Tamil learning site in lernu
by EoMy, February 15, 2011
Messages: 9
Language: English
EoMy (User's profile) February 15, 2011, 4:40:09 PM
I need it for the Tamil speaking friends to understand what Esperanto is about.
The UEA president and Esperanto scout President, both are from India.
The Tamil speakers have that much in India which is not including the Tamil speakers out of India like in Malaysia.
Tamil language has long history and is the 20 world most speaking language.
erinja (User's profile) February 15, 2011, 8:03:35 PM
I don't personally know any Esperanto speakers who speak Tamil. I visited Chennai a few years ago on business (it's the largest city in Tamil Nadu) and was unable to find any Esperanto speakers there. I think Tamil Nadu might have a few speakers scattered here and there but I think it's fair to say that there are few Tamil speakers of Esperanto.
lernu is not even available in Hindi. Someone expressed an interest in translating it some time back but never really did anything with it.
It's a shame but since we are run by volunteers, we can only offer the languages that people have volunteered to translate.
Also it is biased towards languages from rich countries, because inhabitants of the rich countries have the internet access and the free time to do the translations. Therefore we have a complete translation of the site into Upper Sorbian (a minority language spoken in a small region in Germany, by about 40000 people - fewer than Esperanto!) but no translations into any of the languages of the Indian subcontinent. The difference is one person - one very dedicated translator of Upper Sorbian, versus zero translators for languages like Hindi and Tamil.
EoMy (User's profile) February 16, 2011, 10:54:24 AM
erinja:No one has worked on a Tamil translation of lernu.Thanks Erinja. It is sad. I all the time question the UEA about it but no reply from them. I did leave msg for Probal as it is the same , silent.
lernu is not even available in Hindi. Someone expressed an interest in translating it some time back but never really did anything with it.
It's a shame but since we are run by volunteers, we can only offer the languages that people have volunteered to translate.
Miland (User's profile) February 16, 2011, 1:14:37 PM
erinja (User's profile) February 16, 2011, 1:50:41 PM
Of course that isn't necessarily relevant for a Tamil speaker living outside of India.
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This is directed at everyone here, not just EoMy. Lernu is a free website, translated by volunteers. If you ever wonder to yourself "Why don't you guys offer the [...] language?", then the question to ask yourself is "How can I personally contribute?"
Maybe you don't speak the language you were asking about, but maybe you speak another language whose translation is incomplete or nonexistent. Maybe your language is fully translated but the dictionary still needs some work (this is true of every single language, so no one a free pass here - NO language has a complete dictionary at lernu).
It's easy to ask others to volunteer to do work. And translating the entire lernu! site into a new language is a lot of work, no doubt about it. But before you ask someone else to do something like translation of a website, how about asking yourself first, "How can I contribute?" As a bonus, when you yourself are familiar with how the system works, you can easily answer questions from the person that you have asked to volunteer, and help them with problems they may encounter.
EoMy (User's profile) February 20, 2011, 3:12:48 PM
erinja:That's true as well, Miland. An Indian person who speaks Tamil but not English might find that their time is better spent learning English than Esperanto.Sorry, can't do much in my country. I tried to talk to few Tamil speakers but they asked me, if they learn esperanto, can they get a job ? go to unversity
Of course that isn't necessarily relevant for a Tamil speaker living outside of India.
I am speechless and just don;t know what to say. What to do next for the esperanto ? Well... economy, even the cafe and hotel which used the name of Esperanto did not require the staff to speak esperanto as i was told, but how true it was.
Miland (User's profile) February 20, 2011, 8:06:54 PM
EoMy: even the cafe and hotel which used the name of Esperanto did not require the staff to speak esperanto as i was told, but how true it was.That reminds me of the Esperanto Cafe in Manhattan which I visited in September 2009 - but they did not speak Esperanto there either. The cafe has since unfortunately closed.
EoMy (User's profile) February 21, 2011, 4:00:19 PM
Miland:That reminds me of the Esperanto Cafe in Manhattan which I visited in September 2009 - but they did not speak Esperanto there either. The cafe has since unfortunately closed.Miland, well, i think the esperantists need to take some actions in order to help the speakers of esperanto to gain some benefits. All esperantists should ask for hotels and cafes to provide esperanto speaking staff when they use the word esperanto.
I hope my friends who is going to open a hostel which would station the esperanto staff to cater for esperanto speakers.
May God bless them.
ceigered (User's profile) February 22, 2011, 12:29:25 AM
Because they just happened to use the name Esperanto I don't think that is good enough reason to force them to provide Esperanto services. That's a bit like saying that a Chinese restaurant owner must speak every chinese language, or that a thai person can't open a chinese restaurant
.The actual Latin word for "hope" is just "spes", and I believe "esperance/esperanza/etc" all come from a vulgar latin "sperantia", but that's slightly off topic.