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Author Topic: Esperanto
Mycroft_
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2230

posted 06 August 2003 07:53 PM      Profile for Mycroft_     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I've always thought the notion of an international language like Esperanto was a nice idea but a bit Utopian. Still, I wouldn't mind learning it if I didn't have the feeling that I'd be better off using the time to learn French of Spanish. I have heard that Esperanto is four times easier to learn than those language (I don't know how they come to that figure) and that it's helpful for learning other languages.

So, are there any Esperantists out there in babble land? What are your thoughts?


From: Toronto | Registered: Feb 2002  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
Moderator
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posted 06 August 2003 08:09 PM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I'd like to learn it too.
From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
DrConway
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posted 06 August 2003 08:34 PM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I tried to learn it, but it has flaws that make it hard to really get comfortable with. One of the biggest ones is that some of the words chosen out of the hodgepodge of European languages to use in Esperanto are rather counterintuitive - an example is the lifting of the Greek word "kai" for the word "and". which is at odds with almost every other European language which uses a vowel-word for "and" - "et" in French, "y" in Spanish, "und" in German and I think even Russian has a vowel-word for and.

It's disconcerting in some respects, because I keep automatically saying "et" or some variant and then I stop, groan, and go "KAJ" and continue.

Here's a website that criticizes aspects of Esperanto.


From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
audra trower williams
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posted 06 August 2003 09:58 PM      Profile for audra trower williams   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I once read a bunch of hysterical Esperanto things saying that english speakers are "the white n**gers of Canada"
From: And I'm a look you in the eye for every bar of the chorus | Registered: Apr 2001  |  IP: Logged
'lance
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Babbler # 1064

posted 06 August 2003 10:31 PM      Profile for 'lance     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
So much for a "neutral, international" second language bringing peace and harmony... though you can't really hold the creator of Esperanto responsible for such outcroppings of lunacy. For that matter I suspect the vast majority of Esperantists would be appalled.

But really, it's the basic premise of Esperanto I question. Granted, it might be easier to learn -- though being based on European phonemes, it wouldn't seem any easier to learn for say Chinese speakers than any other European language.

Anyway, supposing it was easy for everyone to pick up as a "neutral" second language. I think it's staggeringly optimistic to suppose that this would usher in a new era of peace and harmony. More probably people would find the process of learning to hate each other simply speeded up.


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Mycroft_
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posted 06 August 2003 10:45 PM      Profile for Mycroft_     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Well, yes, the premise that eliminating the language barrier would eliminate conflict is Utopian... though it's interesting that both Hitler and Stalin suppressed Esperanto as subversive. In its first few decades Esperanto was associated with the left.
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oldgoat
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posted 06 August 2003 11:24 PM      Profile for oldgoat     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I tried to learn it when I was in grade 9 (for the first time). A friend was quite fluent in it. I found it to be not all that difficult, but fairly limited in use. Esperanto was going through a bit of a popular phase then, and it wasn't uncommon to see people wearing a purple star (I think it was) that identified them as Esperato speakers. I don't remember a single word of it.
From: The 10th circle | Registered: Jul 2001  |  IP: Logged
scrabble
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posted 07 August 2003 02:51 PM      Profile for scrabble     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
wouldn't seem any easier to learn for say Chinese speakers

One of my best friends in highschool (grad '88) claimed to be (probably was) fluent. He spent the first twelve years of schooling at the most expensive private boarding school in Hong Kong, where he was immersed in english and esperanto. His first language was Cantonese.

The only time I was asked if I spoke esperanto was when I was shortlisted for admission and was being interviewed by the scary panel at the Lester B Pearson College of the Pacific. (In response, I burst out laughing and said something like, "No way! Are you NUTS?")


From: dappled shade in the forest | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
'lance
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posted 07 August 2003 03:33 PM      Profile for 'lance     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Esperanto was going through a bit of a popular phase then, and it wasn't uncommon to see people wearing a purple star (I think it was) that identified them as Esperato speakers.

I have a vague memory of being told that one of my uncles got briefly into Esperanto, say late 60s/early 70s. I've never dared to raise the question with him. He's a bit of a crank, in truth.

The page Doc linked to above does a bit more, incidentally, than "criticize certain aspects of Esperanto." It comes across as a fairly devastating (if pendantic) critique.

Immersed in Esperanto in an expensive private school... asked about it at LB Pearson College... hmmm. Could it be a conspiracy of elite educational establishments? And what about the rest of the elite? Where are the Bilderburgers and the Trilateral Commission on this? I think we should be told!


From: that enchanted place on the top of the Forest | Registered: Jul 2001  |  IP: Logged
Mycroft_
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posted 07 August 2003 04:25 PM      Profile for Mycroft_     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
The Illuminati holds its meetings in Esperanto.

Actually, Esperanto has (or had) the reputation as an international workers language because it could be learned by 10 minutes a day of study rather than having to be learned full time in school. Apparently, there are still Esperanto organisations made up of European rail workers who, I suppose, would use Esperanto to talk to their fellow workers from other countries. There are a number of speakers throughout eastern Europe, Spain and South America. In the English speaking world Esperanto is more of an niche made up of eccentrics.

Perhaps Dennis Mills can add making Esperanto an official language in Canada as part of his reelection platform?


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'lance
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posted 07 August 2003 04:29 PM      Profile for 'lance     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Yabbut, what would the Vatican have to say about that? They'd prefer Latin, shurely?
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Mycroft_
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posted 07 August 2003 04:36 PM      Profile for Mycroft_     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Vatican Radio has an Esperanto programme.

[ 07 August 2003: Message edited by: Mycroft ]


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'lance
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posted 07 August 2003 04:47 PM      Profile for 'lance     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Sinister!

Which I can't translate into Esperanto, because it's not in the online dictionaries.

Hmmph. What use is a language in which there's no equivalent to "sinister"?


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Mycroft_
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posted 07 August 2003 09:55 PM      Profile for Mycroft_     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I don't think that online dictionary works.

Anyway, here's a current article in Newsweek about Esperanto's growth in the third world as part of an anti-English backlash.


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Michelle
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posted 07 August 2003 10:48 PM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
This is pretty weird - turn on your speakers for it.

I looked up "esperanto lessons" and found that.


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kyall glennie
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posted 08 August 2003 12:27 AM      Profile for kyall glennie   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I tried learning it in high school, but never went very far. More a curiosity, really.

The language is definitely not an attempt at internationalism, however. If anything, it was a view of the world as Euro-centric as you can get. I had no difficulty picking up bits of Esperanto, only becuase it's heavily centred on romantic roots such as Spanish.

I'm no linguist but it definitely doesn't have any of the interesting vocal combinations of some of the aboriginal languages, for instance.

English is the new international language, for better or for worse.


From: Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2003  |  IP: Logged
Mycroft_
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2230

posted 08 August 2003 01:10 AM      Profile for Mycroft_     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Well, it was invented in Poland in the 1890s. The idea of "internationalism" was getting Europeans to get along with each other. Still, it's interesting that some people in Africa and Asia are promoting Esperanto as preferable to English. Sure, it's European but at least it's not American seems to be the thinking And one argument Esperantists make (besides that it's supposedly easier to learn than English, French or Spanish) is it puts everyone on the same level.

Rather than forcing non-Anglophones to speak with native English speakers in the latter's language, putting native English speakers in a superior position, having everyone learn an auxillary international language puts all speakers on the same level ie everyone speaking Esperanto as a second language rather than English as a second language speakers having to deal with native English speakers.


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Mycroft_
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2230

posted 08 August 2003 01:17 AM      Profile for Mycroft_     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
  Nowadays, European Esperanto speakers tend to be older throwbacks to the cold-war era—though students in Poland and Hungary can still earn Ph.D.s in the language. Many believe the popularity of the dialect in the developing world is being fueled by growing resentment of English as the language of global commerce and political rhetoric. “Bush and Blair have become Esperanto’s best friends,” jokes Probal Dasgupta, professor of linguistics at India’s University of Hyderabad. “Globalization has put a wind in our sails, making it possible for people to have interest in Esperanto as not only a language, but a social idea.” Similar hopes have been voiced from the moment Zamenhof first came up with his egalitarian lingo. But in today’s rapidly shrinking world, the timing couldn’t be better.
 

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Michelle
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Babbler # 560

posted 08 August 2003 08:23 AM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
You know, last night I was looking up some Esperanto lessons (found some here) and it's true, it looks so easy to pick up! I think it could be really fun to learn it.

I wonder if learning Esperanto would make learning a third language even easier?

I got thinking, wouldn't it be cool to learn Esperanto, and then start writing Esperanto poetry, novels, writing Esperanto songs and music, etc.

Okay, I'll stop now. I just think this is so neat.


From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
NDB
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posted 08 August 2003 12:19 PM      Profile for NDB     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
William Shatner was in a movie that was, at least partly, or all dialogued in Esperanto:

Incubus


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Mycroft_
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Babbler # 2230

posted 08 August 2003 01:10 PM      Profile for Mycroft_     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I think it would be kind of neat if the anti-globalisation movement picked it up as a means of leftists talking to other leftists from other parts of the world. Would also be a good way of confusing the cops at demos
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Mycroft_
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posted 08 August 2003 01:37 PM      Profile for Mycroft_     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
IMDB lists 8 films that have used Esperanto dialogue (exclusively or in part).
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True Grit
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posted 08 August 2003 04:23 PM      Profile for True Grit        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
English - Esperanto Dictionary

[ 08 August 2003: Message edited by: True Grit ]


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'lance
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1064

posted 08 August 2003 04:36 PM      Profile for 'lance     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Hmmph. Still no search results for "sinister."
From: that enchanted place on the top of the Forest | Registered: Jul 2001  |  IP: Logged

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