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Is Esperanto growing?

av Alkanadi, 22 juli 2015

Meddelanden: 50

Språk: English

Christa627 (Visa profilen) 22 juli 2015 19:02:29

I wasn't aware that a dog could speak English, or any other human language for that matter... Understand it, maybe; but speak it? Sounds unlikely ridulo.gif.

orthohawk (Visa profilen) 22 juli 2015 19:05:16

Tangi:
tommjames:I would guess it was more a reaction to "unnecessary language features"
That is inline with other Esperanto native speakers surveys. I do not understand this paradoxical reaction.
Also, illative case is a rather exotic and not likely to be found in creoles.
yeah, well, 2- and 3-year=old native speakers of English tend to say things like "he speaked" and "mouses" instead of "he spoke" and "mice" .....does that mean the proper forms are "unnecessary" in proper English?

yyaann (Visa profilen) 22 juli 2015 20:38:24

Tangi:
tommjames:I would guess it was more a reaction to "unnecessary language features"
That is inline with other Esperanto native speakers surveys.
How many such surveys did you find? I am only aware of one study (whose method has been disputed for equating children of Esperanto-speaking parents with native Esperanto speakers, two demographics that don't necessarily overlap). If you found more please let me know, I'd be interested to read them.

Tempodivalse (Visa profilen) 22 juli 2015 21:04:19

I have heard of some oddities in young children's Esperanto, primarily in the loss of the accusative and some unusual use of the affix system.

Then again, young children cannot fully acquire language, and use it corectly, until a certain age anyway, especially the more complex parts: when was the last time anyone heard a seven-year-old using past adverbial participles in Russian, for instance?

The fact that children make certain mistakes doesn't mean the language is naturally proceeding to normalise those mistakes. Lots of kids say stuff like *It hurted me* or *ты дадишь мне мороженого*?, but we don't see the language shifting to accept those forms.

se (Visa profilen) 23 juli 2015 03:58:34

I don't know whether this research article can convince the readers about early Esperanto to the brain building.

Most of the people do not care for the right or wrong of children language. I spoke 4 languages when I was a kid because the neigbours were from different tribes. I went into the house and spoke their language and out to another, the tongue change.

Later years, disconnected from that, all forgotten.

Many Esperantists are too concerned about the right grammar structure, this would kill off the interest of learning. These esperantists are especially many in China.

robbkvasnak (Visa profilen) 23 juli 2015 04:39:02

There are many detailed studies that compare first language acquisition with second language acquisition and the findings are that regular forms dominate over irregular forms, which are usually connected to the most used forms in a language. Esperanto probably is no exception only that in Esperanto the most used forms are also regular. Interestingly enough the correct use of case endings does usually not occur later. In some dialects of ethnic languages, these irregularities persist - Berliners generally confuse dative and accusative forms but despite the Berliners and their exceptional position as a political center, their dialect with this confusion has not gained ground.
The non -n ending forms are used more frequently than the -n forms so it is normal that first "learners" acquire them first. These are the "fall back" cases.

Vestitor (Visa profilen) 24 juli 2015 21:00:29

I was just reading an interview with a young 'native' Esperantist from Belgium and found some of his comments relevant to parts of this thread.

He says he never learned to write Esperanto, until now, and that in his opinion people who learn it later tend to write it better. Probably because most people learn and work with Esperanto in written form. He also says his father had taught him mistakes - in using e.g. accusative -n - and they are hard to get rid of.

It seems to me that with varying levels of experience and usage - since the idea that everyone will learn and use Esperanto to grammatical perfection is patently wrong - variation is inevitable. Also that through local dissemination of such variations, Esperanto as a spoken language would/will differ from country to country and within countries. In fact, very much like languages always do, even when they have a unifying body overseeing them.

Under such circumstances the "useless" features (real or imagined) would show themselves.

orthohawk (Visa profilen) 24 juli 2015 22:16:34

robbkvasnak:There are many detailed studies that compare first language acquisition with second language acquisition and the findings are that regular forms dominate over irregular forms, which are usually connected to the most used forms in a language. Esperanto probably is no exception only that in Esperanto the most used forms are also regular. Interestingly enough the correct use of case endings does usually not occur later. In some dialects of ethnic languages, these irregularities persist - Berliners generally confuse dative and accusative forms but despite the Berliners and their exceptional position as a political center, their dialect with this confusion has not gained ground.
The non -n ending forms are used more frequently than the -n forms so it is normal that first "learners" acquire them first. These are the "fall back" cases.
I've noticed (in myself and others) that pronouns almost always have the correct ending (if anything, they will have an -n after a preposition that doesn't require one).....maybe it's how the pronouns behave in the person's native language? I'd be very interested in seeing if Russian speakers, for instance, are more likely to put the accusative ending on feminine and animate masculine nouns than inanimate masculines and neuters......

Vestitor (Visa profilen) 24 juli 2015 23:19:53

Is it not that people overcompensate at some stage during learning as a sort of 'gamble' to get things grammatically right?

seveer (Visa profilen) 24 juli 2015 23:24:46

I find this all very interesting but I am still curious about the original topic. Is there really nobody on these forums with any data on the trends in the number of Esperanto users in the last, say, twenty years? I would like to know if this number is growing in (a) nominal terms and (b) as a fraction of the population. No links? Old threads on this?

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