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Esperanto a waste of time?

 Language Learning Forum : Esperanto Post Reply
351 messages over 44 pages: << Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 19 ... 43 44 Next >>
Sprachprofi
Nonaglot
Senior Member
Germany
learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 6261 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 145 of 351
16 December 2009 at 5:56pm | IP Logged 
Must-have news sites in Esperanto:

Eventeo - everyday news from around the world in Esperanto[/url]
Le Monde Diplomatique in Esperanto - monthly magazine with more in-depth analysis
Libera Folio - most comprehensive source of news about the movement
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Juan M.
Senior Member
Colombia
Joined 5690 days ago

460 posts - 597 votes 

 
 Message 146 of 351
16 December 2009 at 6:09pm | IP Logged 
jondesousa wrote:
All we are saying is be open-minded. If someone wants to learn it, who cares, it doesn't hurt you or even affect you. As such, just go on to studying the languages you want and let those who study their languages study theirs. One shouldn't criticize another's choice in such a matter.


I don't recall preventing anyone from learning Esperanto. I only gave my opinion.

About which, if not for voicing competing views, what do we have the forum for then if we must all agree on everything?

Given Esperantists' sensibility though I don't see a point in carrying this further. Have a nice time learning the language and taking part in the movement of your choice!

Edited by Juan M. on 16 December 2009 at 6:10pm

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Volte
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
Joined 6230 days ago

4474 posts - 6726 votes 
Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian
Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese

 
 Message 147 of 351
16 December 2009 at 6:54pm | IP Logged 
Juan M. wrote:
Volte wrote:
In short: no, most Esperanto material is not mainly preoccupied with the employment of Esperanto. Why make such an assertion when you haven't read any?


You're right and perhaps I'm mistaken.

My perception derives from the almost evangelical ardor with which Esperanto sometimes is promoted, and from many years of reading and study in a range of topics and literary traditions in which I have not come across *anything* in Esperanto referenced or cited anywhere elsewhere.


I fully agree that Esperanto is often badly and over-evangelically promoted.

As for citations - I've found out more about Frisian literature through Esperanto than any other language. Esperanto isn't the primary language of any major topic I'm aware of, and minority languages tend to be under-cited: it's easy to point to examples of groundbreaking work published in minor European languages and Esperanto and ignored because of the language it was published in. For Esperanto, pioneering work on jet streams was ignored for decades because almost no one relevant heard of it.

It's not a matter of quality, but of visibility - Erdős, one of the most famous mathematicians who ever lived, had a lot of publications which people had trouble finding because he'd publish in minor local journals - I should point out clearly that this is not a matter of Esperanto (which, as far as I know, is irrelevant here), but simply to point out that publishing in minor languages and/or with minor publishing houses or in minor publications usually makes excellent work be ignored.

Perhaps the most famous Esperanto author was William Auld - he "was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature from 1999 until his death in 2006."

Original Literature in Esperanto is a rather large book (only available in English); it's nowhere near exhaustive, either.

If I'm not mistaken, your primary literary interests are historical/philosophical. In this case, you mainly read in an area which is underrepresented in Esperanto literature, which in turn is a relatively small minority language - so it's not that surprising you haven't run into citations for literature in it.

Juan M. wrote:

Thus to me Esperanto seems like a hobby taken way too far.

I believe one could learn far more about language, society and culture from learning a real tongue resulting from authentic human experience -anything from Khmer to Yoruba to Frisian to Navajo back to Polish- than a synthetic one, which should be of interest mainly as an experiment in a technically-circumscribed context to computer scientists, linguists or neurologists.

That's my opinion at least.


Here, we disagree. My human experiences with Esperanto strike me as authentic, rather than synthetic in any way. It's a real language, regardless of its origins; people play and work and celebrate and mourn in it. There's nothing technically circumscribed about it.

It has more speakers and literature than Frisian or Navajo.

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Juan M.
Senior Member
Colombia
Joined 5690 days ago

460 posts - 597 votes 

 
 Message 148 of 351
16 December 2009 at 7:10pm | IP Logged 
Volte, while I don't share your passion for Esperanto I certainly enjoy reading your replies.
2 persons have voted this message useful



Envinyatar
Diglot
Senior Member
Guatemala
Joined 5327 days ago

147 posts - 240 votes 
Speaks: Spanish*, English
Studies: Modern Hebrew

 
 Message 150 of 351
17 December 2009 at 1:43am | IP Logged 
Speaking about literature: Esperanto by definition has idioms at minimum right? If this is true then what would be the difference between reading Esperanto literature in Esperanto and reading it translated to a normal language?

What would be really lost in translation?

Edited by Envinyatar on 17 December 2009 at 1:44am

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Dainty
Newbie
United States
Joined 5276 days ago

38 posts - 53 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: German

 
 Message 151 of 351
17 December 2009 at 4:15am | IP Logged 
Envinyatar wrote:
Speaking about literature: Esperanto by definition has idioms at minimum right? If this is true then what would be the difference between reading Esperanto literature in Esperanto and reading it translated to a normal language?

What would be really lost in translation?


I have yet to study Esperanto, but if I might venture a guess I'd say that it sounds like reading in translated Esperanto might be more cognitively relaxing than reading the same piece in a language filled with idioms. It seems like the brain would simply have less thinking to do when everything is literal rather than switching between literal and figurative. It also seems that it could be helpful for those on the autistic spectrum, who generally have a difficult time with idioms even in their own mother tongue, and attempts to figure out such phrases are often a source of constant frustration.
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rapp
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5522 days ago

129 posts - 204 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Esperanto, Spanish

 
 Message 152 of 351
17 December 2009 at 6:22am | IP Logged 
Dainty wrote:
It also seems that it could be helpful for those on the autistic spectrum


{slaps forehead}


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