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Why do people hate Esperanto?

 Language Learning Forum : Esperanto Post Reply
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GREGORG4000
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 Message 33 of 72
08 May 2010 at 5:03am | IP Logged 
Juаn wrote:

I'm not referring to quality per se either, but rather character.

You're thinking about literature in Russian while I'm talking about Russian literature.

And this goes to the heart of my critique of Esperanto. Having a means of communication does not equal having a literature. Peoples have literatures, languages do not.

Well, I can't contest that, I don't think Esperanto literature holds a candle to Russian's...

I'm studying the language with the view of it as a tool of communication into new communities at the moment. Though neither the language or the culture are especially appealing to me, I'm pretty sure I'll have a different attitude about the speakers themselves.

Edited by GREGORG4000 on 08 May 2010 at 5:04am
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Volte
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 Message 34 of 72
08 May 2010 at 1:54pm | IP Logged 
Juаn wrote:
GREGORG4000 wrote:
I'm not talking about how good the literature is, just that it exists...


I'm not referring to quality per se either, but rather character.

You're thinking about literature in Russian while I'm talking about Russian literature.

And this goes to the heart of my critique of Esperanto. Having a means of communication does not equal having a literature. Peoples have literatures, languages do not.


Esperanto literature has several different historical schools, with different characters. Most of them are named after places, such as the "Budapest school" and the "Scottish School", where their prominent authors lived. Some were first-generation immigrants - as have been some great authors in national languages.

Aside from that, there's a great deal of diversity within the literature of any language or people. Esperanto also reflects this. The great English authors did not speak with one voice, or from one era or city; neither do Esperanto's.

Esperanto literature is written by people shaped by different cultures, including that of their birth and that of Esperanto.

Lastly, Esperanto speakers are more of a people than one would expect... but that is a long tangent.

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davidwelsh
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 Message 35 of 72
20 May 2010 at 10:10am | IP Logged 
William Auld has spoken about why he chose to write in Esperanto rather than English here:
http://donh.best.vwh.net/Esperanto/auld.html

I think he makes some interesting points, particularly about the way in which Esperanto can be "absorbed into one's psyche and take contextual root there" in a way other languages can't.
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abr
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 Message 36 of 72
21 May 2010 at 10:05am | IP Logged 
Splog wrote:
The truth is, only a tiny percentage of people have any kind of strong opinion about Esperanto. There is a super-small group of Esperanto fanatics, many of whom treat it like a religion and feel the urge to "convert" the masses, and an even tinier group of Esperanto "haters" who like to ridicule its failure to live up to its original ambitions.

The vast majority of people, though, don't really have strong opinions either way. You just don't read about them because, well, they don't have much to say on the topic because it simply isn't important to them.



I fully agree, and want to add a little bit of my surveillances.

I don't pay much attention to Esperanto too, but somehow from time to time stumble across it's mentioning, mostly unintentional. And one of such encounters happened, i believe, during the past year. It was several, almost the same in it's content and absolutely irrelevant, comments to some posts on Steve Kauffman blog, exhorting to learn Esperanto. It wasn't that irritating, but didn't bring any joy either.
Yes, i do understand it was not very representative of whole esperanto community, but it is still a very good example of the situation as i see it. There is no other language, even among a constructed ones, that so persistently and stubbornly asks all around: "Learn me!", "Why don't you learn me?", "Why don't you like me?", and so on and so forth. In Russian such policy is called "brain holepunching" and it is rarely successful. Actually, even this particular thread is all about the same again. And all this culture-country or any other arguments is only a reaction for constantly emerge calls by esperanto activists. And may be it is not a big surprise that some people begin to respond harshly.

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Volte
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 Message 37 of 72
22 May 2010 at 12:20am | IP Logged 
abr wrote:
Splog wrote:
The truth is, only a tiny percentage of people have any kind of strong opinion about Esperanto. There is a super-small group of Esperanto fanatics, many of whom treat it like a religion and feel the urge to "convert" the masses, and an even tinier group of Esperanto "haters" who like to ridicule its failure to live up to its original ambitions.

The vast majority of people, though, don't really have strong opinions either way. You just don't read about them because, well, they don't have much to say on the topic because it simply isn't important to them.



I fully agree, and want to add a little bit of my surveillances.

I don't pay much attention to Esperanto too, but somehow from time to time stumble across it's mentioning, mostly unintentional. And one of such encounters happened, i believe, during the past year. It was several, almost the same in it's content and absolutely irrelevant, comments to some posts on Steve Kauffman blog, exhorting to learn Esperanto. It wasn't that irritating, but didn't bring any joy either.
Yes, i do understand it was not very representative of whole esperanto community, but it is still a very good example of the situation as i see it. There is no other language, even among a constructed ones, that so persistently and stubbornly asks all around: "Learn me!", "Why don't you learn me?", "Why don't you like me?", and so on and so forth. In Russian such policy is called "brain holepunching" and it is rarely successful. Actually, even this particular thread is all about the same again. And all this culture-country or any other arguments is only a reaction for constantly emerge calls by esperanto activists. And may be it is not a big surprise that some people begin to respond harshly.


You make some good points. Some people advocate Esperanto in ways which are frankly annoying, and people have been criticizing this for about a century (as you might expect, advocating in annoying, counterproductive ways is more condemned among Esperanto speakers, who have a reason to care, than by people who don't speak Esperanto and are just annoyed by it). People who speak Esperanto are doubly annoyed by the fact that some/many of the more annoying advocates don't actually speak Esperanto, or speak it poorly.

People getting annoyed by this overzealousness is natural, and is something which shows up on this forum.

That isn't what I'd call hatred, though, and actual hatred against Esperanto (and sometimes, its speakers) exists - I'd refer Russian speakers interested in this to "Opasnyj jazyk. Kniga o presledovanijach esperanto".

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Fasulye
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 Message 38 of 72
22 May 2010 at 5:12am | IP Logged 
Volte wrote:

You make some good points. Some people advocate Esperanto in ways which are frankly annoying, and people have been criticizing this for about a century (as you might expect, advocating in annoying, counterproductive ways is more condemned among Esperanto speakers, who have a reason to care, than by people who don't speak Esperanto and are just annoyed by it). People who speak Esperanto are doubly annoyed by the fact that some/many of the more annoying advocates don't actually speak Esperanto, or speak it poorly.


I know such kinds of "annoying Esperantists" in real life and I stay away from them. They do exist, but they are only a small minority within the whole Esperanto movement.

Fasulye

Edited by Fasulye on 22 May 2010 at 5:17am
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Volte
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 Message 39 of 72
22 May 2010 at 5:21am | IP Logged 
Fasulye wrote:
Volte wrote:

You make some good points. Some people advocate Esperanto in ways which are frankly annoying, and people have been criticizing this for about a century (as you might expect, advocating in annoying, counterproductive ways is more condemned among Esperanto speakers, who have a reason to care, than by people who don't speak Esperanto and are just annoyed by it). People who speak Esperanto are doubly annoyed by the fact that some/many of the more annoying advocates don't actually speak Esperanto, or speak it poorly.


I know such kinds of "annoying Esperantists" in real life and I stay away from them. They do exist, but they are only a small minority within the whole Esperanto movement.

Fasulye


Yes. Unfortunately, they can really annoy a lot of people despite that. :/

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Solfrid Cristin
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 Message 40 of 72
22 May 2010 at 7:35am | IP Logged 
I would assume that it really boils down to the fact, that people don't like having opinions shoved down their throats,regardless of topic.

I have for instance two vegetarian friends. My best friend is a vegetarian, but as she just makes her (totally yummie) food, and does not try to convert me, I have no problem whatsoever with that. The we have another friend, a vegan, who is always talking about how morally wrong it is not to be a vegan, sends me heaps of links to vegan articles on Facebook and actually managed to antagonize my best friend because he claimed that the worst kind of people were non-vegan vegetarians, becauase they were trators to the cause.

When people try to push something down my throat, whether it be languages, religion or dietary requirements I run a mile in the opposite directions - and I suspect I am not the only one.

I looked at a book for learning Esperanto many years ago. It seemed like a natural language to learn for me, since I am so fond of languages, and I do farily often get the question of whether I speak Esperanto. It didn't "click" however - and I never started off. This thread has however made me a lot more positive to the whole language.


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