I am considering learning it. I have looked through the grammar and overall structure and it looks pretty strightforward and easily to learn.
Anybody here speak it?
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
I think it's a dead language.
Makes me sad, really. The idea of esperanto is wonderful. I like the ease of pronunciation and the grammar rules seem fairly easy to learn as well. I just don't think it'll ever catch on. It's time has come and gone, imo.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
Its a good idea that is fundamentally flawed.
The reason to learn language is so that you can communicate with people. Inventing a language that is easy to learn but which no one actually speaks as a native tongue, is an exercise in utility.
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
I think it's quite a pretty language.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Senviva lingvo. Tragica.
Posted by Kristen (Member # 9200) on :
All language changes, so a language intended to be perfectly regular seems to be a bit optimistic. I guess for this generation it would be relatively easy to learn. Still, it's written with mostly Romance language lexicon and grammar, maybe draws from some other Indo-European languages, so I don't know why people don't just bother to learn French, English, German etc-- basically, a similar language but with an actual cultural and literary referent and is top 15 of first and second languages in the world.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
I find it doesn't have the horsepower of the Nova, nor the pickup of the camry or the convenience or mileage of the Prius...
::looks around:::
What were you talking about?
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Seems a little silly to me to create a language that no one speaks when you could just as easily pick a widely spoken language and have everyone learn that.
The problem isn't that we need a created language (Why not make Sindarin or Quenya the international language?), it's that in too many countries, there is little exposure to widely spoken languages. Most everyone speaks English, so we find little excuse to learn any other language in America. Most everyone speaks Mandarin in China, so it's the most widely spoken language. India has probably a dozen local dialects, but how many of them learn anything NOT spoken on the subcontinent?
Cripes, most people don't even speak Spanish in America, the one language it's probably most beneficial for us to know (I'm learning some from the cooks at work). I think we'd be a lot better off in the future of there was a reward system of some sort set up for the learning of foreign languages. Mandarin, Arabic, and Farsi are languages we need a lot of translators for, especially with the way the world is moving, but there is little or no push to create new translators. They need to be able to read and write in the that system too. Otherwise we're at a disadvantage in business, and all our fancy intel and technology is worthless if we don't know what we're intercepting.
Requiring everyone to take a year or two of French in high school is nice on the books, but offering a rewards system, say in the form of scholarships, guaranteed job opportunities or whatever else, would be a great way to prod America into securing some help for its future.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: Its a good idea that is fundamentally flawed.
The reason to learn language is so that you can communicate with people. Inventing a language that is easy to learn but which no one actually speaks as a native tongue, is an exercise in futility.
Agreed.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
Hey! Hold on there! You changed that quotation. The Rabbit said it's an exercise in utility!
Anyway, I totally agree that without a bunch of people to communicate with, the incentive for learning a language is small. People will still do it (there are people who speak Klingon, for example), but not many.
Posted by citadel (Member # 8367) on :
Interesting thoughts. The nice thing about Esperanto is that it is quite easy to learn (at least for native speakers of Indo-European languages) and would be much easier to learn than for Americans to learn [Spanish, Portugues, Mandarin, Arabic, and some dialect of Hindi]. In fact, Espranto seems much easier to learn Spanish. It would be easy for everyone to learn one language and to be able to speak with everyone else. I know, everybody should just learn English, right? Good luck! (At least here in the western USA where many people only speak Spanish.)
So everybody here thinks it's dead? Posted by Palliard (Member # 8109) on :
I wouldn't want to dissuade you from learning a new language, but I will point out: the most widely-spoken constructed language is, in fact, Klingon.
"Conlangs" are in interesting field of study, but the most-developed ones these days seem to have been constructed by nerds for fiction projects (e.g., "Lord of the Rings" and "Star Tracks").
Esperanto is mostly a historical curiosity, important for widely disseminating the idea of universal language and getting people to think about language in a forward-looking rather than backward-looking fashion... but yeah, it's dead.
Posted by Shmuel (Member # 7586) on :
I think for it to be dead, it would have to have been considered living first. Maybe call it "stillborn."
Though I will grant that it was surprisingly easy to follow on Hiatus, where it was used for the Venture's ship announcements. I guess context helps.
(On a side note, some Klingon consonants are great for use in hacking up phlegm. That, and "nuqDaq yuch Dapol?" are about all I got from my study of the language.)
Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
I love esperanto. But I agree, it's totally doomed. Outside of a few websites on the internet and, of course, Red Dwarf, you never see it/hear it spoken...
-- la plej feina
Posted by TheGrimace (Member # 9178) on :
And come on, if people actually started using it I'd have to switch my confusing/little-known linguistics jokes
Really I have to agree with Shmuel on the stillborn thing, while the thought was there I don't think I'd ever have considered this a live language to start with (just a hair more living than Klingon or one of Tolkein's elvish dialects)
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:The nice thing about Esperanto is that it is quite easy to learn (at least for native speakers of Indo-European languages) and would be much easier to learn than for Americans to learn [Spanish, Portugues, Mandarin, Arabic, and some dialect of Hindi].
I disagree.
I would never have been able to learn Portuguese as well as I did if I hadn't lived in Brazil and been surrounded, 24-7, by people who were speaking only Portuguese.
That option is not available for someone wanting to learn Esperanto.
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
I like my Esperanto Grande-sized, with extra cinnamon and whip cream.
What?
Oh.
Um.
Nevermind.
Orincoro, could you give me a lift out of this thread?
PS It was best described in the "Riverworld" saga. THe idea was not only to create an easy to learn language, but to remove all traces of nationalism, regionalism, and tribalism from a language to create a universal one. Very popular in Sci-Fi of the 60's and 70's.
Posted by TheGrimace (Member # 9178) on :
wait, please tell me that this had no relation to Riverworld, the Sci-Fi channel original movie... that was arguably the worst piece of cinema I've ever seen, and I've seen some terrible movies.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
SciFi channel's Riverworld is based on/inspired by the Riverworld book series, just as the movie Starship Troopers was based on/inspired by the book of the same name.
Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
mph: what Very little I saw of the sci fi channel version of riverworld makes me think that the starship troopers movie was closer to the book.
I don't know how they managed to call it the same name...
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
Um, I don't understand what you just said, but I think you might have missed my point.
The Starship movie was horrible, and bears only superficial similarity to the book.
Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
mph: My point was as dis-similar as the starship movie was from the wonderful heinlein classic of a book.... The Riverworld movie seemed even more dis-similar to the point I wondered how they got away with calling it riverworld.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
OK.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:(On a side note, some Klingon consonants are great for use in hacking up phlegm. That, and "nuqDaq yuch Dapol?" are about all I got from my study of the language.) [/QB]
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