A series of messages in another thread got me interested in this phenomenon for its own sake. A number of people come to the forum, who possibly have studied a little Esperanto, but then for some reason they start to make all sorts of complaints about the language and its movement, and sometimes drop away. I wonder whether repeated complaints are a sign that someone is on the verge of dropping out and trying to justify their decision. In short, plendadanto estas kabeonto. Anyway, a few possible motives are listed in the poll below. By all means write your own opinion.

I almost wish you'd put an "all of the above" option into your poll, because I think there are definitely circumstances to match all of the scenarios you describe.

I voted for "excuse not to continue with Esperanto", because other reasons can fall under this heading. (you don't like the community so you don't continue, don't like the grammar so you don't continue, prefer another language so you don't continue, etc)

I still wonder why people bother posting all kinds of negative stuff about Esperanto. No one knows who they are and no one would notice they were missing if they suddenly stopped learning Esperanto and used their time for something else. No one would ever know if they recommended that their cousin learn Zulu rather than Esperanto. So there must be something behind the reason why they post lots of messages to talk about this rather than just doing it. Perhaps someone else has some ideas on that.

erinja:I almost wish you'd put an "all of the above" option into your poll, because I think there are definitely circumstances to match all of the scenarios you describe.

Or that you (Miland) had allowed more than one vote. It's a cool thing that lernu! has this feature!

I voted for "imperfections in Esperanto itself". That's what I hear frequently from some people - they consider the language itself a fuŝlingvo for some reason. Often that doesn't stop them from using it.

Indeed, I think myself that Esperanto isn't perfect - but it is better than anything else that I know. Oh yes, I consider Esperanto better than Ido - Ido tried to "fix" the gender meaning of many words - and introduced genitoro for "parent", not forming logically genitorino and genitorulo, but adding the entirely random matro and patro.

However, I've also come across at least one IRC user who was annoyed by the conduct and opinions of other Esperantists.

erinja: I believe that these people want us, too, to kabei, and so post a lot of arguments against Esperanto. Most of them are already known to all of us.

darkweasel:However, I've also come across at least one IRC user who was annoyed by the conduct and opinions of other Esperantists.

I find this disconcerting. The Esperantists who first introduced me to the language were very pleasant, very informative, and not pushy at all. I have found most Esperantists to act in a similar manner. Without naming names, can you tell us if you feel the complaints you heard were justified or was it just a matter of someone being too "thin-skinned"?

I wonder if repeated complaints may not be a sign that someone is bothered by something they are encountering and that the complaints are simply appeals for others to listen to them. Maybe they like Esperanto and are willing to spend the time and effort to learn it but are experiencing something that they don't like. I have no examples to offer. I am just guessing.

I have just recently joined lernu but I have been plodding away with Esperanto for years. I am a lurker rather than a joiner, so none of the first five options you gave would influence me to quit. Frankly, I don't believe that Esperanto will ever win that "final victory", there are imperfections in E-o itself and I can see how a person would be disillusioned with things. But none of these would influence me to quit. I enjoy Esperanto too much. I think it is a beautiful language. I have a goal for myself to learn a second language well. And Esperanto is miles ahead of any other AIL.

Learning a second language is a tremendous undertaking unless you live in some small European country where you are bombarded with two or three or four languages every day of your life. So the practical reasons for learning another language calls to me more than the idealistic reasons. Zamenhof had practical reasons for developing his masterpiece. Most learners today are simply idealistic hobbists. Many of them will drift away when they lose interest or when something happens that sufficiently annoys them.

It annoys me when beginners want to immediately change parts of the grammar or introduce new words. But I know that is just beginners enthusiasm. It annoys me that people try to turn lernu.net into a clone of Facebook. If they want to simply socialize, there are other places that they can do it. So we all have things that frustrate us. When I read a novel, I sometimes try to translate words, phrases and sentences in my head. That is because I am interested in developing the working aspects of Esperanto rather than the idealistic aspects. I want to be able to tell someone that I am constipated, that my car has a flat tire, that farmers have to spread fertilizer, or that the person I am talking to is full of bull.

This is getting too long and rambling. I don't know why people quit learning. I just know that none of the reasons you gave are sufficient to cause me to give it up.

Blimey, everyone seems to think there's some form of giant propaganda conspiracy here

I went with "disillusionment" because, let's face it, Esperantists do have a LOT of grammar related arguments so it probably often leads to people going "whoah, so much for world peace and all that!"

But if I could have chosen more, I would have gone with "Imperfections" too. Because it's generally those "imperfections" (subjective imperfections, that is, because one man's rubbish is another's treasure) that cause big grammar related arguments, when in actual fact the original root of the argument was that there was no hard and fast rule to it (Zamenhoff probably thought flexibility would be good - Zamenhoff probably didn't hang around 21st century non-professional grammarians all day! )

If I had to find an imperfection though, I'd say the biggest imperfection of Esperanto is the somewhat arbitrary derivation of Esperanto's lexicon. Not really Zam's fault, as he didn't have the crazy magical technology like Wiktionary and online etymological dictionaries combined with statistics etc complied specifically for conlangers. But I reckon that in some cases Esperanto should have had more latin roots, and in other cases it should have had more hellenic roots (why have "viv-scienco" when we could have "bio-logio" - surely the "logia" root is more prevalent than "stsientso"? Meh). Ironically, many seem to think the biggest problem is that there are too many European roots, but the reality is then the language would be a disaster and it'd be hell to try and guess words without a dictionary.

So that could lead to another reason - people perceive that Esperanto is lacking something (like Asian roots etc), and think that's the catch-all solution, when really if that solution were implemented it'd probably destroy a whole feature of the language (like the exposure a word might already have). I'm probably guilty of that anyway

I'd compare Esperanto with the Catholic Church or Communism or World Politics or any other cult one can think of! They've all got just one thing in common: Keep the folks busy dreaming about a better tomorrow! Dreaming is not bad but I suspect if any of the cults do more good than harm!

There is something similar in Esperanto - it just captures your imagination so much that it becomes hard to live in the manner one lived before he/she didn't know about Esperanto. One gets addicted! I hate the language but hardly a day passes when I haven't read a page or two in Esperanto! It is a cult! I believe I need to see a doctor or consult some deaddiction centre!

andogigi:

darkweasel:However, I've also come across at least one IRC user who was annoyed by the conduct and opinions of other Esperantists.

I find this disconcerting. The Esperantists who first introduced me to the language were very pleasant, very informative, and not pushy at all. I have found most Esperantists to act in a similar manner. Without naming names, can you tell us if you feel the complaints you heard were justified or was it just a matter of someone being too "thin-skinned"?

The user I'm talking about (tommjames, you know whom I'm talking about, don't you? ) misbelieved that Esperantists wanted to remove the existence of nations, and that homaranismo was a part of Esperantism. Which of course isn't the case.

Demian:I hate the language but hardly a day passes when I haven't read a page or two in Esperanto!

At least you're money hasn't been siphoned yet to go towards a pastor's BMW

I wonder what it is that makes us read and talk in languages we dislike, or dislike languages we read and talk in? No doubt many a native speaker of English has gone "damn I hate this language" (in English), before proceeding to say "Everyone should speak English" (even though they themselves hate it)

Apart from argumentiveness/divisiveness, I can think of three motivations for complaining about Eo - as well as all the other big IALs.

1. Natlangs are naturally occurring (of course) so people tend to just accept them, with their irregularities and idioms. Conlangs on the other hand are human designed, and so invite analysis. People think: Why did he do that like that, and not like this?

2. The closer something is to perfect, the more prominent the imperfections. Analogy: natlangs are like battered old cars - you accept that they're "old bangers" and don't worry much about them. Esperanto is like a Rolls Royce with a scratch down the side - it's all too easy to worry and obsess over that scratch, and talk about it, when if it had been on the old banger you'd hardly notice it.

3. With natlangs, you have to accept idioms, and often you have to use irrational "templates" when you form phrases. With Eo, people like to be able to build phrases purely according to rules, and so think about what they're doing more. This more intensive thinking creates extra questions and criticisms.