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Herzberg as die Esperanto-Stadt ("the Esperanto city")

by Senlando, January 9, 2009

Messages: 12

Language: English

Senlando (User's profile) January 9, 2009, 7:39:37 AM

Hi, I was reading the forms on change.org, http://www.change.org/ideas/view/introduce_esperan... about teaching esperanto in american schools, and came across a comment by Zsofia Korody which said....

"We are not just talking about it, we have already started and teach Esperanto in some schools in Herzberg am Harz in Germany. Believe it or not, in July 2006 the town council decided not only to support Esperanto-teaching but gave the additional name "the Esperanto-town", die Esperanto-Stadt to the official name of the town. Esperanto is used in everyday life: at the station, in the menus in restaurants, to learn about sights, opening hours, etc. http://herzberg.de"

(i hope its ok to quote him with out asking for permission ridulo.gif

anyways that got me really intrested in this town that i had never heaerd about, and so i started searching the web, and of course went first to my favorite yet not always trustworthy wikipidia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herzberg_am_Harz and then went further serching on the web and found http://www.jeb.org.uk/forumoj/index.php?t=msg&... which had quite a bit more information.

So i was wondering, has anyone else heard of this town? been there? what is it like? are there many esperanto speakers there? and the town has a population of 14,565 (according to wiki), about how many of those people would you say, actually speak esperanto?

from what i heard the older generation don't usually speak any esperanto, but many of the children are learning it (the generation that matters) and the whole town counsel is learning esperanto.

I am very interested in this, so any additional info, or comments of what you think about it are well welcomed!

Oh yes and special thanks to Zsofia Korody (who i never asked to quote but i figure it was on a public website anyways) for first drawing my attention to the town!

ceigered (User's profile) January 9, 2009, 10:22:38 AM

I've heard of this place, but never been there.. And if I went there, German would most likely be my language of choice because while my Esperanto grammar is better, my german vocab is much larger! (but then again German grammar is something you can't take lightly rideto.gif )

Rogir (User's profile) January 10, 2009, 12:31:27 AM

I've been there, but there is no sign of Esperanto there except for the headquarters of some Esperanto organization. Even the tourist office didn't know about it.

Taciturn_ (User's profile) January 10, 2009, 7:58:53 AM

It`s quite strange not to find any esperanto mirror of the official town site while it presents itself as "la Esperanto-urbo".
Also if there is no signe of it in the streets .....
Rogir - Did you try to communicate with the local folks in Esperanto on the streets?

alexbeard (User's profile) January 10, 2009, 1:08:40 PM

Rogir:I've been there, but there is no sign of Esperanto there except for the headquarters of some Esperanto organization. Even the tourist office didn't know about it.
You have to remember, most people are lazy. They don't want to go speak another language. Most of us are learning esperanto because we like learning languages...
It's probably going to be a while before anyone speaks it, Give it like...20 years or so and you could probably get around using esperanto. So long as the schools keep teaching it.

ceigered (User's profile) January 10, 2009, 3:19:05 PM

Even then, if schools are teaching it, there are always going to be people who don't want to learn.

Case study to show you what I mean: In South Australian schools we learn (mostly independent schools so they get funding) Indonesian because it's easy and Indonesia is next door and it's favourable to learn the language of your neighbour when relations are souring. However, with all that's going for it, kids will still turn off during class. Same will probably happen to Esperanto - "ah it's too hard, I wanna play soccer instead" lango.gif

This might be the same case in the Esperantostadt, if no one is speaking it, like Alexbeard said.

alexbeard (User's profile) January 10, 2009, 3:59:27 PM

Well most kids want to at least get good grades, and that motivates them, so if you say, need something basic like where's the bathroom they will get basically what you are saying.

And if there's a group of people in that city, let's say in twenty years, and you walk up to them, chances are at least one of them is alright in esperanto

And ceigered, I get what you are saying about indonesian. I live in florida, and there are A TON of spanish speakers, we live so close to all the spanish speaking islands and there are tons of immigrants from puerto rico. So knowing spanish is nearly a necesity

ceigered (User's profile) January 11, 2009, 9:03:10 AM

Ah I don't think Indonesian is as important as Spanish is to Florida though ridulo.gif The main focus for Australia is bringing all the different people (Han Chinese, Indonesians, Vietnamese, Japanese, Anglo-Saxons) together in the Australasia region so that we don't start a war ridulo.gif - not quite as a daily importance as you guys would have learning Spanish ridego.gif

alexbeard (User's profile) January 11, 2009, 10:22:25 AM

Oh lol here it has nothing to do with peace...The average person doesn't like spanish speakers because half of them are illegal lango.gif
But there are so many people that only speak spanish and nothing else, or only speak english. I've been a translater a couple times...

alexbeard (User's profile) January 11, 2009, 10:23:05 AM

Gah I'm getting off topic lango.gif jeez. Alright. Esperanto city. Where is it anyways? Germany right?

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