qwertz:

horsto:
That's why a lot of parents in Germany and certainly also in other countries start to teach english to their children as the first language.

Is that a new yuppie parent trend? It seems to be common to teach English still in Kindergarden/Child Care. But not as 1th language. For 2nd language purposes, yes. In my opinion.

Yes, indeed I was taught a bit of English in kindergarten, I think it worked the way that a native speaker went to us and we could talk to her. However I didn't do so a lot, I just remember that I was taught the word little at that time. Not that as a kindergartener I saw any usefulness in this.

(Gah, my first post... I hope no one minds if I just jump in the middle here. )

Language has always fascinated me. I love accents and communicating with speakers in a common tongue. I've always been Dutch bilingual and it's helped a lot in life so I tried to add a few other languages as well. So far I've learned a bit of French, German, Spanish, and Mandarin Chinese. Most of those languages were learned from bartenders and broken conversations with absolute strangers, which has been known to result in some pretty embarrassing/hilarious misunderstandings.

That's where Esperanto comes in, I like the idea of a "utility language", for lack of a better term, that I have the potential to use anywhere. I also like that there are basically no native speakers so I start at the same level as everyone else, that there are no exceptions to the rules, the patterns are easy to spot if you stare hard enough, and because of all the other languages I have at least a passing familiarity with, I recognize a lot of words right away.

I've only been at this for a week and have a permanent headache from trying to cram all this new information in, but it's a fun language to learn.

mrscruff:(Gah, my first post... I hope no one minds if I just jump in the middle here. )

Not at all. Bonvenon!

mrscruff:I've only been at this for a week and have a permanent headache from trying to cram all this new information in, but it's a fun language to learn.

Take it steadily. There's some good advice on the website. Good luck!

To answer the first question on this thread,
please read this article:

"Why does an American Use Esperanto?"

http://esperantofre.com/book/index.htm#usonano

Enrique
California, USA

Why do I learn Esperanto?

I learn it because I love language. I've been studying French for three years, but I don't want to stop there.

I also learn because I want to travel the world, and with Esperanto, I can do that and have friends, guides and lodging all over the world. I may even find love. Mi estas granda idealisto.

I only can spend a little time with this and from the previous message you had answered a lot... to much for answer all one by one.

I will expose some evidences to answer indirectly some of your arguments; you usually say that Esperanto is easy to learn, totally neutral and international, well... I think about those affirmations just lie:

Easy? easy to who? Easyness isn't a pattern in a tongue, you can say categorically "this language is easy", Italian, for instance, is easy to learn? It depends: If you are Spanish will be easier than if you are Chinese, right? So I think a tongue is easy depending the close or similar it is from your mother tongue, or also the tongues you previously are able to speak or understand. Thus, Esperanto will be easy for westerns, but less easy for chinese, arabic or hindu people. For they, I think, there's no a big difference to learn English or learn Esperanto.

Esperanto isn't neutral at all; the words, structures and grammar are all from western tongues. Maybe that could be "neutral" in a XVIII century world, but not now. at all. I, as Spanish, can see a lot of references of my tongue, or similar patterns from my tongue in Esperanto, but from an Asian is a totally different language... Impose a western language to the whole world is neutral? I don't think so.

Obviously, Esperanto is not international; just try, for example, come to Spain in holydays just speaking English and Esperanto... In hotel, Restaurants, shops... Which tongue do you think people could use with you nowadays? Which tongue in do you think are wrote the sings in the Airport or touristic places? By now, Esperanto isn't international, but also internationalizable, just becaouse, as I show before, isn't neutral too.

Also, you say the alphabet got a letter for each sound... that's false: T is pronounced /t/, S is pronounced /s/... that's a letter for each sound, but C is pronounced /ts/... according to the rule, that sound must be wrote like TS, isn't?

Finally, by now, notice that Esperanto have irregular words:

a) According to the rules, the words which means something opposite to other must be the same word with the prefix "MAL-", but there's "tago-nokto","nigra-blanka","sintezo-analizo","paradizo-inferno".

b) If "sana-sano" why not "libera-libero" but "libera-libereco"?

c) If you say "universo" why not to say "universa" but "universala"? Are not those irregularities.

So, if Esperanto have the same good things that English already got and got the same bad things that English and the rest of tongues also got... How can it be better?

English isn't easy for some people, neutral or acctualy international too, but at least is already accepted... why to make an international mess to change it for something alike?

Psittakos:
Also, you say the alphabet got a letter for each sound... that's false: T is pronounced /t/, S is pronounced /s/... that's a letter for each sound, but C is pronounced /ts/... according to the rule, that sound must be wrote like TS, isn't?

No, we don't say we have one letter for each sound, but one sound for each letter.

Psittakos:
a) According to the rules, the words which means something opposite to other must be the same word with the prefix "MAL-", but there's "tago-nokto","nigra-blanka","sintezo-analizo","paradizo-inferno".

No rule says that there may not be an alternative to the word with mal-.

Psittakos:b) If "sana-sano" why not "libera-libero" but "libera-libereco"?

Libero is an absolutely fine word, just as saneco is!

Psittakos:c) If you say "universo" why not to say "universa" but "universala"? Are not those irregularities.

universa = related to the universe
universala = universal
... not quite the same thing.

Psittakos:Esperanto isn't neutral at all; the words, structures and grammar are all from western tongues. Maybe that could be "neutral" in a XVIII century world, but not now. at all. I, as Spanish, can see a lot of references of my tongue, or similar patterns from my tongue in Esperanto, but from an Asian is a totally different language... Impose a western language to the whole world is neutral? I don't think so.

Esperanto is less western than it may seem on first glance. I won't repeat everything that Claude Piron said in Some Comments on Ignorance About Esperanto now, just read it yourself.

Psittakos:Obviously, Esperanto is not international; just try, for example, come to Spain in holydays just speaking English and Esperanto... In hotel, Restaurants, shops... Which tongue do you think people could use with you nowadays? Which tongue in do you think are wrote the sings in the Airport or touristic places? By now, Esperanto isn't international, but also internationalizable, just becaouse, as I show before, isn't neutral too.

You're confusing the concepts of "international" and "widespread".

horsto:In a world where communication becomes more and more important, we, the not natively english speaking people, have no chance to compete with natively english speaking people, if the international language is english.

I think the notion of speaking like a native English speaker though is overrated - maybe it's a cultural thing though given that Asia and Oceania have many more Asian-english speakers and Indian-english speakers than the more british ANZ (aus/new zealand) speakers. I suspect in Europe, things are much different, from what you've said at least.

That means for me that after a few generations there will be only one language on earth, the rest will be history.
Bad times for linguists like Psittakos.

It is quite morbid
(that said, there's also some excitement - what will happen to English and Chinese, those giant languages, as they continue to evolve? Maybe the future is something like Firefly and Serenity where people speak English/Chinese as the "lingua franca" of the galaxy ).

darkweasel:

Psittakos:
Also, you say the alphabet got a letter for each sound... that's false: T is pronounced /t/, S is pronounced /s/... that's a letter for each sound, but C is pronounced /ts/... according to the rule, that sound must be wrote like TS, isn't?

No, we don't say we have one letter for each sound, but one sound for each letter.

A big problem with the one sound has one letter one letter has one sound rule is that it doesn't allow for allophones (sounds that achieve the same thing but have minor differences), which limits flexibility in the spoken language considerably, if anyone was wondering why it's one letter = one tightly-knit group of sounds and not one sound = one letter (mostly for learners, no doubt many already understand the concept).