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Esperanto as a secret language

de Alkanadi, 11 de maig de 2015

Missatges: 29

Llengua: English

Miland (Mostra el perfil) 12 de maig de 2015 13.44.11

I have sometimes muttered to myself in Esperanto, or used it to write things I didn't want others to understand. However the language was never intended to be secret.

Alkanadi (Mostra el perfil) 12 de maig de 2015 14.47.44

johmue:I also regularly use Esperanto to pretend that I don't speak neither the local language nor English. For example when mormons or someone like that approach me.
Good idea. It probably works well for sales people also.
What I don't do and recommend not to do is use Esperanto to exclude a particular person or a particular group from a part of the conversation.
Yah. That would be bad manners. I don't think Esperanto should be treated as some form of elitism.

erinja (Mostra el perfil) 12 de maig de 2015 14.58.04

My husband's Esperanto is not at a high level but we used it in Israeli taxis to discuss whether we thought a driver was trying to rip us off.

Though I will admit that speaking in Esperanto in public with more fluent Esperanto speakers, I do tend to discuss more personal things than I would normally discuss in public in English, because I do have an assumption that I am not likely to be understood (although it is not a tragedy if someone should understand what I am saying about the weird spot on my toenail, or whatever).

Alkanadi (Mostra el perfil) 12 de maig de 2015 15.25.30

johmue:I also regularly use Esperanto to pretend that I don't speak neither the local language nor English. For example when mormons or someone like that approach me.
It looks like they have a Mormon Esperanto Society. I will make sure to give them your address and let them know that you are interested in their activities.

Tempodivalse (Mostra el perfil) 12 de maig de 2015 15.37.19

johnmue:I also regularly use Esperanto to pretend that I don't speak neither the local language nor English. For example when mormons or someone like that approach me.
Ha! One of the advantages of multilingualism. When accosted in the streets by panhandlers or proselytisers, I tend to switch to another language and feign ignorance. Works every time, they stop immediately - though it helps that I do not "look" like an American ... Haven't tried it with Esperanto yet, though.

gordonflanagan (Mostra el perfil) 12 de maig de 2015 15.46.42

In Beijing a couple of years ago I used German when approached by street sellers wanting to take me to the Great Wall, etc - it worked every time. I didn't know any Esperanto at that time.

BeardedBloke (Mostra el perfil) 16 de maig de 2015 22.15.04

One of my daughter's is dabbling in Esperanto and I have a dream of being playfully conspiratorial with her around the others, but I don't know if she has the dedication to take it that far. In reality I just want someone to practice with and would be delighted if the whole family took it up - never going to happen though.

Tempodivalse (Mostra el perfil) 17 de maig de 2015 18.46.51

On the other hand, there are many cognates in Esperanto with Indo-European languages, which means that many words will still be intelligible to the average speaker of a Western language. That's an advantage from the interlinguistic perspective, but a setback for conspiratorial endeavours ...

If you desire Navajo-code-like secrecy, why not Volapuk - some of it is completely a priori, and the rest is disfigured enough to be unrecognisable, like a cross between Finnish and Turkish. There are perhaps a few thousand people who could identify it by ear, and maybe two dozen of those would be able to understand you.

Volapuk is a heavy, rusty, obsolete locomotive - but the bloody thing still works after 135+ years.

Someday I really must learn it properly.

nakymatonmies (Mostra el perfil) 18 de maig de 2015 10.41.45

Tempodivalse:Volapuk - some of it is completely a priori, and the rest is disfigured enough to be unrecognisable, like a cross between Finnish and Turkish. There are perhaps a few thousand people who could identify it by ear, and maybe two dozen of those would be able to understand you.
It would be great if it could provide a propaedeutic intro into Finnish and Turkish, same as Esperanto for French and Latin, but I guess it doesn't.

Tempodivalse (Mostra el perfil) 18 de maig de 2015 13.36.55

nakymatonmies:
Tempodivalse:Volapuk - some of it is completely a priori, and the rest is disfigured enough to be unrecognisable, like a cross between Finnish and Turkish. There are perhaps a few thousand people who could identify it by ear, and maybe two dozen of those would be able to understand you.
It would be great if it could provide a propaedeutic intro into Finnish and Turkish, same as Esperanto for French and Latin, but I guess it doesn't.
Volapük is highly agglutinative - even more than Esperanto. For example, the word for "yesterday" is the compound for: past tense marker + day + adverbial ending (compare this to the naturalistic hieraŭ). In this sense it is perhas closer to Turkish, Finnish, and Hungarian than Esperanto is. Similarly, Volapük also has more cases - 5 (6 with vocative) instead of 2.

Lexical similarities to Finnish and Turkish, though, are close to nil. Propadeutically, you're probably better off going through Esperanto as it is in general easier.

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