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What would the world be like if everyone knew how to speak Esperanto?

від Scratch, 1 листопада 2011 р.

Повідомлення: 24

Мова: English

ceigered (Переглянути профіль) 2 листопада 2011 р. 02:40:29

sudanglo:However, in today's world, I think it unlikely that the language of any country with a substantial literature, a TV/film industry and a national radio service, would be seriously undermined.
Yeah, it's only the languages that "no one speaks" that would be seriously threatened. It depends on the mentality of the local people too though - I seriously doubt bayerisch speakers will give up speaking bayerisch if it means they can confuse foreigners okulumo.gif Some communities though that lack that sort of "there's us, there's you, then there's everyone together" distinction and don't care about remaining separate in some way would probably on the other hand be more likely to abandon their own language.

And some of these languages exist solely because of how isolated the communities are, so they'd survive anyway. I can hardly see Greenland going totally "Green" at least.

At least I hope they don't. I wanna learn Greenlandish some time haha.

Ah, and then there's also the French. While they might be less bitter about Esperanto taking over instead of English, I still doubt they'd be any more inviting to foreigners who don't speak French.

Miland (Переглянути профіль) 2 листопада 2011 р. 10:36:07

ceigered:Mmm, a lot of green. That'd be cool.
You're right, mustn't forget massive verdaj standardoj flying everywhere. rido.gif

AlexN (Переглянути профіль) 2 листопада 2011 р. 11:00:16

Scratch:Imagine a scenario where it occurs.
Yes, easily. Let's see, where interpersonal interlingual communication occurs.

1. Politics. Nothing would change. Even if our politicians are really green aliens speaking Klingon, we will never know about it.
2. Tourism. It does not influence our life a lot.
3. Internet. Esperanto can replace English, but that's all.
4. Business. Business relations held using a common language and with common rules would be definitely better and easier.
5. Literature and cinema. There could be some changes, but not very important.
6. Last, but not least. What Esperanto would really change, where it could be very helpful. User manuals. No more 50 languages in one book. No more obscure words. No more browsing and turning the damned leaflet upside down several times, mumbling "I've just seen it here in Icelandic, where is it".

Donniedillon (Переглянути профіль) 2 листопада 2011 р. 11:14:27

Scratch:
What Esperanto would really change, where it could be very helpful. User manuals. No more 50 languages in one book. No more obscure words. No more browsing and turning the damned leaflet upside down several times, mumbling "I've just seen it here in Icelandic, where is it".
Now THAT would be true progress!

sudanglo (Переглянути профіль) 2 листопада 2011 р. 12:47:09

Actually, Alex, tourism is the one area in your list where I could really see Esperanto taking off.

You could argue that it is a field in which it is already well established.

The reason most people go to all the different international Esperanto congresses and meetings is actually to visit the particular country in which the event is being held. It's tourism by another name.

But, instruction manuals for consumer products would still have to be multilingual to reach the widest market.

People are ready to put in an effort to get the most out of a holiday. But the idea of having to learn Esperanto to operate your TV set would excite a certain ire amongst consumers, giving a competitive edge to any manufacturer who supplied instructions in the local language.

AlexN (Переглянути профіль) 2 листопада 2011 р. 13:42:34

sudanglo:
But, instruction manuals for consumer products would still have to be multilingual to reach the widest market.
Let me remind you that we are discussing the fictional situation where everyone in the world already know Esperanto. In this case the widest market could be achieved only by translating manuals to Esperanto.
Not the same with books and movies. Generally, moviemakers and book authors do not aim at the widest auditory possible.

Cisksje (Переглянути профіль) 2 листопада 2011 р. 21:07:45

In such a scenario I could see a couple of stages replicating the Irish experience. In post-Famine Ireland the people themselves abandoned their native Gaelic in favour of Imperial English, because it would help their children "get on", or so they believed. Apart from imperial efforts to stamp out Irish, here we have a situation where in a few decades whole swathes of the population gave up their own language for the sake of, at least perceived, economic betterment.

If Esperanto were to become a language which made finding jobs on the domestic and international scene easier, I wonder how many parents would be bothered about their childrens' skills in their native tongue. A couple of generations could see a big change.

In time I believe there would be a backlash. One only has to look at the amount of people in the New World who are learning the languages of their immigrant ancestors. In Ireland we have a modest backlash too, and while the Gaeltacht continues to contract the number of adults learning has perhaps never been higher. I wonder about the effect on personal identity worldwide Esperanto would have, how people would see themselves in relation to their families and forebears. demando.gif

Evildela (Переглянути профіль) 2 листопада 2011 р. 22:08:08

This is an interesting topic, I think no matter what language takes over, English, Chinese, Esperanto ktp it will dominate and slowly exterminate the everyday use of all other languages. But People will still learn the language of their ancestors for many reasons, mainly academic ect.. This is where I believe Esperanto must win, it’s the most logical evolutionary upgrade for our species, and we like everything in our lives to be easy, thus language should be something, that when spelt and spoken doesn’t cause confusion (we shouldn’t need spell checkers!). I love languages, but I think their worth is only as academic study and Esperanto is what should be the language of everyday use, we need to upgrade our internal language software to version 2.0 from the old English of version 1.0.

ceigered (Переглянути профіль) 3 листопада 2011 р. 16:50:09

Meh, I find the easiest form of communication something akin to "ordered anarchy" - basically use whatever word you like as long as you know your company knows it, governed by very minimalistic, almost pidgin like grammar.

For me, that's the only way I can imagine a naturally occurring scenario in which the world starts to speak the same "language" - or at least the same "grammar" with varying differences in personal vocabulary.

I mean, look at English as an example - it's "half french", but the main problems affecting English speakers from understanding actual French include 1) different pronunciation, and 2) different grammar. Pronunciation sorts itself out with time, as peoples come into increased contact, leaving just grammar.

Maybe Esperanto has a role there, IDK.

@ Cisksje, I like your comparison with Ireland. On a global scale it'd get more complicated though, since "international communities" would in some ways be limited by how much linguistic diversity there is in the area, making language learning for some not about family history (which might be unrecoverable for them), but about pure interest, or worryingly the lack thereof.

Another possible complication are groups that find it weird for foreigners to speak their languages, shouldn't be a big problem with languages in "revival" states with large diasporas like Irish, but I do know some people get weirded out by "foreigners" speaking their language if they don't live in the motherland of their people.

But family history is a strong allure I guess to languages. I've recently gotten a renewed interest in Yiddish due to my (illegitimate?) Jewish great grandmother (who logically wouldn't be a jew, being illegitimate and possibly only having a Jewish father, but we don't care being the goyim we are! okulumo.gif)

EoMy (Переглянути профіль) 5 листопада 2011 р. 14:10:41

Scratch:Imagine a scenario where it occurs. One I've been playing around in my head is that the Chinese decide to start teaching all their schoolchildren how to speak Esperanto. That, along with their increasing economic vitality leads other nearby countries to begin teaching Esperanto, and with the ever increasing amount of international commerce, leads to a world where nearly all children begin to learn Esperanto early on in school.

But I suppose I wonder if Esperanto would then remain just an auxiliary language? Or would there be ever more cases of parents who teach their children Esperanto as their children's first language?

And if that happened, what would happen to all the languages upon the planet now? How well would they survive? Or is it possible they would gradually disappear?

I don't know. I've been trying to imagine this Tute Esperanta Mondo, or I suppose the possible change of a world with a diversity of languages to one where the whole world knows one language. I have no firm conclusions and am simply interested to know if anyone else here has thought about the idea and the possible complications.
I can't wait for this day to happen as we Malaysians do not have to beg government to allow us the different races to study mother tongue language.

The other 55 races in China also can study their mother tongue, how fair the world would be.

The tribal language in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand would be protected and the 600 plus languages in Indonesia will be flying around the day and if you like music, you may need more than a year to listen to all the songs, for one song a day.

More cultural shows are available and i do believe the American Indian cultures will be wonderful to watch and learn.

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