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Multilingualism and Auxiliary Languages in the EU

kelle poolt bartlett22183, 26. september 2012

Postitused: 60

Keel: English

RiotNrrd (Näita profiili) 28. september 2012 22:11.49

klnptrs78:I ran into one big group in Europe that indicates that they have a special version of Esperanto and do not go along with the US version.
There is no US version of Esperanto. There are no special versions at all.

There is Esperanto - standardized globally - and there are idoj. Any deviation from standard Esperanto is no longer Esperanto, although certainly the speakers of their own personal ido can call it whatever they want.

erinja (Näita profiili) 28. september 2012 22:40.02

klnptrs78:I think everyone is making great points. From what I gather there are already some big divides on Esperanto. I ran into one big group in Europe that indicates that they have a special version of Esperanto and do not go along with the US version.
Which group would that be? I have never heard of a "US version" of Esperanto.

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Euro-English is definitely something that native speakers have taken notice of, even to the level of pop culture. There's a recurring gag on Family Guy about two Europeans who can *almost* speak really good idiomatic English, but they always make some obvious mistake with an idiom or turn of phrase.

I have met a lot of Europeans like that, in grad school. They generally preferred to stick together, many of them were friends mainly with other Europeans and not with Americans. My Italian roommate spoke English with almost a perfect accent, but she still tended to mess up certain things (Shopping at "Traders Joe", for instance; or pronouncing small as zmall). I never thought that they sounded foolish, or respected them any less for it. But I noticed nonetheless.

hebda999 (Näita profiili) 29. september 2012 7:20.26

robbkvasnak: I often just feel embarassed for them. They are making such fools of themselves in front of native speakers and they don't even realize it.
I don't understand why any one should be surprised of that fact. Simple calculation shows, that an average American/English at the age of 17 had been using the language for:

15 years x 365 days x 10 hours a day = 54750 hours

An average foreigner spent:

10 years x 52 weeks x 3 hours per week = 1560...2000 hours

Now compare these two numbers:

50,000 --- 2,000

It is 25 times more with 17 year old American or English. And now think of an adult 30...40 years old... To speak English well one needs some of 10,000 hours. I never fill comfortable with this language although I have been using it for 20 years or so.

sudanglo (Näita profiili) 29. september 2012 9:39.00

A very good post Hebda, full of common sense.

Were the tense errors deliberate? If not, they serve admirably to make your point.

Yes, I would expect an Esperantist of reasonable competence to have not made a single error of tense, or idiom, or preposition, or vocab in such a relatively short and simple post.

However, we must not be too carried away with the idea that real fluency in Esperanto only requires a little study. Should Esperanto become more widely accepted to the point that a politician might reasonably respond in a media interview in Esperanto, then I would not be too surprised to hear the odd language error.

The critical point is, that I would not expect him (or her) to sound ridiculous, or a person not to be taken seriously - which so often happens nowadays when foreign politicians give interviews in English (even if you can succeed in not being totally distracted by their accent in English).

Political discourse, which so often depends not on fact but on persuasive argument, in fact demands a quite high level of mastery of the language used to be effective. And this would be true even in the case of Esperanto.

Nowadays the air waves (at least here in the UK) are full of foreigners trying to put their point across in English. I tend to agree that it would be better if they limited themselves to using their own language and professional interpreters were employed.

I wonder sometimes whether we might not be better informed of what is going on in foreign parts if the news reporters searched out the right person to talk to, rather than choosing from among those who can in some fashion reply in English.

hebda999 (Näita profiili) 29. september 2012 14:31.07

sudanglo:...Were the tense errors deliberate? ...
you've got me... ridulo.gif

robbkvasnak (Näita profiili) 29. september 2012 15:33.03

Several times when I have offered to help those who speak English as a second language to make their texts better, I was refused - one even implying that I was arrogant to assume that her English was not correct.
Personally, I would always accept this kind of help but it seems to me that, particularly with English which is sort of an sign of belonging to the elite, some people who in fact do not observe the pragmatic rules of English speakers and insist on using the pragmatic rules of their first language (often referred to as L1)there is some sort of special pride problem involved.
For a discussion of Pragmatics in Esperanto go to: http://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatiko and in English: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatics.

hebda999 (Näita profiili) 29. september 2012 16:06.57

robbkvasnak:Several times when I have offered to help those who speak English as a second language to make their texts better, ...
Some grown-ups just do not want to be taught any more when they reach a certain age. I have no problem with my command of English. I don't want to waste my time on something I know I will never fully master. And I am at that age when learning doesn't come easily. So what's the point?

RiotNrrd (Näita profiili) 29. september 2012 17:58.03

I don't think that sudanglo was criticizing hebda's writing so much as pointing out that the mistakes hebda made (and there ARE mistakes in there that are immediately evident to a native speaker) simply further illustrate the difficulty for non-natives of speaking 100% correctly in English, even after using English for many years. Which, I think, was what hebda was saying as well, and which is why (I think) sudanglo was asking if he made those mistakes on purpose.

Sudanglo wasn't offering to correct hebda's post. Hebda's command of English seems fine to me, even if it's not perfect from a native-speakers point of view.

hebda999 (Näita profiili) 30. september 2012 6:22.56

Those figures I have presented are true for all national languages, not just English. The ratio native:foreigner is as 30...50 to 1. To use a grammatical feature correctly it is not enough to read about it in a grammar book. One needs to encounter it in real life at least hundred times (so say the linguists) to become fluent. It is easy when you live in an English speaking environment. But what if you don't? When our children use our language bad, we correct them, so they learn. When you have no one to correct you, you don't learn (at least you don't learn as good as a native). You might say that a school could teach you. Not necessarily. In a classroom there are some 30..40 students (so it is in Poland) and one teacher who himself/herself is not English. For one student he/she has a couple of minutes or even less in each teaching hour. And the classroom situation is far from normal life. The foreigners living in a non-English speaking environments lack the practice that a native has plenty of. That is the reason of their poor command of your language and no one is to blame them for that. The opposite situation is just the same. Each foreigner I have met so far sounds awkwardly to my ear when he/she tries to speak Polish. But I never treat him/her as stupid because I know well enough what it takes to master a foreign language far from the country where it is used.

Bemused (Näita profiili) 30. september 2012 6:29.43

Fenris_kcf:
What about the Dutch and the English men? Are you able to read Folkspraak?
To answer your question, English is my native language. I followed the link you provided.Then looked up Folkspraak in wikipedia. On first reading I was able to guess a few words from the "Official" Folkspraak, fewer from the various dialects. I was not able to understand the meaning of the passages provided. I know that with practice my understanding would increase. But why bother with a pidgin when a simpler and more widely useful language (Esperanto) already exists.

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