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- Newsgroups: soc.culture.esperanto,soc.answers,news.answers
- Subject: Esperanto FAQ (Oftaj demandoj) Part 1/2
- From: Yves Bellefeuille <yan@storm.ca>
- Approved: news-answers-request@mit.edu
- Reply-To: Yves Bellefeuille <yan@storm.ca>
- Followup-To: soc.culture.esperanto
- Summary: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) about the
- international language Esperanto. In English.
- Oftaj demandoj pri Esperanto. En la angla.
- X-Last-Updated: 1999-06-23
- Organization: None
- Originator: faqserv@penguin-lust.MIT.EDU
- Date: 17 Apr 2004 11:27:58 GMT
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-
- Archive-name: esperanto/faq/part1
- Posting-Frequency: monthly
- Last-Modified: 1999-06-23
- URL: http://www.esperanto.net/veb/faq.html
-
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for
- soc.culture.esperanto and esperanto-l@netcom.com
- (monthly posting)
-
- This posting attempts to answer the most common questions from those new
- to the newsgroup soc.culture.esperanto (or the corresponding mailing
- list esperanto-l), or to the language Esperanto itself. Please send
- suggestions, corrections and complaints about this FAQ to the
- maintainer, Yves Bellefeuille <yan@storm.ca>. Post questions about
- Esperanto in the newsgroup or send them to the mailing list, not to the
- maintainer.
-
- Because of the increasing internationalization of the net, I have
- attempted to make this FAQ as relevant as possible to readers in various
- countries. It's still somewhat biased in favour of the US, though.
-
- This FAQ is available as follows:
-
- Usenet:
-
- Posted once a month in Usenet group soc.culture.esperanto. (Also
- gatewayed to mailing list esperanto-l; see section 16).
-
- WWW:
-
- http://www.esperanto.net/veb/faq.html
-
- The FAQ can be downloaded in text format from this location.
-
- FTP:
-
- at rtfm.mit.edu/pub/faqs/esperanto/faq/
-
- E-mail:
-
- Send a message to:
-
- mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu
-
- with the following contents:
-
- send faqs/esperanto/faq/part1
- send faqs/esperanto/faq/part2
- quit
-
-
- Changes this month:
-
-
- [July 1999]
-
- - many E-mail addresses and URLs updated.
-
-
- [March 1999]
-
- - ELNA's FTP archive permanently down (sections 7 and 16).
-
- - number of hits on standard WWW search engines updated (section 16).
-
- - several URLs updated.
-
-
- [February 1999]
-
- Quite a delay between updates; my apologies.
-
- - Cathy Schulze has passed away; updated address for course at SFSU to
- Ellen M. Eddy <eddyellen@aol.com> (section 7).
-
- - added E-mail address for Rolf Beau (section 7).
-
- - updated contact information for Lojban (section 11).
-
- - removed Center BBS, Slovenia (section 17).
-
-
- PART I: THE LANGUAGE ESPERANTO
-
- 1. What is Esperanto?
- 2. How easy is Esperanto to learn?
- 3. Where does Esperanto's vocabulary come from?
- 4. What about Esperanto's grammar and word-order?
- 5. How many people speak Esperanto?
- 6. How can I use Esperanto once I've learned it?
- 7. Where do I find classes, textbooks, etc.?
- 8. How come Esperanto doesn't have <favourite word or feature>?
- 9. What are some common objections to Esperanto? How do speakers of
- Esperanto respond to them?
- 10. Are there any famous Esperanto speakers?
- 11. What about other "artificial" languages like Loglan, Ido, etc.?
- 12. What are PAG, PIV, PMEG, PV, TEJO and UEA?
- 13. How do you say "I love you" in Esperanto?
-
- PART II: ESPERANTO, COMPUTERS AND THE INTERNET
-
- 14. How can I type and display Esperanto's accented characters?
- 15. How can I represent these characters in E-mail or on Usenet?
- 16. What Esperanto material is available on the Internet?
- 17. What Esperanto material is available on other (non-Internet)
- on-line services?
-
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
- PART I: THE LANGUAGE ESPERANTO
-
- 1. WHAT IS ESPERANTO?
-
- Esperanto is a language designed to facilitate communication between
- people of different lands and cultures. It was first published in 1887
- by Dr. L. L. Zamenhof (1859-1917) under the pseudonym "Dr. Esperanto",
- meaning "one who hopes", and this is the name that stuck as the name of
- the language itself.
-
- Esperanto is considerably easier to learn than national languages, since
- its design is far simpler and more regular. Also, unlike national
- languages, Esperanto allows communication on an equal footing between
- people, with neither having the usual cultural advantage favouring a
- native speaker.
-
- Esperanto's purpose is not to replace any other language, but to
- supplement them: Esperanto would be used as a neutral language when
- speaking with someone who doesn't know one's own language. The use of
- Esperanto would also protect minority languages, which would have a
- better chance of survival than in a world dominated by a few powerful
- languages.
-
-
- 2. HOW EASY IS ESPERANTO TO LEARN?
-
- For a native English speaker, we may estimate that Esperanto is about
- five times as easy to learn as Spanish or French, ten times as easy to
- learn as Russian, twenty times as easy to learn as Arabic or spoken
- Chinese, and infinitely easier to learn than Japanese. Many people find
- that they speak Esperanto better after a few months' study than a
- language they learned at school for several years.
-
- A knowledge of Esperanto makes it much easier to learn other foreign
- languages, and there is some evidence that it is actually more efficient
- to learn Esperanto first, before learning other languages, rather than
- to study foreign languages directly. For example, one may become more
- fluent in French by first studying Esperanto for 6 months and then
- studying French for a year and a half, rather than studying French for
- two continuous years. The reason may be that Esperanto's regular grammar
- and word formation and flexible syntax makes it easier to understand
- other languages' grammar and rules.
-
-
- 3. WHERE DOES ESPERANTO'S VOCABULARY COME FROM?
-
- About 75 % of Esperanto's vocabulary comes from Latin and Romance
- languages (especially French), about 20 % comes from Germanic languages
- (German and English), and the rest comes mainly from Slavic languages
- (Russian and Polish) and Greek (mostly scientific terms).
-
- The words derived from Romance languages were chosen to be as
- recognizable as possible throughout the world. For example, the word
- "radio", although technically Romance, is now used internationally.
- Someone knowing only Russian and looking at a text in Esperanto would
- immediately recognize perhaps 40 % of the words, without even having
- studied the language.
-
- Esperanto is phonetic: every word is pronounced exactly as it is
- spelled. There are no "silent" letters or exceptions.
-
-
- 4. WHAT ABOUT ESPERANTO'S GRAMMAR AND WORD-ORDER?
-
- Even more than its vocabulary, it is Esperanto's grammar and rules which
- makes it exceptionally easy. Unnecessary complications have been
- eliminated: there is no grammatical gender, the word order is relatively
- free, etc. The rules have also been simplified as much as possible:
- there is only one verb conjugation, all plurals are formed the same way,
- a prefix can be added to any word to change it to its opposite
- (good/bad, rich/poor, right/wrong), and so on. Thus, after perhaps 30
- minutes' study, one can conjugate any verb in any tense. This is a
- tremendous simplification compared to national languages.
-
- Esperanto's flexible word-order allows speakers from different language
- families to use the structures with which they are most familiar and
- still speak perfectly intelligible and grammatically correct Esperanto.
- This also makes Esperanto an excellent translator of such different
- languages as Chinese, Japanese, Latin, English and French.
-
-
- 5. HOW MANY PEOPLE SPEAK ESPERANTO?
-
- This is a very common question, but nobody really knows the answer. The
- only way to determine accurately the number of people who speak
- Esperanto would be to conduct a world-wide census, and of course this
- has never been done.
-
- However, Professor Sidney S. Culbert of the University of Washington,
- Seattle, USA, has done the most comprehensive survey on language use
- ever attempted. He has conducted interviews in dozens of countries
- around the world and tested for "professional proficiency", i.e. much
- more than just "hello, please, goodbye".
-
- Based on this survey, Prof. Culbert concluded that Esperanto has about
- two million speakers worldwide. This puts it on a par with "minority"
- languages such as Lithuanian or Hebrew. For more information on this
- survey (partly in Esperanto), see
- http://www.rano.demon.co.uk/nombro.html
- The results are also published in the _World Almanac and Book of Facts_.
-
- [There's a lot of debate over how many people speak Esperanto. Sometimes
- there is a tendency to exaggerate the number of Esperanto speakers, or,
- on the contrary, to minimize it. I've seen numbers ranging from 100 000
- to 8 million. Prof. Culbert's estimate has two advantages over any
- other I've seen:
-
- 1. The method is sound. Doing a world-wide survey is the only valid way
- to estimate the number of Esperanto speakers, but it's so difficult that
- Prof. Culbert is the only person who has ever attempted to do so, to my
- knowledge.
-
- 2. The study attempted to find out how many people speak *all*
- languages, not just Esperanto. We can see whether the results obtained
- for other languages make sense; if they do, then the result for
- Esperanto is probably as valid as any other.
-
- In short, Prof. Culbert's estimate that two million people speak
- Esperanto around the world is the most accurate answer we're likely to
- get. -- Ed.]
-
- Some parents teach Esperanto (along with the local language) to their
- children; it is estimated that perhaps a thousand people speak Esperanto
- as a first language.
-
-
- 6. HOW CAN I USE ESPERANTO ONCE I'VE LEARNED IT?
-
- Here are some of the many different ways people use Esperanto:
-
- - Esperanto is an ideal second language. Many adults want to learn
- another language, but don't have the time or energy to learn a national
- language.
-
- - Correspondence. Write to people in a dozen countries without learning
- a dozen languages.
-
- - Travel. Esperanto can be used to see the world. There are lists of
- Esperanto speakers willing to host other Esperantists in their own
- house or apartment for free.
-
- - International understanding. You can't be friends with people if you
- can't talk to them! Esperanto helps break down the language barriers
- between countries.
-
- - Meeting people from other countries, especially at conventions, or
- when Esperanto speakers from other countries come visiting. (It's also a
- good way to meet interesting people from your own country!)
-
- - Joining the world. Esperanto is a way to treat everyone on our planet
- on the basis of complete equality, meeting them half-way. No more trying
- to communicate "uphill" for one side.
-
- - Literature. The world's masterpieces have been translated to
- Esperanto, including the Kalevala and works by Garcia Marquez, Saikaku,
- Shakespeare, Gibran, Brecht, Tagore, Kawabata, Dante, and Mickiewicz.
- Many works have been translated to Esperanto which are not available in
- one's own language.
-
- - Hobbies, especially collecting stamps or postcards, or discussing any
- subject with people in other countries.
-
-
- 7. WHERE DO I FIND CLASSES, TEXTBOOKS, ETC.?
-
- For US residents, the Esperanto League for North America is the best and
- most reliable source for Esperanto materials. They offer a free basic
- correspondence course (by snail mail, but see below for an E-mail
- course), and may be offering a more detailed and advanced paid
- correspondence course. They have an extensive catalogue of books,
- including texts, reference, fiction, poetry, cassette tapes and audio
- CD-ROMs. Their address is:
-
- Esperanto League for North America
- Box 1129
- El Cerrito CA 94530
- USA
- tel. 1-800-ESPERANTO (1-800-377-3726) toll-free (USA and Canada)
- for a free information package
- tel. (510) 653-0998
-
- E-mail: elna@esperanto-usa.org
- WWW site: http://www.esperanto-usa.org/
-
- A more immediate source of texts, especially for those with access to a
- university, is your local library. The quality of the books will vary
- widely, of course, but most of the texts, even the older ones, will
- provide a reasonable general introduction to the language.
-
- One exception, mentioned here only because it was surplused to *many*
- libraries around the US, is the US Army's "Esperanto: The Aggressor
- Language", which is more of a curiosity than a useful textbook. This
- book was prepared to make military exercises more realistic by having
- the opposing forces speak different languages, as would be the case in a
- real war. The soldiers playing the role of the aggressor were taught
- Esperanto, hence the strange title. Unfortunately, the book is extremely
- poor and contains a great many mistakes; in addition, its emphasis is on
- military terms, not on everyday vocabulary.
-
- The problem with most old texts is that they are... well... old! Their
- presentations can seem very bland and old-fashioned, and their
- "cultural" information about the Esperanto community will often be
- hopelessly out of date. One recent US textbook is Richardson's
- "Esperanto: Learning and Using the International Language". It is
- available from ELNA and perhaps some libraries.
-
- Another book, "Teach Yourself Esperanto" by Cresswell and Hartley, is a
- very useful introduction to the language. The "Teach Yourself" series
- can often be found in ordinary bookstores.
-
- Another good, if a bit old-fashioned, textbook, "Step by Step in
- Esperanto" by Butler, has recently been reprinted and is available from
- ELNA. Still another book recommended by more than one participant is
- "Saluton!" by Audrey Childs-Mee. This is entirely in Esperanto, with
- many pictures.
-
- Wells's two-way "Esperanto Dictionary" is a good choice for beginners.
- This dictionary is in the same series as "Teach Yourself Esperanto" and
- is also often available in ordinary bookstores. For a more thorough
- treatment, see Butler's one-way "Esperanto-English Dictionary", and
- Benson's one-way "Comprehensive English-Esperanto Dictionary".
-
- Free Esperanto courses by E-mail are available in several languages.
- Typically, these have 10 lessons and teach a vocabulary of a few hundred
- words. The system is the same as for traditional correspondence courses:
- the instructor sends a lesson; the student does the exercises and sends
- them back; the instructor corrects the exercises and sends the next
- lesson.
-
- In English:
-
- Free Esperanto Course
- http://www.iki.fi/pacujo/esperanto/course/
- Marko Rauhamaa <marko.rauhamaa@iki.fi>
-
- In French:
-
- Cours gratuit d'esperanto
- http://www.southern.edu/~caviness/cge/CGEquoi.html
- Ken Caviness <esperanto@southern.edu>
-
- In German:
-
- Kostenloser Esperanto-Kurs
- http://www.esperanto.de/sprache/kurse/kek/
- Steffen Pietsch <kek@esperanto.de>
-
- In Chinese:
-
- Mianfei Shijieyu Kecheng
- http://www.cs.hku.hk/~sdlee/esperanto/
- cxinaj-pagxoj/kurso-informoj-gb.html
- ZHONG Qiyao <zhong@accton.com.tw>
-
- In Russian:
-
- Andrej Ananjin <andreo@esperanto.msk.ru>
-
- Other languages are also available; see
- http://www.esperanto.net/veb/lerni.html
- for a list.
-
- Macintosh owners with HyperCard and MacinTalk can take advantage of an
- introductory HyperCard course on Esperanto. This can be downloaded from
- ftp://ftp.stack.nl/pub/esperanto/hypercourse.dir/
- (See under "FTP archives".)
-
- Each summer, San Francisco State University and the University of
- Hartford (Connecticut) offer a curriculum of Esperanto courses, in which
- one may participate at beginning, intermediate, or advanced levels.
- These courses are available for credit or on a non-credit basis. They
- are widely considered to be one of the best opportunities to learn to
- speak Esperanto "like a native", and draw students and faculty from
- around the world.
-
- San Francisco State University:
-
- Ellen M. Eddy
- 11736 Scott Creek Dr SW
- Olympia WA 98512
- USA
- tel. (360) 754-4563
- E-mail: eddyellen@aol.com
- information at http://www.best.com/~donh/Esperanto/sfsu/
-
- University of Hartford:
-
- tel. (800) 234-4412 or (860) 768-4978
-
- Other institutions offering Esperanto courses on a regular basis
- include:
-
- In France:
-
- Chateau Gresillon, 49105 Bauge, tel. 02 41 89 10 34
-
- La Kvinpetalo, rue de Lavoir, 86410 Bouresse, tel. 05 49 42 80 74
-
- In Poland:
-
- Dr. Ilona Koutny, Linguistics Institute, Adam Mickiewicz University,
- ul. Miedzychodzka 3-5, 60-371 Poznan, tel. 61 861-85-72,
- E-mail: ikoutny@main.amu.edu.pl
-
- Jagiellonian University, Krakow. Contact: Maria Majerczak,
- ul. Armii krajovej 7 M, PL-30-150 Krakow, tel. 12 638-14-49
-
- In Sweden:
-
- Karlskoga Folkh"ogskola, Box 192, 691 24 Karlskoga, tel. 0586-64600,
- E-mail: info@fhsk.karlskoga.se
-
- In Switzerland:
-
- Kultura Centro Esperantista, C.P. 311, 2301 La Chaux-de-Fonds,
- tel. (032) 9267407
-
- In the following countries, you may contact the national Esperanto
- organization to receive information on courses, buy books, etc.
-
- In Australia:
-
- Australia Esperanto-Asocio, 9 Ballantyne Street, Thebarton SA 5031,
- tel. (08) 8443-8997
-
- http://www.esperanto.org.au/
-
- Book Service: c/o T. Elliott, PO Box 230, Matraville NSW 2036,
- tel. (02) 9311-2246
-
- In Brazil:
-
- Brazila Esperanto-Ligo, C.P. 3625, 70084-970 Brasilia (DF),
- tel. (061) 226-1298
-
- E-mail: bel@esperanto.org.br, http://www.esperanto.org.br/
-
- Book Service: Same as above
-
- In Canada:
-
- Kanada Esperanto-Asocio, P.O. Box 2159, Sidney BC, V8L 3S6
-
- http://www.esperanto.com/kea/
-
- Book Service: 6358-A, rue de Bordeaux, Montreal QC, H2G 2R8,
- tel. (514) 272-0151, E-mail: esperanto@sympatico.ca
-
- In China:
-
- Cxina Esperanto-Ligo, P.O. Kesto 825, 100037 Beijing,
- tel. (010) 68326682
-
- Book Service: El Popola Cxinio, P.O. Kesto 77, 100037 Beijing
-
- In France:
-
- Unuigxo Franca por Esperanto, 4 bis, rue de la Cerisaie,
- 75004 Paris, tel. 01 42 78 68 86
-
- Book Service: Same as above
-
- In Germany:
-
- Germana Esperanto-Asocio, Immentalstr. 3, 79104 Freiburg,
- tel. (07 61) 28 92 99
-
- E-mail: gea@esperanto.de, http://www.esperanto.de/gea/
-
- Book Services: M. Fuehrer, Am Stadtpfad 11, 65760 Eschborn,
- and Rolf Beau, Saxoniastr. 35, 04451 Althen,
- E-mail robo.espero@t-online.de
-
- In Italy:
-
- Itala Esperanto-Federacio, Via Villoresi 38, 20143 Milano,
- tel. (02) 58 100 857
-
- Book Service: Cooperative Editoriale Esperanto, same address
- as above
-
- In Japan:
-
- Japana Esperanto-Instituto, Waseda-mati 12-3, Sinzyuku-ku,
- JP-162-0042 Tokyo-to, tel. (03) 3203 4581
-
- E-mail: jei@mre.biglobe.ne.jp
-
- Book Service: Same as above
-
- In Russia:
-
- Rusia Esperantista Unio, P.f. 74, 367000 Mahackala,
- tel. (8722) 630643,
- Moscow office: P.f. 57, 105318 Moskva, tel. (095) 2437456,
- (095) 9239127
-
- E-mail: junusov@dagestan.ru,
- http://www.openweb.ru/koi8/esperanto/reu.htm
-
- Book Service: Same as Moscow office
-
- In Sweden:
-
- Sveda Esperanto-Federacio, Vikingagatan 24, 11342 Stockholm,
- tel. (08) 34 08 00
-
- E-mail: sef@esperanto.se
-
- Book Service: Same as above
-
- In Switzerland:
-
- Svisa Esperanto-Asocio, Jurastrasse 23, 3063 Ittigen (Bern)
-
- Book Service: Kultura Centro Esperantista, C.P. 779,
- 2301 La Chaux-de-Fonds
-
- In the UK:
-
- Esperanto-Asocio de Britio, 140 Holland Park Avenue,
- London W11 4UF, tel. (0171) 727-7821
-
- E-mail: eab@esperanto.demon.co.uk, http://www.esperanto.demon.co.uk/
-
- Book Service: Same as above
-
- World Esperanto Association:
-
- Universala Esperanto-Asocio, Nieuwe Binnenweg 176,
- 3015 BJ Rotterdam, The Netherlands, tel. +31 10 436 1044
-
- E-mail: uea@inter.nl.net,
- http://www.uea.org/
-
- Book Service: Same as above
- Book catalogue available online in WAIS format at:
- wais://wwwtios.cs.utwente.nl/librokatalogo
-
- These are just some of the countries with Esperanto organizations; many
- more are listed at
- http://www.esperanto.net/veb/land.html
-
-
- 8. HOW COME ESPERANTO DOESN'T HAVE <FAVOURITE WORD OR FEATURE>?
-
- Although Esperanto is a planned language, it has developed well beyond
- the point at which some authoritative person or group can dictate
- language practice, however great the temptation may be to "tinker" with
- the language. For example, many people are critical of the presence of a
- feminine suffix and absence of a corresponding masculine suffix, and
- have suggested masculine suffixes (-icx, -un, -ucx, -ab), neutral
- pronouns (sxli, hi, ri), and/or re-interpretations of familiar words
- such as redefining "frato" (brother) to mean "sibling". But there is no
- single individual or committee that will simply dictate changes such as
- these before they achieve general use.
-
- Just as with any other language, the only way for such novelties to
- attain acceptability is for them to be used in correspondence,
- literature, and conversation by a growing number of people. If you see a
- genuine lack in the language's existing stock of roots and affixes, you
- may propose a new coinage and see if it catches on. Be warned that such
- neologisms are often controversial and will meet with criticism in
- proportion to the extent to which they break with the "Fundamento de
- Esperanto" (the language's canon) or to which they are redundant to the
- existing language. You should expect to receive the same reaction as if
- you were proposing a new word or feature for your own language.
-
-
- 9. WHAT ARE SOME COMMON OBJECTIONS TO ESPERANTO? HOW DO SPEAKERS OF
- ESPERANTO RESPOND TO THEM?
-
- (I am indebted to Ken Caviness for preparing this material. Quotations
- have been edited.)
-
- Isn't English spoken world-wide already?
-
- Don Harlow:
-
- Interestingly, while English was spoken by about 10 % of the world's
- population in 1900, and by about 11 % in 1950, it is today spoken by
- about 8.5-9 %. The corollary is that, for better than 90 % of the
- world's population, it is *not* the de facto means of international
- communication.
-
- David Wolff:
-
- English is a very difficult language to learn unless you've been
- immersed in it since birth. English spelling is said to be more
- difficult than any other language except Gaelic. English grammar,
- although it may be fairly simple, is riddled with exceptions. Verbs
- are very often irregular. Many people just aren't going to devote
- several years of effort to learn it!
-
- English has gained its present stature because of the current
- economic and political power of English-speaking countries. In the
- past, every super-power has briefly seen its native tongue used
- internationally: France, Spain, Portugal, the Roman empire. In fact,
- one of the main reasons why Esperanto was never adopted by the
- League of Nations was that France blocked efforts to adopt it. At
- the time, French was "the international language", and France
- expected it to stay that way forever. They were proven wrong within
- twenty years.
-
- Konrad Hinsen:
-
- Although many people all over the world study English and often
- think they speak it well, the number of people who can participate
- in a non-trivial conversation in English is very small outside
- English-speaking countries. Knowing English may be sufficient to
- survive as a tourist in many places, but not for more.
-
- Sylvan Zaft:
-
- One Chinese Esperanto speaker described Esperanto as a linguistic
- handshake. When two people shake hands they both reach out halfway.
- When two people speak Esperanto they have both made the effort to
- learn a relatively easy, neutral language instead of one person
- making the huge effort to learn the other person's difficult
- national language and the other person making no effort at all
- except to correct his/her interlocutor's errors.
-
- Esperanto isn't a real language, is it?
-
- Ken Caviness:
-
- Yes, actually it is. You see, it's been used in all conceivable
- circumstances for over 100 years. Whatever you have to say, you can
- say it in Esperanto.
-
- Yves Bellefeuille:
-
- It's said that Umberto Eco, before he started supporting Esperanto,
- once said in class that Esperanto isn't a real language "because you
- can't make love in Esperanto". A girl later wrote to him and said,
- with some embarrassment, "I'm sorry, Professor, but it *is* possible
- to make love in Esperanto. I've done it."
-
- Personally, I don't believe it. I mean, I don't believe she actually
- said so. Oh, forget it. ;-)
-
- Wouldn't any universal language break up into dialects?
-
- Ken Caviness:
-
- (1) Esperanto is intended to be your *second* language, so it
- remains relatively intact: people primarily create slang, idioms,
- etc., in their native language.
-
- (2) Esperanto is intended for cross-cultural use, therefore use of
- too many colloquialisms, etc., jeopardizes your chances of being
- understood (which is presumably your intention). This acts as a
- stabilizing influence on the language.
-
- Konrad Hinsen:
-
- Regional dialects appear when people communicate mostly with their
- geographical neighbours and rarely with people from further away.
- Dialects tend to disappear when long-range communication dominates
- (as can be observed in many parts of the world after the
- introduction of radio and television). There is also the not
- insignificant observation that Esperanto has not formed any dialects
- in its more than one hundred years of existence.
-
- Can an artificial language have its own literature?
-
- Duncan C Thomson:
-
- Esperanto has just as much literature (original, not just
- translated) as any other language of a similar number of speakers.
- Just because you haven't heard of it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
-
- Have you heard of Auld, Szathmari, Kalocsay? Galloway, Gray, Kelman?
- None of them, probably, but you would probably not be as quick to
- claim that Scotland did not have a literary culture.
-
- [Several tens of thousands of books have been published in
- Esperanto; the library of the British Esperanto Association has
- 30 000 volumes. There are about 100 periodicals of some importance,
- plus countless local bulletins and newsletters. At one point there
- was even a daily newspaper in Esperanto! I have no idea how they
- managed to distribute it to the subscribers in a timely
- manner. -- Ed.]
-
- Isn't Esperanto "too European"?
-
- Joseph Voros:
-
- The argument seems to always come down to the difference between
- agglutination and separate roots. Or "Eastern" and "Western" style
- languages, broadly speaking (I know it's an over-simplification).
- Some people think every concept needs its own root, others are happy
- to begin with some basic set and modify. Two incompatible systems of
- thinking.
-
- I consider Esperanto to be a good compromise between "Western"
- root-based thinking and "Eastern" agglutinative thinking (again,
- very roughly speaking). Having a Hungarian background, I delight in
- the simple elegance of Esperanto word-building. [Unlike just about
- every other language in Europe, Hungarian is *not* Indo-European; it
- comes from a completely different language family. Thus, it is as
- unrelated to Esperanto as English is to Arabic, for example. -- Ed.]
-
- I think there is something for everyone in Esperanto, no matter what
- your linguistic background, and that this is one major reason why it
- is the most successful of the auxiliary languages.
-
- Sylvan Zaft:
-
- The other night I was having dinner here in the Detroit area with
- Koralo Chen, an Esperanto speaker from China whose home is very
- close to Hong Kong. I presented this objection to him. Koralo Chen
- replied that he had often heard this objection but that it made
- little sense to him. In his part of the world the major languages
- are completely unlike each other. Knowing Chinese doesn't help with
- learning how to speak Korean or Japanese, for instance.
-
- I can see why this objection makes good theoretical sense to some
- Westerners, but it makes no sense at all to those Chinese who, like
- Koralo Chen, need not a theoretically perfect but very practical
- language to learn for international communication.
-
- Should we create a language with words from all around the world?
-
- Manuel M Campagna:
-
- The International Auxiliary Language Association (IALA) researched
- this point scientifically, and came up with the conclusion that
- while there are 6 170 languages in the world (not including
- dialects) AT THIS TIME, there is no evidence that a language with
- one word from each language would be more popular. Indeed it would
- be an unworkable hodgepodge.
-
- David Poulson:
-
- This objection has been handled at length by Prof. Pierre Janton. In
- brief, there are two major facts to take into account. First of all,
- there are thousands of languages in the world and if Esperanto
- attempted to create its vocabulary from even 10% of them you would
- simply get a language which would be very difficult to learn for
- everybody instead of the real Esperanto which is relatively easy for
- all.
-
- Secondly, the world-wide spread of Euro-American science, commerce,
- technology, geopolitics, entertainment, etc., has meant that many
- technical terms from "Western" languages have entered the vocabulary
- of many other languages too. So, in fact, the European basis for
- Esperanto's vocabulary is a lot more international than appears at
- first sight.
-
- However, the whole argument is really irrelevant because the
- internationalism of Esperanto -- or of any other planned language --
- cannot reside in its vocabulary for the reason just mentioned.
-
- In fact, what makes Esperanto a truly "international" language (as
- distinct from a "world" language like English) is its extraordinary
- semantic flexibility which allows speakers from different language
- families to translate their own thought patterns directly into
- Esperanto and produce something which is perfectly intelligible and
- grammatically correct.
-
- Isn't Esperanto hard for speakers of non-Indo-European languages?
-
- Manuel M Campagna:
-
- Non-IE speakers thank you for your protective attitude, but they can
- and do fend for themselves, and Esperanto is very popular in
- Hungary, Estonia, Finland, Japan, China, Vietnam... The current
- [1995-1998] president of the Universal Esperanto Association is a
- Korean university professor of *Economics*. The most attended
- international meeting in *5000 years* of Chinese history was the
- 1986 Universal Congress of Esperanto in Beijing, being the largest
- both by the number of delegates and the number of countries
- represented.
-
-
- 10. ARE THERE ANY FAMOUS ESPERANTO SPEAKERS?
-
- ***
- *** I hope to expand this section, but I guess I could do
- *** worse than to start with some Nobel Prize winners! ;-)
- ***
-
- Nobel Prize Winners:
-
- Sir William Ramsay (Chemistry, 1904)
-
- Awarded the Nobel Prize "in recognition of his services in the
- discovery of the inert gaseous elements in air, and his
- determination of their place in the periodic system".
-
- Participated in many Esperanto conferences and meetings.
-
- Sir Joseph J. Thomson (Physics, 1906)
-
- "In recognition of the great merits of his theoretical and
- experimental investigations on the conduction of electricity by
- gases".
-
- Vice-President of the International Esperanto Science Association.
-
- Alfred Hermann Fried (Peace, 1911)
-
- "Founder of _Die Friedenswarte_" (a peace publication).
-
- Author of an Esperanto textbook and contributor to the magazine
- _L'esperantiste_.
-
- Charles Ribert Richet (Medicine, 1913)
-
- "In recognition of his work on anaphylaxis".
-
- Active Esperantist.
-
- Daniel Bovet (Medicine, 1957)
-
- "For his discoveries relating to synthetic compounds that inhibit
- the action of certain body substances, and especially their action
- on the vascular system and the skeletal muscles".
-
- Learned Esperanto as a first language.
-
- Reinhard Selten (Economics, 1994)
-
- "For [his] pioneering analysis of equilibria in the theory of
- non-cooperative games".
-
- Author of two books in Esperanto on games theory.
-
-
- 11. WHAT ABOUT OTHER "ARTIFICIAL" LANGUAGES LIKE LOGLAN, IDO, ETC.?
-
- People create languages for a variety of purposes. J.R.R. Tolkien's
- languages of Sindarin and Quenya, for example, were created partly as a
- recreation, and partly to fulfil a literary purpose. Many languages have
- been created as international languages; only Esperanto has continued to
- grow and prosper after the death of its originator.
-
- Many of the people who have attempted to promulgate international
- languages more "perfect" (i.e., more "international", more "logical", or
- whatever) than Esperanto have failed to understand that -- given a
- certain minimum standard of internationality, aesthetic quality, and
- ease of learning -- further tinkering not only fails to substantially
- improve the product, but interferes with the establishment of a large
- community of speakers. A language like, say, Interlingua might be (by
- some individual's criteria) "better" than Esperanto, but in order for it
- to be worth uprooting the established world of Esperanto and creating an
- equivalently widespread world community of Interlingua speakers, it
- would have to be visibly and profoundly an improvement over Esperanto of
- prodigious proportions. No international language project has yet
- produced such an obviously ideal language.
-
- In the net community, one of the best known planned language projects is
- James Cooke Brown's Loglan (and its revised offshoot Lojban). While some
- enthusiasts do see Loglan and Lojban as competitors to Esperanto, the
- languages were conceived not as a tool to facilitate better
- communication, but as a linguistic experiment, to test the Whorf
- hypothesis that a language shapes (or limits) the thoughts of its
- speakers. They are thus deliberately designed to bear little resemblance
- to existing human languages. While Loglan and Lojban are unlikely (and,
- by design, perhaps unsuited) to succeed as international languages, both
- are interesting projects in their own right.
-
-
- The address to write for Loglan information is:
-
- The Loglan Institute
- 3009 Peters Way
- San Diego CA 92117
- USA
-
- tel. (619) 270-1691
- E-mail: loglan@compuserve.com
-
-
- For Lojban, contact:
-
- Bob LeChevalier, President
- The Logical Language Group, Inc.
- 2904 Beau Lane
- Fairfax VA 22031-1303
- USA
-
- tel. (703) 385-0273 (day/evenings)
- E-mail: lojban@lojban.org
- http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/
- http://www.lojban.org/
-
- Those interested in Mark Okrand's "Klingon" language can join a mailing
- list; to subscribe, send a message to:
-
- listserv@kli.org
-
- consisting of the body line:
-
- subscribe tlhingan-hol Your_Real_Name
-
-
- There is a general "constructed language" (Conlang) mailing list; to
- subscribe, send a message to:
-
- listserv@brownvm.brown.edu
-
- consisting of the body line (not subject):
-
- subscribe conlang
-
-
- There is also an "auxiliary language" (Auxlang) mailing list. The
- difference between this list and Conlang is that Auxlang deals more
- particularly with languages designed to enhance international
- communication, such as Esperanto. To subscribe, send a message to:
-
- listserv@brownvm.brown.edu
-
- consisting of the body line (not subject):
-
- subscribe auxlang
-
-
- Finally, fans of Tolkien's language creations can join a
- Tolkien-language mailing list. To subscribe, send a message to:
-
- tolklang-server@dcs.ed.ac.uk
-
- with the following subject line or body line (either will do):
-
- subscribe tolklang Your_Real_Name
-
-
- As for our own Esperanto newsgroup, many readers are interested in other
- planned languages, and discussion of these can often be informative and
- interesting. But politeness dictates that "Esperanto-bashing" in an
- Esperanto forum is inappropriate and should be avoided.
-
-
- 12. WHAT ARE PAG, PIV, PMEG, PV, TEJO AND UEA?
-
- As with other groups, there are some common acronyms that come up from
- time to time here.
-
- PAG: Plena Analiza Gramatiko, an analysis of Esperanto grammar. It is
- not authoritative, and many people will disagree with some of
- its conclusions, but it is the most detailed reference work to
- date on Esperanto grammar.
-
- PIV,
- PIV-S: Plena Ilustrita Vortaro, a very complete Esperanto dictionary
- (i.e., it is entirely in Esperanto) containing not only the
- officially recognized words, but many more that are in general
- (and not so general) use. Some of its entries are dubious, but
- it is a highly useful reference work. PIV is now quite
- expensive. It was published in 1970, with a supplement in 1987
- ("PIV-S" means "PIV with Supplement"). A new edition is
- currently being prepared.
-
- PMEG: Plena Manlibro de Esperanta Gramatiko, an analysis and
- commentary on Esperanto grammar. Available online at
- http://purl.oclc.org/NET/pmeg.
-
- PV: Plena Vortaro. PIV's little brother, so to speak; it was written
- in 1953 and contains fewer technical terms, neologisms, etc.
-
- TEJO: Tutmonda Esperantista Junulara Organizo, the World Organization
- of Young Esperantists. Members of UEA under 30 years of age are
- automatically members of TEJO. TEJO publishes a bi-monthly
- magazine called "Kontakto" and a quarterly newsletter called
- "TEJO Tutmonde", and sponsors the annual international youth
- congress (Internacia Junulara Kongreso, or IJK).
-
- UEA: Universala Esperanto-Asocio, the World Esperanto Association. It
- publishes a monthly magazine cleverly titled "Esperanto",
- produces a "Jarlibro" (yearbook) containing information on
- national and special-interest Esperanto organizations and
- contacts, and sponsors the annual international Esperanto
- congress (Universala Kongreso, or UK).
-
-
- 13. HOW DO YOU SAY "I LOVE YOU" IN ESPERANTO?
-
- "Mi amas vin."
-
- There are several WWW sites with lists of ways to say "I love you" in
- various languages. Try
- http://www.dina.kvl.dk/~fischer/alt.romance/language.html
- http://personal.inet.fi/koti/krista.hauhio/feelings.htm
-
-