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Esperanto vs Interlingua | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Esperanto |  | |
| JCF Diglot Newbie United States Joined 6210 days ago 18 posts - 18 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Russian, German | Message 1 of 44 08 January 2010 at 5:14am | IP Logged |
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I understand that feelings may run a little hot on this topic, but I don't want to start an argument. I don't desire a debate about the philosophies of the respective languages. I just need some advice. I have taken Spanish for five years, and I am at the point where I can read books written for native speakers. I want to learn a conlang, but I don't know if I should learn Esperanto or Interlingua. To give you some more information, I hope to learn more romance languages in the future (starting with either Italian or Portuguese, probably). But first, I want to learn a conlang (because they're simple and interesting). Which would be the simpler to learn? Which would be the best to choose overall? Edited by JCF on 08 January 2010 at 5:15am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5644 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes  1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 44 08 January 2010 at 9:07am | IP Logged |
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Esperanto has far more speakers than Interlingua. Esperanto has 3-4 millions of speakers worldwide, many for example in Brasil and China, much less in the United States. How many speakers Interlingua has, I don't know, but you can check this in the Wikipedia.
Interlingua is closer related to Romance languages than Esperanto because Esperanto is for 60 % Romance, for 30 % Germanic and for 10 % Slavic. I chose to learn Esperanto because there are far more speakers and the Esperanto movement is more active. One conlang is enough for me, I don't plan to learn others. Esperanto has a phonetic pronounciation and a simplified grammar, but I would assume that this is also the case for Interlingua. Fasulye Edited by Fasulye on 08 January 2010 at 9:09am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Mithridates Newbie Korea, South pagef30.com Joined 5473 days ago 21 posts - 36 votes | Message 3 of 44 08 January 2010 at 11:17am | IP Logged |
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Interlingua is a bit prone to outside interference from outside Romance languages, but if you want to learn it to support it and the idea of an IAL then that could be a good idea. Otherwise I'd recommend either Esperanto, Ido, Occidental or Lingua Franca Nova. The simplest IAL is definitely Lingua Franca Nova (it's also the newest), Occidental looks similar to Interlingua but precedes it and has a more Esperantist/Idist philosophy, Ido is the most precise of them all, and of course Esperanto has the largest community.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| doviende Diglot Senior Member Canada languagefixatio Joined 5783 days ago 533 posts - 1245 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Hindi, Swedish, Portuguese | Message 4 of 44 08 January 2010 at 12:20pm | IP Logged |
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It depends a lot on what motivates you. For me, I'm interested in going traveling soon, and there are a lot of interesting travel opportunities related to Esperanto, whether it's staying in individual homes in different countries, or going to a big conference with thousands of people like the Universala Kongreso (which is in Cuba this year)
I have trouble learning a language if there isn't sufficient content for me to read and listen to, and people for me to talk to. This is another reason I'm doing Esperanto instead of, say, Lojban (which I'm also interested in). 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6267 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 5 of 44 08 January 2010 at 12:56pm | IP Logged |
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I believe learning Interlingua could hurt your ability to successfully keep the other Romance languages apart. Also, you can have the same "Interlingua effect" by speaking Spanish and mixing in what you know of the other Romance languages - even Spanish alone is good enough to communicate with Italian or Portuguese speakers in most situations because the languages are so similar.
I also consider Esperanto to be the more interesting conlang because it has an extensive but extremely regular affix system, which you won't find in any of the Romance languages and which, when mastered, gives you a new way of expressing yourself. The free word order and 6 types of participles are also things you won't encounter in studying Romance languages. Esperanto will give you more insights. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6500 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 44 08 January 2010 at 1:42pm | IP Logged |
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If just it allowed compound verbal forms with 'havi' I would be happy... I simply don't understand why Zamenhof excluded it, when he allowed similar constructions with "esti".
But it is of course too late to complain now. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6267 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 7 of 44 08 January 2010 at 2:43pm | IP Logged |
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With havi?? It would be illogical.
Mi estas skribanta. = I am writing-at-the-moment = I am writing Mi estis skribanta. = I was writing-at-the-moment = I was writing Mi estis skribinta. = I was writing-and-done-with-it = I had written Mi estas skribinta. = I am writing-and-done-with-it = I have written La libro estas skribita. = The book is written-and-done = The book has been written. La libro estis skribata. = The book was written-at-the-moment = The book was being written. etc. etc. In structure, these are the same as adjective phrases like "Mi estas juna" (I am young) or "La libro estas leginda" (The book is worth reading). If "Mi havas skribita" became possible, what would that say about "Mi estas juna"? "Mi havas junigxa"??? (Add havi, change active/passive state of the word). Participles are supposed to be verbs-turned-adjectives, so it's logical to use them as such and not overturn the existing rules of the language just to accomodate some Europeans. Besides, since "Mi estas juna" = "Mi junas", we can now also turn "Mi estas skribinta" into "Mi skribintas". Infinite diversity in infinite combinations. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| wildweathel Newbie United States Joined 5360 days ago 32 posts - 71 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Esperanto, Japanese | Message 8 of 44 08 January 2010 at 8:29pm | IP Logged |
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Admitted bias: I'm an Esperantist. However, I did consider this question myself before deciding on Esperanto.
Esperanto has a more regular vocabulary, which frees up study time to learn more expressive grammatical structures. Interlingua has a more "natural" (or at least Roman) vocabulary and grammar., which means you can probably understand it pretty well without study. On the other hand, it's harder to use correctly. On the same point, Esperanto has at most one irregular verb ("esti"/"mi stas") and even that not considered proper grammar. Interlingua has dozens of "stem-changing" verbs. But, the biggest difference is one of philosophy. Esperanto has fairly free word order and a huge number of potential inflections. As a result it's possible to literally translate grammatical structures from other languages and (because of the regularity) be understood--especially in writing. Interlingua restricts itself to the common denominator of grammatical features from its control languages. For example, verb aspects. Interlingua doesn't care enough to distinguish perfect from perfective. In Esperanto, on the other hand, linguistic jargon becomes living language: vizitas -- generic/perfective "visits" ("visits this time") (suffixes) vizitantas -- progressive "is visiting" vizitintas -- perfect "has visited" vizitontas -- prospective "is going to visit" vizitadas -- frequentive/durative "visits" ("keeps visiting", "visits again and again") (prefixes) ekvizitas -- inceptive "set out to visit" revizitas -- iterative "revisits" (both prefix and suffix) ekvizitantas -- inchoative "is starting to visit" revizitontas -- iterative-prospective "is going to revisit" etc. All of those forms have participials (-a), serial forms (-e), gerunds (-o), imperative (-u) and conditional (-us) moods, all three tenses (-as, -is, -os), and an infinitive (-i) for connecting to auxiliary verbs to express even more shades of meaning. (And that's ignoring the couple different kinds of passives, augmentatives/diminutives, potentials, and various auxiliary verbs.) This means you can learn the following vocabulary: fortuno -- fate, luck hejmo -- home hodiaŭ -- today iri -- to go mi - I, me pluvi -- to rain And turn it into: "Laŭ mia fortuno, hodiaŭ hejmen irante ekpluvegos." "According to my luck, today a downpour will break out as I'm on my way home." Or you can literally translate the Japanese 見に行こう！ to Viden iru ni! meaning Let's go see! although the more Latin-like Ni iru ke vidu. would sound more natural. The only real limits in Esperanto are your imagination and what you can get people to accept. Interlingua doesn't offer that freedom. So, If you have an interest in Romance languages and want to be able to make yourself understood (but not necessarily able to understand), Interlingua. Interlingua is the perfect language for public address in Europe and the Americas. If you want to play on the linguistic playground, write some seriously acrobatic poetry, or share the quirks of your native language with the world, Esperanto. Esperanto is the perfect language for international creative writing among people who care enough to learn it. 5 persons have voted this message useful |
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