# What about Esperanto?



## gonzalox237

The esperanto actuallity​ 

Hi guys, I'm making this post because I want to know if had any kind of info about the reallity of Esperanto nowadays. Because it is like it is hidden, so many of you guys, know a lot about languages, and maybe you can have an own oppinion about Esperanto; and that's what I want to know.​


So I hope to watch your posts.​


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## palomnik

OK, I'll jump in.

In my experience, a lot of people who study languages aren't that enthused about Esperanto.  People who study languages are often just as interested in the cultures that define, and are defined, by those languages.  Esperanto isn't tied to any one culture, or worse still, it presents itself as "neutral", when in fact it it based pretty much entirely on word roots and structural formations from European languages.

It's just an opinion.  Maybe other foreros will have a different angle.


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## Ghabi

palomnik said:


> People who study languages are often just as interested in the cultures that define, and are defined, by those languages.  Esperanto isn't tied to any one culture, or worse still, it presents itself as "neutral", when in fact it it based pretty much entirely on word roots and structural formations from European languages.


Very very true. And I want to add that Esperanto has been tied to a certain political ideal, which, however, seems to have had its heyday in most parts of the world. The motivation is gone.


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## Miĉjo

Esperanto is alive and well.  The Esperanto community - about 2,000,000 speakers - tends to keep a low profile, so it's not surprising it appears hidden.  It has grown and continues to grow slowly but surely, with current hotspots being Brazil, east Asia and parts of Africa.  The Internet has given a boost to the language in recent years.

Some of a people's culture is tied up in the language they speak, but most is in the hearts, minds and hands of the people, with the language acting as a vehicle.  Esperanto, in serving people of extremely diverse linguistic, cultural and geographic backgrounds, has shown itself to be more than an adequate vehicle of their cultures.  Esperanto's culture, to a large degree, is the cosmopolitan culture of its world-spanning community of speakers, but it also has a culture of its own.

Esperanto is neutral, but in a limited sense - not like the color gray, but more like the country Switzerland.  Its neutrality is that it is not associated with or beholden to any one people, ethnicity or nation.  It definitely takes a stand, though, just as you would discover of Switzerland if you ever tried to rob a bank there or tell the Swiss their culture(s) is/are bogus.  There is indeed an Esperanto movement that is an important feature of the Esperanto community; however, political/social/religious/moral views are those of its speakers, and span the spectrum from one extreme to the other.

Most of Esperanto's vocabulary is drawn from Latin.  But its simple, regular grammar (no exceptions to the rules, clearly marked grammatical function) and semantics (almost no idiomatic meanings), its very flexible grammar (relatively free word order, free conversion between different parts of speech), and its productive, freely combinable word-building system (ability to create words at will) avoid many of the traps in ethnic languages while making it possible to model one's Esperanto after one's native language without compromising comprehension.  Because they have to work a bit harder to memorize the roots, speakers of non-Indo-European languages find Esperanto a bit more difficult than do speakers of Indo-European languages, but because of the other features of the language, they still find it easy, much (several times) easier than, say, English.  Esperanto is within reach of anyone, and can be mastered in a matter of months, not years.

But don't believe me - learn it, get involved with the community, and see for yourself.  If you want more information, send me an email.


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## Brioche

palomnik said:


> OK, I'll jump in.
> 
> In my experience, a lot of people who study languages aren't that enthused about Esperanto.  People who study languages are often just as interested in the cultures that define, and are defined, by those languages.  Esperanto isn't tied to any one culture, or worse still, it presents itself as "neutral", when in fact it it based pretty much entirely on word roots and structural formations from European languages.
> 
> It's just an opinion.  Maybe other foreros will have a different angle.



Most people start to learn a second language because they are forced to in school.  By and large, the rationale behind foreign languages in the school curriculum is economic not esthetic. Do all those schools in Europe teach English because of their interest in US or UK culture? Might trade and commerce have something to do with it?

Those people trying to sell me stuff in Vietnam and Egypt [to name by two] hadn't learned English to read Dickens or discuss Vita Sackville-West.

It seems to me that you are criticising Esperanto for being exactly what it claims to be. Neutral to an Esperantist means neither participating nor wanting to participate in arguments, conflicts or wars.

I also do not see the conflict between being neutral and basing itself on European roots and structures.  It's inventor was a European, and saw things through the prism of his time and location.


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## Brioche

Miĉjo said:


> Most of Esperanto's vocabulary is drawn from Latin.



There are plenty from other sources:
as in _tago_ for day, _suno_ for sun, _rivero_ for river, _birdo_ for bird,_ hundo_ for dog, _shinko_ for ham, _shranko_ for cupboard, _pilko_ for ball, _shati_ [German Schatz] for appreciate, _shnuro _for rope, _hufo_ for hoof, _prava _for true.
I'll let you guess what _fisho_ and _flago_ mean.



> But its simple, regular grammar (no exceptions to the rules, clearly marked grammatical function) and semantics (almost no idiomatic meanings)


Esperanto has a lot of unnecessary grammar. 
It has adjectival agreement, for number and case, plus plurals and tenses.

If you have adverbs, you don't need tense.
_Today I cut myself. Yesterday I cut myself._

If you have numbers, you don't need plurals.
_One fat sheep, two fat sheep._
You don't need _two fats sheeps_.



> its very flexible grammar (relatively free word order, free conversion between different parts of speech),



The bulk of Esperanto, including that written by the inventor Zamenhof, follows the subject-verb-object pattern.  So most people say and write "I love him". Esperanto has an accusative case, so you can say "Him I love" or "Love him I" or "Him love I" &c, but it is very rare, and certainly not worth the bother of remembering the accusative.

Many Esperantists fumble over the accusative, but are completely understandable, demonstrating that it is not essential.



> and its productive, freely combinable word-building system (ability to create words at will)


Again, this is what Esperanto could do, and should do, but does not.

Esperanto is rotten with words borrowed whole, when the ideas can be expressed using basic roots.

Any person whose aim was to "solve the language problem" would use basic Esperanto roots and say _children's doctor_ in Esperanto and not _pediatro_. Ditto for _animal doctor_ rather than _veterinaro_. Who would introduce _sismo_ when the idea could be expressed by _earth shake_?

Then there is the lunatic system for naming countries.
Zamenhof decided that _some_ countries would be named after their inhabitants, so 
French [adjective] = franc-a, thus French people [franc-oj] live in France [Franc-ujo], 
Chinese [adjective] = chin-a, Chinese people [chin-oj] live in China [Chin-ujo]

But for _other_ countries, the inhabitants would be named after the country.
So Australia [Australi-o] is inhabited by Australians [Australi-an-oj] and Candada [Kanad-o] is inhabited by Canadians [Kanad-an-oj].
The respective adjectives are Canadian = Kanad-a, and Australian = Australi-a.

But some twit decided that country names would look better if they all ended in -io.  So now France is Francio, but the adjective remains franc-a, and the people Franc-oj.

So when you come across a country's name, you have to _learn by heart_ whether to drop -io, or just -o to form the adjective.

This is the language with "no exceptions" !!



> But don't believe me - learn it, get involved with the community, and see for yourself.  If you want more information, send me an email.



Yes, do learn it. Even with its idiocies, it is relatively easy.
Especially if you know some French and German.

You will meet some very interesting people.


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## Brioche

Ghabi said:


> Very very true. And I want to add that Esperanto has been tied to a certain political ideal, which, however, seems to have had its heyday in most parts of the world. The motivation is gone.



The Ideal of Esperanto was and still is to provide the world with a [relatively] easy second language for all.

It's founder believed that if ordinary people could communicate with one another across the language barriers, that misunderstanding could be avoided, and if misunderstandings could be avoided, then also conflict and war.
So many Esperantists see themselves as workers for peace through understanding.

At the present time, the Esperanto community has more than its fair share of people who hate English.

Jealousy is part of this, because so far, English has been much more successful as an international language than Esperanto.  

Esperantists delight in pointing out the difficulties of English, the erratic spelling, the leg up it gives to native speakers, its links with imperial powers, &c. It can become _very_ boring.

The Esperanto community also has a lot of people who hate the US.  Sometimes I'm not sure whether they hate the US because they speak English, or whether they hate English because the US speaks it!


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## jazyk

> as in _tago_ for day, _suno_ for sun, *rivero for river*, _birdo_ for bird,_ hundo_ for dog, _shinko_ for ham, _shranko_ for cupboard, *pilko for ball*, _shati_ [German Schatz] for appreciate, _shnuro _for rope, _hufo_ for hoof, _prava _for true.


They ultimately come from Latin rivus and pela even though the most apparent sources are English river and Polish piłka.


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## Brioche

jazyk said:


> They ultimately come from Latin rivus and pela even though the most apparent sources are English river and Polish piłka.



Yes, Zamenhof took those words from the English and Polish. Just as he took _fromagho = _cheese from French, and not from the Latin root  _caseus formatus._

If you want to follow the "ultimate source", you could probably track just about all Esperanto words to Proto-Indo-European.


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## Angelo di fuoco

For me, who don't know very much about Esperanto, it just sounds (or looks, because I never heard somebody speak it) not neutral, but silly and awfully artificial. Even now I prefer learning a bunch of other languages to learning Esperanto.

During some time, until I decided to have a closer look on Portuguese, it wasn't very beautiful in my opinion, just like Polish, but if one knows a language better, one discovers its beauty (or it just becomes tolerable), so this opinion can change. However, I would prefer knowing Chinese (which has not much grammatical particles), that I am learning now, and Hungarian or Turc (very regular languages) to Esperanto, because they are tied to a culture.


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## gonzalox237

I've read all the postes, and what I can see is that: each one has its own oppinion about Esperanto. I know it is an artificial language, I dont see something bad in that, because it's like telling that: "I don't like robots because they're not natural, they were created by some", even knowing that it could be helpful.

I also have to say that Esperanto has its own culture, developed by the people who speaks it, so its a complex culture, but also interesting, because the people who learn Esperanto does it because they want, and not because they were forced to.

When a person who knows Esperanto speaks, he or she uses the simpliest words in order to be understanted by the other one, we know that there're complex words that can be used as the simplies ones, but most of the time the vocabulary is basic, becuase in order to make the comunication more easy. So come on, in all languages exists complex words and even knowing their meaning we dont use them because we prefer the simpliest ones .

In addition, I know that some people dislike english, but it is kind of weird because they speak that language, and I know most of the people (not everyone) who speaks Esperanto doesn't pay attention about the hate against English.

So, what Esperanto is trying to do is help the world with the comunication issue, but I repeat "TRY".

The Esperanto comunity is a hugh comunity with kind people and many nuances, and that's what makes Esperanto from my point of view interesting.


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## Awwal12

> I also have to say that Esperanto has its own culture, developed by the people who speaks it


But there is no such nation anyway - with its history, ethnic self-conciousness, traditions and other ethnographical features, etc. Speakers of Esperanto are always parts of some other cultures after all, aren't they? But even if suppose that people who speak Esperanto can create some stable Esperanto culture, everything is limited by their number - which nowadays is insufficient.

Actually, I have nothing against eperiments with artifical languages - the only problem is that I see no practical reasons for such experiments by now.


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## gonzalox237

Awwal12 said:


> But there is no such nation anyway - with its history, ethnic self-conciousness, traditions and other ethnographical features, etc.


 

I speak Spanish because the Spaniards came to my land and conquered the land I live now which is Peru, I dont speak Quechua, Aymara or any of the 72 native languages spoken in the Peru's jungle. But the history of Peru should be in Quechua and no in Spanish, our root are more American than European. Also people from other countris such as the Africans came as slaves, and they learn Spanish because of necessity. So we're a colony, and what I can see is that Esperanto has its own colony in the heart of each Esperantist.

And talking about numbers I guess it doesnt matter too much, because we prefer the quality than quantity. The people who understand Esperanto in the way I can watch it, is people who believe that everithing is gonna be better someday and believe me reliable people evene if you just meet the person 5 minutes ago.

It is something that we have to experiment to feel it.

The nation is not limited to the number of citizens. We're a worldwide city, named who know who.


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## gonzalox237

Awwal12 said:


> Actually, I have nothing against experiments with artifical languages - the only problem is that I see no practical reasons for such experiments by now.



About this issue, well most the human invention were created because of the necesesity, so that's why people know that the comunication is an important issue, thats why they experiment, if we cant comunicate our thinkings, feeling or wathever we want to, the world will become i dont know. 

So better before that after.


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## Brioche

Angelo di fuoco said:


> For me, who don't know very much about Esperanto, it just sounds (or looks, because I never heard somebody speak it) not neutral, but silly and awfully artificial. Even now I prefer learning a bunch of other languages to learning Esperanto.
> 
> During some time, until I decided to have a closer look on Portuguese, it wasn't very beautiful in my opinion, just like Polish, *but if one knows a language better, one discovers its beauty (or it just becomes tolerable), so this opinion can change.* However, I would prefer knowing Chinese (which has not much grammatical particles), that I am learning now, and Hungarian or Turc (very regular languages) to Esperanto, because they are tied to a culture.



Apply your own rules, and do not discard Esperanto without giving it a reasonable trial. 

No knowledge is ever wasted, and learning Esperanto won't hinder you in any way from learning Portuguese, Chinese, Turkish or Hungarian. 

The "no culture" argument cuts no ice with me. It's simply an entrenched prejudice hunting for justification.


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## Brioche

Awwal12 said:


> But there is no such nation anyway - with its history, ethnic self-conciousness, traditions and other ethnographical features, etc. Speakers of Esperanto are always parts of some other cultures after all, aren't they?



Yes, of course they are!

But through Esperanto I have conversed with various people who speak no English, including Chinese, Belgians, Bulgarians, Czechs, Danes, Estonians, Finns, Hungarians, Japanese, Koreans, Poles, Spaniards, Slovaks and Vietnamese

I have neither the time nor the skill to learn all those languages, but I can use Esperanto to communicate directly with people from those cultures, and share their cultures - even if it is per the medium of an "artificial" construct.  

Esperanto beats just sitting there smiling.


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## Angelo di fuoco

Brioche said:


> Apply your own rules, and do not discard Esperanto without giving it a reasonable trial.
> 
> No knowledge is ever wasted, and learning Esperanto won't hinder you in any way from learning Portuguese, Chinese, Turkish or Hungarian.
> 
> The "no culture" argument cuts no ice with me. It's simply an entrenched prejudice hunting for justification.



You see, time is limited and I have already a hard time not to _lose_ the languages I already know.The frequency with which I begin to learn a new language is slowing down - from a gap of two years between German and Englishs at once (due to moving to another country and scholastic needs) and French, which came as "second" (in my case, third) foreign language afterwards, and the to a gap of four years between Chinese and Portuguese, even if in the meantime I gave a try to Czech, Polish, Hungarian and Larin.

Most languages I learned on my own I had a motive or a particular aspect of the language or tied to the culture behind language for learning.
With Chinese, it was that, after a bunch of European languages at school I wanted to learn something totally different from the European languages. Chinese is the last but-one language I began to learn in earnest, some years ago, and it costs a lot of efforts (memorising!!!) and even so I have the feeling that I will never master it really without staying in China for a while.
With Portuguese, it was the literature: a friend of mine recommended to me a book by Saramago and some time before another person recommended Pessoa to me (by whom I still haven't read any book, but that will come).
Hungarian, and Turkish as well, is interesting to me because this language has a totally different way of thinking which I cannot connect to anything in the languages I know.
There are also some more languages that I would like to know because I like their literature and would love to read it in the original language.
The next language I will be learning in earnest will probably be Polish - for business reasons.

However, the most important reason for my _not_ learning Esperanto is one that makes it worth learning for the most and which was its creator's aim: its simplicity and (almost) unbroken regularity. In my eyes, the complexity rather than the simplicity of a language is a reason for learning it.


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## Brioche

Angelo di fuoco said:


> In my eyes, the complexity rather than the simplicity of a language is a reason for learning it.


 
Then _Teach yourself Basque_ should be your next project 

You could also try _Kayardild _spoken on Bentinck Island off the coast of Queensland, Australia.  Lots of culture and complexity, and absolutely no economic benefit.


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## Frank06

Hi,


gonzalox237 said:


> Because it [Esperanto] is like it is hidden,...





Miĉjo said:


> Esperanto is alive and well. The Esperanto community - about 2,000,000 speakers - tends to keep a low profile, so it's not surprising it appears hidden.


2.000.000 is quite an optimistic number to be found back on ethnologue.com, for example. Other sources, including the Esperanto Wiki-article on Esperanto, speaks about 10.000 to 2.000.000 ("depende de difino de Esperanto-parolanto"). 10.000, 2.000.000, Quite a margin. 

In either case, even if we ignore the difference of 1.990.000 speakers, the degree of 'hidden-ness' can be quantified: compared to 7.000.000.000 planet Earth dwellers, the percentage of Esperantists is very meagre, even when using the optimistic figure of 2 million in the calculation (hence between resp. 0.00014% and 0.028%, if my horrible mathematical skills don't fail me completely as they usually do).

Doesn't this indicate that, as a _project _to stimulate something world wide, Esperanto failed gigantically?



gonzalox237 said:


> And talking about numbers I guess it doesnt matter too much, because we prefer the quality than quantity.


Numbers don't matter too much? Come again? 
Talking about numbers is quite essential when talking about a so-called international auxiliary language which is supposed to stimulate world wide peace and understanding, no??? Or do you mean that Esperanto is to be limited to an elitist minority (I don't think the word 'minisculity' exists in English)?



Brioche said:


> It's founder believed that if ordinary people could communicate with one another across the language barriers, that misunderstanding could be avoided, and if misunderstandings could be avoided, then also conflict and war.


In Zamenhoff's time (and still in these days world wide, sadly enough) ordinary people hardly went/go to school.
An artificial auxiliary language almost by definition can only be taught and learned in schools. And though schools are a basic right in most industrialised countries, in quite a lot of countries, schooling isn't even a priviledge. 

So far for "ordinary people".

To me, the basic idea of Zamenhoff seems to be nothing more than the ponderings of an idealist politically, economically, socially, socio-linguistically and linguistically, in short, seriously disconnected from reality.

This basic assumption also seems to be incredibly naive at best. Speaking the same language avoids conflicts. Well, I guess the victims of the American War of Indepence, the American and Spanish Civil Wars, to name just a few cruel conflicts involving speakers of the same language, would have been very happy to hear this.
Latin was used in the European middle ages (by the educated and ruling classes), but when I read about the history of Europe, the blood drips of every single page.
Otherwise said, I think, once again, that reality tells us another (hi)story. 



> So many Esperantists see themselves as workers for peace through understanding.


That's a noble idea, but do we _really _need a language or one common or one international auxiliary for that? Wouldn't working for peace be more effective when investing money in economies and general education rather than in facilities to learn Esperanto?



gonzalox237 said:


> When a person who knows Esperanto speaks, he or she uses the simpliest words in order to be understanted by the other one, we know that there're complex words that can be used as the simplies ones, but most of the time the vocabulary is basic, becuase in order to make the comunication more easy.


Where does the idea come from that communication is facilitated by using "the simpliest words", whatever is meant by "simple words"?
I'll ask it in another way, what makes Esperanto _oficiala_ and _statuso_ more or less simple than English _official_ and _status_, Portuguese _official _and _estado_, Swahili _rasmi_ and _makamu_? Or do I misunderstand you?



> So come on, in all languages exists complex words and even knowing their meaning we dont use them because we prefer the simpliest ones.


Maybe I misunderstand you, but what does this have to do with Esperanto per se? Talking about the weather, in whatever language, one can use the "most simple words" (you mean simple or basic??). Talking about nuclear physics, which I suppose one can do in Esperanto without a problem, requires words which are slightly less simple, at least if I may believe my own eyes and the Wiki articles in Esperanto about this topic. 



Brioche said:


> But through Esperanto I have conversed with various people who speak no English, including Chinese, Belgians, Bulgarians, Czechs, Danes, Estonians, Finns, Hungarians, Japanese, Koreans, Poles, Spaniards, Slovaks and Vietnamese


I fail to understand the validity of this kind of argument. 
Through Dutch, I have spoken with Chinese, Belgians (from Wallonia _and_ West Flanders ), Bulgarians, Spaniards, Maroccans, Indonesians,
Mongols, Japanese, Turks, Iranians, ... you name it, who don't speak Esperanto (nor English).

Your argument seems to be related to the idea that 'if I learn Chinese, I can speak with a billion or more people'. It looks impressive due to the juggling with big numbers, but it doesn't really cut wood.

Groetjes,

Frank


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## gonzalox237

> Originally Posted by Frank06
> I'll ask it in another way, what makes Esperanto _oficiala_ and _statuso_ more or less simple than English _official_ and _status_, Portuguese _official _and _estado_, Swahili _rasmi_ and _makamu_? Or do I misunderstand you?


What makes Esperanto simple for that words, which are similars, that's the point, most of the Esperanto words come from other languages, so most of the word are simple to remind, or pronunciate: 
sovagho - wild
sauvage- from the french wild
In the case above, the word in Esperanto is easier to read and Esperanto allows to pronunce that words as it is written, so the French word sounds different from the written form, that's why the Esperanto words in many cases are more simple.


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## Frank06

Hi,


gonzalox237 said:


> What makes Esperanto simple for that words, which are similars, that's the point, most of the Esperanto words come from other languages


From Chinese, Tupi, Swahili?



> most of the Esperanto words come from other languages, *so* most of the word are simple to remind, or pronunciate:


I fail to see the logical connection.



> Esperanto allows to pronunce that words as it is written that's why the Esperanto words in many cases are more simple.


So, by "simple" you mean that the *spelling* of Esperanto is more phonetical than let's say English or French. 
Mmmh, then I don't understand what your explanation about "simple words", which I quoted above, have to do with your original statement quoted below:


> When a person who knows Esperanto speaks, he or she uses the simpliest words in order to be understanted by the other one, we know that there're complex words that can be used as the simplies ones, but most of the time the vocabulary is basic, becuase in order to make the comunication more easy.


If one speaks, and uses the "simpliest words", what does this have to do with phonetical spelling??? 

Groetjes,

Frank


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## Angelo di fuoco

Hungarian or Czech orthographs are also very phonetic (Czech with no exceptions and Hungarian just with two graphic variants for one sound - "ly" and "j" sound the same).

There is a Wikipedia in "Simple English"...

Esperanto is very Eurocentric and even so, the fact it borrowed its vocabulary from a vast number of (European) languages doesn't necessarily help, because one has to know those languages to recognize the words.


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## gonzalox237

> *Posted by *Frank06:
> Numbers don't matter too much? Come again?
> Talking about numbers is quite essential when talking about a so-called international auxiliary language which is supposed to stimulate world wide peace and understanding, no??? Or do you mean that Esperanto is to be limited to an elitist minority (I don't think the word 'minisculity' exists in English)?


Well, numbers matter, but for me no. We have support from the UN and Unesco, we ( through UEA ) adn we spread Esperanto around the world, we're no not a kinda elistist, because Esperanto has been made for everyone. You know what, I like that fact that Esperanto is spoken just for few one, but no in an elitist way but used by people who are conscious about the comunication problems.

But Esperanto right now is helping people in China to learn English, because they're being teached Esperanto from low ages, in order to make them easir the learnin of the English,that's the aim of teaching Esperanto in some schools in China. So don't you think it is interesting?


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## Tagarela

Hi,

I have never studied Esperanto. Recently I have read somethings about it, I've found out that there are people making music in Esperanto, books translations, and even a group for tourism facilities for those who speak the language, but it still seems to be not being worthy to learn it. 

Gonzalox237, I have read about this too, that learning Esperanto first helps a lot people to learn other languages, okay, that is true. However, it isn't true that learning any other language helps to learn another one at least a little related to it (with a common vocabullary, grammar, sounds) ? 

I agree with those who say that the most reason for learnign a foreign language is economic - if it is not true, we must admit that the anglophone culture is the best of the world. So, Esperanto doesn't seem to give any rapid economic advantage, and when it comes to cultural interests, as many have already said, it's "empty", although there are some efforts on this direction as mentioned above.

Brioche, questions like this, if it is easier to find a Dutch or a Esperanto speaker in Japan is interesting. But I would bet in Dutch. 
Perhaps, we could do the question on the other way, for a Japanese who lives in Japan, which one is better, to learn Dutch or to learn Esperanto? Considering that he is not moving to Neatherlands, perhaps he visits the country and neighbour countries once or twice in five years. Which language would enlarge more his communicate possibilities, economic advantages and cultural possibilities?


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## gonzalox237

Tagarela said:


> However, it isn't true that learning any other language helps to learn another one at least a little related to it (with a common vocabullary, grammar, sounds) ?


 
Hi, in fact if you learn a second language and it is proved, you can learn a third one more easily. Because all the languages have a commom grammar, so that's why if we apply our knowledge to the new language that we learn we're going to learn it faster. No matter if it is related or not. I'm gonna try to find the info about what I'm talking, but right now I'm at work , so I can't open too many pages because they're blocked to me, but I'm going to post it tomorrow.



> for a Japanese who lives in Japan, which one is better, to learn Dutch or to learn Esperanto? Considering that he is not moving to Neatherlands, perhaps he visits the country and neighbour countries once or twice in five years. Which language would enlarge more his communicate possibilities, economic advantages and cultural possibilities?


 
Better and believe me easier, Esperanto, but if you talk about economic advantages, I don't think the Japanese is going to learn Dutch easily. So the response is none of above but English.

Now, I see that you Tagarela lives in Brazil, the Esperanto comunity is very hugh there. I've meet many Brazilian esperantist; and they're kind people. So I bet you can get more info about Esperanto with them it is easy to contact them. About the Pasporta Servo - it is kind of like Hospitality Club, but for Esperantist, and in my experience much more efective than the HC, there's a singer named MOJO and you can watch his videos on youtube.

I know that if we learn a language, our aim is to get something from that language, I mean I learn French because I want to go there and study there, or English to comunicate myself with people around the world, but I learn Esperanto no because I wanted to earn money, or get something but meet nice people, learn something different, learn about trusting, friendship, comunication and many other things. It's like a philanthropist, he loves to helps people just because he likes to do that and he can, I learn Esperanto beacuse I like it from the first time I read the name of the language.

Esperanto is much more than comunication but a feeling, I mean if I meet you for firsttime knowing that you're Esperantist, it's like if I met you many years ago. Most of my friends feels the same.

Well do you have any other question ?


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## Frank06

Hi,


Brioche said:


> What are your chances of finding a Japanese person in Japan who speaks Dutch, compared to the chances of finding an Esperantist?


That's like asking how big the Dutch needle is as compared to the Esperanto needle in the Japanese haystack. How significant is the difference between three zeros and four zeors behind the comma (or point) in this context?



gonzalox237 said:


> But Esperanto right now is helping people in China to learn English, because they're being teached Esperanto from low ages, in order to make them easir the learnin of the English,that's the aim of teaching Esperanto in some schools in China. So don't you think it is interesting?


A few questions and remarks:
1. 
When talking about an international auxiliary language, I am always wondering about numbers, figures. That's the only way we have to measure the success of such a con lang. 
It strikes me that the number of speakers of Esperanto are always so incredibly vague and imprecise (10.000-2.000.000 comes to mind), certainly when reading posts on message boards, but also when searching for information on Esperanto sites. This makes me wonder...
So, about how many people in China are you talking? How many students and how many schools?

Let's move on to the number of students/speakers/learners of Esperanto in China, to stick to our example.
On the website of Ĉina Esperanto-Ligo (or is it China Esperanto-Ligo?) I read:
"ChEL havas 29 filojn en diversaj urboj kaj provincoj, *milojn* da individuaj membroj." 
Google Translate, which deals with Estonian, Irish and Swahili (admitted, in its own, peculiar way) told me it cannot translate from Esperanto yet. That's bad luck.
So, I guess that "milojn" means *thousands*. Those 'membroj' probably don't include all speakers of Esperanto in China, neither your mystery students (about which I couldn't find an independent source*). Let's ignore the minor possibility that not all members of the ChEL speak Esperanto. 
To round up, I think we can safely multiply those 1000s a few times. 
(*Mind you, I really want to believe you about Chinese students learning Esperanto first, and then English but I need some extra, independent data).

In other words, a few thousand speakers/learners in a country of +/-1.300.000.000 people.
You do the maths?

A related question: do you have any idea how many Chinese students don't learn Esperanto first and go straight to an English class? I don't have a clue at all, but I bet we're not talking about a few thousands here. 
My very wild guess is that 99.9% of Chinese students who learn English, don't learn Esperanto first. 
If that would be true (and I cannot back it up, it's only my male intuition), shouldn't we wonder why they don't learn Esperanto?

2.
Let's turn around your way of reasoning: would you learn Esperanto first in order to study Chinese (or Turkish, Korean, Arabic)? 
If so, why?
If not, why not?

3. 
So, you claim that (some) 'people in China' first learn Esperanto and then English. Isn't this yet another indication that Esperanto as a _world wide _project failed miserably? Or: Why would they have to learn English? Because of reality?
If I may believe Gonzalo's explanation quoted below (and I am inclined to do so, give and take a few additions and modifications), why not simply eliminating the aux language (which requires a lot of energy, time and resources) and deal with the target language straight away? 
I mean, why teaching two languages (Esperanto first, then another language, let's take English), if, according to your line of reasoning, English can serve the same purpose as the aux language and -- one extra minor detail -- English is incredibly useful on a global scale, even in Japan?



gonzalox237 said:


> in fact if you learn a second language and it is proved, you can learn a third one more easily.


I noticed that knowledge of certain second languages could help acquiring a certain third language, though it's only one of the many factors that play a role, and it's not always the most important one. 
But basically, at least in my limited experience as a Dutch SL teacher whose students are anything but language nerds the way we at WR are, it only helps when that language was taught formally and extensively in schools, and mainly if the acquired second language bears some resemblance to the target language.
To give two _extreme _examples: Turkish doesn't help my Kurdish students acquiring Dutch, while my Armenian/German students advance with the speed of light.



gonzalox237 said:


> Because all the languages have a commom grammar,


They do? My Turkish, Arabic, Chinese students will be happy to hear it when I tell them this in my Dutch courses .
(Anyway, maybe this is the start of a new thread).

Groetjes,

Frank

PS: Please note that I don't hold any grudge against Esperanto, the language. And yes, I can understand most of any Esperanto text due to my knowledge of a second and third language.
I am just questioning some of the, how can I say, philosophical/ideological (?) (I don't know how to express the idea, hence the question mark) aspects of the Esperanto movement, which, to my pragmatic ears, sound too idealistic and too disconnected from reality.


----------



## Ghabi

Hello Gonzalox. When I saw your first post, I didn't know that you're an Esperantist (because you say it's "hidden", and say you want to hear others' opinions, so I presumed that you're an outsider just like me). Please forgive me for my impertinent opinion (in Post#3).



gonzalox237 said:


> But Esperanto right now is helping people in China to learn English, because they're being teached Esperanto from low ages, in order to make them easir the learnin of the English,that's the aim of teaching Esperanto in some schools in China. So don't you think it is interesting?


Are you sure? As a Chinese, I'm aware that Esperanto was once popular in China (for intellectuals and young students, not for hardly-literate folks like me of course), but it seems to me it's no longer learnt by many in China these days, and I'm rather skeptic that Chinese children learn Esperanto to facilitate their study of English.


----------



## Tagarela

Hi,





gonzalox237 said:


> Now, I see that you Tagarela lives in Brazil, the Esperanto comunity is very hugh there. I've meet many Brazilian esperantist; and they're kind people. So I bet you can get more info about Esperanto with them it is easy to contact them.


 
Actually, I have never talked to anyone who study Esperanto here. I've heard from my parents that some of my relatives were interested on it in the past. However, nowadays I don't seen anyone talkign about Esperanto around here. I know that there are some groups, I've taken a look at some websites and so on, but it's not _huge_, in the sense that it is easy to find some Esperantist by chance around here. 




gonzalox237 said:


> Esperanto is much more than comunication but a feeling, I mean if I meet you for firsttime knowing that you're Esperantist, it's like if I met you many years ago. Most of my friends feels the same.
> 
> Well do you have any other question ?



I see your points on what Esperanto is about, but it's too subjectively. For me, it is better to meet a foreigner who speak Portuguese, I think that it is nice when you meet someone who spent sometime learning your language when he or she has plans to visit or work in the country even if it is possible to survive without speaking it. Concerning your arguments, and what I have read about Esperanto, it seems to me that Esperanto isn't a language, it's a lifestyle and one is supposed to get the whole package if wants to join it - and I guess that many think that there are other means to achieve these goals of friendship, global communication, neutrality etc that comes with Esperanto language. 
For example, as I have said, learning other language, mainly "minor" ones, from which you would get not great benefits, only because of some cultural interest, to read the original of some books, to spend a time on the country, is a way to promote good relationships between people, showing that their folk has something to make you a "better person".  


Ah, but I agree that the name _Esperanto_ is nice, it gives us some _Esperança_


----------



## gonzalox237

> "In other words, a few thousand speakers/learners in a country of +/-1.300.000.000 people.
> You do the maths?"


 
Yes, I do. I don't like maths. What I'm trying to show making this hile, is just show that Esperanto is alive, even when many of you guys could think it is dead. I haven't said that Esperanto is a succesful auxiliar language, I said that is te best option, numbers doesn't match, but we still try to spread this option. 

You can find info about the school in this links:

http://www.esperanto.org.br/p/movime...a-lernejo.html 
http://www.ipernity.com/blog/67438/201377
http://esperanto.china.org.cn/espera...t_18926200.htm




> "My very wild guess is that 99.9% of Chinese students who learn English, don't learn Esperanto first.
> If that would be true (and I cannot back it up, it's only my male intuition), shouldn't we wonder why they don't learn Esperanto?"


 
Well, many things in linguistics and related to political actions. That's all I can say about this.



> "Let's turn around your way of reasoning: would you learn Esperanto first in order to study Chinese (or Turkish, Korean, Arabic)?
> If so, why?
> If not, why not?"


 
Of course, I'm not a linguist yet, so I don't know how to use some words, but to show it clear I'm gonna study a bit about the Chinese grammar and also the Korean, Turkish and Arabic to make the comparation, and I'll show you. 
Esperanto is very flexible and also is an isolated and aglutinant language.

In- female sufix et- little sufix
O - noun sufix A- adjective sufix
Vir - male knab - boy // in order to complete the words we add the noun sufix:
Viro - knabo 
If they are females, we add also the female sufix:
Virino - knabino
Ino - also means female 
eta - little 
domo- house // dometo - little house

So the sufix has meanings, and thats useful, as I told you I'm going study the gramar and I'm gonna show to you more propertly why for me is an advantage study Esperanto first.



> So, you claim that (some) 'people in China' first learn Esperanto and then English. Isn't this yet another indication that Esperanto as a world wide project failed miserably? Or: Why would they have to learn English? Because of reality?
> If I may believe Gonzalo's explanation quoted below (and I am inclined to do so, give and take a few additions and modifications), why not simply eliminating the aux language (which requires a lot of energy, time and resources) and deal with the target language straight away?
> I mean, why teaching two languages (Esperanto first, then another language, let's take English), if, according to your line of reasoning, English can serve the same purpose as the aux language and -- one extra minor detail -- English is incredibly useful on a global scale, even in Japan?"


 
I don't think is has failed, or miserably failed as you say. Esperanto helps to learn not just English but many languages. Of course English is the franc language right now but who knows the future. Talking about why first Esperanto and no English, it is easy, for that people to understand the English grammar have to study about 10 years or more, so they lear a simple grammar (Esperanto) and then when they learn a 3rd language (English in this case) they can learn it easily becasu they get used to the Latin letters, grammar, words, ect , ect.



> "I noticed that knowledge of certain second languages could help acquiring a certain third language, though it's only one of the many factors that play a role, and it's not always the most important one.
> But basically, at least in my limited experience as a Dutch SL teacher whose students are anything but language nerds the way we at WR are, it only helps when that language was taught formally and extensively in schools, and mainly if the acquired second language bears some resemblance to the target language.
> To give two extreme examples: Turkish doesn't help my Kurdish students acquiring Dutch, while my Armenian/German students advance with the speed of light."


 
Maybe you're right, maybe not. I give you this reading maybe this is helpful.



> "Innate linguistic knowledge
> Terms such as "transformation" can give the impression that theories of transformational generative grammar are intended as a model for the processes through which the human mind constructs and understands sentences. Chomsky is clear that this is not in fact the case: a generative grammar models only the knowledge that underlies the human ability to speak and understand. One of the most important of Chomsky's ideas is that most of this knowledge is innate, with the result that a baby can have a large body of prior knowledge about the structure of language in general, and need only actually learn the idiosyncratic features of the language(s) it is exposed to. Chomsky was not the first person to suggest that all languages had certain fundamental things in common (he quotes philosophers writing several centuries ago who had the same basic idea), but he helped to make the innateness theory respectable after a period dominated by more behaviorist attitudes towards language. Perhaps more significantly, he made concrete and technically sophisticated proposals about the structure of language, and made important proposals regarding how the success of grammatical theories should be evaluated.
> Chomsky goes so far as to suggest that a baby need not learn any actual rules specific to a particular language at all. Rather, all languages are presumed to follow the same set of rules, but the effects of these rules and the interactions between them can vary greatly depending on the values of certain universal linguistic parameters. This is a very strong assumption, and is one of the most subtle ways in which Chomsky's current theory of language differs from most others"


 


> "Commom Grammar
> They do? My Turkish, Arabic, Chinese students will be happy to hear it when I tell them this in my Dutch courses .
> (Anyway, maybe this is the start of a new thread)"


 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_grammar -- here you can find what I'm about. 

NOTE: Claude Piron, a psychologist formerly at the University of Geneva and Chinese-English-Russian-Spanish translator for the United Nations, argued that Esperanto is far more intuitive than many ethnic languages. "Esperanto relies entirely on innate reflexes [and] differs from all other languages in that you can always trust your natural tendency to generalize patterns. [...] The same neuropsychological law [—called by] Jean Piaget generalizing assimilation—applies to word formation as well as to grammar.


----------



## Angelo di fuoco

gonzalox237 said:


> Of course, I'm not a linguist yet, so I don't know how to use some words, but to show it clear I'm gonna study a bit about the chinese grammar and also the korean, turkish and arabic to make the comparation, and i'll show you.
> Esperanto is very flexible and also is an isolated and aglutinant language.
> 
> In- female sufix    et- little sufix
> O - noun sufix      A- adjective sufix
> Vir - male    knab - boy  // in order to complete the words we add the noun sufix:
> Viro - knabo
> If they are females, we add also the female sufix:
> Virino  - knabino
> Ino - also means female
> eta - little
> domo- house //  dometo - little house
> 
> So the sufix has meanings, and thats useful, as i told you I'm gonna study the gramar and I'm gonna show to you more propertly why  for me is an advantage study Esperanto first.



I'm terribly sorry, but Chinese (which I know best among Korean, Arabic and Turkish) doesn't function like Esperanto and Esperanto isn't not the tiniest bit helpful when learning Chinese - at least, not more than any European language. Esperanto has many aspects that the Chinese think unnecessary (gender, case, article, obligatory plural suffix, temporal inflection in verbs, morphological "determinatedness" of a word) and doesn't have many constituent aspects of the Chinese language (tones, modifying particles, measure words, the hieroglyphs, great spectrum of possible grammatical functions of a word, depending on syntactical and semantic context - e. g. many words can be as well prepositions as verbs without any morphological changes).

By the way, you should learn what is the difference between language isolates and isolating languages and it should also be clear that in general an isolating language (like Chinese) cannot be agglutinative (like Turkish or Hungarian) as well.
Also, according to you, the English language can be called agglutinative: God - Goddess - Goddesses - Goddesses's (hope the last form is correct).

Esperanto, although it has many elements of agglutination (principally found in Uralic and Turkic languages), is in its essence an Indo-European language, and as an auxiliary language it is good only for learning European languages. Even so, one can learn the Indo-European aim languages directly without the detour of the auxiliary language, and be not in the slightest degree handicapped by this circumstance.


----------



## Enriquee

More than anything else, marvels me, people that have 
a very strong opinion about Esperanto, when they never 
took their time to use it or even learn it, or try to participate 
in a meeting where most people were speaking Esperanto 
naturally. 

How many names of  languages can you remember? 
Most people cannot name more than 30, out of more than 
6000 languages in the world. Do you have such strong 
opinion about the other almost 6000 languages that you 
don't know their names?


palomnik said:

>In my experience, a lot of people who study languages 
>aren't that enthused about Esperanto.

Maybe if they knew that learning Esperanto and language B, 
takes less time than learning just language B, they could be 
a little more interested.

Why would you think that somebody that expends many 
hours each day training for tennis or swimming, should 
be interested in golf, polo, or lacrosse?

Would you take advice about playing baseball or golf from 
somebody that never played the game nor even watched 
a game?

I will help you learn Esperanto. (no charge)

Best wishes, 
Enrique, 
<Promotional material removed by moderator.  Please read the forum rules.>


----------



## Enriquee

All discussions about Esperanto grammar, neutrality, 
word origin, and other details, are irrelevant when you 
learn and use Esperanto. 

Esperanto is not neutral because it contains 3 words 
of each of 6000 languages. Nobody could learn such 
a language. But don't forget that all the languages have 
most of their words taken from other languages. 

Esperanto is neutral because there are not privileged 
people that don't try to learn another language and the 
rest of the world have to spend 10 years of their life 
learning it. To speak Esperanto, every person in the 
world has to spend some time learning it. But that time 
is a very small fraction of the time required to learn any 
other language.

I find interesting that most people that complain that 
Esperanto is a language "too European", want English 
to be the inter-language. Maybe, for them, English is 
less European than Esperanto.


Facts about Esperanto:

Lots of people are using Esperanto all around the world. 
Don't ask me for numbers. Nobody knows that number. 
I only know that I can find Esperanto speakers in any 
country that I want to visit. There are Esperanto speakers 
in most countries ... not in all countries. 

For most people that know an European language, it takes 
less than 20 hours to complete the basic course. People 
whose native languages are not written with Latin 
alphabets, may take a little longer. Many students start 
using the language after 10 hours ... with errors. 

Languages not written with Latin alphabets: I have spoken 
Esperanto in Japan, Korea, and China, with people born 
in those countries. 


Try for yourself. Dedicate 20 hours to learning Esperanto 
and you will not regret it. I will help you.  (no charge)
All the materials to learn Esperanto are on the web. 
Write to me.

Best wishes, 
Enrique, from California, USA


----------



## Enriquee

Gonzalo said:

>When a person who knows Esperanto speaks, he or she 
>uses the simpliest words in order to be understanted by 
>the other one, we know that there're complex words that 
>can be used as the simplies ones, but most of the time the 
>vocabulary is basic, becuase in order to make the 
>comunication more easy.

I use rather simple language when I have conversations 
in any of my 3 languages: Spanish, Esperanto, and English. 
But when the subject being discussed is more complex, 
I have to use more complex words ... in any of the 3 
languages.

In most Esperanto meetings that last more than one day, 
many speakers give speeches about different subjects, 
generally chosen by the speaker herself, and not all 
speakers chose simple subjects. Lately many speeches 
are about ecology, conservation, and other controversial 
subjects. 

Many of the speakers speak about experiences related to 
their own work, and then, they have to use the language 
related to that field of work. Same situation as in other 
conferences where the language could be English or 
any other. 

And then, there are books. The subject of the book is also 
chosen by the writer, same as in English. And even in 
English, not all the speakers of the language are capable 
to understand Shakespeare, or some scientific subjects. 
Yes, there are scientific writings in Esperanto.

I could tell you where to search to find scientific writings 
in Esperanto, but then, you will have to read Esperanto 
to find them. If you are still interested on this, search for 
S. T. E. B.   Scienca kaj Teknika Esperanto-Biblioteko.


I will help you learn Esperanto. (no charge)

Best wishes, 
Enrique, 
<Promotional material removed by moderator.  Please read the forum rules.>


----------



## remush

Frank06 said:


> Through Dutch, I have spoken with Chinese, Belgians (from Wallonia _and_ West Flanders ), Bulgarians, Spaniards, Maroccans, Indonesians,
> Mongols, Japanese, Turks, Iranians, ... you name it, who don't speak Esperanto (nor English).


Do  you want to prove that Dutch is easier than English? Or that it can be used to speak to foreigners who learned the language?
Well, you got a point. That's absolutely true.

If Dutch is chosen as EU mandatory second language, it will certainly save you a lot of time and money to learn it. Only a minority of English would object, even if Dutch is very close to English.
Unfortunately, humanity is too stupid to see the immediate benefit of such a cheap solution to the language problem.

Groetjes thuis. 
Bij mij zijn er veel meer vreemdelingen in de opvangcentrum.voor asielaanvragers. Ze zijn daar aan 't lullen. Ze spreken amper Nederlands. Ik zal hen Esperanto leren, zo zullen ze tenminste met elkaar kunnen babellen en iets nuttig kennen wanneer ze terug naar huis gestuurd worden.
Remuŝ


----------



## Frank06

Enriquee said:


> More than anything else, marvels me, people that have a very strong opinion about Esperanto, when they never took their time to use it or even learn it, or try to participate in a meeting where most people were speaking Esperanto naturally.


To object against the underlying philosophy of Esperanto, one doesn't have to learn Esperanto. One doesn't have to read fashion magazines to discuss the clothes of the emperor (credit to PZ Myers, who used this image in a completely different context).
(By the way, I did study it years ago, but, alas, forgot most of it).



> Maybe if they knew that learning Esperanto and language B, takes less time than learning just language B, they could be a little more interested.


That's quite a bold claim. 
Do you have literature or references about that? Is there any kind of literature about learning Esperanto as a stepping stone to a third language versus learning a second (natural) language as a stepping stone to a third one?


Enriquee said:


> I find interesting that most people that complain that Esperanto is a language "too European", want English
> to be the inter-language. Maybe, for them, English is less European than Esperanto.


The issue is not that people _want_ English to be the inter-language. That's (almost) a fact, whether we want it or not. Whether we like it or not.

Oh ja, just a(n unaswerable) question that crossed my mind: Would we still talk about Esperanto if it was based upun Korean, Japanese and Chinese? 



remush said:


> Do you want to prove that Dutch is easier than English? Or that it can be used to speak to foreigners who learned the language?


Nope, not at all.



> Bij mij zijn er veel meer vreemdelingen in de opvangcentrum.voor asielaanvragers. Ze zijn daar aan 't lullen. Ze spreken amper Nederlands. Ik zal hen Esperanto leren, zo zullen ze tenminste met elkaar kunnen babellen en iets nuttig kennen wanneer ze terug naar huis gestuurd worden.


De kennis van Esperanto wordt ongetwijfeld enorm geapprecieerd in de straten van Teheran, de bazaar van Baghdad en de hoogvlaktes van Tibet, om maar enkele locaties te noemen.

Groetjes,
Frank


----------



## remush

+





Frank06 said:


> De kennis van Esperanto wordt ongetwijfeld enorm geapprecieerd in de straten van Teheran, de bazaar van Baghdad en de hoogvlaktes van Tibet, om maar enkele locaties te noemen.


Zouden wij niet moeten proberen hen te overtuigen dat Nederlands gemakkelijker is dan Engels?
En als dat niet werkt, zullen we iets anders vinden.

Remuŝ


----------



## remush

Frank06 said:


> To object against the underlying philosophy of Esperanto, one doesn't have to learn Esperanto


Absolutely right.
What is the Esperanto philosophy, exactly?
What are your precise objections against it?
Remuŝ


----------



## gonzalox237

Thank you for the support Remush and Enrique.  And thanks for tying to teach Frank06 to know what Esperanto is?

He says that he didn't  find info, but I've already post it, and  believe me Frank06 if you want to remeber Esperanto, Enrique is a good teacher, he can give you more information than myself.

And i hope if more people read this thread, they will understand what Esperanto is.


----------



## Frank06

Hi,


remush said:


> Absolutely right. What is the Esperanto philosophy, exactly? What are your precise objections against it?


Please read posts 19 and 26, and the posts quoted in 19/26.
In post 19 I wrote "I am just questioning *some of the, how can I say, philosophical/ideological (?) (I don't know how to express the idea, hence the question mark)* aspects of the Esperanto movement, which, to my pragmatic ears, sound too idealistic and too disconnected from reality."

But what strikes me in this debate (and in most debates I had with people who favour Esperanto as the ideal inter-language, is the vagueness of the claims.
Lots of people speak it (any number between 10.000 and 2.000.000), it's easy (for whom?), and it facilitates the learning a third language (says who?). 
Now, I am incredibly unwilling to _believe_ these claims. However, I am extremely willing _to accept those claims on the basis of good, solid data_. 

Take the claim:
"But Esperanto right now is helping people in China to learn English, because they're being teached Esperanto from low ages, in order to make them easir the learnin of the English,that's the aim of teaching Esperanto in some schools in China. So don't you think it is interesting?"
When asked where, how many, what were the (objective) results, we didn't get an answer (see below).

Parts of this claim is repeated in the following quote:
"Maybe if they knew that learning Esperanto and language B, takes less time than learning just language B, they could be a little more interested."
Now, again, I am very willing to accept this, but do you have some data about it, _objective_ data.
And what would make Esperanto better as a second language (or rather, auxiliary language in order to learn a 3rd one) than let's say French or English or Latin or Greek?



gonzalox237 said:


> And thanks for tying to teach Frank06 to know what Esperanto is?


I am terribly sorry, but the argument "he doesn't like Esperanto because he doesn't know what it is" doesn't work here. I don't object to certain aspects of Esperanto (the movement, the claims expressed in this thread) because I don't know what it is. I do object because I _do _know what it is. That's quite a difference. 



> He says that he didn't find info, but I've already post it,


What you posted was 
1. three links to websites promoting Esperanto (one of which repeats 3 paragraphs of the other verbatim, so that makes two sources of information).
and 
2. a link to Chomsky's Universal grammar (which doesn't have anything to do with this discussion at all).
(both in post 29). 

I don't consider that to be _objective_ (and in the 2nd case adequate) information.
In other words: so far, none of the claims made by people who use this thread to promote Esperanto have been substantiated by objective (or relevant) data/information.

It's a bit like claiming that homeopathy works and then refer to a pro-homeopathy website which says that homeopathy works. 
I don't think that asking for more objective data from sources which don't necessarily promote Esperanto is such an extreme request. Otherwise said: I need a bit more to get convinced.

Now, an extra question: if it would have been already substantiated that Esperanto helps learning a third language, then why is hardly anybody outside the Esperanto movement convinced of that? Bad PR?



> and believe me Frank06 if you want to remeber Esperanto, Enrique is a good teacher, he can give you more information than myself.


I don't have any doubts whatsoever about Enrique being a good Esperanto teacher. But that's not the issue here.

Groetjes,

Frank


----------



## Enriquee

People speak about the "philosophy of Esperanto", which 
is not such, but the philosophy of some Esperanto speakers, 
or the philosophy attributed to the initiator of Esperanto, 
L L Zamenhof, or the philosophy attributed to what they call 
"The Esperanto Movement".

Most Esperanto speakers don't belong to the "movement",
if belonging means to pay dues to UEA, the world association 
for Esperanto speakers. Most Esperanto speakers enjoy the 
use of Esperanto, without participation in any associations. 
Many use the benefits of these organizations, when they 
buy books, or music, or when they participate in a meeting 
organized by any of these associations. 

I don't care about the "philosophy of Esperanto". I learned 
Esperanto for practical reasons. After many years struggling 
to learn English and getting nowhere, I found Esperanto much 
easier to learn, and in very short time (maybe 2 months) 
allowed me to communicate with people from other countries.

This started half a century ago, in August 1959. During the 
whole time I used Esperanto. That is why I like Esperanto, 
and that is why I like other people to enjoy the use of 
Esperanto. I teach Esperanto by email. I don't charge. I do 
that only because Esperanto was very useful to me. 

After learning Esperanto, I started to understand English 
a little better. I don't advocate Esperanto against English. 
I learned both languages. I use both languages. English 
took a lot more time until I was capable to use it. I need 
English in my daily life because 46 years ago I moved to 
USA. I need English when I travel, to get around airports and 
hotels. I use Esperanto in other countries to make friends. 
The fact that I speak English doesn't help much to make 
friends, while the knowledge of Esperanto does.

Last October I met Esperanto friends in Pusan, Korea and 
in Beijing, China. They took me around their towns, and let 
me experience the local culture. I do the same for people 
of many countries when they visit San Francisco, or I did 
when I lived in New York City.

When Henry Ford found the way to make a cheaper car, 
people didn't buy the car because they liked Ford's way of 
thinking. They bought the car because it was practical. 

*<Promotional message removed.  Such things have no place in any of the WordReference forums.>*

Best wishes, 
Enrique, 
<Promotional material removed by moderator.  Please read the forum rules.>


----------



## Enriquee

Frank said:

>But what strikes me in this debate (and in most debates 
>I had with people who favour Esperanto as the ideal 
>inter-language, is the vagueness of the claims.

I agree with you that many Esperanto speakers exaggerate 
some statistics. You will never get me to quote a number 
of speakers in the world. Nobody knows that number. 
I have seen quotes of 10 and even 15 million. I would 
prefer that Esperanto speakers don't quote any number. 

What I know, is that I find Esperanto speakers in the 
countries I need them. 

I don't make any false claims. I speak only facts.
It is a fact that the knowledge of Esperanto helped me to 
start understanding English. Similar claims I heard in 
conversations with many other Esperanto speakers, from 
different countries, about different languages.

I also read comments from some of my students of the kind:
"After starting to use Esperanto, I went back to study ... 
(French, German, Chinese ...) Now I have more desire to 
learn that language"

I said:

>>Maybe if they knew that learning Esperanto and language 
>>B, takes less time than learning just language B, they 
>>could be a little more interested.

Frank said:

>That's quite a bold claim.
>Do you have literature or references about that? Is there 
>any kind of literature about learning Esperanto as a 
>stepping stone to a third language versus learning a 
>second (natural) language as a stepping stone to a third 
>one?

Yes. There is. You have a choice:
You can learn to read Esperanto in about 30 hours, and then 
read about several experiments, or learn German, or 
Hungarian, or the language of Finland, about ten years each, 
and read about one experiment made by a speaker of that 
language. 

There were several experiments made in several countries 
in Europe, and at least one of them, with participation of at 
least 3 countries. To find Esperanto articles, you have to 
search: "Propedeutika valoro de Esperanto". Maybe you 
could have some luck if you search in English: 
"Propaedeutic value of Esperanto"

Most of the results will be written in Esperanto. Just 
remember that if you were looking about things related to 
English, you will find most of the answers in English. 

There is an organization in England called 
"Springboard... to Languages". 
This organization is teaching Esperanto in several schools 
in England, just to show that Esperanto helps. You will have 
to find the web address because I am not allowed to post 
page addresses. 


<Promotional material removed by moderator.  Please read the forum rules.>


----------



## Enriquee

Frank said:

>And what would make Esperanto better as a second 
>language (or rather, auxiliary language in order to learn 
>a 3rd one) than let's say French or English or Latin or Greek?

You said well "second language". Esperanto is a language.
I use Esperanto, Spanish, and English every day, in the same 
basis, with more or less the same capability ... my English 
pronunciation is far from perfect, but people understand me. 

Most of the people that learned more than one language will 
tell that the first was the more difficult, and the following 
languages were easier. 

Esperanto has 2 advantages as a second language:

1. You can start using Esperanto after a few hours of 
learning ... less than 20 hours. You can get some fluency 
much faster than in any other language. At least, that 
happens to most of the students. But I also knew a man 
that visited an Esperanto class in the Stuyvesant High 
School in New York City during more than 6 years, and he 
never got to understand Esperanto. He didn't learn any 
other language. 

2. Esperanto is grammar coded. 
In English a single word can be a substantive (noun), a 
verb, an adjective, an adverb. It takes some time to know 
the difference. 

In Esperanto, from the beginning, you know that a noun 
ends in -o (or -oj, -on, -ojn), an adjective ends in -a (or -aj, 
-an, -ajn), and you have only 6 endings for verbs. For that 
reason it is much easier to learn the grammar. We have 
seen English speaking students, that after learning 
Esperanto, started to understand better the makings of 
English, and started to write better English. 

Since it takes short time to learn Esperanto, and it makes 
easier to learn the next language, the result is that you can 
learn the 2 languages in less time that just learning that 
other language.

[edited by moderator]


----------



## Frank06

Hi,


Enriquee said:


> I don't make any false claims. I speak only facts. It is a fact that the knowledge of Esperanto helped me to start understanding English. Similar claims I heard in conversations with many other Esperanto speakers, from different countries, about different languages.
> I also read comments from some of my students of the kind: "After starting to use Esperanto, I went back to study ... (French, German, Chinese ...) Now I have more desire to learn that language"


With facts I don't mean anecdotes or "quotes" from "students" on websites. I mean *studies* performed by linguists, educators, etc. who are *not* involved in promoting Esperanto.



> Yes. There is. You have a choice: You can learn to read Esperanto in about 30 hours, and then read about several experiments, [...]
> There is an organization in England called "Springboard... to Languages".
> This organization is teaching Esperanto in several schools in England, just to show that Esperanto helps.


In short: outside the "world of Esperanto" there haven't been done experiments, research or something similar (?). Well, that was my question and it remains a question, since it hasn't been answered yet. I am searching too, but couldn't find anything yet).

It's quite normal and obvious that an organisation promoting the usage of prafodils will also tell that prafodils are great and useful. The contrary would be surprising no? 
It's getting slightly less obvious when the "world of prafodil users" would give their members and people interested *only* information about prafodil provided by that very same community.

Wouldn't you, as a non-prafodil user, be curious to learn about the claimed benefits of prafodil from sources (scientific studies, literature) which have no connection with prafodil whatsoever?

What makes me feel a bit weird is a quote from this page (link provided in post #)
"Unue, fari eksperimendon por *konfirmi* propedeŭtikan efikon por ĉinaj infanoj."

My Esperanto isn't very good, but shouldn't it read "fari eksperimen*t(?)*on por *testi *propedeŭtikan efikon por ĉinaj infanoj"?
I mean, what's the use of an_ experiment to confirm_ a claim. I thought that experiments were done _to test_ a claim. I find the same line of reasing in your post...

In other words: I am more interested in sources which are more objective and less, or rather, *not* involved.
I tried to google secundary literature about it, but I couldn't find anything which cannot be linked back to organisations involved in promoting Esperanto. Which probably means that I didn't search well enough...

Groetjes,

Frank


----------



## remush

Angelo di fuoco said:


> Esperanto has many aspects that the Chinese think unnecessary (gender, case, article, obligatory plural suffix, temporal inflection in verbs, morphological "determinatedness" of a word) and doesn't have many constituent aspects of the Chinese language (tones, modifying particles, measure words, the hieroglyphs, great spectrum of possible grammatical functions of a word, depending on syntactical and semantic context - e. g. many words can be as well prepositions as verbs without any morphological changes).


 Angelo, I would like to know more about those particularities of Chinese.
 I spend some time on Chinese long ago and for what I recall there are many features that are similar in Chinese and Esperanto.
 It would probably be useful to open a new thread on this and have some Chinese esperantists participate in the discussion.

I don't know what you mean by "gender", there is non gender in Esperanto. Did you actually study Esperanto?
What is morphological "determinatedness" of a word, modifying particles, possible grammatical functions of a word depending on syntactical and semantic context.
Could you give some examples?
BTW in Esperanto prepositions can become verbs, adverbs, adjectives or nouns, more easily than in Chinese because you don't need to  know the context to know the function of the word. I guess many sentences in Esperanto would still be understandable without  what we call the grammatical suffixes -a -e -i -o etc...
I have the impression that measure words are some sort of articles, much more complex than the Esperanto "la" and comparable to the French le, la, les, du, de la, des, de, which also cause headaches to foreigners.
About what you call temporal inflexion (I suppose -as -is -os)  I don't see any difference with  Chinese, only the location of the particle.

Having learned Latin, I always feel uneasy when people call the -n suffix a case; in Esperanto there are no cases, just prepositions which do not postulate a case like in Latin. In general the -n suffix is replacing a preposition when the intention is clear. Other uses are described in "La Fundamento".
In many cases, the "not use" of the plural is comparable to the Chinese one.
We should also consider the way words are constructed in both languages. I have the impression that we have here almost a perfect match.

When you compare Esperanto and Chinese, you must not do it with the vocabulary of a European language, but with the Esperanto vocabulary (see PMEG).
Now I am probably wrong about a few things, and I would be happy to be corrected. You very certainly know much more Esperanto  than I know Chinese. Seriously, what can one know of Chinese after a few weeks study?

I'll very probably restart learning Chinese seriously next year, when I am satisfied with my Polish, but I want to gather material already now.
I hope to find a course in Esperanto which will better show the differences and the similitude between the two languages, than the English course I have now.
Probably a course of Chinese for French would also be better.

 To summarize: I think that  the differences  between the grammar of Chinese and Esperanto are not much more than a question of vocabulary.

 Remuŝ


----------



## Enriquee

Frank said:

>Oh ja, just a(n unaswerable) question that crossed my mind: 
>Would we still talk about Esperanto if it was based upun 
>Korean, Japanese and Chinese?

Yes. I would still be a speaker of an Asian-language based 
Esperanto ... as long as it be easy to learn. For Asian people, 
Esperanto is more difficult than for Europeans or Americans.
By Americans I meant anybody born in America, from 
Tierra del Fuego to Alaska. 

But for Asians, Esperanto is still at least 10 times easier to 
learn than English. (or German, or Russian, ...)

And there is a little problem here. Learning to read using 
Chinese or Japanese symbols takes a very long time, even 
for natives. I suppose that the Korean alphabet will be more 
suitable for this purpose. 

I learned Esperanto because it is easy to learn. I teach 
Esperanto, because I want my students to start using it in 
a short time. 

And ... speaking about China and facts ...
It is true that there are some Esperanto speakers teaching 
English in China, and taking advantage that teaching 
Esperanto first will help the students learn English. But this 
is not official. This is made by each teacher on his own ... 
And the number of these teachers is not a high number.

On the other hand, there are several Universities in several 
cities in China, that officially teach Esperanto. The total 
number of students of Esperanto is very low compared to 
the huge number of students of English. 

CRI, China Radio International, had hired some of these 
students in Beijing. They help put together the daily 
programs of China Radio in Esperanto, and also prepare 
web pages in Esperanto for the radio big web site in 
Esperanto. The radio has programs in many languages. 
But the number of these employees is limited. 


*<<Promotional statement removed by moderator.  >>*

Best wishes, 
Enrique,


----------



## Enriquee

Frank said:

>In short: outside the "world of Esperanto" there haven't 
>been done experiments, research or something similar (?). 
>Well, that was my question and it remains a question, since 
>it hasn't been answered yet. I am searching too, but couldn't 
>find anything yet).

There are several "catch 22" situations in your writings. 
I cannot blame you, because most people think the way 
you do. My way of thinking may agree with a small minority.

Let me see if I can understand your point of view. 

You would not pay attention to research made by somebody 
that thinks my way and had learned Esperanto. 

Are you willing to do the research yourself? 
People that think the way you think, aren't inclined to do 
such research. Any way, to make such research requires 
lots of time and money that I don't have. But several people, 
at different times, did the kind of research you are looking 
for.

There are aspects of the research made or being made, that 
I believe are within your expectations. Maybe all the research 
I know about, was started by Esperanto speakers, but the 
participants were students in public schools. They were not 
Esperanto speakers before the research started. 

It is very hard work to get school authorities to accept such 
research. These school authorities never had to learn 
Esperanto. They were not involved in the Esperanto doing. 

In the case of British's Springboard to Language Learning, 
the initiators are veteran Esperanto teachers. They have to 
be, because they are doing the teaching. But the schools 
are public schools, and the students are regular students 
in those schools. This is a current experiment, started 
about 2 years ago, and going on for several more years. 


Some people, of the kind you will accept, could start making 
some research. They will soon find out that the best way 
to research this subject, is by learning Esperanto. The 
moment they start to learn Esperanto, they fall out of your 
acceptance. 

Many people that don't speak Esperanto, put together all 
Esperanto speakers as if we were a solid block of people 
different to them, like all of us thinking the same way. 
That is not the case. 

The only common thing is that we don't have the money 
and the time to do all the things we would like to do ... 
Different things from different minds, within the Esperanto 
speakers.

The fact is, that not counting about 2000 people, all the 
Esperanto speakers were not Esperanto speakers at one 
time. We heard or read about Esperanto in the most different 
ways. We were curious, we investigated a little about 
Esperanto, we liked the idea of learning a language in short 
time and proceeded to learn and use it. 

In my case, this happened half a century ago, in August 
1959, while I was struggling to learn English with very poor 
results. Imagine my surprise when after only 2 months 
I was speaking only in Esperanto with a girl my age! 


I will describe a case of unintended research.

Around 1995, when I just started to use Internet and didn't 
have access to the web, a 15-year-young girl contacted me 
(and without my knowledge, another 2 Esperanto speakers) 
asking for help about Esperanto. Her case:

In her school the teacher asked the students to write an 
essay about a subject of their own choice. As many other 
students her age, she waited for the last day allowed to 
present a couple of pages describing the theme of the essay. 

She went to the library searching for a subject to write 
about. After looking at many books about different subjects, 
she remembered about the word Esperanto, and right there 
she started her research about something that a few 
moments earlier she knew nothing about.

Up until that time, she was your kind of independent 
researcher. When she started to find "facts" about 
Esperanto, she decided to learn the language. Before she 
finished her project, we were already writing to each other 
in Esperanto. 

I saw her the first time in July 1998 in an Esperanto meeting 
in Montreal. At the end of this meeting she and her parents 
continued on a trip to France, where the World Esperanto 
Convention took place that year. She had a week of 
Esperanto "immersion" in Montreal, and another week in 
Montpelier, France. 

In the meeting I participated in Montreal there were about 
150 participants. I just checked the official Esperanto 
Yearbook (Jarlibro) and I read that in Montpelier there were 
3133 participants. 

The moment she started to learn Esperanto, you lost your 
trust in her research. 

One question for Frank: If you would like to make research 
about different aspects of learning English, or learning 
Advanced English, or the advantages of knowing English, 
in which language would you expect to find the answers? 
Wouldn't it be the same language of the intended research?


----------



## Frank06

Hi,


Enriquee said:


> There are several "catch 22" situations in your writings.


I was reacting to your post while I was reading it. At the end of my fairly long reply (including a rebutal of the anecdotal evidence you gave, that story about a 15 year old girl), I noticed that the final question of my original reply was the very same question I asked a few times already and which doesn't get answered. Otherwise said, we're going around in circles, and circles make me dizzy.
So I decided to skip my reply and ask my original question one more time. 

To clear up any kind of misunderstanding, could you please hit the "quote button" (instead of copy+paste) and insert the v symbol  or x symbol  in front of one of the following three possible answers to my question. Mind you, the vague phrase "several people", as you wrote in your previous post, is not an option):

*The question is:* 
Are there any _objective_ studies, conducted by scientists or linguists who are not involved in the Esperanto movement (no matter how you define this), on the benefits of teaching _Esperanto _(compared, _obviously, _to the teaching of another language) as an aid to learn a third language?
_Objective_ being the key word here. If the word _objective_ makes you think of a catch 22, then indeed our ways of thinking are too different.
Objective research, by defintion and in this context, cannot be conducted by a school which actively promotes Esperanto. 

*Possible answers:*
1. Yes, there have been studies by linguists not affiliated with the Esperanto movement;
2. No, there haven't been studies by linguists not affiliated with the Esperanto movement;
3. I have no idea.

May I ask you, in case you choose answer 1, to post the name(s) of the author(s), the title(s) of the publication(s), and if possible the date(s) and place(s) of publication).

The reasons why I asked that question are also simple: 
1. I am not a trained scientist, not even a trained linguist, so I lack the intellectual (and financial) capacity to conduct such a research. However, I am trained enough to read scientific papers.
2. As explained a few times by now, I am a 2nd language teacher. Hence, I'd like to read more about Esperanto as a tool in learning a third language. 
3. I am asking out of curiosity: I read great claims in this thread, and I was hoping to see great evidence.
4. I start to have the bad feeling that you're using this thread as a venue to promote your activities. I really hope I am wrong. So, a clear answer from you could take away that slighty negative impression.

Thanks in advance,

Frank


----------



## Enriquee

This message by Enrique tries to answer part of a posting 
by Frank.

A couple of writers wrote about Esperanto:

Umberto Eco wrote well about Esperanto in his book
"The Search For The Perfect Language"

Arika Okrent is the author of 
"In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, 
Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers and the Mad Dreamers who 
tried to Build a Perfect Language"

She speaks well about Esperanto. This is a rather new book.

>The question is:
>Are there any objective studies, conducted by scientists or 
>linguists who are not involved in the Esperanto movement 
>(no matter how you define this), on the benefits of teaching 
>Esperanto (compared, obviously, to the teaching of another 
>language) as an aid to learn a third language?

I don't know about such studies.
I read about similar studies made by Esperanto speakers. 
I also have my own experiences to assert that Esperanto 
helps in learning other languages. 

If you believe that learning any language helps learning the 
next one, then Esperanto is the best choice, because you 
can learn Esperanto in a fraction of the time needed for 
other languages. This is repeating something I already said.

>indeed our ways of thinking are too different.

(Repeating In my previous message I pointed out that we 
do think different, and that I cannot complain because there 
are more people thinking the way you do, than people that 
thinks my way. 

>Objective being the key word here. If the word objective 
>makes you think of a catch 22, 

What makes me think of catch 22 is that people that think 
like you, will never try to do that kind of research. 
A few of the people that think the way I do, would like to do 
the investigation, and some did ... but people that think the 
way you do, will never accept the results achieved by the 
people that did or are willing to do the research. 

I also pointed out, that even if the organizers of that research 
were Esperanto speakers, the participant students were not 
at the beginning. Of course, they learned Esperanto during 
the experiment.

You are right. I am repeating myself.

What kind of people do you think should do this research?
(What kind of people would like to make this research?)

>Objective research, by defintion and in this context, 
>cannot be conducted by a school which actively promotes 
>Esperanto.

I don't remember saying that any school actively promotes 
Esperanto.

I really wish I could find schools that actively promote 
Esperanto.

How could you make any research about Esperanto without 
mentioning the word "Esperanto"? How can you evaluate 
the results of learning Esperanto without teaching Esperanto?


Possible answers:
1. Yes, there have been studies by linguists not affiliated with 
the Esperanto movement;

The only linguist not-Esperanto-speaker that I know that 
made some research about Esperanto is Mario Pei. He wrote 
about Esperanto in some of his books. He did not do full
experiments. Maybe you can still find books by Mario Pei
in some libraries. He lived in New York City.

Mario Pei, from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mario Andrew Pei (1901–1978) was an Italian-American 
linguist and polyglot, who wrote a number of popular books 
known for their accessibility to readers who lack a 
professional background in linguistics.
 ...
Mario Pei was also an internationalist who advocated the 
introduction of Esperanto into school curricula across the 
world to supplement local languages. (Of course, you 
shouldn't believe every word written in Wikipedia)

This is about what I know. I am not saying that this have not 
happened. It is also possible that this happened within 
a circle where nobody spoke English. I don't have any 
information that this ever happened. I have not studied much 
about the history of Esperanto in every country where 
there are some Esperanto speakers.


2. No, there haven't been studies by linguists not affiliated 
with the Esperanto movement;

I don't know about any such occurrence, but I cannot 
deny that either.

3. I have no idea.

I have heard many things about this subject. The only 
materials I have consulted are written in Esperanto by 
Esperanto speakers. It seems that you don't like to know 
about the doings of Esperanto speakers.

>May I ask you, in case you choose answer 1, to post the 
>name(s) of the author(s), the title(s) of the publication(s), 
>and if possible the date(s) and place(s) of publication).

I wish. 
If we could answer all those questions, everybody would 
know the answers, and Esperanto would also be much more 
known and used.

>1. I am not a trained scientist, not even a trained lingist, so I 
>lack the intellectual (and financial) capacity to conduct such a 
>research. However, I am trained enough to read scientific 
>papers. 

I was raised in a country with much less possibilities than 
the USA. We learned, that when we could not reach all we 
wanted, we had to make do, with whatever we had in hand. 
Instead relying in scientific information from others, I made 
my own little research, when the only research available 
was a public library with not that many books. I am talking 
about 1959 ... a little before than Internet. I borrowed the 
book from the library to learn Esperanto, and I finished 
reading the whole book much earlier than the book return 
date. (The book was written in Spanish) 

>2. As explained a few times by now, I am a 2nd language 
>teacher. Hence, I'd like to read more about Esperanto as 
>a tool in learning a third language.

I am sorry I missed this one too. I am a late-comer to this 
thread. You are in the perfect position to make a little 
research by yourself. Recruit 3 or 4 of your students that 
would like to help you, and teach Esperanto to them. 
It will be very easy for you to teach Esperanto, if you just 
read the first lessons of a textbook for Esperanto. Just stay 
five lessons ahead of your students.

I am teaching Esperanto, and I don't have the training that 
you have. Then, after your students learn Esperanto during 
15 - 20 hours, compare how they are doing in the learning 
of your main teaching language, with the students that didn't 
learn Esperanto. 

>3. I am asking out of curiosity: I read great claims in this 
>thread, and I was hoping to see great evidence.

Unfortunately, there are some Esperanto speakers ready 
to exaggerate their own interpretation of some "facts", real 
or invented. I repeat, I go only by facts. For me, facts don't 
need to be documented in big encyclopedias. Some of the 
facts I have seen with my own eyes or heard with my own 
ears, or experimented in my own person.

Like the one student from Israel that told me that he had to 
stop the studying because he was going to travel ... and his 
destination was California, and within his travels, he was 
going to spend 3 days, about 40 km from my house.
So, the second of those 3 days I picked him up at 9 AM and 
left him at 5 PM, after showing him around San Francisco 
and north of San Francisco. We spend the whole day 
speaking only in Esperanto. 

Not all students learn that fast. I suppose that you see 
differences in your students.

>4. I start to have the bad feeling that you're using this thread 
>as a venue to promote your activities. 

You are half way right ... I am trying to get _you_ to learn 
Esperanto, because I can see that you are really interested 
to know about Esperanto. But I am not jealous, I will be 
happy if you ask me to help you and I will be willing to help 
you, but i will also be happy if you start learning Esperanto 
by yourself. And I will be much happier if you start teaching 
Esperanto to your students. As you can see, I will not 
benefit from any of your choices. 

>I really hope I am wrong. So, a clear answer from you could 
>take away that slighty negative impression.

I always try to be clear. My knowledge of English and my 
use of English doesn't help me a lot. And then ... my memory, 
or lack of it.

I hope you understand that I am working very hard trying 
to answer your questions. It looks like I spent the whole 
Saturday afternoon, just working on this message. 
I started about 2 PM and now it is 10:40 PM. 
I took a couple of breaks ...


----------



## Angelo di fuoco

remush said:


> Angelo, I would like to know more about those particularities of Chinese.
> I spend some time on Chinese long ago and for what I recall there are many features that are similar in Chinese and Esperanto.
> It would probably be useful to open a new thread on this and have some Chinese esperantists participate in the discussion.
> 
> I don't know what you mean by "gender", there is non gender in Esperanto. Did you actually study Esperanto?
> What is morphological "determinatedness" of a word, modifying particles, possible grammatical functions of a word depending on syntactical and semantic context.
> Could you give some examples?
> BTW in Esperanto prepositions can become verbs, adverbs, adjectives or nouns, more easily than in Chinese because you don't need to  know the context to know the function of the word. I guess many sentences in Esperanto would still be understandable without  what we call the grammatical suffixes -a -e -i -o etc...
> I have the impression that measure words are some sort of articles, much more complex than the Esperanto "la" and comparable to the French le, la, les, du, de la, des, de, which also cause headaches to foreigners.
> About what you call temporal inflexion (I suppose -as -is -os)  I don't see any difference with  Chinese, only the location of the particle.
> 
> Having learned Latin, I always feel uneasy when people call the -n suffix a case; in Esperanto there are no cases, just prepositions which do not postulate a case like in Latin. In general the -n suffix is replacing a preposition when the intention is clear. Other uses are described in "La Fundamento".
> In many cases, the "not use" of the plural is comparable to the Chinese one.
> We should also consider the way words are constructed in both languages. I have the impression that we have here almost a perfect match.
> 
> When you compare Esperanto and Chinese, you must not do it with the vocabulary of a European language, but with the Esperanto vocabulary (see PMEG).
> Now I am probably wrong about a few things, and I would be happy to be corrected. You very certainly know much more Esperanto  than I know Chinese. Seriously, what can one know of Chinese after a few weeks study?
> 
> I'll very probably restart learning Chinese seriously next year, when I am satisfied with my Polish, but I want to gather material already now.
> I hope to find a course in Esperanto which will better show the differences and the similitude between the two languages, than the English course I have now.
> Probably a course of Chinese for French would also be better.
> 
> To summarize: I think that  the differences  between the grammar of Chinese and Esperanto are not much more than a question of vocabulary.
> 
> Remuŝ



First, about gender in Esperanto: the -in suffix for one who, like me, knows what it means in German, is a very obvious gender marker, even if it is not used consistently like in German (where you can use it almost with every noun which designates a person or an animal, or even to some inanimate objects). The only "gender marker" I have encountered in Chines after more than three years study is 女朋友 (girlfriend) as opposite to 男朋友 (boyfriend), where the first hanzi means "woman" in the first word and "man" in the second (you have a similar use in French for some professions which don't have a female form).
No, I never seriously studied Esperanto.

Morphological "determinatedness" of a word: in Esperanto, you have lots of suffices (you enumerated some of them yourself), which make clear that a word is a noun, or an adjective, or a verb, you have synthetically formed tenses. Nothing of that is to be found in Chinese, and that is a FUNDAMENTAL difference between the two languages.

Modifying particles (for *verbs*) in Chinese indicate different *aspects* (completeness of an action, having made the experience of something, continuity of an action, anteriority to another action), but not *tenses* as in French, and they are not necessarily placed immediately before or after a noun (as a prefix, suffix, or ending, like in Esperanto). You don't mark the "past tense" (了 particle, which actually marks completeness or anteriority of an action) when it is clear from the context (indications like "this evening", "last year", "A. D.") when the action takes (took, will take) place.
For nouns, they may indicate, e. g., that a noun in preverbal position is not  subject, but object of that verb.
Then, there are the three particles 的，地 and 得, which are not very easy to explain (especially as it would be off-topic here), and the first of which has a lot of functions.

The Esperanto suffix -n, because it clearly is not a preposition, to me is a marker of a direct object, and because the function of the word in a sentence is expressed by a suffix and not by the position in that sentence, I have no difficulties to assimilate this suffix to the accusative case, even if its use is not always mandatory (remember, Old French had two cases: cas sujet and cas régime). The use of this suffix is in a way similar to the use of suffices in agglutinative languages like the Turkic and Finno-Ugric groups, and the grammar books usually speak of cases in those languages.

The measure words in Chinese are not very similar to articles in French, because in French the articles mark at least two of the following three qualities: (in)definiteness, gender, quantity (article partitif).
In most languages, you can say: "a mug (of) beer" or "a bottle (of) beer". In Chinese, it is roughly the same, but much more developed. You use the measure words either after demonstrative pronouns or after numbers, in all other cases you don't need (and use) them. Some words (a very restricted number) don't need measure words at all.
You will agree that that is not very similar to the use of the article in Esperanto.

Then, the possible grammatical functions of a word depending on syntactical and semantic context, just to give an example:
到, as for all I know, has three meanings (functions):
1) preposition: to, till, until (从 from... 到 to, either to indicate a space of time or place)
2) verb: to reach, to arrive
3) modifying particle: indicating completeness of an action: 找 （to search) makes 找到 (to find = to complete searching)

Then, there are the tones (essential to make out differences of meaning) and, much more important, the hanzi, a unique writing system not comparable to the Latin alphabet (used to write in Esperanto, amongst others), and at the same time a cultural value which unifies the country and is a part of the Chinese identity, no matter to which ethnic group one belongs), which are essential to the Chinese language(s), are an aspect which we didn't even take into account.

I hope, now you can see, that the differences between Chinese and Esperanto are much greater more than a question of vocabulary.

To the moderators: please feel free to separate this message from the topic if you feel that it exceeds the subject of this one.


----------



## Enriquee

This message by Enrique tries to answer a posting from 
Frank. It would fit better at the beginning of my previous post.

>Location: Antwerpen, Belgium
>Native language: Nederlands / Dutch (Belgium)

I just discovered your location and language. 
Unfortunately I didn't have the time to read all the 
messages in full. 

Right now, during the last 7 years I am living in California.
My languages are Spanish, Esperanto, and English, learned 
in that order. 

>At the end of my fairly long reply (including a rebutal of the 
>anecdotal evidence you gave, that story about a 15 year 
>old girl), I noticed that the final question of my original reply 
>was the very same question I asked a few times already and 
>which doesn't get answered. 

I tried to do the same, but I considered my messages being 
too long, before reaching the end of yours. Even that, I 
believe that I already answered those questions. I will try to 
answer again. 

>Otherwise said, we're going around in circles, and circles 
>make me dizzy.

Maybe I repeated some of the material because, at 72 years 
old, my memory fails me. But I tried always to have a 
different subject in each of my messages. I don't think I was 
always repeating the same things.

>So I decided to skip my reply and ask my original question 
>one more time.

I will try to answer that again.

>To clear up any kind of misunderstanding, could you please 
>hit the "quote button" (instead of copy+paste) 

I am sorry I cannot please you at this one. 

It is evident, that English resulted much easier for you than 
for me. I am slow when writing English. When I tried to 
write on the screen, by the time I was ready to send it, the 
program told me that I had taken too long, and I should do 
the whole thing again.

So, I reverted to my old ways ... opened a file where I copy 
all the posts that interest me, from this thread, and copy 
again the posts that I intend to answer. Then I erase the 
2nd copy while answering it. 

I try to be very clear, and I write the name of the quoted 
person, and put a >symbol in front of each line said by this 
person. To quote myself, I use a double >>symbol. 
I do that in all my writings, not only in this forum.

>and insert the v symbol or x symbol in front of one of the 
>following three possible answers to my question. 

Maybe my answer doesn't agree with any of the 3. 

>Mind you, the vague phrase "several people", as you wrote 
>in your previous post, is not an option):

I had to use "several people" because finding the names of 
these people will take me a lot of time, and you will dismise 
them because all of them are Esperanto speakers. 

I believe the exact number is between 5 and 10. I am not the 
historian who knows all the history of everything related to 
Esperanto. I prefer to use my time teaching Esperanto. 
instead of learning the whole history. I prefer the use of 
Esperanto, instead of all theories about Esperanto. 
I am going to find 2 or 3 of those names ... people about 
whom I read a few times. 

The one I had read more about, is Zlatko Tishljar, with whom 
I exchanged only a couple of messages along more than 10 
years. He wrote a book named

"Esperanto Vivos Malgraux la Esperantistoj"
(Esperanto will live despite the Esperanto speakers) 
Being the point, that many Esperanto speakers, by their 
doings and sayings, slow the advance of Esperanto instead 
of helping its progress ... but the language is so valuable, 
that will keep progressing.

In this book, Zlatko reports about his findings through his 
experiments during many years. It would be very easy for 
you to find the text of the book in the web ... but it is 
written in Esperanto.

I bet that if he or other persons had made similar experiments  
about English, the reports would be written in English.


The second person I can name is (I copied the following
Helmar Frank en paderbornaj elementlernejoj en 1975 kaj 
1976, en kiu Esperanton lernis preskaŭ 300 gelernantoj, parte 
unu jaron kaj parte du jarojn kaj poste ili daŭrigis lerni la 
anglan lingvon. Tiu eksperimento montris, ke tiuj, kiuj lernis 
E-on ĉirkaŭ 100 lernohorojn dum du jaroj, havis je 30% pli 
bonajn rezultojn ol la nelernintoj, dum tiuj, kiuj lernis nur 
unu jaron, havis jam je 20% pli bonan rezulton.

My translation of the previous paragraph:

Helmar Frank in some elemental schools in Paderborn, in 
the years 1975 kaj 1976. Almost 300 students learned 
Esperanto, some during one year, some during two years.
Later they continued learning English. This experiment 
showed that those that had learned Esperanto about 100 
hours during two years, had 30% better results than those 
that didn't learn Esperanto. Those who learned Esperanto 
during only one year, had 20% better results. 

Please don't ask me to document this. This is all I found. 
I just translated it to English.

Another experiment was performed by Istvan Szerdahelyi 
en Budapest. 

All these people are or were Esperanto speakers.


----------



## Frank06

> Zamenhof's goal was to create an easy to learn and politically neutral language that would serve as a universal second language *to foster* peace and *international understanding*. (From Wikipedia, my stress)


The underlying premisse here is that when two people speak (or in our case write) the same language, they'd understand each other better.
Nevertheless, reading Enrique's very very long reactions to my latest post, I have the impression that "understanding" or "willing to understand" is not an issue here.
Hence, in this post I will only react to the parts from those two very long reactions that are actually relevant to my question.



Enriquee said:


> I don't know about such studies.


Thank you for your answer.

Frank


----------



## Enriquee

Frank said

>Thank you for your answer.

You are welcome.


----------



## remush

Frank06 said:


> Thank you for your answer.


Amay! Ik denk dat we moeten de pap in uw mond steken!

I doubt you sincerely want to get another answer.
Otherwise you would already have paid a visit to Frankrijklei 140.

Anyway... Perhaps it's time to for you to go to http://www.esperanto.be/fel/nl/index.php
 onze bibliotheek > de catalogus > naar de bibliotheekcatalogus > Auteur: Frank

original is in German

Before going to Frankrijklei 140, call them to check if they have a copy of the book you selected otherwise ask them what they have on a subject that interest you.
tel. +32 32 34 34 00

You want proves? Go and fetch them!

BTW, I attended a conference given by Dr. Helmar Frank at the mentioned location around 1986. We could ask him many questions about various aspects of his experiment that we thought were questionable and were not in his published study.
He answered all our objections, and agreed that there was much more to explore. But the basic facts are indeed that for Germans, the quickest way to learn English is to start with Esperanto. The inspectors sent there by the Education Department acknowledged the fact and the Education Department classified the findings. They never set up an independent experiment.

There are lots of such studies, and references are available on Internet.
No study ever could contradict these findings, even if it would be fairly easy to set up a contradictory experiment.

Come back when you have documented yourself on the subject.

Remuŝ


----------



## clevermizo

Frank06 said:


> *The question is:*
> Are there any _objective_ studies, conducted by scientists or linguists who are not involved in the Esperanto movement (no matter how you define this), on the benefits of teaching _Esperanto _(compared, _obviously, _to the teaching of another language) as an aid to learn a third language?
> _Objective_ being the key word here. If the word _objective_ makes you think of a catch 22, then indeed our ways of thinking are too different.
> Objective research, by defintion and in this context, cannot be conducted by a school which actively promotes Esperanto.
> 
> *Possible answers:*
> 1. Yes, there have been studies by linguists not affiliated with the Esperanto movement;



I only know of one study, published in a peer-reviewed journal not affiliated with the Esperanto movement (the BJEP). I cannot say for certain if the principal investigators themselves were not affiliated with the Esperanto movement.

Halloran, J.H., 1952: ‘A Four-Year Experiment in Esperanto as an Introduction to French’, in British Journal of Educational Psychology, 22 (3), 200–204.

This was conducted in the earlier part of the 20th century. From what I gather there had been other similar studies, but I can't find publications associated with them. After the 1960s the studies lose wind but continue into the 70s and 80s. The highest interest in secondary language education of so-called "propaedeutic" value of Esperanto was more or less a curio of the early 20th century.

Since the BJEP archives online only go back to 1999, I can't find the paper and we don't subscribe to BJEP issues that far back at my institution. However, I found a summary here. It lists a number of other studies, but not the sources.

According that site, the conclusions:



> Among the less intelligent students, those who devoted a year to Esperanto succeeded better in French after four years, without additional study time for that language in the three years spent studying it.In any case, among the more intelligent students, the best success in French was among those who began it immediately.Those who began with Esperanto achieved a better "passive knowledge" and those who began with French acquired better "active use."


However, there is a serious problem with this study, scientifically with regards to how generally we can interpret and apply the results. The study compared two groups of students: 

Group A: Studies French, with no Esperanto (4 yrs study)
Group B: Studies a year of Esperanto, and 3 yrs of French

Group A is a pseudo-negative control. However, the conclusion that Esperanto may have aided "less intelligent students" does not show that this facilitative property _is specific to Esperanto_.

What *I* would have done if I were designing the study:

Group A: Studies French for 4 yrs.
Group B: Studies Esperanto for 1 yr, French for 3.
Group C: Studies Spanish for 1 yr, French for 3.
Group D: Studies Russian for 1 yr, French for 3
Group E: Studies Turkish for 1 yr, French for 3.
Group F: Studies Thai for 1 yr, French for 3.

Now I picked the others rather arbitrarily, but if only Group B showed any propaedeutic effect, I would be more convinced that Esperanto was indeed helpful. If all groups B-F showed the effect, then I would conclude that _learning a second language facilitates further language acquisition in general_. If only Group C showed any effect, we would expect this because Spanish is related to French (this would be a pseudo positive control).

Without experimental design as I have shown above, you cannot claim scientifically anything about the *specificity *of Esperanto's effect on facilitating the learning of other languages. I doubt that the Halloran paper made such a claim. They merely observed some effect. But they might have observed the same effect had the students studied something else for a year. We don't know. However, I'm sure Esperantists have used findings from studies such as the 1952 study as conclusive that Esperanto itself possesses this facilitative property. That is scientifically unfounded, without a study such as I have laid out above. In science it is imperative to include all the proper controls in experimental design in order to ask a certain question.

My *prediction *however, is that with respect to the languages of Europe, indeed we would expect some facilitative effect from learning Esperanto, because its lexicon is based in said languages. However, I would predict that Esperanto would offer no facility for the learning of non-European languages. In fact, I would design another study similar to Groups A-F above, that tests the ability of Esperanto to aid the learning of Arabic or Tamil.

From my own experience, learning language can be very fast if you learn languages from similar groups. Because I spoke Spanish at home and studied it formally, I was able to skip a year of French in high school. Because I have a decent reading ability in different Romance languages and I have been aggressively studying Arabic for the last 4 years, I found reading through _Le Petit Prince_ in Maltese quite easy. There's nothing special about Esperanto when it comes to learning other languages, although unlike all these other languages quoted, Esperanto is probably the easiest to learn initially due to its high regularity. I also don't know how the 1952 study was able to quantify "higher intelligence" and "lower intelligence" students.


----------



## Frank06

clevermizo said:


> I only know of one study, published in a peer-reviewed journal not affiliated with the Esperanto movement (the BJEP). I cannot say for certain if the principal investigators themselves were not affiliated with the Esperanto movement. [...]
> Halloran, J.H., 1952: ‘A Four-Year Experiment in Esperanto as an Introduction to French’, in British Journal of Educational Psychology, 22 (3), 200–204.


Thank you _so much_ for the information. The only other papers and articles which _seem_ to have been written by non-affiliated scientists I could find so far were even _older _studies.

Your information also helped me to locate the publication _and _discussions on the findings of Halloran and other authors, for example in _Language Matters: Reflections on Educational Linguistics_ by Timothy G. Reagan, p. 173, which mentions methodological flaws but is mildly positive nevertheless.
I also searched some extra information in peer reviewed articles, such as _Critical questions, critical perspectives: language and the second language_ by Timothy G. Reagan, which points out the results and the flaws in similar studies (p. 95 ff., alas, not completely available through Google Books). Especially the paragraph "Discussion and Evaluation of the research" seems to be interesting. Alas, the "Concluding comments" are only partially available.


> However, I'm sure Esperantists have used findings from studies such as the 1952 study as conclusive that Esperanto itself possesses this facilitative property. That is scientifically unfounded, without a study such as I have laid out above. In science it is imperative to include all the proper controls in experimental design in order to ask a certain question.


The author and paper show up in quite many "bibliografoj", yes.

Thanks for the further comments and notes, most of which I find _very_ acceptable.



remush said:


> Anyway... Perhaps it's time to for you to go to http://www.esperanto.be/fel/nl/index.php
> onze bibliotheek > de catalogus > naar de bibliotheekcatalogus > Auteur: Frank
> original is in German


I really don't get it: I am searching for articles and information about the claims made here, but when I express the wish to also inform myself through publications which are _not_ connected to the "Esperanto movement", people get angry, refer me to the Esperanto League in Flanders (why not a university library???) or post very long posts which don't answer the question.
I am wondering why... Is there a problem with the word _objective_? Does it mean something naughty in Esperanto I am not aware of?
It's easy enough to find pro-Esperanto literature: click on every single Esperanto website and one can find any positive claim one can dream of. I know enough English, German, Dutch, French and Portuguese to work my way through a website written in Esperanto (and there is always my small Esperanto course and many online Esperanto dictionaries).
But what I am searching for is literature which is _not_ published through one or another "Esperanto channel". Does my (re)quest for _objective_ information really make people _that_ upset?

Anyway, I did find the publication by Helmar Frank, and I will also read that one, as Remush kindly suggested, even though it's difficult to call Frank objective (the Dutch translation is published by the ... Flemish Esperanto League). It's always good to read and learn from both sides. If I have time I'll even visit the library of "De Vlaamse Esperantobond", my former neighbours, once again. I hope they have broadened the scope of their collection by now and I hope to find _balanced_ information there, I mean the pros _and_ the cons, positive _and_ critical (re)views. The latter I couldn't find during my last visit _many_ years ago. Maybe my compatriot Remush will help me find the critical articles in the library?
More information on Helmar Frank can be found here (scroll down a bit).



> Come back when you have documented yourself on the subject.


Remush, I haven't started yet.
You're right, I have to inform myself, read my way through _both_ the positive _and_ negative reviews (something which you undoubtedly already did) and then I'll come back. So far, I was just asking for some information...

Groetjes,

Frank


----------



## gonzalox237

I was reading all the post you make Frank, and well almost everthing has been explained here and I guess the only way you can prove yourslef all or at leats some of the facts about Esperanto is that maybe you can try a little experiment as Enrique already post.

-You're not related to the Esperanto Asociation
-You want to know about the facts of Esperanto
- You're a language teacher (which is gonna help you in the development of the experiment)

The lines above shows that you're such a good prospect to make us a favor. And make a well non-scientific/linguistic research but at least a research not related to the Esperanto world. I don't think you will deny, because I dont think  you think you're not able to make the research.

So what do you say Frank, maybe you can try what *Clevermizo *proposed lines above, about the structure of the research.



> What *I* would have done if I were designing the study:
> 
> Group A: Studies French for 4 yrs.
> Group B: Studies Esperanto for 1 yr, French for 3.
> Group C: Studies Spanish for 1 yr, French for 3.
> Group D: Studies Russian for 1 yr, French for 3
> Group E: Studies Turkish for 1 yr, French for 3.
> Group F: Studies Thai for 1 yr, French for 3.


Of course you can try  it in less time. But I guess it will help us.

So what do you think ? And believe me this is not a challenge, its just a proposal, in order to clarify all your doubts about Esperanto. And believe me the Association will be very glad to receive your conclussions. Whether the conclussions are favorable for us or not.


----------



## Frank06

Hi,


gonzalox237 said:


> I was reading alla the post you make Frank, and well almost everthing has been explained here and I guess the only way you can prove yourslef all or at leats some of the facts about Esperanto is that maybe you can try a little experiment as Enrique already post.


Let me first take a deep breath...
Okay. 

I do know that my English is not great at all - I am sorry for that -- and I do know that my writing is not always very clear but it's the _5th time_ that I wrote this and yet... 
This is not a conspiracy to make me pick up my Esperanto course again and write you in that conlang in order to make myself understood, is it?

May I then continue to say that I don't have to prove myself. That I don't have anything to prove. That I don't make the claims here. Not I. Ik niet. Eu não. Pas moi. 

I am only looking for _objective _material, published and reviewed outside the "Esperanto Movement" which backs up (or criticises) the _enormous _claims made pro-Esperanto members in this thread. Claims which echo the average information found on pro-Esperanto sites and pro-Esperanto sites only slash mainly.



> -You're not related to the Esperanto Asociation
> -You want to know about the facts of Esperanto
> - You're a language teacher (which is goona help you in the development of the experiment)


Your 2nd point betrays that you are sure about *the facts*, facts only (?*) to be found originating _and_ circulating within the "Esperanto community", as far as I know.

Please, the orignal poster asked for opinions. My opinion is that the arguments for the extraordinary claims made by Esperantists here are incredibly vague, incredibly unclear and not confirmed by unbiassed scientists, not yet, or not as far as I know, and apparantly, not as far as other people know (apart from that one study from 1952). Nothing more, nothing less.

I'm terribly sorry, but you guys are starting to give me the very unpleasant impression that the "Esperanto Movement" is some kind of cult, some kind of sect. Outside information isn't searched for, nor welcomed. Queries about outside information gives rise to verrrry nervous reactions. None of the pro-Esperanto members in this thread could give me any kind of information concerning their claims originating outside the EM. The only thing I got was the rather unrealistic suggestion "Do the research yourself". That I find strange.
To prevent quote mining: If you quote previous paragraph, please be sure to include the following phrase: I can't help it that you give me that impression, but still I don't think that the EM is a sect, nor a cult. 
You may, however, quote freely from P.G. Forster's _The Esperanto Movement_, to be found, again partially, on Google Books.



> The lines above shows that you're such a good prospect to make us a favor. And make a well non-scientific/linguistic research but at least a research not related to the Esperanto world. I don't think you will deny, because I dont think you think you're not able to make the research.
> So what do you say Frank, maybe you can try what *Clevermizo *proposed lines above, about the structure of the research.


First of all: I only want to find information.
Secondly, Clevermizo only discussed the study by Halloran (1952) in which the target language was French. 

But I'd suggest something bigger, something which would cover _all _the claims made here: Instead of limiting to French, as Halloran did (and which Clevermizo discussed), I'd go for a wider study involving 10 incredibly different languages (typologically, lexically, syntactically, morphologically, you name it) and research *all* combinations. We wouldn't like to give the impression that the starting point of our experiment is the idea that Esperanto only helps learning an Indo-European language and not, let's say, Saisiyat, Bantu or Saadiq), would we?



> Of course you can try it in less time. But I guess it will help us.
> So what do you think ? And believe me this is not a challenge, its just a proposal, in order to clarify all your doubts about Esperanto. And believe me the Association will be very glad to receive your conclussions. Whether the conclussions are favorable for us or not.


I'll pm you what's needed for such a research (I need further studies, 6 locations word wide, 10 langagues/teachers, and a staff to design, conduct and control the experiment. But hold your horses, the list will probably get slightly longer). And of course my bank account details (euros, please).

Frank

[(?*) And this is exactly what I want to find out: Are the claims made only within the "Esperanto movement" or are the claims backed up by independent scientists.]


----------



## clevermizo

For the record my experimental design above is exactly that... _a design_. A theoretical framework for testing the claim that Esperanto offers facilitation to the study of other languages. Such a study would be costly and in my opinion there are other studies better worth funding that should take priority. The interest in using Esperanto as a "gateway language" seems to have peaked in the earlier portion of the last century and there doesn't seem to be a convincing reason to renew research in it.


----------



## Frank06

remush said:


> Amay! Ik denk dat we moeten de pap in uw mond steken!
> I doubt you sincerely want to get another answer.
> Otherwise you would already have paid a visit to Frankrijklei 140.


Ik ben niet op zoek naar uw pap. Ik ben op zoek naar pap waar Esperanto-adepten geen vinger in te brokken hebben. Probeer nu toch eens een onderscheid te maken, man.

Anyway, I wrote an e-mail to the Flemish Esperanto League, telling them that I am looking for information about *Esperanto as a tool to learn a third language*. I specifically asked them if they have articles or literature *pro and contra *this idea.
The website boasts a 1500 books and 87 magazines on Esperanto.

Today I got a reply (my translation):
"In our library we have mainly pro-Esperanto material [...]. We have collected 3 articles (websites) contra Esperanto on this website. We should point out, however that these articles are very subjective and very easy to dismiss".
Undoubtedly...

So, happy me goes to that website and I find the following:
1.
Critique of Esperanto: a whole page on aux languages, mentioning 2 articles against Esperanto which on first sight have nothing to do with my question. I am not looking for general objections against Esperanto, I am looking for data which support/criticises the specific claim stated above.
Website 1: Learn not to speak Esperanto by Justin Rye. (a general critique on Esperanto, mainly on the language itself)
Website 2: Why Esperanto is not my favourite artificial language by Geoff Eddy (link doesn't work)
2.
Leer geen Esperanto (eng)
Hey, that's the same Justin Rye web page. 
3. 
Not my favourite 
Hey, that's the same dead link.

My conclusion, if maths don't fail me: they have one critical website on that page and that one has _nothing_ to do with my specific query, since, once again, I am not looking for a general critique on Esperanto. 

I don't think I am having pareidolia, but I do start to see a pattern here: I begin to doubt that pro-Esperantists sincerely want to us to get informed in a *balanced* way.

Now, do you think it's worth to go to that library, keeping in mind that I am equally interested in the pros and the cons? 

Groetjes,
Frank


----------



## remush

Frank06 said:


> Ik ben niet op zoek naar uw pap. Ik ben op zoek naar Esperanto-vrije pap. Probeer nu toch eens een onderscheid te maken, man.
> 
> Anyway, I wrote an e-mail to the Flemish Esperanto League, telling them that I am looking for information about *Esperanto as a tool to learn a third language*. I specifically asked them if they have articles or literature *pro and contra *this idea.
> The website boasts a 1500 books and 87 magazines on Esperanto.
> 
> Today I got a reply (my translation):
> "In our library we have mainly pro-Esperanto material [...]. We have collected 3 articles (websites) contra Esperanto on this website. We should point out, however that these articles are very subjective and very easy to dismiss".
> Undoubtedly...
> 
> So, happy me goes to that website and I find the following:
> 1.
> Critique of Esperanto: a whole page on aux languages, mentioning 2 articles against Esperanto which on first sight have nothing to do with my question. I am not looking for general objections against Esperanto, I am looking for data which support/criticises the specific claim stated above.
> Website 1: Learn not to speak Esperanto by Justin Rye. (a general critique on Esperanto, mainly on the language itself)
> Website 2: Why Esperanto is not my favourite artificial language by Geoff Eddy (link doesn't work)
> 2.
> Leer geen Esperanto (eng)
> Hey, that's the same Justin Rye web page.
> 3.
> Not my favourite
> Hey, that's the same dead link.
> 
> My conclusion, if maths don't fail me: they have one critical website on that page and that one has _nothing_ to do with my specific query, since, once again, I am not looking for a general critique on Esperanto.
> 
> I don't think I am having pareidolia, but I do start to see a pattern here: I begin to doubt that pro-Esperantists sincerely want to us to get informed in a *balanced* way.
> 
> Now, do you think it's worth to go to that library, keeping in mind that I am equally interested in the pros and the cons?
> 
> Groetjes,
> Frank


So, does that ring a bell?

Please anybody reading this (not only Frank) do you best to find an independent study somewhere in the world in any language and report on that here. I would be very grateful.
I did not find any. I think you will not either.

In the meantime, read http://remush.be/rebuttal/index.html
You will find there the missing links (I hope if the author did not manage to remove his comments after I produced my replies).

An advice: first describe the conditions of your experiment as any good experimenter must do. We shall help you to improve it to bias it against Esperanto.

For instance, it's best to do like Frank did:
1) hire instructors which do not know Esperanto and have prejudices against it.
2) They should not have any experience in teaching languages. Best would be to use teachers of Geography or History.
3) The students learning Esperanto must come from families which don't care whether their children learn a useless language or the prestigious English. Don't take students coming from families which care about what their children are learning and who blindly believe that the school knows best.
4) Avoid to keep in the control group learning English students who are not motivated.

Do not hesitate to bias the experiment even further, but document it honestly.

In the experiment of Frank however, there was one *very *important bias in favour of Esperanto. I think it explains it all:
The students very quickly could exchange postcards then letters with foreign students.
They learned about their living conditions. They became interested in their land and language.
As a consequence, they became not only better in English later on, but they scored also higher in World Geography. They scored also better in Mathematics, but the reason why is not clear for me (but I _have some)._

Read the text in German if you do not trust the translation in Dutch.

I hope that nothing I wrote would change you mind about Esperanto, and make you start learning the language yourself.
On the contrary. Remain totally impartial, and set up an independent experiment first. Until now, nobody succeeded.
IMO, you have more chance to find the Holy Grale.

Remuŝ

(I did not read your other comments yet)


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## Enriquee

Frank said:

>Anyway, I wrote an e-mail to the Flemish Esperanto 
>League, telling them that I am looking for information 
>about Esperanto as a tool to learn a third language.

I suppose that the only people that can answer your 
questions, are the people involved with Springboard... 
to languages, in the United Kingdom.

There is a page on "Pilot Schools" that gives the name 
and addresses of 3 schools participating in this project.

You can ask 2 kinds of people:

1. The 3 Esperanto-speaker-organizers, including 

David Kelso - a former HM Chief Inspector of Schools,
Trustee and Director for Education of Esperanto-UK 

2. The authorities in those schools, who aren't Esperanto 
    speakers.

I suppose that these authorities are trying to find 
answers to questions similar to your questions.


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## gonzalox237

Hello again.

Yes, you're right Frank when you say that some (or  most) of the information about Esperanto is vague. Even I know that. That's a fact. We cannot hide the sun with a finger (No se puede tapar el sol con un dedo).

I started this thread because I wanted to know what people think about Esperanto, and then it became very wild. I like Esperanto, i speak it, not at high level but the avarage. I'm part of the association just because of the magazines we can get to know about the Esperanto actuallity and also for the Young magazine which always has pretty interesting information about world's actuallity. 

Because even inside the Esperanto Association the young people doesn´t like to talk too much about the association but about the commom things. Well, I have at home a magazine about Interlinguistics researches, I just remember that, and I'm goin to post the info if I found good info.

It makes me laugh when you think we're a kind of sect.. jajajajaja. It's very fun, well. Not all the people who speaks Esperanto are esperantist, in that case all the people who speak french would be frenchtist, or in the spanish case, spanishtist. An esperantist is a person who does something pro-esperanto. If you speak Esperanto, is not a must be esperantist ( I hope you can understan my phrase), you just know the language and that's all.

I won't describe more my life as Esperanto speaker, because I'm not promoting Esperanto here, i just wanted and want to know what people thinks about it. You made a question several times. Asking for objectives proves, outside the Esperanto Association, it makes curious; I'm gonna spend my weekend trying to find that information.

There're freak people even inside the esperanto association, so, I undersatnd  your doubts. But please: we're not a sect. And it would be very interesting if you get interested  in make such a researches about the esperanto. As i already write, I know the language, but I'm gonna inform myself about the info you want to know.

So I hope to have the info the next week.


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## Frank06

Hi


gonzalox237 said:


> It makes me laugh when you think we're a kind of sect.. jajajajaja. It's very fun, well. Not all the people who speaks Esperanto are esperantist, in that case all the people who speak french would be frenchtist, or in the spanish case, spanishtist.


I wrote in a previous post:
*I can't help it that you give me that impression, but still I don't think that the EM is a sect, nor a cult. *
(the size of the letters was much smaller in the original, so I can imagine that you misread that phrase).



> So I hope to have the info the next week.


Thank you, I am looking forward to it.

Take care,

Frank


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## remush

Frank06 said:


> We wouldn't like to give the impression that the starting point of our experiment is the idea that Esperanto only helps learning an Indo-European language and not, let's say, Saisiyat, Bantu or Saadiq), would we?


Very good plan... in theory. Why didn't anybody think of it yet?
Probably because there are a certain number of practical matters to clear first.

Moreover it is unlikely that choosing target languages which are unrelated to English is of any interest. Who cares whether Esperanto can help learning other Indo-European languages?
About the source languages, if it is proven that people speaking  a language close to English like German, can learn English faster even if they "lose" one year studying Esperanto, I would expect that the benefits would be even greater for people speaking other languages.

Note also that the students who learned Esperanto first, and then started learning English the second year, were at the same level as those who had 2 years of English (with a non-significant advantage for the "Esperantists"). So they learned English twice as fast! Amazing and hard to believe. The difference grew larger the years after.
After one year of Esperanto, there was no time dedicated to Esperanto in the program, so I guess that most students forgot about it.
To get benefits, it is not necessary to reach a very high level in Esperanto, just enough to get by in normal life situations.

Remuŝ


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## Rallino

My reason for not learning Esperanto is, in all honesty, overly selfish 

The fact that Esperanto has a very similar vocabulary to the neo-Latin languages; and some grammatical aspects like: masculinity/femininity and the adjective agreements - neither of these two aspects exists in my language, sort of create an unfair advantage for the native speakers of these countries. Therefore I don't think Esperanto is neutral. Not at all. It reflects, I think, how much the creators were affected by their mother tongues.

It might be easy for a French or Spanish speaker to learn Esperanto, but I, as a non-Romance-language speaker, will have to put maybe three times the effort he will to learn it. And this makes me feel terribly jealous  Hence I'm boycotting this language on my own 

I am not saying that I prefer learning English but Esperanto was intended to be the international language and stuck at covering maybe 3% of the entire human population; whereas English remains, although not oficially, the international language for the time being.

Unless I see some remarkable positive jump at the popularity of Esperanto, I won't be spending my time on it, let the Romance speakers learn it, they can already understand each other -when it's written, at an efficiency of 30-40%anyway...


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## remush

> let the Romance speakers learn it, they can already understand each other -when it's written, at an efficiency of 30-40%anyway...


If they cared to read the first published book (grammar +exercises), they would understand 95% with the help of the vocabulary.
Speakers of other languages will not be able to guess the meaning of many words, but once they understand how words are build, and acquire a vocabulary of 1000 basic words, they will perform very satisfactorily, in normal situations.
To reach the "advanced" level, all will have to invest more time in practising the language.
Remuŝ


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## Encolpius

hm...If there were at least one good Esperanto TV channel with good cultural, documentary or good TV series I can imagine I would start learning Esperanto... when I turn on my satellite it is full of Arabic channels and I do not understand it, so from time to time I got the urge to learn Arabic...but it is really too hard now for me...so I think the problem is the marketing...you should sell Esperanto....or are we now not living in a consumption oriented society? If the Avatar III would come out first in Esperanto, hackers would put it on the net and try to translate it...


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## willem81

Encolpius said:


> hm...If there were at least one good Esperanto TV channel with good cultural, documentary or good TV series I can imagine I would start learning Esperanto... when I turn on my satellite it is full of Arabic channels and I do not understand it, so from time to time I got the urge to learn Arabic...but it is really too hard now for me...so I think the problem is the marketing...you should sell Esperanto....or are we now not living in a consumption oriented society? If the Avatar III would come out first in Esperanto, hackers would put it on the net and try to translate it...



That's it. Esperanto needs someone who would invest large money for promoting it. But nobody would. Because the world seems happy with English as the international language of science, commerce, communication.


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## Dymn

I wouldn't say I am Esperantist, because I don't like the language itself, but I agree with its intention. I once studied the basics, but as I don't need it anywhere or anytime, I got stuck and maybe its appearance, full of strange diacritics, didn't help me to keep on studying it. Aesthetically, and I reckon that this may be a personal question, I find it horrible.

I think it would be good to create a new language being as neutral and easy as possible, shared by all humans along with their mother tongue and any other language that they would like to learn. And that's the main reason why I disapprove Esperanto. No doubt that Zamenhof's language is a lot easier and neutral that all other 'ethnic' languages, but it certainly has too many quirks that make it definitely not the perfect language we should look for.

And I wouldn't say that the language is Eurocentric, because that would mean that most features are from European languages, but 'exclusively European', because grammar, vocabulary, and phonology are taken only from European sources. The characteristics that it shares with Asian or African languages are purely coincidences. The only loanwords from languages outside Europe are those who are widespread in European languages too.

That's why I think that a new proposal should be made with the collaboration of all over the world, counting with linguistic experts, and not by a Polish ophthalmologist without access to languages other than European ones.

However, this debate is sterile if, as many people have said, there isn't the people's intention to do it. For me, it is clear: it is time and money saving for those who don't like learning languages and for those who like them too, neutral so it could promote all world cultures, not only the Anglosaxon one.


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## Angelo di fuoco

The problem with Esperanto is, for me, that it doesn't have a real significant culture behind it (and I don't like it aesthetically, either). 
As for a really neutral language with elements, both lexical and grammatical, from every language on Earth, it is impossible to create: there are typologically incompatible languages like, let's say, isolating and polysynthetic. Besides, there are more than 6000 languages - even to take a word from every language it would sum up to more than the basic vocabulary of any language. Plus there are sounds unique to every language and difficult to pronounce for speakers of other languages...


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## ahvalj

I suspect the future decades will see such an advancement in synchronous machine translation that the usual driving forces aimed at finding an international language independent from the language of the currently dominant nation will become even less active, so all these artificial international languages are doomed.


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## willem81

As for new artificial languages, they do exist and are being created permanently. What is unique about Esperanto is that it has gained outstandingly many followers compared to other constructed languages. And the fact that it survived through more than a hundred years is even more stunning. It just needs more promotion, and that is its main problem.


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## ahvalj

willem81 said:


> As for new artificial languages, they do exist and are being created permanently. What is unique about Esperanto is that it has gained outstandingly many followers compared to other constructed languages. And the fact that it survived through more than a hundred years is even more stunning. It just needs more promotion, and that is its main problem.


Yet, some 90% of these followers lived at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.


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## Stoggler

ahvalj said:


> Yet, some 90% of these followers lived at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.



I'd have thought that the internet has given a new lease of life to such languages - you can access a lot of material about Esperanto that was beyond most (if not all) people in the pre-internet days (at least for anyone seeking out such information).


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## Dymn

ahvalj said:


> I suspect the future decades will see such an advancement in synchronous machine translation that the usual driving forces aimed at finding an international language independent from the language of the currently dominant nation will become even less active, so all these artificial international languages are doomed.


I also have a similar theory. Instantaneous translation will grow a lot and maybe in the future, people will only learn foreign languages for fun. It's quite sad for us language lovers, but I think that the future moves this way, in a higher or lower degree.


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## 涼宮

Impossible! Do you guys want to leave unemployed thousands of people? If machines got good enough to translate translators, interpreters and language teachers would lose their jobs! 

Plus, it is currently impossible for any machine to properly translate. Pragmatics, culture, anything that requires actual thinking, analysis, interpretation cannot as of yet be done by a machine. Humans haven't been able to codify, digitize the human mind and its capacity. Machines are very rudimentary, straightforward and can't think outside the box when it comes to languages; they're bound by the algorithms and explicitly told orders written by programmers. The kind of processes translators/interpreters have to go through to translate a play, adapt a song, adapt any text to a certain public, translate literature, etc. cannot be done by machines. 

If such devices are created it will be in a very distant future where technology is very advanced and we have come to understand how the brain works at a much deeper level. And I suspect some biotechnology will be involved.   


I studied Esperanto for a while out of interest, I stopped learning it because it is not a useful language for me. I, like others, find it aesthetically horrible, its lexicon is heavily Indo-European, and if the excuse of many is to use it as a bridge to learn foreign languages it is better to study first their mother tongues. Some people venture to learn Esperanto to gain some linguistic insight and experience in order to learn foreign languages but it'd be better to do that with your mother tongue, a language you already speak, instead of bothering to learn a new one. Features like declensions can be identified in every language even if they are not morphologically marked. I find it funny how many English and Spanish speakers complain about the accusative marker in Esperanto yet it is easy to identify in their languages. Some basic linguistics and grammar study of your mother tongue would be quite useful to learn foreign languages. No need to waste time on foreign languages. Though that is not exactly a popular choice to make due to how dreadfully boring such topics are taught and approached by people and teachers alike. Many people find grammar boring. I guess the thrill of learning new words, new sounds and a new culture is what makes many want to learn foreign languages instead of learning first the language they already speak. But that's something that should be changed. I don't see anything special in Esperanto other than its regular grammatical rules. But Mandarin/Cantonese and Indonesian are better choices in many aspects. Indonesian, for example, has no grammatical gender, no plural, no adjective agreement, no conjugations just like Mandarin, most of the times it's read the way it's pronounced, no diacritics to write it, so you can type it with any keyboard, and it already has millions and millions of speakers, a long history and culture! There are over 6000 languages on Earth after all, it is likely there are other languages out there that put Esperanto to shame. 

To me Esperanto is something that has temporary popularity, I see it as a hipster commodity. Sure, it does present some advantages that make it easier to learn than other languages but that's something only seen first hand by Indo-European languages speakers as it has been mentioned before in this thread. A Mandarin, Swahili, Xhosa or Ainu speaker wouldn't see much difference between Esperanto and, say, German when it comes to passive vocabulary repertoire. The English language is already ridiculously promoted and it is very widespread, instead of starting from scratch we should stick to it. Though many complain about the American cultural invasion, which is why they turn to Esperanto, but governments and people alike could focus on stopping that invasion and only use the language instead of adopting or imitating American culture.


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## willem81

涼宮 said:


> The English language is already ridiculously promoted and it is very widespread, instead of starting from scratch we should stick to it.



That is precisely what happens today. English is received world wide as the main international language. And the voice of Esperantists is too weak to be heard and change this tendency.


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## Encolpius

涼宮 said:


> Impossible! Do you guys want to leave unemployed thousands of people? If machines got good enough to translate translators, interpreters and language teachers would lose their jobs!
> 
> Plus, it is currently impossible for any machine to properly translate. *Pragmatics, culture, anything that requires actual thinking, analysis,* interpretation cannot as of yet be done by a machine.



I don't think machines will be ever able to translate fiction, I think that is not the job of the vast majority of translators anyway...but stupid legal/trade documents where no imagination is accepted are on the track to be translated by machines....


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## rebrafi

I'm arriving now in the forum, and this thread is quite old 2010, in any case, I'll write somethings. My father knew Esperanto very well, and with this language he got many and excellent pen-friends, mainly in Europe, one in Swedish was special they changed letters, post-cards, books until death. I studied Esperanto in 1982, but as I didn't have with whom to talk I forgot a lot, later on beginning of 90's I joined a local group in the city I passed to live. In This moment I got Esperanto again to study, and with the web, I think Esperanto can grow more. I'm reviewing all the language again, and it is not difficult to remind all. I hope this time not loose the language


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## ahvalj

willem81 said:


> That is precisely what happens today. English is received world wide as the main international language. And the voice of Esperantists is too weak to be heard and change this tendency.


The very idea of Esperanto was to bypass any particular national language (French and German at that time) and to create a truly international medium. In this sense nothing has changed. Yet I think that the on-the-fly machine translation of the coming decades will be able to replace the modern pidgin that non-native English speakers have to use in their communication.


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## 涼宮

willem81 said:


> That is precisely what happens today. English is received world wide as the main international language. And the voice of Esperantists is too weak to be heard and change this tendency.



Esperantists have tried to make Esperanto widespread by hugging trees. No language becomes powerful in a hippie fashion. You need cultural, political and economical power, Esperanto has none. Though one thing I can agree on with Esperantists is the idiocy and unfairness of making English a requirement for some jobs where you won't actually be using the language. What's the point in asking the employee to speak English if it will not be used at all at work. That's a waste of time and money for the person. But it's thanks to that heavy propaganda and imposition that English has the power it has. They have successfully made many people believe they need English when they don't. 



Encolpius said:


> I don't think machines will be ever able to translate fiction, I think that is not the job of the vast majority of translators anyway...but stupid legal/trade documents where no imagination is accepted are on the track to be translated by machines....



That sounds horrible! Legal documents must be exact, no ambiguities because with ambiguities come loopholes. A badly placed preposition or word could lead to a disaster. I remember an anecdote, a guy had died and as his last will he left everything to his family and servant. The funny thing is because of a small typo the family inherited dirty sheets (sábanas) while the servant inherited the land and everything (sabana). You can imagine how ballistic the family went .


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## Encolpius

Yes, I agree, future innovations might sound horrible....I propose we meet here in 20-30 years and continue our discussion...


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## Dymn

Well, you are right that at least in a near future it is obvious that human translators won't disappear, because important texts must be translated, and as you say, tiny errors can lead to weighty misunderstandings. However, when going abroad for tourism, for example, instantaneous translators could be plausible short-term in informal contexts.

We are moving this way, and this is sad for us, but from my point of view, the evidence is too much to deny. Knowing languages is currently a bit less useful than it was, let's say, twenty years ago. For instance, when I traveled to Poland I had to talk to a man who knew no English, only Polish and German. We communicated via Google Translate. Rudimentary, but it worked. This couldn't have been possible without Internet. This is a trend, and I am quite sure that it will continue like this for the next decades. Knowledge in general is less worthy, because now you have all information that you want only at a click. 

The technology exists, now some devices can detect our voice and translate it into written words, with low precision and speed, but this will improve in the forthcoming years. The next step is translating it into written or spoken words of another language, and voilà! Let's hope the consequences are bearable and language learning, traductions and all that concerns the art of languages isn't very affected.


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## JamesM

> Esperantists have tried to make Esperanto widespread by hugging trees. No language becomes powerful in a hippie fashion. You need cultural, political and economical power,Esperanto has none.




I've been reading through this entire thread to learn a little more about Esperanto.  I think 涼宮has the best understanding of the issue.  

English is not a dominant international language because it was forced on people, or proven in studies to help people learn other languages faster, or because there was some conspiracy to get people to speak English, or because of its simple orthography or consistency in grammar.

The language has provided access to things people wanted:  product markets, business opportunities, entertainment, employment.  I am not under any illusion that English will remain the predominant language.  The next turn in history that puts another country in the position that the U.S. and Great Britain have been in over the last few centuries will change all that.  There will be another sea change in language popularity.  It will shift to whatever language gives access to things that people want. 

Esperanto, by its very nature, is a niche language, in my opinion.  There's nothing wrong with that.  It also gives (limited) access to (limited) things that some people want: connections with people in other countries who share the language; intellectual stimulation; probably some bragging rights.   However, it would be more useful for me to learn Chinese, despite the challenges for an English speaker, than it would be to learn Esperanto, merely for the access it provides me to a huge portion of the planet's people and the opportunities that would arise from that.

I think that finding objective studies of Esperanto would be nearly as difficult as finding objective studies of Klingon.  The people who are interested in Klingon are not objective about Klingon, and objective researchers of languages aren't interested in studying Klingon.


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## zxcvbn

ahvalj said:


> I suspect the future decades will see such an advancement in synchronous machine translation that the usual driving forces aimed at finding an international language independent from the language of the currently dominant nation will become even less active, so all these artificial international languages are doomed.


Would you like to have everything translated for you by humans? (Let's imagine you don't have to pay for this). I think you'd find it more handy to converse with people directly either in bad English or in some well-made international language, suitable for technical purposes and non-suitable for talking about humans (exactly like the subset of English that many use). (By the way, "artistic literature" and "fiction" are different things). Of course, to create such language one would have not only to do the creation, but also to spend a lot of money on translating many pieces that are needed by engineers or businessmen into such language... That is doable only by a corporation or by a state. Machines would not translate anything better than humans; to have the same quality as humans, they would have to become "silicon humans" themselves, I believe. (Search Google, understand proverbs, know what it means to be tired, and so on). Translation and language use are not well-defined, isolated tasks. So the maximum that we could get are probably "translation aiders", that could not translate texts, but that could answer questions like "is this text about such and such kind of engines" or "what parts that engine consists of, according to this engineer". Such tasks are not well-defined either (they require imagination and guesswork), but they are at least isolated, so they could be solved, though allowing a risk of mistake or fault. That's my opinion about the future of international languages & machine translation...


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