I found this interesting 6.5-year-old post on a listserv:

http://archives.conlang.info/tho/bualgin/peirbanqh...

Another encounter that fascinated me was meeting an Esperanto native speaker. She was (ca. 5 years ago) a middle aged woman with a Dutch father and Polish mother. Both were Esperantists and met at an Esperantists' convention, fell in love, married, lived in Austria and spoke Esperanto at home. When she speaks it's faster than any Esperanto I've previously heard and sounds a little like Spanish.

Does anyone know of any recordings of people like this? I know there have been recommendations of certain speakers to imitate (Ivo Lapenna, Anton Oberndorfer), but it would be interesting to hear someone who has spoken Esperanto from childhood.

I suspect that if we heard more than one of these they wouldn't necessarily sound alike.

(The above link also mentions Cornish. I know some Cornish revivalists have taught their children Cornish from birth and I'm told they don't sound much alike. I've only heard recordings of two (not exactly a big sample!) but, sure enough, they don't sound alike.)

People who have spoken Esperanto since childhood (or birth) sound about the same as a normal Esperanto speaker. You may be disappointed - the normative "good" Esperanto actually doesn't really vary too much worldwide.

They don't necessarily have a "good" accent, although personally, the ones I have met spoke with a better accent than their parents (if their parents' accents had obvious 'national' features). I have heard that some native speakers do have an evident 'national' accent but I think that's the exception rather than the rule.

BTW they don't always speak with good grammar either.

If you want to hear some native Esperanto, there are some audio clips of an interview with Gabriele Corsetti (son of prominent Esperanto speakers), by Ĉina Radio Internacia. (each of those words is a separate link)

erinja:You may be disappointed - the normative "good" Esperanto actually doesn't really vary too much worldwide.

Not disappointed. It was interesting to hear. It's not that Corsetti pronounces Esperanto "better" in a phonological sense. It's that he sounds so natural and casual when he does it.

Natural and casual isn't unique to native speakers, though - fluent non-native Esperanto speakers sound as casual and comfortable as Gabriele sounds in his interview.

Here's some colloquial non-native Esperanto that mostly sounds pretty comfortable.

I would say that a skilled non-native Esperanto speaker is essentially indistinguishable from a native speaker. I would even give a slight advantage to the non-native speaker. In my own experience, skilled non-native speakers usually have better grammar than native speakers, because they have actually spent some time studying it rather than just picking it up. (native speakers even have a disincentive to do this - it's called teenage rebellion, and running away from this "totally uncool" thing that their parents are into)

erinja:Natural and casual isn't unique to native speakers, though - fluent non-native Esperanto speakers sound as casual and comfortable as Gabriele sounds in his interview.

Here's some colloquial non-native Esperanto that mostly sounds pretty comfortable.

Hmmmm. Not bad. However ...

At one point in the video I was thinking "Wow! that *does* sound really natural!"

Then I realized that the person was speaking Portuguese ...

I would say that a skilled non-native Esperanto speaker is essentially indistinguishable from a native speaker.

Interestingly, you can't say this of most languages. Even a professional, highly experienced Russian-(or other language)-to-English interpreter will rarely be mistaken for a native -- the pronunciations and nuances of the language are simply too great. I think it's a testament to Esperanto's simplicity that you can learn it 100%, to the last subtlety, and be completely on par (or even more proficient than) someone whose knowledge of the language has been implanted from birth.

It took me a while to grasp the notion that, in EO, "native speaker" doesn't necessarily translate into impeccable fluency.

I do happen to know a non-native Russian speaker who was regularly mistaken for Russian when working in Russia, to the point where people insisted he must be Russian. But you're right, it's exceedingly rare outside an Esperanto context.

I think a lot of native speakers take a dive in fluency when they hit their teen years and refuse to use Esperanto. I met a native speaker in her 20's who told me that she spoke better Esperanto when she was 5, and that after a 'break' from Esperanto for some years, she was trying to regain her fluency.

erinja:I think a lot of native speakers take a dive in fluency when they hit their teen years and refuse to use Esperanto. I met a native speaker in her 20's who told me that she spoke better Esperanto when she was 5, and that after a 'break' from Esperanto for some years, she was trying to regain her fluency.

A similar thing happened to me, but not with Esperanto. The first language which I started speaking as a child was Russian, but by the time I was six or seven I started using English as my primary language (Living in an English-speaking country didn't help.) As a result, my Russian abilities diminished until mid-adolescence when I started seriously re-learning the language. I have no accent, but from my slightly un-Slavic linguistic mannerisms you'd probably suspect that something is slightly "off". So obviously my vocabulary and grammar knowledge are better than when I was five, but the language does not come "naturally" as it used to.

erinja:I do happen to know a non-native Russian speaker who was regularly mistaken for Russian when working in Russia, to the point where people insisted he must be Russian. But you're right, it's exceedingly rare outside an Esperanto context.

When I took Chinese in college I had a very American professor who said students from China were sometimes surprised upon meeting him in person to find out that he was as Anglo as the day is long. Over the phone he sounded as Chinese as they did. I think you're right though, it doesn't happen often. I doubt I could do it in any national language, especially since in order to do so I really should have started about 30-40 years ago.

erinja:I would say that a skilled non-native Esperanto speaker is essentially indistinguishable from a native speaker. I would even give a slight advantage to the non-native speaker. In my own experience, skilled non-native speakers usually have better grammar than native speakers, because they have actually spent some time studying it rather than just picking it up. (native speakers even have a disincentive to do this - it's called teenage rebellion, and running away from this "totally uncool" thing that their parents are into)

I'm in total agreement with you on this, erinja. I must know around 20 native speakers, possibly even more, and they're fairly varied.

The one thing that stands out about those who never attended Esperanto events as youngsters is that they share a lot of the same pronunciation and verbal forms as their parents, there being no reason for them to speak perfect Esperanto any more than there is of a generic Englishman to sound like the Queen. If their parents had non-standard forms then this was often passed along to the child quite naturally. Even those who were more immersed have some unrefined edges, such as a non-standard pronunciation of 'r' because that's how they were brought up pronouncing it.

I think it important to bear in mind that these are people who simply have Esperanto as a first language and so they are capable of expressing themselves at the same speed that we all do in our domestic tongues, but that there's not really any more likelihood of their articulating perfectly than there is for anybody else in whatever language. In fact, because they're capable of talking lightning fast more than most learners are, then many of them do to the detriment of making themselves understood to others.