Demian:
Second, Esperanto is like Arabic or Hindi or Swahili - a useless language, a language of the streets. The moment you open your mouth to say something useful, your speech is littered with with words from Latin, Greek and, of course, English.

The primary purpose of language is communication. Almost all 'languages of the street', regardless of factors like social prestige or literary use, perform their communicative role admirably. Why you should choose to deem them 'useless' is beyond me.

Also, borrowing is a very common strategy employed across languages as a means of enriching their vocabulary. I don't think there's anything inherently undesirable about it.

Any sample passage in English can be shown to have a large proportion of words that originated as borrowings from French, Latin, or Greek. Yet English isn't held in too low a regard, now, is it?

Demian:
My sister is a high school student and I showed her texts in both interlingua and Esperanto about mathmatics, algebra and LHC on Wikipedia. In her words ,"Interlingua seems to me an easy language. I'd opt for interlingua.

Easiness is subjective.

Demian:
What I've felt is: Esperanto falls far short of the expectations of non-Europeans. It's too European.

As has been remarked a gazillion times in these forums: it seems that only those who themselves speak a European language complain of the over-Europeanness of Esperanto.

Demian:So I thought, if going European is the way forward then let's do it in an elegant manner!

Again, elegance is subjective.

Demian: And interlinguists don't blame English for all the evils in the world!

The above statement seems to insinuate that all (or at the very best, most) Esperantists do blame English for all the evils in the world. That's a bit like saying that the existence of the Ku Klux Klan implies that most whites are racist.

Well... Demian seems to think that Esperanto is too hard, or too English, or too whatever. That's fine. Esperanto isn't for everybody, and, luckily for him, there's no requirement that anybody at all should learn it who doesn't want to.

Why he feels that coming onto an Esperanto site and complaining about Esperanto is something he needs to do is kind of a mystery to me. But whatever. Doesn't matter. If Demian doesn't want to learn Esperanto, he doesn't have to. Nor does his sister. It's no skin off my nose, nor of anyone elses that I can see.

So, Demian, I wish you luck in your learning of whatever other language you want to learn. I hope you find a language that is more to your liking!

The subject of language "uselessness" is something that has bothered me for a long time. Let's say you assume that X-ian is a useless language because X is such a small country and there are relatively few speakers. You could probably get away with that thinking until your company chose to promote you to the manager of their X-ian sales office. At that point, I guarantee you that you will find X-ian a quite useful language.

In my mind, I need to have a better criteria for choosing the languages I wish to study. They either fascinate me (for one reason or another) or they don't. One of the things I like about Esperanto is that I find I have an affinity for the types of people who also chose to learn Esperanto. I've discovered that they are kindred spirits and that means something to me. I have stopped studying certain languages simply because I didn't like some of the people I found myself talking to. Obviously, this is one of my important criteria. To be honest Demian, the reasons you gave for learning Interlingua seem reasonable to me since they obviously reflect your values and, I assume, your sister's. Sounds like a good reason to "go for it"!

I have the feeling that you want us to convince you to study our language. My experience shows that most Esperantists will not do that. We like to present the facts as we see them and, if you like what you see, that would be great. If you decide that Esperanto is not your thing... Well, it is a big world out there isn't it?

At any rate, I certainly wish you and your sister the best in learning a third, fourth, or n-th language. There is a Czech saying that goes, "Those who have two languages, have two souls". I've always liked that thought.

RiotNrrd:

Why he feels that coming onto an Esperanto site and complaining about Esperanto is something he needs to do is kind of a mystery to me.

Well, it's getting quite common on Lernu to see people coming to criticize Eo as a way of making some "subtle" propaganda for another auxiliary language, in this very case, interlingua, if I followed correctly.
Did you also have on the English forum the guy who talked about his Interroman?
I am looking forward to the next one anyway.
(Let's hope it will be the Klingon or the Ewokese language).

Yes, it is very common for people to come to these forums with the intent of criticizing Esperanto, or getting annoyed at Esperanto's flaws, or asking a lot of probing questions about "Isn't language X much better than Esperanto?"
I find golf to be extremely boring but I would never make a big website about how much I hate it, or go to golf forums to tell the people how much better other sports are.

It seems like a waste of time to me. But then again, who am I to tell people how to spend their time?

In a way it's understandable.
If you want to make propaganda for Eo, you will target the average people.
But if you want to make propanganda for another auxiliary language, you 'll be first tempted to try to convince Esperanto speakers and learners.

It's understandable but tiresome as well.

Esperanto is avery easy language to learn. Whoever learnt the international language as well as other languages can easily compare the hours or perhaps years needed to master them. For me, both English and Esperanto are foreign languages. I studied English all through my childhood from about age 5 to 16. Thats 11 years. I managed to learn esperanto in less than a year. I only put in a couple of hours a week.
Yes esperanto is easy to learn and easier to europeans.
For the record may I add that my native language is Maltese which is gramatically arabic with a mixed vocabulary of semitic and romance languages.

andogigi:
I have the feeling that you want us to convince you to study our language. My experience shows that most Esperantists will not do that. We like to present the facts as we see them and, if you like what you see, that would be great. If you decide that Esperanto is not your thing... Well, it is a big world out there isn't it?

Mi ne volas, ke iu petas min ke mi lernu Esperanton. Mi jam lernas Esperanton iomete. Mi ne estas interesa trovi malbonajxojn en Esperanto. Mi nur volas montri, ke l'Esperanto ne estas kiel mi pensis, ke gxi estos, kiam mi ekkomencis lerni gxin.

Anstataux uzi bazajn kaj simplajn vortojn, Esperanto (esperantistoj multaj) preferas prunti vortojn el la greka aux la latina. Pruti ne estas malbona, sed prunti nenecesajn vortojn certe estas!!! Mi estas kontraux gxin!

Pri mia fratino, sxi sxangxigis sian cerbon kaj estas nenion mi povas fari!

Amike!

Demian, can you edit your post to contain an
English translation, please? This is the English-language forum, so although your post can be in any language at all, it should include an English translation.

Demian:

andogigi:
I have the feeling that you want us to convince you to study our language. My experience shows that most Esperantists will not do that. We like to present the facts as we see them and, if you like what you see, that would be great. If you decide that Esperanto is not your thing... Well, it is a big world out there isn't it?

Mi ne volas, ke iu petas min ke mi lernu Esperanton. Mi jam lernas Esperanton iomete. Mi ne estas interesa trovi malbonajxojn en Esperanto. Mi nur volas montri, ke l'Esperanto ne estas kiel mi pensis, ke gxi estos, kiam mi ekkomencis lerni gxin.

Anstataux uzi bazajn kaj simplajn vortojn, Esperanto (esperantistoj multaj) preferas prunti vortojn el la greka aux la latina. Pruti ne estas malbona, sed prunti nenecesajn vortojn certe estas!!! Mi estas kontraux gxin!

Pri mia fratino, sxi sxangxigis sian cerbon kaj estas nenion mi povas fari!

Amike!

Demian, I think many people agree with you when it comes to keeping Esperanto simple. Ok, so some people use neologisms etc, but there's strong support for sticking to the basic roots of the language if at all possible. So, don't give up on Esperanto!

Be careful about 'sxangxigxi sian cerbon'. This sounds rather painful. Although, I'm not quite sure how to say it. Perhaps 'sxangxis sian opinion'. Sounds simple enough.