Esperanto, and if you look for their logs, or the logs of the ones currently studying Esperanto, you will find that they were all astonished by the experience. At http://www.esperanto.info/en/basic_information/testimonials/ testimonials_learning_ esperanto (remove any spaces) there are some testimonials from forum members that I collected at the time. Edited by Sprachprofi on 07 March 2010 at 1:31pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5648 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 18 of 39 08 April 2010 at 9:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
Judging from the Esperantists on this forum, they are intelligent, cultured, polite, idealistic and helpful people. Outstanding! Just look at who list Esperanto among their languages and check the quality of their posts on this forum. It speaks for itself! 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Delodephius Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Yugoslavia Joined 5213 days ago 342 posts - 501 votes Speaks: Slovak*, Serbo-Croatian*, EnglishC1, Czech Studies: Russian, Japanese | Message 19 of 39 08 April 2010 at 11:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
I think that is one of the main reasons I wouldn't want to learn Esperanto (out of many other reasons). I grew up in a third world village and I'm used to listen mostly to rude, uneducated, loud and uncultured people. Maybe that's why I prefer languages that have some sort of a barbaric culture attached to them. Or at least I have the impression that those languages are spoken in cultures that remind me of my own culture. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| markchapman Diglot Groupie Taiwan tesolzone.com/ Joined 5282 days ago 44 posts - 55 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Portuguese | Message 20 of 39 09 April 2010 at 10:12am | IP Logged | |||||
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Delodephius - Which is the most barbaric language you've learnt so far?
I'm sure deep down some of the Esperantans have a barbarian heart. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Delodephius Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Yugoslavia Joined 5213 days ago 342 posts - 501 votes Speaks: Slovak*, Serbo-Croatian*, EnglishC1, Czech Studies: Russian, Japanese | Message 21 of 39 09 April 2010 at 12:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Well I would say Russian and Chinese, and Arabic too sounds barbaric and I do plan to learn it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about barbaric in the sense of savages. It's more of the old values and customs that people still hold that are also partly reflected in the language. I'm talking about things that would be considered primitive or backwards by modern urban western people or people from other parts of the world who look up to them. For instance, in the Balkans there still exist clans in a way, not formally but people still hold to the we-are-all-one-big-family mentality where for example nepotism and friendships mean more in how your career will develop than how skilful or capable you are, and this is perfectly normal. Or when at parties people still eat roast pigs, on every occasion they can get, or how the killing of the pig is done in the yard with all the family attending. I have seen my share of blood since before I could walk and I never seen a butcher in my house, it was all done by my family. This is what I consider barbaric. Or when my grandfather speaks of how he fought in the WWII he speaks without any emotions or compassion for the enemy, neither sympathy nor anger, just indifference. All of this is reflected in the language which is crude and insensitive. I for example love making jokes when people are sad and depressed or for example when their loved ones have just died, because that is how I learned to cope with everything, brutal insensitivity. I'm a vegetarian and my main reason to become one was because I couldn't stand any more animals getting killed for me, but I don't feel sad when they do. Death is just normal.
So any language in which a culture of insensitivity, superstition, brutality, lack of hygiene, etc. exists, is my kind of culture. EDIT: and of course using a lot of swear words. :-) Edited by Delodephius on 09 April 2010 at 12:34pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| brian91 Senior Member Ireland Joined 5254 days ago 335 posts - 437 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 22 of 39 09 April 2010 at 8:13pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm 18 and Esperanto is near the top of my list of languages I want to learn in life. I'm definitely going to try and
build a vocabulary of at least three thousand words. I'm sure it will of use to me in the future, not least through the satisfaction of learning another language with relative ease to German. 
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5648 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 23 of 39 09 April 2010 at 10:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
Delodephius --- Yugoslavia is/was no third world country in most peoples view! That means no running water, some people starving, mass illiteracy, and low average life span... I think it was more like 2nd world; the term was used by some to refer to the socialist bloc but it's scrapped now. I don't think any place in Europe qualifies as "third world". 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Delodephius Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Yugoslavia Joined 5213 days ago 342 posts - 501 votes Speaks: Slovak*, Serbo-Croatian*, EnglishC1, Czech Studies: Russian, Japanese | Message 24 of 39 09 April 2010 at 11:03pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Well, I grew up in the early nineties in the middle of a war. So no running water (we had a well in the backyard fortunately), no electricity most of the time, almost no fuel, we made our own food, etc. Sure we were all literate and average lifespan is above 80. But the situation in which I spent most of my lifetime was radically different than that of it is today. Maybe the old Yugoslavia was a second world country but once the war started all that went to hell. Sometimes we jokingly said we live in a fourth world country.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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