Hi, Forum people

Greetings and salutions. I've decided to study Esperanto for at least a few months as an experiment to discover which language learning methods work best for me, and to (hopefully) develop the confidence I need to finally step out of the monolingual world. A few languages that I would like to learn to varying degress are; Esperanto, Spanish, German, Japanese, and possibly French, Mandarin, and Arabic.

Obviously, I don't expect to ever become fluent in all of those languages, if any, esp. considering I'm already 27 years old, but I love learning and believe it's never to late to learn new skills (neuroscience supports that belief).

I had thought about learning Esperanto before as a sort of stepping stone to other languages, or at least to facilitate language learning in some way, but I didn't follow through. However, I recently, at a bookfair, acquired a copy of Esperanto: Learning and using the international language. This find rekindlered my interest in Esperanto, so here I am.

Now I am curious how many great science and philosophy works are translated into Esperanto, some authors that come to mind are Newton, Descartes, Aristotle, and Plato. Are there any ongoing translation projects to stimulate interest in translating great works of literature from the original into English? For example, someone who was proficient with Latin could translate Newton's Principia into Esperanto from the original. The reason I say from the original is because I think translations of translations tends to sloppy and inaccurate translations.

Wow, I probably typed so much that noone will want to read all of this, if that is the case, then I apologize. Also, forgive my poor grammar and punctuation, but I had to teach myself to read in middle school (the system failed me) and I've yet to attempt to polish my grammar and writing skills.

Anyway, I'm going to start working with that book I bought at the bookfair and probably this site as well. If anyone has any tips they've found to be esp. useful in learning Esperanto, or any language, then I'd appreciate the help.

Sincerely,

Nicholas aka captainzhang

captainzhang:... Now I am curious how many great science and philosophy works are translated into Esperanto...

Start HERE. The section you probably want is Religion and Philosophy, although the other sections are worth exploring as well.

Esperanto could show its power through philosophy. Just translating Heidegger's work would demonstrate how those linguistic jokes are impossible with the precision of Esperanto.

Esto, estaĵo, enesti, enestanto etc.

captainzhang:Obviously, I don't expect to ever become fluent in all of those languages, if any, esp. considering I'm already 27 years old, but I love learning and believe it's never to late to learn new skills (neuroscience supports that belief).

I like your attitude. I'm a *bit* older than 27 and I start a new language every year or so Frankly, my feeling is that you never really finish learning a language, so all of mine are works-in-progress, so to speak.

captainzhang:For example, someone who was proficient with Latin could translate Newton's Principia into Esperanto from the original.

You're forgetting the "proficient with mathematics and physics" requirement as well. As an engineer who's studied Latin for about 20 years, I took at peek at the Gutenberg version. Chosing something at random :

Pro. II. Theor. II. : Corpus omne quod, cum movetur in linea aliqua curva, & radio ducto ad punctum vel immobile, vel motu rectilineo uniformiter progrediens,describit areas circa punctum illud temporibus proportionales, urgetur a vi centripeta tendente ad idem punctum.

I don't have any problem understanding it (at least I *think* I understand it), but translating it into Esperanto would be very painful.

There's also the issue of potential readership. One of the things I heard during grad school was that every equation in a paper/book/etc. reduces the potential readership by 1/2, i.e. if a book without equations had 100 potential readers, adding one equation reduces it to 50 potential readers, two equations -> 25 readers, etc. Using that rule there might be a half-dozen people in the entire world who would read this work in ANY language

What I would really like to see is more new, original works (fiction or non-fiction) in Esperanto. During my humanities days I studied a number of languages just to have enough reading (no speaking) knowledge to be able to access materials either in the original or materials for which there were no translations. While translations are great when learning a language or reading for enjoyment, my feeling is that it would be silly to learn Esperanto just so I could read "La mastro de l' ringoj" (which I happen to be reading right now ... expensive set, but great translation by Auld).

Amike,
Paul

RiotNrrd:

captainzhang:... Now I am curious how many great science and philosophy works are translated into Esperanto...

Start HERE. The section you probably want is Religion and Philosophy, although the other sections are worth exploring as well.

Thanks for the link.

efilzeo:Esperanto could show its power through philosophy. Just translating Heidegger's work would demonstrate how those linguistic jokes are impossible with the precision of Esperanto.

Esto, estaĵo, enesti, enestanto etc.

I didn't consider that. I know that Lojban is based on a form of logic, so it's probably perfect for that sort of thing, but does Esperanto have grammatical features that lends itself to precision more easily than a natural language like Lojban does? I'm still not familiar enough with the grammar to have any opinioin on the matter.

Perhaps a little off topic, but if you look at the features of Lojban's grammar, then it could be the perfect language for translating works into another language as precisely as possible, or I should say with the same precision or ambiguity as the original language. I'm not a Lojbanist or anything. I'm just familiar with it.

pdenisowski:

captainzhang:Obviously, I don't expect to ever become fluent in all of those languages, if any, esp. considering I'm already 27 years old, but I love learning and believe it's never to late to learn new skills (neuroscience supports that belief).

I like your attitude. I'm a *bit* older than 27 and I start a new language every year or so Frankly, my feeling is that you never really finish learning a language, so all of mine are works-in-progress, so to speak.

Thanks for the compliment. I didn't think much about it but your definitely right about the never mastering it a language. In fact, I think it could be argued convincingly that we never really master our own language, much less another, depending on how you define master. Of course, the goal is simply to be able to communicate effectively in the language, which doesn't require mastery.

captainzhang:For example, someone who was proficient with Latin could translate Newton's Principia into Esperanto from the original.

You're forgetting the "proficient with mathematics and physics" requirement as well.

|There was Latin texts from the Principa here, use your imagination|

I don't have any problem understanding it (at least I *think* I understand it), but translating it into Esperanto would be very painful.

Yeah, I guess I didn't really consider that aspect.

There's also the issue of potential readership.

|There was an example about the ratio between equations in a work of literature and it's readership|

Didn't consider this either.

What I would really like to see is more new, original works (fiction or non-fiction) in Esperanto.

I definitely see your point about wanting more original Esperanto literature.

To make this reply easier to read for other people that might be interested I deleted parts of it, and in most cases left a comment about what was there, simply to save space. Of course, I read and appreciated your post in it's entirety. Thanks for your thoughts.

Amike,
Paul

An interesting thing about your post I noticed at the end.

While translations are great when learning a language or reading for enjoyment, my feeling is that it would be silly to learn Esperanto just so I could read "La mastro de l' ringoj" (which I happen to be reading right now ... expensive set, but great translation by Auld).

"La mastro de l' ringoj", I was easily able to read that even though I haven't learned Esperanto yet, though being familiar with the lord of the rings probably helped. Also, knowing the meaning of the sentence and knowing the ringoj means rings, I can infer that words that end in j are probably plural in Esperanto. If I read other things in Esperanto that I was already familiar with and plural words seemed to always end with a j then I could conclude that you add a j to make a word plural.

Thanks for all the posts so far, very helpful and positive people.

captainzhang:

Now I am curious how many great science and philosophy works are translated into Esperanto, some authors that come to mind are Newton, Descartes, Aristotle, and Plato.

Have a browse through the online catalog of Universala Esperanto-Asocio, starting here: katalogo.uea.org

Open the Kategorio drop-down list and choose 'Filozofio'. Click 'Trovu en la Reta Katalogo'

Do the same for 'Scienco kaj Tekniko'.

Curiously, what Esperanto needs to advance the language is not more translations of classic works of literature religion and philosophy - so much has already been achieved in this field.

A greater contribution to the usefulness of the language would come from translation of manuals and instruction leaflets for domestic appliances, electronic equipment etc and drivers handbooks for cars.

For example:
Your vehicle's safety features. Head restraints can help protect you from whiplash and other injuries. The restraint should be positioned so that the back of the head rests against the centre of the restraint.

Try that on any experienced Esperantist you know.