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Explaining Esperanto to Nesamideanoj

by BlackOtaku, October 29, 2011

Messages: 80

Language: English

erinja (User's profile) October 29, 2011, 6:03:23 PM

In my experience most Americans have not even heard of Esperanto, so the word "fake" won't even come to mind for them, unless you mention it first.

I usually say that "somebody created" the language.

Samideano is a funny word. To my ear, it sounds like something that old-timers use, old-fashioned. Younger people are more likely simply to say "esperantisto". At any rate, whatever the connotations of the word, I don't see a point in introducing this word to people who are just hearing about the language for the first time.

qwertz (User's profile) October 29, 2011, 6:35:38 PM

erinja:
Samideano is a funny word. To my ear, it sounds like something that old-timers use, old-fashioned.
Hhm, at Igor's refrain it sounds very nice. Btw, an senvoĉa karaokeoversiono of Samideano will be available next JES renkontiĝon.

Regarding the meaning of Samideano. It already did encounter to me, that another person presented an idea and I would say smiling: "Now, that you mention that, I had the same/similar idea before and I could not express much better". Which for me means: I met an Samideano.

erinja (User's profile) October 30, 2011, 4:04:26 AM

I have never heard anyone use the word "samideano" to refer to any field other than Esperanto. For example, I have never heard the word "samideano" used to refer to someone who didn't speak Esperanto, but perhaps belonged to the same religious group of political party. I've only heard it used synonymously with Esperantist.

qwertz (User's profile) October 30, 2011, 9:20:11 AM

I assume that "Samideano" in German means "Gleichgesinnter"(gleiche Gesinnung). And the term/concept "Gleichgesinnter" often used at German Wikipedia to describe same concept like Samideano represents. For me (German native speaker), "Samideano"/"Gleichgesinnter" isn't reserved synonym for Esperantisto term only. The term Samideano doesn't point solely to one (Esperanto) idea. Because of that "Samideano" represents an neutral concept/word.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spezial:Search?ns0=1&...

http://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Gleichgesinnte...

darkweasel (User's profile) October 30, 2011, 9:55:53 AM

erinja:I have never heard anyone use the word "samideano" to refer to any field other than Esperanto. For example, I have never heard the word "samideano" used to refer to someone who didn't speak Esperanto, but perhaps belonged to the same religious group of political party. I've only heard it used synonymously with Esperantist.
Hm, in the "word of the day in German" thread, a user used mi estas samideano in the meaning that he agrees with another user - not at all concerning Esperanto, but concerning traditional/reformed German spelling.

sudanglo (User's profile) October 30, 2011, 11:47:17 AM

Many people don't see languages as cultural artefacts and have the idea that an artificial language - one for which the rules were invented rather than arising by historical evolution - can't (in some sense) be real.

This point of view can be a stumbing block.

One way of presenting Esperanto is to say that if you take any two languages you can always find some feature that is easier in one language than another. Italian spelling is easier than English's. English's lack of grammatical gender makes it easier than German.

Esperanto is a language in which these potential simplifications have been taking to an extreme level without throwing the baby out with the bath water

sudanglo (User's profile) October 30, 2011, 12:04:57 PM

'Samideano' is perhaps now Esperanto's very own term of disparagement for an Esperantist - like English's 'Frog' for a Frenchman.

Though historically it was just an identity tag - are you one of us.

And this is how it is used in the title to this thread - Explaining Esperanto to Ne-samideanoj

sudanglo (User's profile) October 30, 2011, 12:11:58 PM

Pinker has argued that languages are not cultural artefacts but a manifestation of an adaption of our species like the web-spinning ability of spiders.

I find this very hard to swallow.

Is the general tendency to conform to the unwritten rules of the society we are brought up in, also a biological adaption?

If Pinker is right, then it is a happy accident that Esperanto is congruent with our 'webspinning' abilities.

razlem (User's profile) October 30, 2011, 3:56:16 PM

sudanglo:Pinker has argued that languages are not cultural artefacts but a manifestation of an adaption of our species like the web-spinning ability of spiders.
Are you certain he said 'languages' instead of 'language'? The latter (being the faculty of language) would make more sense.

sudanglo (User's profile) October 30, 2011, 10:59:03 PM

Well there wouldn't be language without languages - unless we all spoke the same language. So I can't see that it makes much difference.

In the case of spiders, webs are the products of a web-spinning ability (innate adaptation) not cultural artefacts.

He appears to be saying that languages have the same relation to humans, ie products of an inborn specialised faculty.

Obviously, however, there's an important social element in language. We don't all go round spinning different webs to our neighbours, but adopt the web design of our community.

Chinese babies and French babies don't learn Language, they learn Chinese or French.

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