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Esperanto a waste of time? | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Esperanto |  | |
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5312 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes  Speaks: Swedish* | Message 185 of 351 18 January 2010 at 12:06am | IP Logged | ||
I don't think that too many peoples' careers depend on the pronunciation of dandelion... In any case, I actually think that people don't care about language neutrality because they are too busy living their lives, bringing home food for their families. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6494 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 186 of 351 18 January 2010 at 1:27am | IP Logged | ||
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I don't care about the purpose behind Esperanto, because English has become the linga franca for the time being, and Esperanto has no chance of pushing it away from that position. But at the same time I find the idea of a language only spoken by enthusiasts interesting. This means that the actual number of speakers is fairly irrelevant, because those few and scattered speakers there are in the world are heard much more clearly than for instance the millions of speakers of Malayalam or Hausa - especially on the internet.
As this thread has shown there is some original literature in Esperanto. What this language community lacks could be the will to drop the utopical ideas and start writing practical and absorbing books about gardening, bugs, piano music, rollercoasters, Seyfert galaxies and the Fall and Decline of the Roman empire. It certanily is possible to write in Esperanto about such things - that has been shown in the Esperanto Wikipedia. I would also like to see a less deferential attitude towards the language - it is NOT 100% logical, and it must be possible to experiment with any language, even a conlang like Esperanto. Maybe the experiments catch on, maybe not, and of course you shouldn't try to change it into something completely different tomorrow, but Esperanto needs some rebellions. So far I have only read about the issue about male/female affixed vs. genderneutral words. But any living language is a pile of errors that just become the norm, and Esperanto must also find a way to develop through rebellion. Edited by Iversen on 22 January 2010 at 12:56am 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Sprachjunge Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6956 days ago 368 posts - 548 votes Speaks: English*, GermanC2 Studies: Spanish, Russian | Message 187 of 351 18 January 2010 at 4:39am | IP Logged | ||
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My goodness, Gusutafu, I can understand your not agreeing that it's useful to learn Esperanto, but surely you cannot feign ignorance of what Cordelia and David Welsh are referring to? This imbalance of power that constantly arises whenever a native speaker and a language learner go toe-to-toe on anything?
You obviously know English very well, so maybe the time when you didn't is hazy. But try to think back, if you will, to the time when you wanted to respond elegantly and wittily, but couldn't--because the debate was taking place in English. That's the frustration Cordelia is referring to. To dismiss it with a perfunctory "I don't think that too many peoples' careers depend on the pronunciation of dandelion..." is missing the point. It is a real concern. I realize that it's quite hypocritical of me, as a native English speaker, to even pretend that I know the half of it, but if the latter months of my exchange year in Germany are any indication (when I so BADLY wanted to counter some of the disparaging remarks being bandied about concerning America, but couldn't because my German was not good enough), then it_can_hurt. And stifle many a necessary, productive dialogue. Cordelia's dandelion story isn't the half of it, and I suspect that you good and well know it. Again, whether you think Esperanto is worthwhile is your point to make, but the power imbalance of language is incontrovertible and should not be dismissed so lightly. Edited by Sprachjunge on 18 January 2010 at 4:50am 10 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| boricua26 Newbie Puerto Rico Joined 5253 days ago 5 posts - 9 votes Speaks: Spanish* Studies: Portuguese, English, Arabic (classical) | Message 188 of 351 18 January 2010 at 6:42am | IP Logged | ||
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I am a native speaker of Spanish a very important language, but I know the
disadvantages of speak a language that is not the ¨lingua franca¨. We, the people who can´t communicate in English very well can appreciate the importance of a language as Esperanto, that is not from one specific country or empire. I think that is easy for an English speaker to say that English is the ¨lingua franca¨ because they are not in disadvantage in a conversation or when need to access information and this is in English only. What is the situation for minoritary languages as quechua, sami, etc.....??? I am learning Esperanto right now, and English as well, but the idea of Esperanto is very important. No creo que se pierda el tiempo al aprender un idioma, el que sea, y mucho menos cuando tras esa lengua aprendida hay todo un proyecto para no sólo mejorar la comunicación mundial, sino que unos no estén en ventaja sobre los otros y que lenguas minoritarias resulten favorecidas al reducirse la presión sobre éstas. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| davidwelsh Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5320 days ago 141 posts - 307 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, Norwegian, Esperanto, Swedish, Danish, French Studies: Polish, Sanskrit, Tibetan, Pali, Mandarin | Message 189 of 351 18 January 2010 at 8:01am | IP Logged | ||
No, but when, for example, a Danish minister announces "I'm at the beginning of my period" at an international meeting, we are moving into territory where people's careers are harmed. 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| doviende Diglot Senior Member Canada languagefixatio Joined 5777 days ago 533 posts - 1245 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Hindi, Swedish, Portuguese | Message 190 of 351 18 January 2010 at 8:26am | IP Logged | ||
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I agree with the comment about this discussing going in circles, but let me try once more to repeat what's been said a number of times in the numerous previous posts in this thread.
Esperanto has been shown to be many times easier to learn than national languages (references have been provided earlier in the thread). One of the big reasons is that it almost completely lacks "exceptions to the rules", such as we commonly find in other languages. This means that once you learn some basic vocab and start to put some words together, you can depend on your first intuition about how it works. You never have to second-guess yourself once you've learned the basics, and this makes a big difference for the so-called "neutrality" of the language. When faced with other speakers of Esperanto, even if they happen to be one of the few native speakers, you can be on even footing with them because your intuition will always be correct, just as it is in your native language. Many people report a strong feeling of comfort and equality when dealing with other people in Esperanto, precisely because of this. Yes, it's true that speakers of European languages have an extra bonus when learning Esperanto because of the vocab roots, but the way the words can be constructed is not European at all. In fact it is much more similar to Chinese in some ways, and Turkish in others. Right now there seems to be a significant Esperanto movement in Japan, where there's been an Esperanto association since 1906, and this year will be the 97th Japan Esperanto Congress. Like someone else mentioned, you could have someone randomly generate a bunch of words, but then it would appeal more to the autistics. Although the vocab is mainly European-based, the structure is not and therefore the language is still many times easier for non-Europeans to learn than English is. No, you won't commonly just run into Esperanto speakers on the streets. This is unfortunate, but is just a fact of life for a language with only 100-ish years of history behind it. The reason you see so many people promoting it here, is that we wish it were the case that more people would take up the challenge of spending a short amount of time learning what could be a very useful language in a more general sense, if people realized that it takes so little effort to learn. I'd like to thank those who stood up for neutrality, because some of us native English speakers don't realize how much privilege we have unwittingly gained through our native language. People around the world are scrambling to learn little scraps of English to communicate with us because of our dominant economic and military position, and sometimes we don't realize what it's like on the other side of the linguistic fence. Therefore, I think it's an important task for English speakers to take up the flag of Esperanto and show that we are willing to take a step towards the middle rather than assuming that everyone else will just come to us. 12 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5312 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 191 of 351 18 January 2010 at 8:57am | IP Logged | ||
Certainly not, I am just saying that the situation will not go away if we replace Esperanto with English. There are apparently already native speakers, and I suppose you don't expect the entire world to become native speakers of Esperanto anytime soon? Hence, there will still be an imbalance. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5802 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 192 of 351 18 January 2010 at 9:36am | IP Logged | ||
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Are native English speakers at an advantage when it comes to international communication? Not according to the international business community. Many people have said (eg Nerrière, formerly a senior manager at IBM, more recently author of the Globish books) that native speakers are at a disadvantage when it comes to using English in an international context.
English speakers may speak "better" or "more fluently", however you define it, but perversely they become less understandable. If you have a better spoken command of a language than the people you are speaking to, you are at no advantage, because they will not understand you, and it's difficult to "grade" your language to the non-native. Furthermore, certain non-native errors are extremely common (which suggests to me that there's problems with the school books!) and could even be considered a feature of "learner dialect". In many ways it's the native English speaker who is the outsider in the international business English context. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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