Earlier this month I finished going through all seven seasons of the series The West Wing for the third time. I didn't actually see it during the years that it was broadcast; I bought it for a discount price on DVD last year, and got hooked. It's like a book that one can't put down (like Dan Brown's The lost symbol - that will do for another thread).

This is a wonderful series, to which I hope that Aaron Sorkin, a most gifted playwright, will write a sequel some day, no doubt with Sam Seaborn as President (for reasons which will be clear to anyone who has followed it thus far). Sorkin deserves to get an "honorary" award from the Queen's honours list, in my opinion, but that is rare for Americans, so I wouldn't hold one's breath.

Now for the link with Esperanto. My question is: how could Esperanto have realistically featured in the series? I regret that in my view the most probable place for it to appear would have been on "Big Block of Cheese Day", and I'm glad that it didn't! By all means write your own opinion about the series (if you saw it), and this question.

What an unusual question.

I have never seen the series, I've perhaps seen a half of one episode in total. But to me, a realistic way to portray Esperanto in a series like that is to have one of the staffers speak it as a hobby. Surely it would be brought up occasionally and made fun of by other staffers.

Oh, perhaps you meant a POSITIVE portrayal?

Or else you could have a subplot about an Esperanto speaker dressed up as Uncle Sam [url] protesting [/url] outside the White House, for a "ripped from the headlines" type of plot.

Half an episode out of seven seasons is the equivalent of perhaps a trailer of a film. That may give some idea of the flavour, but I would also like to have the impressions of people who have seen at least one or two complete seasons and seen the story unfolding.

Hhm, thats interesting. I browsed through some of the West Wing videos listed at Youtube to find some language relatated stuff. I found:

The West Wing - English Official Language

I don't understand completly what that "making English official language" disscussion phrase targets. English is the official language of the U.S. or so not? So, ehm, what? This guy is afraid of that another language from Eastern Europe will swap and spread inside the U.S. and destruct the national identity? What national identity? Something like that Leitkultur what was discussed some time ago in Germany?

Having seen bits of the west wing on and off, I must say I do find it an oddly precise point of discussion as Erinja did.

I reckon that if Esperanto was written into the west wing in any way shape or form, it'd likely be as a sub plot alluded to in regards to a minor (yet noisy) political faction that someone's involved with, or some sort of controversy or news-worthy esperanto movement imaginable.

In fact, because west wing tries to take a very realistic approach to US politics, I'd imagine that any way Esperanto could appear in real life, it could appear in the west wing. Because I don't think the west wing really put much focus on characters hobbies etc (unlike a certain british sci-fi show, Red Dwarf was it? The one where a main character was failing at Esperanto? ), it'd probably have to have something to do with activists (like that "change" website or whatever it's called), or involve some business man (Soros comes to mind, especially as he seems wealthy and wealthiness + jewish heritage + obscure hobby always makes for something unneedingly controversial).

@ qwertz - I'm not sure what the fuss over the "English the official language" thing is, but often I think in Anglo-Celtic countries you'll find all this male-bovine-dung (bull___t) about fear that migrants etc are gonna destroy the culture of our perfect societies in their thousands. "Thousands" does sound formidable, but given that the average English speaking country has 20million+ people living there, it's very much made into a non-existent problem. Simply put, lazy people don't want to help them integrate into the new country, scared people are afraid that the new people won't integrate, and it goes in a big circle until you get non-existent issues like "OH NO AUSTRALIA'S GONNA BE SPEAKING CHINESE IN 2080!", and then people assume that somehow speaking chinese in 2080 (while not only unrealistic) is somehow worse than speaking English in 2080... And you get the picture

ceigered:
@ qwertz - I'm not sure what the fuss over the "English the official language" thing is, but often I think in Anglo-Celtic countries you'll find all this male-bovine-dung (bull___t) about fear that migrants etc are gonna destroy the culture of our perfect societies in their thousands. "Thousands" does sound formidable, but given that the average English speaking country has 20million+ people living there, it's very much made into a non-existent problem. Simply put, lazy people don't want to help them integrate into the new country, scared people are afraid that the new people won't integrate, and it goes in a big circle until you get non-existent issues like "OH NO AUSTRALIA'S GONNA BE SPEAKING CHINESE IN 2080!", and then people assume that somehow speaking chinese in 2080 (while not only unrealistic) is somehow worse than speaking English in 2080... And you get the picture

In E.U. Great Britain often is assigned to have one of the most liberal migration policies in the E.U. So I wouldn't say that this is big Anglo-Celtic matter in Europe. There was a ongoing disscussion to ban the wearing of burqa in public.

I believe thats the fear of getting into felt looser position against someones native speakers languages skills. In my opinion, in work live, if a native speaker gets in panic and there will occur a possibility to defense with better language skills, than these native speakers will use its better language skills to win. But that can also happen between two native speakers with different argumentation proficencies.

The reason why I felt Esperantists would probably go in "Big Block of Cheese Day" may be understood more easily if you look at this clip (imagine that the three conservationists are Esperantists, and C.J. represents the Administration). Here's another from the same episode, where cartographers are the "Esperantists". The President nicely sums up at the end.
If you want to know the exact meaning of "Big Block of Cheese Day", though, you'll have to watch the episode in full!

I could see Esperanto worked into an episode where Bartlett begins learning the language so he could use a phrase or two when speaking with a Eastern European dignitary/head of state who (in the show) is an avid Esperantist.

During the course of the show, perhaps when he breaks out his learned phrases, he may well realize that, though he only intended to learn a bit of the language as a courtesy, he is able to converse beyond his intended level of proficiency (although still at a very basic level). This could lead to future episodes with Esperanto-related content.

As to the immigration issue. . .

Sovereign nations have immigration laws for their own, usually valid, reasons (whether other nations agree with them or not). The laws in my country (Usono!) are comparatively lax although the system works slowly (perhaps because so many people want to live here). If you doubt my statement, checkout the laws surrounding immigration for other countries (including the punishment for entering the country illegally - here's a hint: They don't always just send you back).

I see Esperanto as a boon to the preservation of national languages (which I do believe are a large part of a country's culture - do you think the french would say their language is unrelated to their culture?).

I personally have no problem with the enforcement of existing immigration laws (in any country). I also have no problem with any country wanting to preserve their language (national or otherwise). Now, that doesn't mean that I don't think people should learn at least one or two other languages.

Just another viewpoint (mine ).

Kelly

36lima:I personally have no problem with the enforcement of existing immigration laws (in any country). I also have no problem with any country wanting to preserve their language (national or otherwise). Now, that doesn't mean that I don't think people should learn at least one or two other languages.

I concur - in the Australian example I gave out before though I must mention that this is refugee related though, not just normal emigration, and is mostly justified with anti-terrorrist hype and combined with a fear of "hordes" of people entering the country (so, in this case, it's a somewhat lesser problem (still important though), with some largely extreme responses from every group).