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The Slow Death of (local) Esperanto Associations

von lagtendisto, 12. April 2015

Beiträge: 21

Sprache: English

lagtendisto (Profil anzeigen) 12. April 2015 21:47:37

Saluton,

The Slow Death of the Esperanto Associations

4:50 minute '... At least the local ones will die and it will probably be good thing for Esperanto movement because ...'

Amike,

Tempodivalse (Profil anzeigen) 13. April 2015 19:06:31

The decline of "official" Esperanto associations is apparent on many levels -- in my city, the local Esperanto club hasn't had a "proper" meetup in many years, and their website has been taken offline. But the Esperantists are still there - they're just meeting in much more informal settings, e.g. inviting some friends over for lunch and a chat. If you look at the International Congresses, their participation has dropped considerably in the past decade.

A lot of this has to do with the Internet. One no longer has to travel long distances or do a lot of searching to find another samideano. I've said many times that the Internet has given Esperanto a new lease on life; and the decline of the old life-phase is inevitable.

It might be a small plus in terms of Esperanto's (still minimal) public image: instead of seeing a bunch of faceless, perhaps bureaucratic organisations being the main driving-force behind the language, people will instead observe Esperantists using the language without that middleman - on a more spontaneous, personal level.

DuckFiasco (Profil anzeigen) 14. April 2015 04:14:09

At my local group, very little Esperanto was actually spoken. There was interest in making a meetup for progresintoj to speak exclusively in Esperanto, but given that the group itself had five members, I'm not optimistic.

Alkanadi (Profil anzeigen) 14. April 2015 14:13:08

I personally would feel nervous about going to a meeting. I would be scared that they will force me to speak in Esperanto. I am also worried that nobody else will speak Esperanto well either, and so it will be very stressful trying to communicate. If I could be a fly on the wall then it would be okay.

Tempodivalse (Profil anzeigen) 14. April 2015 17:01:48

Alkanadi:I personally would feel nervous about going to a meeting. I would be scared that they will force me to speak in Esperanto. I am also worried that nobody else will speak Esperanto well either, and so it will be very stressful trying to communicate. If I could be a fly on the wall then it would be okay.
It doesn't have to be stressful unless you let it be stressful. One thing I enjoy about speaking in Esperanto, as opposed to another language I'm not fluent in, is that nobody seems to judge you if you make mistakes - Esperanto is intended to be nobody's language in particular, after all. And it is harder to make mistakes in Esperanto, given the very free word-building capacity (e.g., forgot the word for "begin"? Just use the perfectly correct synonym malfini).

When I've spoken with Esperantists in real-life, they didn't seem too embarrassed to switch to English for a few words if they couldn't remember them in Esperanto. Esperantists are, by and large, not a judgmental lot ridulo.gif

kaŝperanto (Profil anzeigen) 14. April 2015 20:29:03

DuckFiasco:At my local group, very little Esperanto was actually spoken. There was interest in making a meetup for progresintoj to speak exclusively in Esperanto, but given that the group itself had five members, I'm not optimistic.
Consider yourself lucky that you know of more than one other Esperantist in your state. okulumo.gif

Christa627 (Profil anzeigen) 14. April 2015 22:01:30

kaŝperanto:
DuckFiasco:At my local group, very little Esperanto was actually spoken. There was interest in making a meetup for progresintoj to speak exclusively in Esperanto, but given that the group itself had five members, I'm not optimistic.
Consider yourself lucky that you know of more than one other Esperantist in your state. okulumo.gif
Yeah, that's what I thought. I've had contact with only one other Esperantist in my state (not counting the komencanto who popped into the tujmesaĝilo once and from whom I haven't heard anything since), and that contact has been only online, in typed communication. If you've got a group that meets at all, you're mighty well off!

rikforto (Profil anzeigen) 15. April 2015 02:53:25

spreecamper:Saluton,

The Slow Death of the Esperanto Associations

4:50 minute '... At least the local ones will die and it will probably be good thing for Esperanto movement because ...'

Amike,
I graduated college last year, and one of the resource center directors said something interesting about this. He said he noticed that in particular young people didn't go to meetings anymore. He said that people have always said that---that he was aware that he might be flirting with the Kids These Days mentality. But it really did seem to him that organizations struggled to be the social centers that had been and, again somewhat hesitantly, blamed the internet. I'm usually skeptical of these kinds of claims, but between his self-awareness and my intuitions about how my generation socializes, it made sense.

I think there is something to be said in the case of Esperanto for online opportunities---hello fellow forum commentators!---but local organizations have untapped potential, I imagine.

se (Profil anzeigen) 16. April 2015 09:27:43

I consented with the speaker that more kongreso will eventually boring the new comers especially the universal congress. If you pay attention to the participants, most of the participants are reasonably wealthy. They can fly from eastern part of the globe to the western part of the world but do not participate the local kongreso. Don't hope for them to participate in the other world event like the earth hour, doing charity sales etc

Esperanto should be in every field before one dare to say internacia lingvo. But a club gathering is becoming clear for the aged.

Not everyone likes language and language right but these senior would not stop harping on it. They rather spend a lot of money on kongreso rather than support the job like the Cambodia Esperanto Tourism. If one cannot go there, at least keep posting the site in twiwtter to awakening the people.

The Science Esperanto Review, Telsskopo, the association should help to sell too and the editorial board should keep sending letters to the associations to remind them about this review and help to hold a meeting with the science associations.

Without a job for the Esperanto speaker, Esperanto would NOT　be going to far, but reminds a hobby club.

edited

joewolz (Profil anzeigen) 23. April 2015 16:42:07

A good friend of mine and I were discussing this topic the other day, except about the Rotary Club and the Freemasons. Membership is down in both organizations, especially for younger people (I'm 33 and belong to no clubs).

My friend's idea is that belonging to clubs is too hard for most people our age these days. You figure we both work full time, our spouses work full time, we have children, and student loans. Between working, commuting, housework (shared between partners), and cooking (also a shared responsibility) there really is no time for hobby groups. I mean, just earning a living and maintaining a house is easily 80-90 hours a week.

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