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I am going to hear a speaker on this subject Saturday night. I know next to nothing about the subject; just that it was specially created as a common language for some area or other. Would any of you-all mind giving me a bit of background?
Last edited by Jackie; 02/21/2010 4:35 AM.
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Wikipedia to the rescue. Since I assume you won't be bringing any axe to sharpen this should get you into the swing of things. I.e., the Wikipedia article should be reliable enough to get you started.
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During the Q&A, ask the lecturer about Ido ( link). To practice your Esperanto, you could look at the article in Vikipedio la libera enciklopedio ( link) on Ido.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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I did what you said, and his response was different from what your link said, which was Ido was developed in the early 1900s, and retains a sizable following today, primarily in Europe. It is largely based on Esperanto, created by L. L. Zamenhof. Ido first appeared in 1907 as a result of a desire to reform perceived flaws in Esperanto He said Ido was created before Esperanto. Here's a link to the book he wrote about it: Nuessel
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Oh, I just thought of something else I asked him, and I'll ask you all too; there is no "right" answer, is what he said.
Realistically, given the global economy plus the vast increase in communications capabilities, should people just give up on Esperanto, and let English become "the" lingua franca?
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should people just give up on Esperanto, and let English become "the" lingua franca? I don't think that it is in anybody's (or any organisation's) power to decide this question. Why has English become a lingua franca? Probably mainly for non-linguistic reasons. And there are at least as many people who want to distinguish themselves by their particular language (seen as part of cultural identity), as there are who dream of easy global communication.
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He said Ido was created before Esperanto.As ido means 'offspring' in Esperanto and because I have read solid-matter books about auxiliary languages, I would have to disagree with the person you asked the question of. Maybe he was thinking of Volapük ( link), which did pre-date Esperanto. Therre is also a Volapük Wikipedia ( link). OTOH, he sounds more rationale than most of the Esperantistas I've run into over the decades.
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Realistically, given the global economy plus the vast increase in communications capabilities, should people just give up on Esperanto, and let English become "the" lingua franca?
Latin used to be the official language of a large part of the ancient western world, along Akkadian, Aramaic, Koine Greek, Persian, et al. at different times and in different locations. No doubt English will either morph into another language or be replaced by some other contender.
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Esperanto, why is it so very unattractive?
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why is it so very unattractive?
Not sure. It surely is not very pretty. My wife worked in Sweden way back when for a non-profit organization that used Esperanto for communication amongst its international employees. Most spoke English, even her French co-workers, and the consensus was that it was a butt-ugly lingo.
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So, it's a dasyproctian language? 
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I think esperanto is unappealing because of its contrived and inflexible nature. It's a test-tube language, whereas natural languages are exactly like living things: they evolve continuously, and there is no way anybody can stop it (good luck, France.) Nobody tells children to invent new slang; they do it because it's the natural thing to do. It is an imperative.
Words, phonemes, phrases, and the intellectual substance they represent are constantly being recyled, created and abandoned by speakers, communities and entire cultures. It's what gives human language (and probably the human species) its strength. All language is a mutt, and apparently with good reason, or it wouldn't be universally so.
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I don't know enough about Esperanto to gainsay you, but I would say that your objections would apply to any constructed international language. The only alternative would be for a language to be imposed through some sort of imperialism. Even that leads to variants that border on mutual unintelligibility. One of my job responsibilities is to copy-edit engineering reports, some of which are generated by native Mandarin speakers and passed to Indians (some of whom are from a Hindi-speaking area and some from a Tamil-speaking area) before they get to me. I get some interesting samples from time to time. As to inflexibility I would guess that there are likely many words in modern Esperanto that were coined since the time of its invention by Zamenhof. This would be more a function of the number of people who are using it in a day-to-day manner than due to its nature as a constructed language.
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Well, Esperanto is only a little over a century old, and (as far as I know) there are no native speakers. It is a written language. That has probably slowed down its rate of change. I do know that the suffix for forming country names has been deprecated. So, Russia and Germany today are Germanio and Rusio instead of Germanujo (country of German speakers) and Rusujo.
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Crosswords and cryptogram in Esperanto?
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Esperanto, why is it so very unattractive? - My hypothesis: language, like food, tends to raise suspicion if it looks "artificial".
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Words, phonemes, phrases, and the intellectual substance they represent are constantly being recyled, created and abandoned by speakers, communities and entire cultures. It's what gives human language (and probably the human species) its strength. All language is a mutt, and apparently with good reason, or it wouldn't be universally so.
It does not grow, from what I've understood. Made one time,
and left to sit.
----please, draw me a sheep----
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You're speaking of esperanto, no?
Esperanto is a plastic flower compared to the living bouquet comprised of our many varied and interconnected languages.
"I don't know which is worse: ignorance or apathy. And, frankly, I don't care." - Anonymous
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your objections would apply to any constructed international language. The only alternative would be for a language to be imposed through some sort of imperialism. Even that leads to variants that border on mutual unintelligibility. Certainly they would apply. Imperial imposition of a common language has been tried - unsuccessfully - time and time again: China, Rome, the prohibition of some Native American tongues, etc. On a much smaller scale, my grandmother's parents imposed German on her and her siblings, and yet none of the children grew up understanding the German language (beyond the baby songs and curse words.) Language cannot be imposed on a people for any length of time. The natural changes that occur within populations that are not in constant, two-way communication add up until, as you say, the disparate populations are virtually unintelligible to one another. The language variants drift apart thanks to the accrual of thousands of small changes that are not transmitted from one group of speakers to another over time. So it doesn't really matter if the imposition is made by a tyrannical government, a group of intellectuals, or the head of a household. All are working against a human imperative: to speak in a way that serves one's individual needs. No one language or language form will ever do that for everyone. It's convincingly parallel to organic evolution in every way except the time scale.
Last edited by beck123; 02/24/2010 12:19 AM.
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Esperanto is only a little over a century old, and (as far as I know) there are no native speakers. It is a written language. That has probably slowed down its rate of change. I'm going to challenge this idea by pointing to exactly what we are doing in this forum. We are using a written language - never spoken, even by the linguistically adventurous (try saying ":-)") - that is far less than a century old, and its rate of change is so rapid as to be astounding. The person who was creative enough to type the first emoticon is probably still among the living. Unless there was a tragic bus accident, the person who coined "emoticon" is still living. So it remains to be explained why this language, with no real rules, has caught on like wildfire; and esperanto languishes on the shelf. I offer that this language serves our individual needs and - most importantly - is created by its users, as are all viable languages.
Last edited by beck123; 02/24/2010 12:21 AM.
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And I suppose the person who coined "glitch" at NASA is
probably still living as well: I have not forgotten.
My grandparents made their children learn English, not the
native European language.
Yet I was left handed at birth and forced to write with my
right hand. Different standards.
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Clearly, they didn't want sinister offspring. An additional benefit was realized in the fact that if you were unable to cut properly with scissors, you might be tempted to run with them.
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Imperial imposition of a common language has been tried - unsuccessfully - time and time again The population of Great Britain is overwhelmingly of British or Irish/Scottish stock. The language spoken by the vast majority of those people is a Germanic language imposed on them by a relatively small number of roughly fifth century invaders.
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One of my fellow attendees asked the guy what I thought was an interesting question: that, if Esperanto did become really widely used spoken, over a period of at least one whole generation, wouldn't it be likely that different pronunciations and then dialects would develop?
(So again, my question of why bother to keep promoting it?)
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Clearly, they didn't want sinister offspring. An additional benefit was realized in the fact that if you were unable to cut properly with scissors, you might be tempted to run with them. Which, it might surprise you, is exactly what they told me: "Don't run with scissors". I think of that whenever I pick up a pair and move away with them in my hand.
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I'm going to challenge this idea by pointing to exactly what we are doing in this forum.
Ah, yes, well, I suppose. The vast differences you speak (or type) of are lexical in nature. Most of them are not in the sense of absolutely new words, but rather of new meanings for words. Extensions as it were. In a word, metaphor. The fact that one can read Tom Jones or Tristam Shandy without too much trouble, except an occasionally trip to the dictionary (I am speaking of the grammar of the the language thereto) puts the lie to your assertion. But, heck, what do i know. Maybe you're right.
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Beck 123. So it remains to be explained why this language, with no real rules, has caught on like wildfire; and esperanto languishes on the shelf. I offer that this language serves our individual needs and - most importantly - is created by its users, as are all viable languages. Jackie. One of my fellow attendees asked the guy what I thought was an interesting question: that, if Esperanto did become really widely used spoken, over a period of at least one whole generation, wouldn't it be likely that different pronunciations and then dialects would develop?
(So again, my question of why bother to keep promoting it?) Esperanto was created as a language to serve an ideology. A neutral language to serve as a 'bridge' between all different peoples. Almost like a sect. A humanitarian one. Quote from a Dutch article: " This bridge-function shows itself a.o. in the international travel network of Eperantists with the title Pasporta Servo. This network allows Esperanto speakers to travel easy and at low costs to visit other Esperanto speakers all over the world. This gives a person who speaks Esp. the opportunity to learn the culture and habits throught meeting directly with fellow idealists." As an idea it is certainly well meant, but as a language this is where it maybe should limit itself to. What's the use of translating Shakespeare, Chaucer, Tolstoy, any great litterature to Esperanto, when all those great writers are translated into practically all languages of the world?
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What's the use of translating Shakespeare, Chaucer, Tolstoy, any great litterature to Esperanto, when all those great writers are translated into practically all languages of the world? For the same reason all the other languages have translated those texts, Cultural perspective. Ideas are sometimes translated more coherently in ones own lingo. Who's to say Esperanto doesn't generate it's own cultural Identity?
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Who can help on this? Where is Esperanto used specifically?
Anywhere?
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Imperial imposition of a common language has been tried - unsuccessfully - time and time again The population of Great Britain is overwhelmingly of British or Irish/Scottish stock. The language spoken by the vast majority of those people is a Germanic language imposed on them by a relatively small number of roughly fifth century invaders. I think that "British," "Irish," and "Scottish" is what they are today. The stocks that created these groups were many and varied, the major ones being Celts (particularly Brytthonic Celts, for whom Britain is named), Picts in the north, Romans, Saxons, and, finally, a tremendous influx of Norsemen. The venerable Battle of Hastings, was, in fact, a battle between two Viking nobles, and Dublin was founded by Vikings about 1100 years ago. Much of Modern English comes from Old French, so I don't really see where there was ever a language imposed on the entire British Isles. In the Roman-to-Viking era, nobody - nobody - ever conquered the Picts, for example, and I don't doubt that Pictish can be heard in modern Scottish dialects, from where it has probably influenced Modern English. The same is true for the western reaches of Ireland.
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The fact that one can read Tom Jones or Tristam Shandy without too much trouble, except an occasional trip to the dictionary (I am speaking of the grammar of the the language thereto) puts the lie to your assertion. Informed readers today have the advantage of having experienced 250-year-old (and newer, and older) English. We can see the connection across the centuries through the intermediates we've experienced. I'd be curious to see how well a reader from Fielding's era - the middle of the 18th Century - would cope with a Michael Crichton novel. Agreed that the underlying grammar has changed but little, but the poor fellow would be lost when it came to virtually every other aspect of the language he'd find there.
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but the poor fellow would be lost when it came to virtually every other aspect of the language he'd find there.
Moreso from the style of writing and the concepts of this age I'd say.
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Sure. Our modern language serves our modern needs. We actively change it to serve our needs, and that's the whole point behind my opinion of why esperanto is a failure as a general language: it is imposed upon us.
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my opinion of why esperanto is a failure as a general language: it is imposed upon us. Hey--you just might be on to something there, IMHO.
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The fact that one can read Tom Jones or Tristam Shandy without too much trouble Which I am, to my surprise, able to do with A Clockwork Orange . But I see that for some reason, Burgess' absolutely new words haven't become common... "Malenky"; "ptista", etc.: 
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What's the use of translating Shakespeare, Chaucer, Tolstoy, any great litterature to Esperanto, when all those great writers are translated into practically all languages of the world? For the same reason all the other languages have translated those texts, Cultural perspective. Ideas are sometimes translated more coherently in ones own lingo. Who's to say Esperanto doesn't generate it's own cultural Identity? I suppose it does. But it seems so limited in spite of this effort to create a language accessible to everyone.
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Imperial imposition of a common language has been tried - unsuccessfully - time and time again The population of Great Britain is overwhelmingly of British or Irish/Scottish stock. The language spoken by the vast majority of those people is a Germanic language imposed on them by a relatively small number of roughly fifth century invaders. Spanish, French, Italian, Catalan, Portuguese, Romanian, Rhaeto-Romansch, all languages descended from Latin and spoken by people who are not, largely, the descendants of Romans. This Latin was imposed on them by the Roman Empire. If Esperanto is ever "imposed" on anyone it will be by voluntary vote of the people on whom it is imposed not by imperial conquest by the dread armies of Esperantujo.
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dread armies of Esperantujo.
The signs in the TV series Red Dwarf are in Esperanto. Those dread armies got into space.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Putting Latin as being 'imposed' on the countries you name seems a little too simple. I guess it was learned as second language, much like most parts of the world learn English in our days.
Then it developed into Italian itself like into French, Spanish etc. and Latin was kept intact in Church and in scientific language .(more or less like this) The essence of Esperanto is its strive for peace.But.
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Putting Latin as being 'imposed' on the countries you name seems a little too simple. I guess it was learned as second language, much like most parts of the world learn English in our days. It may have started as a second language, but it certainly supplanted any native language as a mother tongue. It wouldn't have gotten there without the imperial ambitions of the Roman state.
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