Altebrilas:With Google Translation:
=======en>fr==========
À l'heure actuelle, les ordinateurs et l'Internet sont grandement aider la propagation de l'espéranto.

La croissance du nombre de personnes ayant une connaissance de base de l'espéranto dans les cinq dernières années, doit certainement être considérablement plus importante que dans toute période de cinq ans entre 1950 et 1990.

Cependant, qu'est-ce que vous imaginez qui se passera dans un proche avenir quand un appareil portatif est disponible qui accepte une entrée audio dans une langue étrangère et les sorties à un écouteur (dans un passable si elle n'est pas rendu parfait) une traduction dans une autre langue?

J'ai lu cet article et je peux le comprendre mais mon français est merde donc je ne sais pas si la traduction est bonne ou mauvaise. Mais si un étudiant peut le comprendre, peut-être la traduction de l'article n'est pas trop mauvaise?

(I read it and could understand it but my french is crap thus I have no idea whether the translation is good or bad. But maybe if a student can read it, it's not too bad?)

Radio~!:I find it sad that some people seem to think Rauxmist is a derogatory word

I also consider myself Raŭmist. It's not derogatory in the least.

I enjoy Esperanto immensely, but it's just one thing amongst many for me. My interests are too split to devote my life to any one (or even primary) thing. Certainly I would like to see Esperanto gain more favor worldwide, but if it doesn't it isn't THAT big of a deal to me. With Esperanto, I'm less invested in what Might Be than I am in What Is.

People will create the Fina Venko when they decide that the benefits outweigh the costs. That may never, in fact, happen. Machine translation IS getting better all the time, and may indeed have the ultimate effect of making the world predominantly individually monolingual. Amongst places where computing machines are common, there may be no compelling reason (aside from personal interest) to learn more than one language, because the machines will translate acceptably well, and do it nearly transparently.

They suck at it now. Technology improves at an impressive rate. Five years from now? Ten years from now? Twenty? Twenty isn't really THAT far off temporally, but is an eternity in computing terms, and a lot can happen in an eternity.

So, instead of investing myself in a future that may not be, I say we should enjoy what we have. Tell people about it, of course. Encourage people to learn it - spreading the fun is also fun. But if someone doesn't want to participate (learning languages just isn't "their thing", or whatever), that's fine, because ultimately they may never need to, and won't pay a cost for not doing so.

There is also the question of whether people in their own country wants to talk to an English speaker (whom have no aspirations of learning the national language) through a computer translator. We always hear the comments "they should learn our language and learn our culture" This statement goes both ways; not just from non-English to English.

I understand that even people who do speak English, sometimes don't, or assume the rich, ignorant English speaker is good for 5 times as much money and half the service as usual.

I recently heard a story where, in a relationship, the man believed the woman could not understand English. That was until she said "Get your dirty socks off the floor!" It had to be annoyance that let the cat out of the bag

I believe the translation software will improve to a very usable level very quickly, but this will not solve the "human" element, and therefore not a complete solution.

Of course, Radio, seeing Esperanto as just a hobby is not a problem at the individual level. It would be a problem at the level of the movement.

Why should, for example, the Curator of Edukado.net have dedicated so much time and energy to the obtaining of Europe wide offial recognition (Common European Reference Level on language skills) for exams in Esperanto and the production of exam papers to that standard, for just a hobby.

The idea that Esperanto should be fit for purpose as a second language for international communication keeps everything on track and imposes a necessary discipline on the development of the language.

Even as a hobbyist, presumably, you would not enjoy your hobby so much if Esperanto were to split into dialects (or more realistically, become dotted with naciismoj), lose precision of expression, and not have the vocab and phraseology you need to express your thoughts.

It's a belief in Esperanto, that has produced, PIV and PAG and PMEG and the massively detailed translation of the DUDEN picture dictionary, and the wealth of translated and original literature. All of which, the hobbyists can benefit from today, but which would most improbably have developed from an exclusively Raŭmisma standpoint.

I'm not saying, of course, that everybody who learns Esperanto must sign up to a Finvenkista philosopy. But I am saying that without that philosphy being well-established in the movement (part of our culture) we wouldn't be where we are today.

Radio~!:I suspect there are common phases which most Esperantists go through:
1) New Enthusiast..
2) Reformer..
3) Missionary..
4) Finvenkisto..
5) Depressive..
6) Raŭmisto..

I have been able to identify with most if not all of those at least a little at some time.

But I haven't abandoned (3) altogether. I wear a badge and am happy to talk about E-o if anyone wants to know. Just occasionally it has happened.

Radio~!:As a Rauxmist who currently spends about two hours per weekday and at least one day of the weekend working on Esperanto stuff..

I'm impressed. That's the sort of effort that people put into an Open University course. You could take a part-time degree with that sort of dedication!

sudanglo:
The idea that Esperanto should be fit for purpose as a second language for international communication keeps everything on track and imposes a necessary discipline on the development of the language.

Of course, Raŭmists do believe this.

Even as a hobbyist, presumably, you would not enjoy your hobby so much if Esperanto were to split into dialects (or more realistically, become dotted with naciismoj), lose precision of expression, and not have the vocab and phraseology you need to express your thoughts.

Exactly. Raŭmists have the same interest in the preservation and propagation of the language that Finvenkists have.

It's a belief in Esperanto, that has produced, PIV and PAG and PMEG and the massively detailed translation of the DUDEN picture dictionary, and the wealth of translated and original literature. All of which, the hobbyists can benefit from today, but which would most improbably have developed from an exclusively Raŭmisma standpoint.

Perhaps, although as I ponder this more I realize that Radio~! has made a good point that Raŭmists may be just as passionate as Finvenkists, and therefore just as motivated to do things for Esperanto. But I really think this is an empirical question. I hope someone will actually collect some data someday. I'd be very interested in it, and also in where people locate themselves in Radio~!'s "stages."

I sometimes think about this same phenomenon in other contexts. At the risk of offending, I'll use the example of Judaism. I have many Jewish friends, almost all of whom are self-described as "liberal". They tend to find "orthodox" Jews a bit annoying, and sometimes mock their careful observances, etc. And yet, although Judaism is not an evangelical religion, most Jews have an interest in Judaism not disappearing (by sheer assimilation, intermarriage, conversion, and so on). And whether they like it or not, the orthodox Jews provide a kind of center of gravity, or anchor. They keep Judaism from losing its focus (That's way too many metaphors).

This is all very speculative, but perhaps the Finvenkists play a similar role in the Esperanto movement.

I like the Judaism analogy, and I think it's true for many religions.

A not-too-religious person who doesn't go to religious services except on holidays is only able to go to religious services on holidays because there's someone who is devoted or religious enough to keep the congregation running year-round.

This applies to any religion or school of thought. It could even be a community of atheists, with some "meh" atheists and some really fervent atheists.

I am mainly a Raumist, though the talk of "linguistic minority" status does make me a little uncomfortable, though I do understand the source of the analogy. I am not a finvenkisto in the very least.

But over the past few years I have spent hours upon hours doing work for lernu. I have no idea about the beliefs of Katalin Kovacs and the rest of the team at Edukado.net, but I believe that "Esperanto ideology" is not a factor in someone's decision to be active in Esperanto.

Remember that Raumism believes in Esperanto for its own sake. Therefore a Raumist would believe that it is worth learning Esperanto because it's a cool activity, so a Raumist would be just as likely to spend a lot of time teaching Esperanto or working on Esperanto activities, as an ocarina enthusiast who loves playing the ocarina and wants to help others who are interested in learning, or a knitting enthusiast who creates a huge knitting website to exchange ideas and project pictures with other knitters. It's not the the ocarina players and knitters want to "convert the whole world" to play the ocarina or to knit; instead, they want to enjoy interacting with other people who like playing the ocarina or knitting.

Disclaimer: what I'll say about anglophones in general, of course allows for exceptions, the most notable being people like you who read this, who are honest enough to learn a neutral language instead of imposing your own to others.

Now the message in itself:

Most anglophones will not buy such devices. They'll go on speaking only in English, and they will sell the devices to the barbarians who don't speak their language and who, stupid enough, will be delighted to buy them.

Regards,

Daniel

sudanglo:At the moment, computers and the Internet are greatly aiding the spread of Esperanto.

The growth in the number of people with a basic knowledge of Esperanto in the last five years must surely be considerably greater than that in any five year period beteen 1950 and 1990.

However, what do you imagine will happen in the near future when a hand-held device becomes available which accepts an audio input in a foreign language and outputs to an earpiece (in a passable if not perfect rendering) a translation in another language?

danielcg:Most anglophones will not buy such devices. They'll go on speaking only in English, and they will sell the devices to the barbarians who don't speak their language and who, stupid enough, will be delighted to buy them.

You never know. It could filter down from the military. Anglophone militaries would certainly buy a lot of those! (they are already using a primitive version of this kind of thing).

If it wasn't too expensive I could imagine tourists getting them, too. Even though people say that "everyone speaks English", I think that an anglophone making a second international trip (after the first one, where they discovered that everyone *doesn't* speak English) would want to buy one, if the price wasn't prohibitive.