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Critique of the Esperanto profile | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Esperanto |  | |
| zooplah Diglot Senior Member United States zooplah.farvista.net Joined 6179 days ago 100 posts - 116 votes  Speaks: English*, Esperanto Studies: German | Message 1 of 19 20 January 2010 at 11:46pm | IP Logged | |||||
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1. Pronunciation of vowels isn't the same between Esperanto and Spanish. For instance, "de" is pronounced differently between the languages.
2. Word order is not the same as English. Even the customary word order is different: Mi ne povas bone paroli Esperanton (literally, I not can well speak Esperanto). Or from La Sankta Biblio (The Holy Bible), translated by Zamenhof himself: Ne parolu kontraŭ via proksimulo malveran ateston (literally, Not talk against your fellow-man false attestation). 3. "Learners sometimes complain that the words are not as close to English as they could be". I've never heard that complaint from a learner. Plus, we know how conlangs that were based on English turned out. 4. "you can learn to read and write Esperanto in a matter of weeks, and for the slowest learners, in several months". I guess I'm slower than the slowest learners. 5. Esperanto speakers from everywhere seem to have a neutral accent (well, maybe not amateurs). Once I was listening to Australian radio in Esperanto and it sounded exactly the same as Polish, Chinese, Canadian, or any other Esperanto, until they started speaking in English, when you could hear the Aussie accent. The only people who seem to have a discernible accent while speaking Esperanto are Italians (even Renato Corsetti has one). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| datsunking1 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5396 days ago 1014 posts - 1533 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Russian, Dutch, French | Message 2 of 19 21 January 2010 at 3:55am | IP Logged | |||||
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On number 2, it is most commonly formed as English sentences, but you ARE able to form them almost any way you would like. I remember seeing a sentence that had 6 variations but all the same meaning.
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| goosefrabbas Triglot Pro Member United States Joined 6179 days ago 393 posts - 475 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: German, Italian Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 19 21 January 2010 at 4:48am | IP Logged | |||||
So I assume it's the same concept as in other highly-agglutinated languages, where word order only changes emphasis, leaving the semantic meaning of the sentence more or less the same, because the suffixes of the words denote their roles in the sentence. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Johntm Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5233 days ago 616 posts - 725 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 4 of 19 21 January 2010 at 5:35am | IP Logged | |||||
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I still don't think Esperanto is useful. It has no culture to be interested in, and sometimes accents can "make" the language. Like they can make it sound beautiful or make your ears bleed.
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| davidwelsh Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5340 days ago 141 posts - 307 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, Norwegian, Esperanto, Swedish, Danish, French Studies: Polish, Sanskrit, Tibetan, Pali, Mandarin | Message 5 of 19 21 January 2010 at 10:27am | IP Logged | |||||
Of course Esperanto has a culture. You don't have to like the culture or think it's interesting, but it certainly exists! People do speak Esperanto with a wide variety of accents, and Esperantists generally have a very wide tolerance for differences in pronunciation (particularly with regard to vowels) as long as it doesn't impede understanding. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5332 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 6 of 19 21 January 2010 at 10:44am | IP Logged | |||||
If the word order doesn't indeed alter the meaning that is a very poor utilization of features. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5480 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 7 of 19 21 January 2010 at 10:54am | IP Logged | |||||
Languages that do not use word order to alter meaning often use it to express emphasis. Whereas languages like English have to use intonation - which is hard to do in writing without seeming rude (e.g. underlining, or bolding). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| davidwelsh Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5340 days ago 141 posts - 307 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, Norwegian, Esperanto, Swedish, Danish, French Studies: Polish, Sanskrit, Tibetan, Pali, Mandarin | Message 8 of 19 21 January 2010 at 11:13am | IP Logged | |||||
The reason for this feature is to allow flexibility in how you express yourself. This means that people with different native languages can choose a word order that is relatively similar to their native language and so feels more natural for them. So someone who speaks an SVO language can say "mi amas vin", a speaker of an SOV language can say "mi vin amas" and both are understood perfectly. The fact that changes in word order don't change meaning doesn't mean they're a waste of space. Esperanto poets for example often use this feature extensively. Edited by davidwelsh on 21 January 2010 at 11:14am 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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