Why learn Esperanto?

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MrPenguin
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Re: Why learn Esperanto?

Postby MrPenguin » Tue Jul 13, 2021 11:55 pm

Let me just quote from lernu.net:
It has a completely regular grammar and allows the creation of a large quantity of words by combining lexical roots and about forty affixes (for example from the radical san- (healthy), it is possible to create words such as: malsana (“sick”), malsanulo (“sick person”), gemalsanuloj (“sick people of both sexes”), malsanulejo (“hospital”), sanigilo (“medicine”), saniĝinto (“person who has recovered”), sanigejo (“curing place”), malsaneto (“little illness”), malsanego (“extreme illness”), malsanegulo (“very sick person”), sanstato (“health state”), sansento (“health feeling”), sanlimo (“health limit”), malsankaŭzanto (“pathogen”), kontraŭmalsanterapio (“therapy against sickness”)…). The main parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs) have consistent endings that always allow the recognition of all parts of speech. Its regularity makes it particularly easy to learn, and its streamlined capacity to create new words make it one of the most productive languages, with a potentially unlimited number of words, it is capable of expressing all new ideas or states. For example, it is possible to write a novel about fictional table-shaped Martians and to call them tablo (“table”), tablino (“female table”), tablido (“table offspring”)… We can imagine a man who walks backwards ( inversmarŝanto , “reverse-walker”), a remedy against dogmatism ( maldogmigilo , “undogmatizer”), etc.


Or the textbook that I used back when I tried studying the language (Jon Rømmesmo - Esperanto - Lærebok - Lernolibro):
Du kan - det viser forsøk som er gjort - lære esperanto på ca. 1/6 av den tida du ville bruke på eit nasjonalspråk. Med ei lita ordliste kan du sjølv lage deg eit stort ordforråd ved hjelp av forstavingar og etterstavingar.

Translation: Studies have shown that you can learn Esperanto in a sixth of the time you would use on a national language. With a small list of words you can make yourself a large vocabulary with the help of prefixes and suffixes.

Tell me, what are those, if not invitations to "invent" language. Literally no natural language permit this kind of free-form creation of vocabulary, not even those filled to the brim with prefixes and suffixes. There are always strict rules and conventions that limit what you can do. Not so in Esperanto, if these descriptions are to be believed. And even if these descriptions aren't true, why should I be chastised for believing in them, given that they're written by supposedly authoritative sources? Is it my fault that I took this at face value, and ended up not participating in the larger Esperanto culture, where, presumably, I would've learned otherwise?
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chove
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Re: Why learn Esperanto?

Postby chove » Wed Jul 14, 2021 12:05 am

Does it really matter if someone's reason for personally not learning a language is "wrong" anyway?

I have looked at Esperanto once or twice, but I don't like the way it sounds for some reason. And I found all those tio/tia/etc words so confusing, though I'd probably sort them out eventually if I spent enough time on it. That a thing actually -- it's not as trivially easy as people sometimes claim, so it felt like it'd take a lot of time investment for something I wasn't especially interested in. "Easier than a natural language" is still quite difficult with a lot of memorisation to be done!

If I were to learn any conlang it'd probably be that one just for the number of speakers and the amount culture they've generated, though.
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luke
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Re: Why learn Esperanto?

Postby luke » Wed Jul 14, 2021 12:21 am

chove wrote:If I were to learn any conlang it'd probably be that one just for the number of speakers and the amount culture they've generated, though.

Yes, doesn't The Borg speak Esperanto?

Or is that just Captain Kirk?
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Re: Why learn Esperanto?

Postby Le Baron » Wed Jul 14, 2021 1:13 am

MrPenguin wrote:Tell me, what are those, if not invitations to "invent" language. Literally no natural language permit this kind of free-form creation of vocabulary, not even those filled to the brim with prefixes and suffixes. There are always strict rules and conventions that limit what you can do. Not so in Esperanto, if these descriptions are to be believed. And even if these descriptions aren't true, why should I be chastised for believing in them, given that they're written by supposedly authoritative sources? Is it my fault that I took this at face value, and ended up not participating in the larger Esperanto culture, where, presumably, I would've learned otherwise?

The answer is fairly simple. The combinations people make are very largely (and I mean VERY largely) the combinations everyone else makes because they've learned it like all the other people and read mostly the same things as examples, and talk to one another reinforcing all the standard words and even the new ones which then either fade away or are used.
Since even in the crazy world of Esperanto you don't often run into female tables and men who walk backwards, there's not much call for these things to be named and talked about.

That 'strict rules only in Esperanto' thing is not true. English people talking together make up all sorts of pseudo words or combinations for things when they can't think of the 'official' word. Happens in Dutch too and I'll bet it happens in Norwegian. It's just that because there are fixed words in the dictionary people feel daft and illiterate doing it. You don't have to feel daft and illiterate when you do it in Esperanto. You can also use a normal Esperanto dictionary to just find the 'real' word. If there were no fixed words for things in Esperanto there couldn't be a proper dictionary. But there is and mine has 422 pages in it.

This word: drinkaĵo means something like 'moonshine' or 'hootch' or 'rocket fuel' (in England). How? Well 'drinki' as opposed to 'trinki' refers to alcoholic drinks. And aĵo as an affix is the concrete abstraction as a noun. An example would be bovaĵo = beef. People are not fooling around randomly combining stuff to make these, they know what's going on.
If you say 'hootch' to someone and they say 'what's that?' you can either explain to them what it means, using more words (as happens every day in all languages), or you can tell them to find a dictionary. The former is better for conversation and spreading words. Most words people already know, as happens every day in all languages.

I regret to say that yes, it is your fault because you took those things at simple face value without looking further and employed them to make a confidently-presented argument without checking if it was true or false. The same things were there for me too, should I have stopped at lesson 1 after being so lead astray? Did you find that the standard advertisement about English being super easy was exactly what it says on the tin?
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Re: Why learn Esperanto?

Postby Cainntear » Wed Jul 14, 2021 7:01 am

Le Baron wrote:
Cainntear wrote:The thing is I've studied linguistics at university level and language teaching at masters level. I think of myself as "some guy off the street" even though I'm not some sort of authority; when I talk about matters of redundancy and regularity, I'm talking about things from my area of speciality.

Okay, I take your word entirely. Would you say though, that this is like studying medicine generally and not specifically oncology (or whatever speciality)?

That's fair.

To get away from all these tiresome analogies, I mean does it make sense to say 'I am a linguist', but then also say I am only giving my opinion on Esperanto - about which I know relatively little and which may be right or wrong - and have the first declaration stand as justification?

But that's not what happened, is it?

First I gave my opinion, clearly stating this is only my opinion.
Then you repeatedly responded by demeaning and belittling me and telling me I had no right to an opinion.
You claimed that the question I answered wasn't real.
You called me unqualified.
I wouldn't have kept responding if you hadn't done this.

When you then pointedly commented that I was working very hard to defend an opinion, I responded by explaining why your behaviour had wound me up so much, and that involved defending my qualifications to speak and pointing out why I found "unqualified" particularly provocative.

Why am I being defensive? Because you keep attacking me.

That's fair, surely?


There is also the fact that all these supposed problems the endless parade of Esperanto sceptics keep pointing to, don't appear to have any reality among people who actually know and speak Esperanto. Which to me is a much more interesting problem for a linguist to tackle.

In this discussion it has been confirmed that one of "these supposed problems" is such a real problem that the language has been forced to change (the verb system).

Esperanto does not behave like natural languages.
It was written deliberately by someone with a very superficial understanding of language.
These are facts.

People learn to speak Esperanto despite this.
This is also a fact.

None of these objective facts prove objectively that Esperanto is good or bad.

The fact that pear drops have an artificial flavour is objectively true, but it says nothing about whether pear drops are more of less tasty than actual pears -- that's a matter of subjective opinion.

My subjective view of Esperanto is that the balance of evidence makes it sound like something I do not want to learn.

Can you accept that without insulting or belittling me?
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Re: Why learn Esperanto?

Postby rdearman » Wed Jul 14, 2021 8:38 am

Cainntear wrote:Esperanto does not behave like natural languages.

There is this nasty little thing, often called "human nature" where humans tend to change things over time to suit themselves. Given enough time, and people, humans will force their nature on to any language. So if there is a problem with numbers, using your example, humans will simply drop what doesn't work and adopt what does, even if it seems irrational from the outside.

Esperanto is more than 130 years old, and it has changed from the original. Probably fewer changes than English because Esperantists actively try to stop the evolution of dialects, phonology, morphology, etc. but nonetheless it has changed and evolved just like natural languages. I would argue that for the last 75 years it has become a natural language and, like the Académie Française, Esperantists are fighting a loosing battle to stop it from changing.

I personally think the fact there isn't an Esperantoland or common heritage is probably the only reason we've not see huge amounts of localization and fragmentation of the language, just like natural language.

Esperanto isn't any different from programming languages, which are all constructed languages. They change over time with features or bugs fixed, just like Esperanto. The only striking difference I can see is that the C programming language morphed into C++, which is being replaced by Rust, which changes almost daily, while Esperanto has stayed mostly static.

So I would argue that Esperanto does behave like natural languages, just because humans are involved.

Those are my opinions, and if you don't like them... well, I have others. (to paraphrase Groucho Marx)
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Re: Why learn Esperanto?

Postby Le Baron » Wed Jul 14, 2021 9:10 am

Cainntear wrote:My subjective view of Esperanto is that the balance of evidence makes it sound like something I do not want to learn.Can you accept that without insulting or belittling me?


There is no 'balance of evidence' pointing in that direction. It's an entirely subjective view which you are free to hold. That you don't want to learn it is something I accept completely and always did. I would agree you should never waste your time learning it. Though you really shouldn't care whether I do or not. After all I'm the one who has been fooled into thinking this failed travesty of a tongue is a 'real' language, so the joke's on me really.

I'm sure everyone by now is tired of Esperanto. Let the thread fall onto page 2.
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Re: Why learn Esperanto?

Postby Saim » Wed Jul 14, 2021 11:26 am

rdearman wrote:Esperanto isn't any different from programming languages, which are all constructed languages.


In that case it is totally different from natural languages, as programming “languages” are not languages at all.
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Re: Why learn Esperanto?

Postby luke » Wed Jul 14, 2021 12:21 pm

Saim wrote:
rdearman wrote:Esperanto isn't any different from programming languages, which are all constructed languages.


In that case it is totally different from natural languages, as programming “languages” are not languages at all.

I don't know that I agree entirely with the first premise, as one difference is that programming languages are for interfacing with computers and Esperanto is for interfacing with humans.
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Re: Why learn Esperanto?

Postby rdearman » Wed Jul 14, 2021 12:27 pm

Saim wrote:
rdearman wrote:Esperanto isn't any different from programming languages, which are all constructed languages.


In that case it is totally different from natural languages, as programming “languages” are not languages at all.

Blasphemy! Non programmer ! Heretic !

Actually I may start another thread about this. PLs have syntax, lexicon, etc.
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