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My English teacher really hates Esperanto | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Esperanto |  | |
| furyou_gaijin Senior Member Japan Joined 6174 days ago 540 posts - 631 votes  Speaks: Latin* | Message 33 of 194 05 November 2007 at 10:55am | IP Logged | |||||
This is exactly what leo and myself meant: some people (like yourself, possibly) seem to look up every mention of Esperanto on online forums and then join these forums to offer their voice in defense of that language. Am I the only one to actually find this behaviour rather creepy?.. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6731 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 34 of 194 05 November 2007 at 11:05am | IP Logged | |||||
I am OK with it until the argument that you have to try it to be able to argue about it is brought out. There are plenty of decisions one has to make in life based on incomplete information (call it "pattern recognition-based decision-making"), and this can be just another one of them. Edited by frenkeld on 05 November 2007 at 11:06am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| apparition Octoglot Senior Member United States Joined 6438 days ago 600 posts - 667 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), French, Arabic (Iraqi), Portuguese, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Pashto | Message 35 of 194 05 November 2007 at 1:09pm | IP Logged | |||||
Well, yeah, but I think it's good to have people who are passionate about a subject, as long as they don't start using EVERY thread to pontificate on it. Remush seems like as good an advocate for Esperanto as anyone, though I dislike when people link to someone else's arguments instead of putting it into their own words. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| remush Tetraglot Groupie Belgium remush.beRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6056 days ago 79 posts - 94 votes Speaks: French*, Esperanto, English, Dutch Studies: German, Polish | Message 36 of 194 05 November 2007 at 1:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Understood.
What is the correct attitude? Who initiates the discussion? The amount of nonsense written about Esperanto is absolutely incredible. Fortunately, this forum is more open-minded. But why on earth don't you ask reasonable questions as you would do for any other language? Out of curiosity, what are these other forums? I like facts (professional bias).
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| furyou_gaijin Senior Member Japan Joined 6174 days ago 540 posts - 631 votes Speaks: Latin* | Message 37 of 194 05 November 2007 at 1:38pm | IP Logged | |||||
The most recent one: http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?id=787 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| remush Tetraglot Groupie Belgium remush.beRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6056 days ago 79 posts - 94 votes Speaks: French*, Esperanto, English, Dutch Studies: German, Polish | Message 38 of 194 05 November 2007 at 1:43pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I wrote http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dgh4mq6j_11ddrv6g some time ago, and I try to update it regularly. It probably needs some reorganisation.
I personally like to link to Claude Piron whose contributions I find outstanding. He is a language specialist. I'm am not. Difficult to write better: http://claudepiron.free.fr/articles.htm
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| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6258 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 39 of 194 05 November 2007 at 2:03pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I don't believe in seeking out forums and joining them just for a discussion of Esperanto. In fact, I find discussions of Esperanto rather tiresome - there are so many of them, even in the same forum (e. g. probably more than 10 in this forum within the last 4 months), and most of the time the discussions are not scientific at all, rather prejudices without actual knowledge on one side and the same old rhetoric on the other side. Other Esperanto speakers are probably just as tired as I am of having to constantly defend Esperanto from slander, so why would they seek out these discussions?
Of course if a discussion is occurring in one of the forums I am a member of, for example also forums dealing with politics or history, the kind of ignorant remarks I read often rouse me to try to open people's eyes - not necessarily to get them to learn Esperanto, but to at least get them to treat Esperanto like they would any language. I don't see people attacking Modern Hebrew or Indonesian with comparable fervour, in fact I don't see them attack these languages at all, even though one might argue that they are not entirely natural either. That's what bothers me most, is that some people refuse to accept that Esperanto exists and that it fills a need somewhere for some people. They act like Esperanto was a monster to be purged off the earth and its supporters were lunatics, when Esperanto's goal is worldwide peace and understanding while protecting existing languages, and a lot of people wish for that. If you believe that Esperanto can't succeed, even if you believe that it is an entirely wrong way, you should respect it for its goal and consider Esperanto speakers to be idealists at worst, not crazy. Actually a lot of Esperanto speakers are not idealists and learn Esperanto for the present rather than an uncertain future. They draw a personal gain from it, no matter whether that for the individual means intercultural communication, worldwide contacts, free traveling, enjoyment of Esperanto culture or even just satisfaction of linguistic curiosity. Everybody may have their own reasons, but the fact is that 112 members of this forum learn/speak Esperanto and the vast majority of them are happy with their choice. In fact, I can only think of one forum member saying that he had learned Esperanto and considered it a waste of time, all the others who voiced their opinion are 'satisfied customers', which has to amount to something. Even a couple skeptics tried Esperanto for the 6 Week Challenge and have since reformed their judgement. That is why I'd like to invite everybody to either - try Esperanto for themselves, so that they could contribute a personal, well-founded opinion rather than repeating comments and stereotypes they heard from others or - stop the attacks and respect other people's choice to learn Esperanto just like you'd respect their choice to learn Hebrew or Nahuatl or any language. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| remush Tetraglot Groupie Belgium remush.beRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6056 days ago 79 posts - 94 votes Speaks: French*, Esperanto, English, Dutch Studies: German, Polish | Message 40 of 194 05 November 2007 at 2:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks. It looks like the arguments are ideological. Pathetic!
Any more?
1 person has voted this message useful |
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