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"Esperanto" sung to the tune of "Desperado".
formerly known as etaoin...
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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. And there's no nation of Esperantus where one can go and meet hot Esperanta women, hence no incentive to learn the language.
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You have hit the nail right on the head. However, there probably will be Esperanto gambling and porno web sites in our near future. It's the Esperantistas' only hope to escape linguistic oblivion
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"Esperanto" sung to the tune of "Desperado". Written in Esperanto, of course, and performed by las agloj.
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"Esperanto" sung to the tune of "Desperado". Written in Esperanto, of course, and performed by las agloj. Well, you see? You're changing it already! It's a living language! It should be la agloj.
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My bad. I searched a bit to see if the article reflected the plural, but then I just gave up and guessed. Oops.
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"Esperanto" sung to the tune of "Desperado". There's always "Esperanto sung to the tune of "Esperanza": Esperanza
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----please, draw me a sheep----
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Esperanto is a plastic flower compared to the living bouquet comprised of our many varied and interconnected languages. Your opinion on Esperanto is based on impressions, not on facts. It's surprising indeed that it is still growing as fast as any other "natural" language. It started with about 900 words and has now over 15000 with the capacity to build 10 times more colourful ones. About the interconnection of languages, have a look at http://remush.be/etimo/etimo.htmlThere is a lot to say about the rapid grow of the language and the rules that must be obeyed to create new terms for new needs. Don't forget that we are a multinational community that cares about the cohesion of the language. Nobody forces you to learn Esperanto if you don't like it. It will remain quite viable without you. No worry. Remuŝ
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Wow--Remus, you're the first-ever person on here from Belgium, or at least the first who identified himself as such. Welcome!
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Welcome, and if so: first from Belgium: double welcome.
----please, draw me a sheep----
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Remus, you're absolutely right that I based my comments on my impression, and - really - I meant no insult. As a biologist, I have always noted the almost perfect parallel between human language and organic evolution. Both seem to follow the same rules, at least on superficial inspection. My comment was a way of saying that compared to the natural evolution of other languages to their present states, Esperanto seems, well - is - artificial. As to your other point, I'll take your word for it that there are a great and increasing number of speakers of Esperanto, but I'll offer that none have it as their sole, native language. It seems more a useful hobby than one of the world's languages.
On the other hand, I will not take your word for it that Esperanto is growing as fast as any other natural language. Even if I spoke Urdu from birth, it would be hard not to notice that there are a tremendous number of non-native English speakers throughout the world, and I would be willing to bet that many more people around the world are learning English as a second language than Esperanto.
Last edited by beck123; 02/26/2010 4:22 AM.
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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. Your're right, I forgot about the Hadrian Wall and Nijmegen. But I guess that we mud dwelling barbarian Batavians were quite impressed by their techniques and roads and posh Latin.
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As a biologist, I have always noted the almost perfect parallel between human language and organic evolution. Both seem to follow the same rules, at least on superficial inspection. it seems many linguists do not share this view. http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2132
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I should make myself more clear. I did not mean to say (and I did not say at all) that the evolution of human language parallels human evolution. The evolution of human language sheds light on the movement of human populations throughout the last few thousand years, but the time scales are too vastly different for the evolution of languages to reflect human evolution.
I mean to say that the rules that seem to govern the evolution of language are largely parallel to the rules that govern the organic evolution of all living things (again, on a different scale of time for most organisms.) For a simple example, consider a human population in the past that - for whatever reason - becomes divided into two populations that are more-or-less isolated from one another. If the isolation persists over centuries, two distinct languages will likely result (and neither will remain exactly the same as their original language.)
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In all optimism I think we - they - who? will never retrace it all and what would be the fun in that?
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I for one would like to find out. I want to know exactly who first said it (whatever it was) and when. And I'll say it again: I would prefer that there be one Authority somewhere who would say definitively what IS and IS NOT right, re: spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc. No "alternative spellings" for me, tyvm. [nod to Max, for the tyvm]
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And I'll say it again: I would prefer that there be one Authority somewhere who would say definitively what IS and IS NOT right, re: spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc. No "alternative spellings" for me, tyvm.OK, I gladly and humbly fit that bill. There is no right or wrong. Everything is allowed. Language changes. Get used to it.  But, seriously, at this point, it would have to be an international non-governmental organization (and we've seen how effective those are). Like it or not, English is an international language, not owned by one nation. And, even those academies don't do so well. They suggest and proscribe, and folks, they just ignore them, and the language changes.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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BTW, all languages are constructed. It's just a question of how many there are on the committee and whether there's a final arbiter to declare the project done.
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It's just the point that there is no final arbiter. (and the job is never done)
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BTW, all languages are constructed. It's just a question of how many there are on the committee and whether there's a final arbiter to declare the project done. I'd like to hear you expand on this idea. Particularly, are you using "constructed" to imply intentional and active development toward some envisioned end, or are you using it in a more technical, linguistic sense? Also, I understand a committee to be a subgroup - usually a relatively small subgroup - of some larger population. Are you using it in that way, or are you suggesting that the committee may be the entire population speaking a particular language?
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I for one would like to find out. I want to know exactly who first said it (whatever it was) and when. And I'll say it again: I would prefer that there be one Authority somewhere who would say definitively what IS and IS NOT right, re: spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc. No "alternative spellings" for me, tyvm. [nod to Max, for the tyvm] I'm afraid this is never going to happen. Language is not like a coin collection, where every element exists somewhere in a static and genuine form, and all we have to do is find and preserve each to be done with it. Language is like every other element of the living world. It does not succeed without diversity wrought by innumerable changes. Every individual uses language to meet his or her own needs, not to comply with a set of rules. Poets, scientists, rhetoricians, gang members, religious organizations - all of us - do this ("tyvm" is a perfect example,) and the modifications so generated may or may not find their way into general use.
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"constructed"I'm not sure about languages being constructed, but they are conventional (I side with the nomos side of the Cratylan argument rather than the physis one. Linguists have a feel for the drift of a language, i.e., how they change over time, but few can agree on how they came about. Chomsky posits that Universal Grammar is part of the human brain. I tend to think of language (i.e., a kind of symbolic calculus) as an extension of pattern recognition in other kinds of animals. committeeThe Académie française, founded by Cardinal Richlieu in 1635, is not really a committee, and the number of its members is 40. They are a little out touch with reality and their latest exploit was opposing constitutional recognition of regional languages ( link).
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Chomsky posits that Universal Grammar is part of the human brain. People who study human prehistory are beginning to agree with him in principle. Something happened to humans about 40,000 years ago in the Near East or eastern Europe. Many believe it involved a leap in language ability. Some call it the "Great Leap." Ideas about what it may have been include 1) the "invention" of grammar (more likely a genetic change that allowed the concept of grammar to be realized,) 2) the development of the conditional tense, 3) and others, all related to language, that I don't recall offhand. Whatever happened marked the emergence of Modern Humans, with whom we could probably converse and share any complex thoughts we may have. Art and other symbolism, the concept of an after-life, and other features of humanity all appear in the blink (a geological blink, that is) of an eye.
Last edited by beck123; 02/27/2010 5:45 PM.
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Something happened to humans about 40,000 years ago in the Near East or eastern Europe. Many believe it involved a leap in language ability.
Of course, it's possible, but as writing is only about 5000 years old, we do not know for certain that other hominids did not have language.
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Correct, we don't know for certain. (I'll preface the following by saying that human prehistory is not my field, so I'm certain to be missing the subtleties and may even have some of the big pieces wrong.) Language, being a symbolic construct, is thought to be associated with other manifestations of symbolic thinking. The only other hominid species around at the time of the Great Leap were the neandertals, and there is still some debate as to whether or not they were capable of human language, the general consensus being that they were not.
There is no archeological evidence that they engaged in any symbolic thought: no art, no definite burials, no evidence of ritual, etc. There are discoveries that suggest that neandertals, just before their extinction, interacted with modern humans and may have borrowed some of the non-language, symbolic behaviors that they saw in modern humans. A seashell, recently discovered at a neandertal site, shows traces of paint on it, for example. Because of the dating of this type of discovery, viz., only after the two species were in contact with one another, adornment of this sort is considered by most to be borrowed and not indicative of symbolic thought.
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Shades of "Quest for Fire"
And whether or not Esperanto ever becomes a primary language (by which I mean that at least 2 generations are raised in a community where it is the language spoken in the home and on the street) it still makes as much sense to me as learning Klingon or Tolkein Elvish.
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I think I'd prefer Elvish or Klingon. They seem to be more "in"
though less 'academic'. Tolkien's Elvish was based on Finnish,
I believe. Klingon: who knows? I like the "Quest for Fire"
analogy.
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'academic' ... Klingon: who knows?Klingon was created by a linguist, Marc Okrand. He got his PhD (I have read his 1977 dissertation, Mutsun Grammar) from UC Berkeley. There are numerous linguistic in-jokes in Klingon. Tolkien was a professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford and worked on the staff of the OED, mainly on etymologies. L Zamenhof, the inventor of Esperanto, was a Russian ophthalmologist. The language in Quest for Fire was designed by the author (and linguist) Anthony Burgess. Not all conlangers are linguists. One of my favorite conlangs is the Real Character language created by Bishop John Wilkins, a founding member of the Royal Society. [Edit to fix URL.]
Last edited by zmjezhd; 03/01/2010 12:29 AM.
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This is all illuminating to me. I knew of Esperanto, and I always considered it a serious attempt at unifying elements of various European languages into one common tongue that would be similar to many and, so, easily learned. I knew Klingon was somehow based on the mechanics of genuine language and not just made-up noises. As for all the rest? I had no idea there were so many serious attempts at creating language de novo. (I almost said, "...creating an artificial language...," but it struck me as redundant.) I'll be googling these things all night.
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There are some good books out therre on the subject of artificial languages:
James Knowlson. 1975. Universal Language Schemes in England and France, 1600-1800.
Umberto Eco. 1995. The Search for the Perfect Language.
Marina Yaguello. 2001. Lunatic Lovers of Language: Imaginary Languages and Their Inventors.
Jean-Jacques Lecercle. 1990. The Violence of Language. (Not really about conlanging, but some coterminous fields of study.)
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Great. I thank you for your trouble
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You're welcome. I was looking for the online version of Wilkin's Essay, but it seems to have disappeared since I discovered it on the Web in the previous decade. There is another book on invented languages, that I have not read, but just found while looking at Amazon:
Arika Okrent. 2009. In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers, and the Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build A Perfect Language.
I skimmed the first chapter and it looks good. It's written by a linguist and has a light style.
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As a biologist, I have always noted the almost perfect parallel between human language and organic evolution. Both seem to follow the same rules, at least on superficial inspection. What we call evolution should be better called degradation. I need more lines to explain my idea, but this is an entirely other subject. Let's jump to the concept of "entropy". The total entropy may well increase, but it does not prevent it to decrease locally. The "evolution" of languages was chiefly caused by illiteracy and isolation. Esperanto speakers are far from being illiterates, and they are no longer isolated in our global village. Their common characteristic is that they are respectful of their diversity, and are careful to protect the consistency of the language. Esperanto evolves, but inside some fixed rules. In fact, there are significantly less rules in Esperanto than in other languages. Esperantists are striving to decrease the entropy, and not only in the language area. More about evolution.My comment was a way of saying that compared to the natural evolution of other languages to their present states, Esperanto seems, well - is - artificial. As Esperanto rules are based on natural languages, it is difficult to define objective criteria to measure its "artificiality". To an impartial observer, Esperanto may well look like a language that evolved further than any others, like they all should if parents praised their children for their mistakes instead of correcting them. As to your other point, I'll take your word for it that there are a great and increasing number of speakers of Esperanto, but I'll offer that none have it as their sole, native language. According to some guestimates, there would be around two thousands "native speakers". I had the occasion to meet some of them. They are not significantly different from other speakers. One observed that they usually spoke Esperanto better than their parents, what is surprising only at the first sight. As Esperanto is considered as a non-language, the children speaking it feel discriminated and they tend to hide that they know Esperanto. I even met one who understood Esperanto quite well, but could not speak it any longer. My impression is that those native speakers later switch to the language used in the community where they live and study. This language become their primary language. The same phenomenon occurs with other languages than Esperanto. It seems more a useful hobby than one of the world's languages. It usually starts as a hobby. Thereafter one makes some contacts and the circle becomes larger. On the other hand, I will not take your word for it that Esperanto is growing as fast as any other natural language. [...] Klingon is growing even faster: from 1 to 20 in 5 years. Esperanto from 100 to 2 million in 100 years, in spite of two world wars. In absolute numbers, of course, Chinese is growing even faster than English. More about numbers. Remuŝ
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'academic' ... Klingon: who knows?Klingon was created by a linguist, Marc Okrand. He got his PhD (I have read his 1977 dissertation, Mutsun Grammar) from UC Berkeley. There are numerous linguistic in-jokes in Klingon. Tolkien was a professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford and worked on the staff of the OED, mainly on etymologies. L Zamenhof, the inventor of Esperanto, was a Russian ophthalmologist. The language in Quest for Fire was designed by the author (and linguist) Anthony Burgess. Not all conlangers are linguists. One of my favorite conlangs is the [url=ophthalmologist]Real Character[/url] language created by Bishop John Wilkins, a founding member of the Royal Society. Hey thanks, all new to me, with exception of Tolkien. Appreciate it.
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"It usually starts as a hobby. Thereafter one makes some contacts and the circle becomes larger."
That's why to me it seems the socializing part is the carrier of the 'movement'. Somewhat like freemasons except that this isn't secret, but yes hobbyistic. When you speak of 2000 "native speakers" that would be 2000 bilingual speakers? I suppose.
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[i] When you speak of 2000 "native speakers" that would be 2000 bilingual speakers? I suppose.
More likely three-lingual. All Esperantists are bilingual by construction, they become three or four-lingual later, when they travel abroad to meet their acquaintance. The fastest way to multilingualism is through Esperanto. Unfortunately EU, in spite of its program to promote multilingualism, is opposed to Esperanto, on the ground of its alleged lack of culture, limited vocabulary and other false reasons. The English-speaking elite is afraid to set up any experiment that would disprove the claims of Esperantists. Increasing the number of native speakers of Esperanto is not the objective at all, it's a side effect. Remuŝ
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Yes, I understand you are a real enthousiast for Esperanto. And I assume also enthousiastic for understanding more than two languages. But any anyone who travels and who really loves languages; the first thing he/she does in foreign countries is try to get at it, if he/she hasn't already taken courses in advance. Then why Esperanto if you can go at it directly?
EU is not against Esperanto. It just sees no point in making it a general issue. I don't believe in an English speaking elite. English is the easiest language to learn for Europeans because it has dropped a number of otherwise tackling grammar issues.
Every (even low level) school obliges English.
I don't know how the language situation in Belgium is now. We had to learn English, French and German up to a serious level.
I know in competitions Belgians score better at correct Dutch than the Dutch in general. I assume you speak French, Flemish, obviously English and Esperanto. Any other language that has you special interest?
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Europeans are so much luckier than we are. Trying to teach
a second language, back when I did so, was so difficult, as
no one spoke any of them that were taught. Many people spoke
the language their emigre grandparents and parents brought
from Europe, et. al. but quickly learned English, disparaging
in many cases, their native languages. Spanish is now becoming
a "second" language here, but others not so much.
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Luke, I had the same experience of even foreign languages teachers* having to learn it first, and I wonder if it is due to geography: we in the middle of the U.S. got significant numbers of immigrants far later than coastal areas?
*With the exception of my college professor who was French-Canadian, and warned us that her French wasn't Parisian.
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