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 Language Learning Forum : Esperanto (Topic Closed Topic Closed) Post Reply
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brendanj
Diglot
Newbie
United States
Joined 5219 days ago
14 posts - 25 votes
Speaks: English*, Latin
Studies: Arabic (Written), French, German, Arabic (classical)

 
 Message 9 of 51
05 April 2010 at 10:42am | IP Logged 
I studied Esperanto for about 3 months, spending about an hour each day. It is somewhat interesting, but I eventually lost all motivation as I've found it to be completely useless. There is no need for an artificial language; English is the international language (and I am already fluent in it).
3 persons have voted this message useful



str0be
Senior Member
Korea, South
Joined 5415 days ago
103 posts - 148 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Dutch, Korean

 
 Message 10 of 51
05 April 2010 at 1:10pm | IP Logged 
Splog wrote:
2: I had heard that time spent on Esperanto would be time well spent even
if I never used the language, since it would alter my brain in some way and increase my
learning ability with other languages. This did not prove to be the case at all. I
noticed no improvement in my language learning ability. Maybe this brain altering only
works if Esperanto is your first "foreign" language.


When I looked into the research about teaching Esperanto in school, I got the
impression that it was only useful in the case where the kids were unmotivated or
unwilling to learn. For the brighter or more motivated students, learning Esperanto
then French had a detrimental effect on their French ability, compared to the students
who had only studied French. It also caused them to confuse the two languages, for
instance, saying an Esperanto word in a French sentence.

Some other points:

- Sometimes I hear Esperanto speakers say that there are 'millions' of Esperanto
speakers. No way.

- If you want to meet people around the world, English will suit you just fine. If you
want a second language to help with that, how about French? Or Spanish? Or Mandarin?
In any country, you will find many more speakers of these languages than Esperanto
speakers.

- So if I can meet people around the world with English, why do I bother learning any
languages? The main reason is so that I can more comfortably travel and live in the
countries where those languages are spoken. Even though many people in Korea speak
English, many do not, particularly older people. I sometimes need to communicate with
them. Furthermore, I need to deal with banking matters, find an apartment, buy
furniture, understand signs, understand TV and newspapers etc. Korean lets me do this
in Korea, and Dutch can help me in the Netherlands or Belgium. What countries does
Esperanto help me to live in? Which banks will send me letters in Esperanto?
3 persons have voted this message useful



whipback
Groupie
United States
Joined 5405 days ago
91 posts - 118 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Dutch, French

 
 Message 11 of 51
05 April 2010 at 1:28pm | IP Logged 
And didn't Esperanto wave not want Esperanto to become a countries national language? But haven't there been attempts in some countries to make it a national language? It seems as if the Esperanto movement would have failed if a country ever does make it a national language.
1 person has voted this message useful



Blunderstein
Triglot
Pro Member
Sweden
schackhandeln.se
Joined 5229 days ago
60 posts - 82 votes 
Speaks: Swedish*, EnglishC2, FrenchB2
Studies: German, Esperanto
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 12 of 51
05 April 2010 at 3:41pm | IP Logged 
whipback wrote:
I base my life on being unique, and Esperanto is a language created by combining all other languages. I do not respect a language that has no culture or originality,


I've only studied Esperanto a couple of months, but I've already encountered a lot of Esperanto culture. As for originality: it's an invented language which is being used in many countries all over the world. If that's not original, what is?

Who knows, perhaps I'll one day meet Esperantists who judge other cultures without knowing anything about them, like you do. Such attitudes can be found just about everywhere.

Johntm wrote:
Also because you never know when you meet a speaker, unlike most languages. If you learn Lithuanian, you can meet Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania, while you can't go to Esperantoland because it doesn't exist.


When I started studying French, my chances of unexpectedly meeting French-speaking people was very low, to say the least (I live in Sweden). I needed to search out opportunities to use my French. If I started studying some other language except English and perhaps three or four others, the situation would be the same. And it is the same with Esperanto: if I want to use it, I need to search out opportunities. If anything, it would be slightly simpler to find Esperantists, since they tend to be well organized and have many meetings.


Chung wrote:
I'm indifferent about Esperanto but I'm more likely to get irritated by some of the beliefs held by Esperantists about Esperanto. Fundamentally I find that I'm most against most Esperantists because their support for Esperanto and the associated justifications (the most frequent one is "but it's so much easier to learn than natural languages!") leads naive people to believe that there really exists an inherently superior language. To me this is BS because in descriptive linguistics there is no such thing as a "superior"/"better" language.


Just because Esperanto is easier to learn than other languages doesn't mean that it's "superior". No language is superior or inferior, each has it's own blessings. For instance I believe that someone who learns Swedish gets access to Swedish literature and deeper contact with Swedes. That does _not_ mean that I consider Swedish superior.

Also, I've read many times that people who speak English can learn Swedish relatively easily (except, perhaps, the pronunciation). If that's true (I can't judge since Swedish is my native language), it does not imply that Swedish is "superior".


Chung wrote:
It's more of an indirect thing. I've never met any respectable Esperantist state explicitly that Esperanto is superior, but the implication is there and can be easily believed by the linguistically-naive. For me I detect the hint, but my background in descriptive linguistics guards me from accepting the idea of superior/inferior languages.

The superiority of Esperanto relative to other languages is strongly hinted at when you read justifications for its existence or learning it. Justifications include highlighting topics such as "unintuitive idioms [in natural languages]" (unintuitive for whom? Has anyone asked the native members of the speech community which uses those idioms?), "fun" (again for whom? Is learning Esperanto decisively more fun than learning a natural language?), "(cultural/political/religious) neutrality" (let's not get into this one because it's meaningless in genetic linguistics and is more of a sociolinguistic matter) among others:
.......
This kind of promotion doesn't state "Esperanto is superior", however most if not all of these ideas are held by Esperantists, and upon sober reflection, they do emit a strong whiff about some sort of Esperanto superiority.


There is a long history of prejudiced attitudes towards certain languages and the cultures associated with them, often (but not always) in the form of westerners looking with disdain upon non-Western languages. I can give examples from my own culture if you are interested.

Perhaps there are Esperantists who believe that Esperanto is superior to other languages. Hopefully, I'll never meet one. My impression is that most Esperantists are much more interested in languages than the average person. If the original idea was that Esperanto would be "everyone's second language", in reality it seems more like "everyone's fourth or fifth language".

On the other hand, if you know Esperanto it gives you certain things that you won't find elsewhere. This can be said of any language, and whenever you choose which language to study, you make a choice of what is most important to you. For me, Esperanto is a better choice than Spanish, at least at the moment. That doesn't mean that I consider Esperanto "superior" to Spanish.

Whatever you think about Esperanto, I hope you agree that the Esperanto movement is something very different from the classical cultural imperalism of the West.

I've read about one of the early leaders in the Esperanto movement (Lanti), who believed that Esperanto would eventually replace all other languages. If I encounter such attitudes within the Esperanto movement I might well abandon the language. However, I've seen nothing of the kind yet, apart from the historical reference to Lanti.

One major debate within the Esperanto movement nowadays is between those who advocate the "inner idea" that Esperanto should be spread as much as possible to facilitate understanding and peace, and others who feel that the Esperanto movement and culture such as it exists today is more than enough reason to learn the language. Personally, I tend towards the latter position.
4 persons have voted this message useful



str0be
Senior Member
Korea, South
Joined 5415 days ago
103 posts - 148 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Dutch, Korean

 
 Message 13 of 51
05 April 2010 at 4:11pm | IP Logged 
Blunderstein wrote:
Whatever you think about Esperanto, I hope you agree that the
Esperanto movement is something very different from the classical cultural imperalism
of the West.


I don't really know what you mean by that.

In Korea, people are very interested in Western culture, and would like to have a nice
middle-class job doing business with Westerners. They'd also like to learn English
(and/or another European language) to enjoy Western cultural outputs, like TV shows and
music, and in case they want to emigrate or holiday in a Western country. I don't see
this as 'cultural imperialism'.

Many Westerners these days enjoy Japanese animation, and many Asians are interested in
K-pop and Korean dramas. Is this 'cultural imperialism' too?

Sorry if I've missed your point. As I say, I don't know exactly what you mean.
1 person has voted this message useful



Chung
Diglot
Senior Member
Joined 6967 days ago
4228 posts - 8259 votes 
20 sounds
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish

 
 Message 14 of 51
05 April 2010 at 4:14pm | IP Logged 
Blunderstein wrote:
whipback wrote:
I base my life on being unique, and Esperanto is a language created by combining all other languages. I do not respect a language that has no culture or originality,


I've only studied Esperanto a couple of months, but I've already encountered a lot of Esperanto culture. As for originality: it's an invented language which is being used in many countries all over the world. If that's not original, what is?

Who knows, perhaps I'll one day meet Esperantists who judge other cultures without knowing anything about them, like you do. Such attitudes can be found just about everywhere.

Johntm wrote:
Also because you never know when you meet a speaker, unlike most languages. If you learn Lithuanian, you can meet Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania, while you can't go to Esperantoland because it doesn't exist.


When I started studying French, my chances of unexpectedly meeting French-speaking people was very low, to say the least (I live in Sweden). I needed to search out opportunities to use my French. If I started studying some other language except English and perhaps three or four others, the situation would be the same. And it is the same with Esperanto: if I want to use it, I need to search out opportunities. If anything, it would be slightly simpler to find Esperantists, since they tend to be well organized and have many meetings.


Chung wrote:
I'm indifferent about Esperanto but I'm more likely to get irritated by some of the beliefs held by Esperantists about Esperanto. Fundamentally I find that I'm most against most Esperantists because their support for Esperanto and the associated justifications (the most frequent one is "but it's so much easier to learn than natural languages!") leads naive people to believe that there really exists an inherently superior language. To me this is BS because in descriptive linguistics there is no such thing as a "superior"/"better" language.


Just because Esperanto is easier to learn than other languages doesn't mean that it's "superior". No language is superior or inferior, each has it's own blessings. For instance I believe that someone who learns Swedish gets access to Swedish literature and deeper contact with Swedes. That does _not_ mean that I consider Swedish superior.

Also, I've read many times that people who speak English can learn Swedish relatively easily (except, perhaps, the pronunciation). If that's true (I can't judge since Swedish is my native language), it does not imply that Swedish is "superior".


Chung wrote:
It's more of an indirect thing. I've never met any respectable Esperantist state explicitly that Esperanto is superior, but the implication is there and can be easily believed by the linguistically-naive. For me I detect the hint, but my background in descriptive linguistics guards me from accepting the idea of superior/inferior languages.

The superiority of Esperanto relative to other languages is strongly hinted at when you read justifications for its existence or learning it. Justifications include highlighting topics such as "unintuitive idioms [in natural languages]" (unintuitive for whom? Has anyone asked the native members of the speech community which uses those idioms?), "fun" (again for whom? Is learning Esperanto decisively more fun than learning a natural language?), "(cultural/political/religious) neutrality" (let's not get into this one because it's meaningless in genetic linguistics and is more of a sociolinguistic matter) among others:
.......
This kind of promotion doesn't state "Esperanto is superior", however most if not all of these ideas are held by Esperantists, and upon sober reflection, they do emit a strong whiff about some sort of Esperanto superiority.


There is a long history of prejudiced attitudes towards certain languages and the cultures associated with them, often (but not always) in the form of westerners looking with disdain upon non-Western languages. I can give examples from my own culture if you are interested.


I am very aware of these attitudes, and I agree that there's quite a bit of prejudice thrown about.

Blunderstein wrote:


Perhaps there are Esperantists who believe that Esperanto is superior to other languages. Hopefully, I'll never meet one. My impression is that most Esperantists are much more interested in languages than the average person. If the original idea was that Esperanto would be "everyone's second language", in reality it seems more like "everyone's fourth or fifth language".

On the other hand, if you know Esperanto it gives you certain things that you won't find elsewhere. This can be said of any language, and whenever you choose which language to study, you make a choice of what is most important to you. For me, Esperanto is a better choice than Spanish, at least at the moment. That doesn't mean that I consider Esperanto "superior" to Spanish.



Of course not. By the same token, my choice to study Finnish, Polish, Slovak these days, doesn't mean that I hold all other languages in contempt.

Blunderstein wrote:
Whatever you think about Esperanto, I hope you agree that the Esperanto movement is something very different from the classical cultural imperalism of the West.


So far I agree. It just hasn't been able to gain sufficient traction to act as a common language even on a municipal or regional scale, let alone a continental or global one.

Blunderstein wrote:
I've read about one of the early leaders in the Esperanto movement (Lanti), who believed that Esperanto would eventually replace all other languages. If I encounter such attitudes within the Esperanto movement I might well abandon the language. However, I've seen nothing of the kind yet, apart from the historical reference to Lanti.

One major debate within the Esperanto movement nowadays is between those who advocate the "inner idea" that Esperanto should be spread as much as possible to facilitate understanding and peace, and others who feel that the Esperanto movement and culture such as it exists today is more than enough reason to learn the language. Personally, I tend towards the latter position.


That's usually how it goes for any language that I choose as well. What matters is if the potential target language holds enough of my interest from a cultural, historical or philological point of view. The greater ideas of [global] understanding and peace are language-neutral, and Esperanto is not inherently more suitable for achievement of those ideas than any other language (including the much-maligned English that we're currently using).
1 person has voted this message useful



str0be
Senior Member
Korea, South
Joined 5415 days ago
103 posts - 148 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Dutch, Korean

 
 Message 15 of 51
05 April 2010 at 4:18pm | IP Logged 
Blunderstein wrote:
When I started studying French, my chances of unexpectedly meeting
French-speaking people was very low, to say the least (I live in Sweden). I needed to
search out opportunities to use my French. If I started studying some other language
except English and perhaps three or four others, the situation would be the same. And
it is the same with Esperanto: if I want to use it, I need to search out opportunities.
If anything, it would be slightly simpler to find Esperantists, since they tend to be
well organized and have many meetings.


For French, you might have tried your local university's language department. And is
French taught in high schools in Sweden?

I mean, there are people who study French at university, and there are people who teach
French, and there are people who work with French as part of their jobs. You can't
really say the same for Esperanto.

Esperantists are perhaps quite well-organised, but it seems to me that it would be
easier to organise French-speakers better, than to convince so many people to learn a
new language which has so few real-world applications.
1 person has voted this message useful





jeff_lindqvist
Diglot
Moderator
SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 6720 days ago
4250 posts - 5710 votes 
Speaks: Swedish*, English
Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 16 of 51
05 April 2010 at 5:25pm | IP Logged 
str0be wrote:
For French, you might have tried your local university's language department. And is French taught in high schools in Sweden?


French is one of the languages you can study at any high school in Sweden. The other languages are usually German and Spanish (some schools may have Russian, Chinese, Italian... and who knows, Arabic).

Edited by jeff_lindqvist on 05 April 2010 at 7:09pm


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