In Esperanto I am an usonano and come from Usono. I don't worry too much about what people call me in "English". When I explain this to my students (who don't even know what Esperanto is) they think that it is super cool because we live in a region where most people are American but not always from the US. The local Spanish-language newspapers use estadouniense - not too pretty. But "usonano" sounds really good in my ears.

Vilius:

darkweasel:I'm used to seeing Esperanto reform proposals here, but English reform is new.

But seriously. How did Burma do that? Off course, as to my taste "Myanmar" is even uglier than "Burma" and "Lithuania" combined, but still. Do you just start calling your country that new name, and the English speaking countries would automatically catch up with the new name? Or do you apply to some UAA (Universala Asocio de la Angla)?

It normally comes as a request from the government, "We want to be called [whatever]".

Ivory Coast does that, they want to be called Cote d'Ivoire in all languages. Therefore in many situations, you see a list of English names of countries, then you have the French "Cote d'Ivoire" in the middle of that.

Other than those situations I have never heard of a country's name being changed. Though sometimes the article is dropped, that seems to come through usage. People used to say "the Ukraine", "the Sudan", "the Gambia" and now it's just "Ukraine", "Sudan". I still sometimes hear "the Ukraine" actually, and "the Gambia" seems common still.
:: Edit - fixed some spellings, I must have been exhausted when I wrote my previous message.

erinja:Other than those situations I have never heard of a country's name being changed. Though sometimes the article is dropped, that seems to come through usage. People use to say "the Ukraine", "the Sudan", "the Gambia" and now it's just "Ukraine", "Sudan". I still sometimes here "the Ukraine" actually, and "the Gambia" seems common still.

A while back National Geographic published an article, written I believe by a native Ukranian, who presented that the name of her country should be styled "Ukrania" in English. I don't believe I've ever seen another reference to Ukrania outside of that article.

Usually in my experience the country just starts using the new name and asks that others do the same, especially for cities within the country. Thus Peking becomes Beijing and Rangoon becomes Yangon. I think I remember reading that after a certain date the Turkish post office started refusing to accept letters posted to addresses in Constantinople, claiming there was no such city.

goliath07:I am 29 years old. I picked up my first book on learning Esperanto when I was 18. I still can't speak this stupid language. I learned French in 5 months. Esperanto is the most difficult language to learn IN THE WORLD. Having no irregular verbs hardly makes up for the ridiculous, non-descriptive vocabulary and verb forms. The transitive/intransitive verb form of esperanto makes me think it's creator smoked meth or chewed on dried paint.

Pura - Clean
Puri - to clean? NoPE!
Purigi! or maybe puriĝi I still have no clue.

However Prava will translate to pravi. igi iĝi and ont int ant forms were enough to drive me insane.

This rant has little finesse, I know. But after 10 years, I just wanted to announce somewhere... I QUIT.

OK, you did use some 10 years to try to learn a foreign language and ending up in the conclusion that it is time to quit. I think your decision is a reasonable decision. No man in his senses would carry on to learn “a stupid language”.

I did quit to use English by the same reason and did study Esperanto instead. The strange thing is that my studies in Esperanto gave mi an opportunity to understand many of the strange grammar rules in English (from a swedes point of view) , so I thought it would not be a bad thing to try to improve my English to a working level.

There are two ways to learn a langugae. One can learn the language phrase by phrase. “Mia nomo estas Bruno.” = “My name is Bruno”, “Kiu estas vi?” = “Who are you?” and so on. Simple but useful phrases; but one does not give a damn about the grammar rules in the new language.

If you try to study the grammar of any language you must have a tutor, either in the form of a book for autodidact studies or a tutor in flesh and blood.

If you really want to get hold of the basic rules in Esperanto I would suggest that you acquire the English version of Book I from http://www.genekeyes.com/Dr_Esperanto.html which is the best tutor, as it is free from a lot of confusing “explanations” which does not always make the learning of Esperanto more easy.

Zamenhof´s statement, “My whole grammar can be learned perfectly in one hour.” is true if you were a scholar in languages 1887. The sad thing, now a days, is that most people do not understand what a grammar is and tend to complicate the whole affair unnecessary as they are not able to forget about the grammar in their first language (mother tounge).

Regardless of method, one must have some use of the language one studies. To learn a language just for fun, is not my cup of tea. ( why do one not say “not my cup of coffee” ???)

I wish you great success in your studies of the french language.

pdenisowski:

Bruso:I just learned a new English word reading Esperanto. In "Vivo de Zamenhof" the words "litvo" and "litvano" both seemed to refer to Lithuanians, but not interchangeably.

I found that "litvano" translates as "Litvin", a word I didn't know. It's someone who lives under Lithuanian rule but isn't an ethnic Lithuanian.

The first three words in Pan Tadeusz (the *POLISH* national epic published in 1834 by Adam Mickiewicz) are "Litwo! Ojczyzno moja" (Lithuania, my homeland!).

At that time "Lithuania" referred to a much larger geographical area than the boundaries of the modern-day country by the same name. I'm not a historian, but I believe at one time Poland and Lithuania were a joint kingdom (królestwo).

Amike,

Paul

I'm learning even more English reading "Vivo de Zamenhof" in Esperanto.

First, "Litvin", now I find Eo "urbovo" translates as Eng "aurochs", a type of wild cattle extinct since the 17th century. Not a word I knew.

I've been thinking who ever started this trend called I quit if he is quiting he's making a mistake if you are quiting because it's hard then you will never learn any language esperanto is easy I learned French as my second language and fluently so that made esperanto really easy. I got into esperanto to help me gain a better handle on Spanish and Greek and it helped my French as well. Don't give up if you don't like esperanto move on to another language but, don't give up because you feel its hard

erinja:

Vilius:

darkweasel:I'm used to seeing Esperanto reform proposals here, but English reform is new.

But seriously. How did Burma do that? Off course, as to my taste "Myanmar" is even uglier than "Burma" and "Lithuania" combined, but still. Do you just start calling your country that new name, and the English speaking countries would automatically catch up with the new name? Or do you apply to some UAA (Universala Asocio de la Angla)?

It normally comes as a request from the government, "We want to be called [whatever]".

Ivory Coast does that, they want to be called Cote d'Ivoire in all languages. Therefore in many situations, you see a list of English names of countries, then you have the French "Cote d'Ivoire" in the middle of that.

Other than those situations I have never heard of a country's name being changed. Though sometimes the article is dropped, that seems to come through usage. People used to say "the Ukraine", "the Sudan", "the Gambia" and now it's just "Ukraine", "Sudan". I still sometimes hear "the Ukraine" actually, and "the Gambia" seems common still.
:: Edit - fixed some spellings, I must have been exhausted when I wrote my previous message.

[::activate geography nerd mode::]
I believe there was an effort to rename Austria with its French name within Japan, because the japanified versions of Australia and Austria seemed too similar, but it didn't catch on. Frankly I think the English ones are too similar. They ought to change it. I always liked East Liechtenstein, that's got a nice ring to it.

Upper Volta became Burkina Faso. East Timor became Timor Leste, and several Indian cities have been renamed back to their original names. Kolkata, Mumbai, etc. Why did Constantinople get the works? That's nobody's business but the people who live in Turkey, though Lord Kinross informs me that it was actually changed to Istanbul in 1453.

There has been an effort to rename the famous Ayer's Rock in Australia to Uluru, the name it was given long ago by the local aborigines, however I find outside Australia not many people know it.

Korea tried very hard to rename the Sea of Japan 'East Sea' on international maps, and has met with some success. There is some kind of international map authority for things like that. Its chief is The Mapman.

J_Marc:
I believe there was an effort to rename Austria with its French name within Japan, because the japanified versions of Australia and Austria seemed too similar, but it didn't catch on.

I believe that they wanted to just drop the final "a", so that osutoriya would become osutori.

J_Marc:I always liked East Liechtenstein, that's got a nice ring to it.

OMG. Please not, that's the worst idea ever. I like Czech/Slovak Rakúsko/Rakousko much better, these mean "the land behind Raabs", where Raabs is a small town in the north near the Czech border.

Austrians sometimes jokingly call Vorarlberg, the westernmost Austrian state, "East Switzerland" (mainly because they are culturally close to them in regards to dialect family etc.).

goliath07:I am 29 years old. I picked up my first book on learning Esperanto when I was 18. I still can't speak this stupid language. I learned French in 5 months. Esperanto is the most difficult language to learn IN THE WORLD. Having no irregular verbs hardly makes up for the ridiculous, non-descriptive vocabulary and verb forms. The transitive/intransitive verb form of esperanto makes me think it's creator smoked meth or chewed on dried paint.

Pura - Clean
Puri - to clean? NoPE!
Purigi! or maybe puriĝi I still have no clue.

However Prava will translate to pravi. igi iĝi and ont int ant forms were enough to drive me insane.

This rant has little finesse, I know. But after 10 years, I just wanted to announce somewhere... I QUIT.

Moi je reste dubitatif et aimerais bien savoir, si vraiment Goliath parle français après seulement 5 mois, ou si, comme beaucoup, il sait dire quelques phrases apprises par coeur et utiliser les outils de traduction en ligne. Apprendre le français en 5 mois relève du miracle, et me semble peu probable pour quelqu'un qui n'a pas été foutu de se carrer dans la caboche une langue aussi tranquille que celle de Zaza...

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