Prix Nobel pour l'espéranto ?

Guest said: "Why not just have it like in English where there isn't an exception? That seems more logical to me."

The whole point of Esperanto is that it is international; why should it follow the English model for anything rather than, say, the French, Russian or Chinese one?

In fact, the language gives a great deal of flexibility to speakers of different languages to keep habits from their own languages while still speaking perfectly correct, easily understandable Esperanto.

Someone has already quoted the example of this sentence:
[en] "I thank you"
[fr] "Je vous remercie" (lit. "I you thank")
[de] "Ich danke Ihnen" (lit. "I thank to you")

For each of these, the speaker must use exactly the word order prescribed by the language in question, whereas in Esperanto, any of the forms below are perfectly admissible, and what's more are all used with great regularity:
"Mi dankas vin" (English word order)
"Mi vin dankas" (French word order)
"Mi dankas al vi" (German word order)

That's a fairly trivial example, but the same phenomenon crops up again and again all over the language.

So the answer is that in many cases, you *can* just "have it like in English" much more often than you'd be able to if you were speaking another language, just like a Japanese can "have it like in Japanese" and an Italian can "have it like in Italian", without this being any barrier at all to effective communication.

Tim Morley :

« Someone has already quoted the example of this sentence:
[en] "I thank you"
[fr] "Je vous remercie" (lit. "I you thank")
[de] "Ich danke Ihnen" (lit. "I thank to you")

For each of these, the speaker must use exactly the word order prescribed by the language in question, whereas in Esperanto, any of the forms below are perfectly admissible, and what's more are all used with great regularity:
"Mi dankas vin" (English word order)
"Mi vin dankas" (French word order)
"Mi dankas al vi" (German word order) »


Bel exemple de souplesse de l'espéranto.

Xie has asked about synonyms in Esperanto. They are extremely numerous, because you can form words which are not found in dictionaries but which are easily understood once the way the language is structured has been grasped.
I'll give just one example. Most languages don't have synonyms for the word "translate". In Esperanto the standard word is "traduki", but if you happen not to remember that word, or if, for style's sake, you want to use another word, you can say "translingvigi" (litterally, to transfer into another language: > "trans" concept of transfering, "lingv" 'language', "ig" 'make such or such' "-i" infinitive), you can also say "alilingvigi", in which the root "ali" means "other", so 'to render (igi) into another (ali) language (lingv)'. But if you look at how the phrase "translated from... by..." is rendered in books, you'll realize that there is an infinity of possibilities. You'll see for instance "elangligita", 'translated from English' (> el 'out of', 'from', angl 'English', ig 'make', ita passive past participle = 'which has been --ed') or "esperantigita" 'made into Esperanto'.
Recently, a friend transferred to me a message in which was the sentence "mi chinigis vian paroladon" 'I've translated your speech into Chinese' ["ch" represents here the letter "c" with a "hat" (^c). If you're not sure the proper letter can be electronically transmitted, you just add an "h" after the consonant written without the ... how do you say in English?... diacritic? circumflex? accent?]. "Chinigita", 'made into Chinese', is a word felt as quite normal by all Esperanto speakers. All of them understand it immediately, but I doubt it has been registered in a dictionary. A complete Esperanto dictionary would be impossible.

Oh, thanks so much for all your replies.

>>Neither concerts nor Esperanto will bring about world peace. Scientists will not bring world peace. People simply have darkness in their hearts.
They hate one another. People are jealous (just look at the comments here), they hate other people for their language, country, race, etc. They envy others for their talents. How many times have we read such comments?

Esperanto is interesting, but I don't find it beautiful. Perhaps it is because the native accents of its speakers are so noticeable.

To address an early reply, though:

As many people have pointed out (or did I?), it's just a project aiming at doing something about problems. For me, it's a charity project, and obviously, if you are the very needy people, I'm afraid that you wouldn't be in the position to learn Esperanto, imho. Unfortunately, in the world, as I see it, so many (to be optimistic, not too many) people are so needy... everyone has to feed him/herself and his/her family, and as a universal fact, you won't find Esperanto used anywhere in a "meaningful sense" (*where its very neutrality could be perpetually preserved).

And it's also a youth project, I think. Before teenagers turn "evil" (*i.e. to sense the need to feed himself, and thus easily give up all his early ideals), at least they could attend an eo lesson.

To put Esperanto in a political, practical, business context, or anything similar, would be just too unfair. I've been disappointed to see unending discussions about this language in regard to something as, to put it mildly, the use of language and multilingualism even in a strict academic sense. People (I mean, here, scholars) tend to mix up realities of development of (natural) languages and linguistic idealism. A vivid example would be to label Esperanto as useless because of a misunderstanding that it has been intended to become spoken by everyone in the world and is thus idealistic. Also, that Esperanto has been intended to achieve linguistic neutrality (no more complaints about proficiency in any language, which would lead to discrimination, or whatever) has been regarded as "to empower everyone to achieve human equality" and is thus idealistic. Darn! Who on earth told these people that Esperanto is for such purposes?

I'd question who people are when they question the sanity of Esperantists (though I'm not one myself), in regard to the language itself, simply because I believe in free thinking.

Of course Esperanto will not bring about world peace. People with no language problem can kill one another as well as others, as was proven by the war in ex-Yugoslavia, or between the Guomintang and the Communists in China. If Esperanto contributes to world peace, it will be indirectly. It may help peoples to understand and tolerate one another, and it may help peace by enabling negotiations on an equal footing. But it won't bring about peace by itself.

As Xie says, very needy people aren't in a position to learn Esperanto.
Yet, there is something stupid in an Indonesian and a Brazilian discussing in English (even if only in a poor market in Jakarta), when Esperanto would be more pleasant and more effective to both after much less effort. It's like choosing to travel by foot on a longer and more exhausting route when a direct, quick, pleasant and cheap train route is available.

That Esperanto is a shortcut to good communication is a fact. When elites in many countries realize that fact, and thus that it's in everyone's interest (except for the English speaking countries) to replace English by Esperanto as an international language, there might appear a political will to organize its teaching everywhere. Smallpox has been eradicated when governments realized it was there interest to invest in its eradication. It took only a dozen years. If governments realized that the enormous amounts they spend in English teaching, with extremely poor results for the great majority of students, could be used more efficiently by being invested into the teaching of Esperanto, the global eradication of "language handicap" could be brought about in even less time by a coordinated organizing of this teaching in most elementary schools of the world.

I think it will happen some day. But the way people think is something that changes only extremely slowly, so I guess we need a few decades more for the necessary awareness to take place.

Have you seen the 8 minute video http://www.dotsub.com/films/thelanguage , in which a former UN translator discusses international communication and Esperanto?

>>It may help peoples to understand and tolerate one another, and it may help peace by enabling negotiations on an equal footing. But it won't bring about peace by itself.

But what I exactly meant was that neutrality is not really equality. At the very least it does serve as a good aux. lang. among some peoples, but the needy ...well, you can't even expect them to receive university education (or even reaching lower edu. levels?). So, somehow, no offence intended, even for that end, I'd just think... well, if I'm not in the position to learn all the Eu. national languages in order to talk to Eu. nationals of every country, then Esperanto would be a good go before learning some of them - and most probably for European peoples only because I can guess most learners are of such background.

But I'm HIGHLY doubtful if you can use that with, for example, the Hong Kong people at all. Only people like me would know it, and I'm afraid I'm sorta like a language geek, because people hardly learn any at all, not to say Esperanto, sth that is quite exotic. The HK people are already one of the fairly economically privileged peoples.

I don't think it could promote the sort of neutrality (which I do find to be good) among some less privileged peoples. That's just like, when you are saying how tragic it could be if pollution and greenhouse effects continue (with the forests, the icebergs, the animals...), and yet peoples in many developing nations are being exploited economically, and will not have time to think about problems which scholars, students know deeply about anyway.

Obviously, I might be diverting from the topic, and I know it could be a bit pointless to go into socio-economic discussions in the board, but, really, it would even make less sense if you don't put Esperanto in a real context - likewise, when you learn whichever language, you would naturally be understanding things in context to master the language eventually. That's one of the reasons why I said if it could have some STATUS it would definitely be of some use, perhaps among humanitarian workers (where language does help and is a problem).

Ah, finally, I'm talking about status now..., which could actually be a political thing.

>>Yet, there is something stupid in an Indonesian and a Brazilian discussing in English (even if only in a poor market in Jakarta)

All I wrote is just, naturally, my $.02. So, that's all about my view, and I did learn a bit of it). I've also been delighted somewhat to see eo did survive lots of turmoils since its birth, but what's more, I'm one of those who has just written sth about what Esperantists could do.

Xie, You’re right in saying that neutrality is not equality. When discussing Eo, we should always think in relative terms, not absolute. Speakers of Esperanto are not completely on an equal footing, but they are _nearer_ that ideal than people who use another language to communicate with people from other cultures. Similarly, Esperanto is not that easy for some peoples, but for all it is much _easier_ than other languages.
You say that most learners are of European background. I’m not so sure. Many people in Japan, Korea, China are Esperanto users. Do you know the www.reto.cn site?
You’re right to place Esperanto in a vast socio-economic context. Esperanto is far from perfect, but a world in which Esperanto is the global language is much, much better, in many respects, than a world in which the global language is English. The impact of the American way of thinking is immense, and not very good in my view. It spreads a taste for violence, the idea that youth is superior to old age, an emphasis on appearance rather than on substance, the idea that money can solve anything, a kind of scorn toward intelligence, intellect, books, culture, etc. All that is linked to the language. In many countries, more than 80% of TV programs are American ones, because programmers know only English and imagine that only what is produced in English is interesting.
Of course the really needy have no time to devote to Esperanto. But all over the world a new “middle class” is emerging. It would be in its interest to replace English by Esperanto as the world communication language. I guess it will some day, perhaps soon enough, realize it and force the governments to organize teaching of it everywhere. Maybe I’m utopian. But, although I’m not too bad in English, I feel so much more comfortable, so much more free in Esperanto, in my dealings with the whole world, that I’d like everybody to enjoy the same advantages.

Esperanto is the communist alternative to English as the lingua franca. All those cliches about the American culture are wrong. Why not saying that English spreads high amounts of knowledge thorugh Internet? Just look at in which language is expressed 90% of information in the Internet. But you say that English spreads the idea that culture is not worthless, only money and appearance. If I apply on myself the impact of the English language, I don't perceive the influence of those values you say. English simply opened many doors to me. Esperanto didn't.

"English simply opened many doors to me. Esperanto didn't."
Amen

Probably because you haven't used it yet

Mi estis studanta Esperanto dum multaj jaroj kaj far iuj amikoj sed nenio pli.

>>I’m not so sure. Many people in Japan, Korea, China are Esperanto users. Do you know the www.reto.cn site?

I haven't got time to see it, but IIRC, even some supposedly Esperantists are still discussing quite fundamentalist ideas there... China is very different, because speakers are scattered over a vast territory, and social situations are in real terms so much different from elsewhere. I've heard of Esperanto in some other forums, and while a few guys would pick it up, mostly just for fun (*my analogy of drawing inflectional paradigms of a Slavic/Caucasian language without actually learning the language itself, which is quite pointless).... it just gets frowned on by many. Disappointed. Guess what? people are even talking about communist stuff, I don't mean here, but among those old-fashioned guys - they exactly try to put Esperanto in a strict political-philosophical context and criticize it vehemently, which is pointless.

I shall stop here, because it'd be more about forum etiquette and politics or anything irrelevant.

>>In many countries, more than 80% of TV programs are American ones, because programmers know only English and imagine that only what is produced in English is interesting.

But just like that "I" can't put Esperanto into some particular contexts, thus making it prone to pointless attacks (like as a tool of communism, as claimed by some) or to meaningless comparison (like so-called "in-real-terms economic values", where Esperanto would be "worthless"), I can't say English is imposing everyone/is full of culture-less stuff or anything sweeping. Simply, that's the point of whatsit logical ideas.

In this case, what I can see is: it'd be unrealistic to even introduce a bit of Esperanto in TV broadcast. I'm already happy when local radio talkshow hosts have at least talked a bit that "oh well, there is something called Esperanto, which actually has a long history of development...". What's more do you want?

Likewise, a "lack" of intellect, in relation to "knowing too few languages", could be remedied by, simply, learning more, given the motivation - I guess many university students have at least some knowledge of one particular classical languages, even the slightest bits of it. But would it make sense to say you must* learn literally a couple of them just to become educated? Yes, we do see the bad trend, but somewhat one has to be practical about ideals.

*To put it simply, Esperanto is just one way of widening your own horizons, and one way of getting to know (so as to understand and tolerate others) foreign things without having to learn each separate language, sweat over it for a few years and end up not being able to use it enough much, while not refusing to learn others anyway.

"Guest" : « Esperanto is the communist alternative to English as the lingua franca. [...] Just look at in which language is expressed 90% of information in the Internet. ».

Quel aveu d'inquiétude ! On devrait déporter l'espéranto à Guantanamo ?

Quant à la langue monopolisant 90 % de l'info réticulaire, elle n'existe tout simplement pas ! Ou alors dans tes rêves peut-être...