English,the language of a minority

vincent   Thursday, February 05, 2004, 16:40 GMT
Have you noticed that in this forum only intervene Westerners, I mean occidental people like US, British,French (marvellous! the French can speak English!),Spanish,Catalan,Australian,Brazilian,etc... But NO Chinese,Indian,Arab,Japanese,African,etc...intervene or very few.
What does it mean?????

It means that English is not a real international language,it is the language of a minority which has the economic and politic power.It is only the dominant language of occidental culture.Therefore it isn't a representative one.Ask a man from Asia or Africa what he feels when he writes in English.First it is very very difficult for him and then he feels that language as a forced one, as an obligation.
So wake up!!!!! English is the international language only for the north americans,the europeans and the australians because it shares a lot of linguistic features with the other related indo european languages (except finnish,hungarian,esthonian and euskera).

On the other hand,if you go and see the internet web site www.gxangalo.com at "babilejo" you'll find a chat where a lot of people from Brazil, Usa, France,Argentina but also Iran,Nigeria,China,India comunicate with ease and NOBODY feels inferior because he speaks badly the language of the other.No.Why?
Because they use Esperanto.You may laugh,well it's your problem.
By using esperanto there is no inequality in the communication.Because esperanto is a neutral language and no people can say that they speak better esperanto than another.On the contrary,in this forum,we (the non native speakers) always have the impression that we write wrong english whereas the native speakers don't feel embarrassment.
The native speakers have a huge advantage over the non-native speakers.So what must we do? Speaking english to our babies in order that they become native speakers? No,never.
Esperanto allows a better and fairer communication,using this language we are all equal and we can preserve our national or local language.Esperanto has not be designed to replace the national language but for helping communication between people speaking different languages.
Maybe it's utopian, i know it's not the perfect language (there is no perfect language, cf. Umberto Eco) but it's the fairest and most humanist choice.

www.gxangalo.com
vincent   Thursday, February 05, 2004, 16:43 GMT
I made some mistakes: I wanted to write "esperanto has not BEEN designed".Sure there are other mistakes.
us air force   Thursday, February 05, 2004, 17:37 GMT
English is language of money and money makes the world.
Esperanto is for freaks like ye.
Lavoisel   Thursday, February 05, 2004, 18:29 GMT
This forum is not used by many people only because it is about some very restricted topics: "Discuss learning English, the English language, and learning other languages."
People especially interested on these three very subects are not counted by thousands. Thus, there will always be many passer-bys who will leave a question on this board every now and then, but the regular antimooners will remain rare.
Therefore, using this particular forum as an evidence of your saying is a bit biased.

Vincent, I don't find your plea for Esperanto ludicrous at all and have always thought that a language without any cultural context would be the ultimate tool of communication. But I happen to be fond of a language called English, not because of its widpreadness, but rather because I am fond of R. Jordan, T. Pratchett, J.R.R Tolkiens and J.K. Rollings.
I do not care about futilities the likes of usefulness, productivity or buisness. Such motivations will never make you learn the beauty of a language.
Jarec   Thursday, February 05, 2004, 19:02 GMT
I happened to see a curriculum of an English university lately and was surprised not to see any foreign language courses in it. You have to attend 2 language courses here in Czech republic at my university and take exams from 2 foreign languages and since English language is compulsory, you can choose only 1 other language to learn. How unfair when I think about that the English are not learning any foreign languages at all!
I also happened to talk to many native English speakers on the internet and when I asked them how many languages they speak, guess what was the answer! They spoke only English!
I've heard they are learning foreign languages at high schools, but why aren't they learning foreign languages at universities? Because they don't have to, they rely on, that everyone will understand them wherever they go.

The main problem I have with Esperanto is that it has very little in common with my mother tongue, being thus unattractive for me. (If we omit the fact it has very low number of speakers) Even English is closer to my mother tongue than Esperanto. If someone wants to create a lingua france, it has to bear marks of all languages.
mjd   Thursday, February 05, 2004, 20:09 GMT
Vincent,

I think you need to think about what you're writing before you write it.

You're wrong about their being no Asians here. Search through the threads and see for yourself.

Now, do we native speakers of English have an advantage on the Internet and on a forum whose main topic of discussion is English? Yes, we do. I'm not taking issue with this point. Where I begin to have a problem is when you start going on about Esperanto being the great equalizer.

Vincent said:
"By using esperanto there is no inequality in the communication.Because esperanto is a neutral language and no people can say that they speak better esperanto than another."

Vince, Esperanto was derived from EUROPEAN languages. How is Esperanto any less difficult for those people from Asia, Africa etc. than English?
Juan   Friday, February 06, 2004, 05:11 GMT
>>Esperanto allows a better and fairer communication,using this language we are all equal and we can preserve our national or local language.Esperanto has not be designed to replace the national language but for helping communication between people speaking different languages. <<

Hear, Hear. Hear, all ye good people, hear what this brilliant and eloquent speaker has to say! Couldn't agree more.

>>Vince, Esperanto was derived from EUROPEAN languages. How is Esperanto any less difficult for those people from Asia, Africa etc. than English? <<

It isn't but the point been everyone else is on an equal footing (more or less), which is good no one has an unfair advantage I'm up for that. There is also no culture behind it, unlike English where Americanism rules the world. But it ain't gonna happen, which is unfortunate.
mjd   Friday, February 06, 2004, 07:33 GMT
<<It isn't but the point been everyone else is on an equal footing (more or less), which is good no one has an unfair advantage I'm up for that.>>

There is a book I have called "Esperanto en Perspektivo." Notice how similar this is to a Romance language. I agree that there would be no nationality attached to the language, but I definitely think "Westerners" would have an advantage when it comes to learning the language, not to mention that cultural inheritance that would come along with having an international language based on European languages.
vincent   Friday, February 06, 2004, 08:18 GMT
to mjd,

yes the main vocabulary stock is european but the grammar is not.The grammatical structures of this language are the same,more or less,as in the isolative languages like chinese.Moreover for building words it's the same as in the agglutinative languages like turkish,amerindian languages,swahili or hungarian.I also must add that for EVERY non european language speaker I met esperanto is always much more EASIER than english because of its regularity.

to juan,

there is a culture in esperanto, a world wide culture.All the cultures of the world integrate esperanto.
Ghis!
nicolas   Friday, February 06, 2004, 08:25 GMT
English and spanish are equally spoken in the world. This the last research made actually. The real 1st language to be the most spoken is chinese (mandarin). English is necessary for business or when you want tu understand a german. But is it necessary for a german to use english whan he speaks to a ducth? Is it is necessary for a french to use english when he wants to speak to an italian, spanish, portuguese etc With a minimum of imgination he does not need english. Try do it with the closest cultures you can dispose. Swedish and norvegian, do you need to speak english to understand each others? It doen't mean i don't like english
nicolas   Friday, February 06, 2004, 08:32 GMT
I have made a mystake : when yoiu want to speak to a german whan you are french for example. When a swedish wants to speak to a spanish etc
nicolas   Friday, February 06, 2004, 08:35 GMT
Vincent is true Esperanto has not been only influenced by european languages. My fathers knows that language and told me there are effectively some chineses and other influences. that toungue has been made by people from countries all over the world.
mjd   Friday, February 06, 2004, 09:38 GMT
Oh, I definitely agree that Esperanto is easier to learn than English.
mjd   Friday, February 06, 2004, 09:40 GMT
I took issue with the post only because I don't think Esperanto is culturally neutral, although you seem to know quite a bit about it and if you say there are Asian influences, I'll take your word for it.
Juan   Friday, February 06, 2004, 12:03 GMT
>>I don't think Esperanto is culturally neutral<<

Esperanto is a fabricated, artificial language how can it have any culture? Sure, it has borrowed heavily from Indo-European languages but it still doesn't change the fact that is made up and owned by no one. The vocabulary or even the grammar of a language doesn't concern me that much, I coped fine with English. But I would prefer to learn a language that had similar "sounds" to those found in the Spanish language, that would make life a whole lot easier for me. From what language has Esperanto borrowed most of it sounds from?