Esperanto

Ben,

You may also have seen the following site, but to get a completely different point of view, from a candidate for the Nobel Prize in literature--who chose Esperanto in which to write his poetry:

http://donh.best.vwh.net/Esperanto/auld.html

Hadn't seen that one actually Mitch. Thanks for the link.

Ben.

Ben,

I understand the attitude of Guest (no name?) and that of Rick Harrison. If you never really learn the language, there are so many reasons not to bother studying it: it's not perfect, it sounds odd, etc. And the main point, as many have put it, is "Where can I possibly use it?" All that seems true--until one learns the language. Then a whole interesting world opens up.

The following are typical:

http://bernd.wechner.info/Esperanto/howilearned.html
http://members.aol.com/sylvanz/gv9.htm

You can read scores of similar anecdotes, including from people who were just as skeptical initially. It went from a seemingly useless, oddball venture to one of the most interesting activities of their lives.

Esperanto is not perfect. It will not bring about world peace. It will not replace English anytime soon. Certainly it is more useful for most non-English speakers to work on their English.

But if you want to try something that claims the shortest road to fluency, gives you quick access to a lot of material and thousands of enthusiastic potential correspondents, and--as discussed before--may actually shorten the time to learn other languages, then maybe it's worth a try.

N.B. There's a more famous Harrison--science fiction author Harry--who (like Tolstoy) had a much different opinion about Esperanto than Rick Harrison.

La scienco, kiu studas lingvon, nomiĝas lingvistiko. Unuflanke ekzistas la kompara lingvistiko, kiu studas la rilatojn inter unuopaj lingvoj kaj klasifikas ilin en lingvofamiliojn. Aliflanke ekzistas la ĝenerala lingvistiko, kiu studas la ecojn de lingvo ĝenerale, kaj uzas unuopajn lingvojn nur kiel ekzemplojn por la ĝenerala teorio pri lingvo.

Its fake has no soul. Its very eurocentric and its ulgy.