RiotNrrd:99 Luftballoons (sp?)

Luftballons.

sudanglo:However, probably any publicity, is good publicity. If the general public hears the word Esperanto enough, this must have some beneficial effect.

Which is why Nixon went on to serve several more terms before being elected Emperor of America after the watergate incident?

I think it's best we stick to good publicity. I think the "any publicity is good publicity" is now irrelevant in a world where people no longer are forced to consider alternatives to their favourite "brands", unless they like to challenge themselves (a dying breed it seems).

CrisJr25:but telling toddlers what's Esperanto, why it should be used, so that they will grow up thinking about Esperanto and studying it, and they will pass it to their children, so that Esperanto will become a family thing.

Hehe, we might wanna be careful with that though, wouldn't surprise me if that led to some "highly reputable" (cough Fox News, The Sun, and most Australian media cough) news outlets declaring Esperantists were indoctrinating children! (at least here in Australia I could imagine that).

Maybe while we're at it with this Esperanto revolution we can work on a revolution aimed at making communities friendlier, nicer things in general as opposed to the apathetic, suspicious things they are now . Esperanto would no doubt do well in a nicer climate where paying out new things isn't a status symbol..

Ceiger, you are not thinking this one through. Just because certain phenomena have occurred in a national language, it does not follow at all that they will in Esperanto.

Esperanto is not just another language. It is a cultural creation with certain governing principles universally accepted by the community.

Reflect on it. How could, say 'esti' or 'havi' (classically irregular in national languages), become different from other verbs in the language in their formations.

It would require a totally new principle in the structure of the language, and would be such a violation of the consistency of Esperanto that its speakers would pounce on it immediately. It simply would never get taught.

Estas could conceivably be shortened to 'stas in some circumstances but the basic structure root+gramatika finaĵo would remain. It would just be the adoption of a new root, or a coexistence of synonyms.

In all the development that Esperanto has undergone, can you think of even one example where the underlying universal wordbuilding structure has not been followed.

Wherever you look, irregular plurals, consistent spelling, grammatical gender, conjugation of verbs or whatever, there's no way Esperanto could begin to acquire the chaos of national languages.

Even in the field of idiom, there are strong pressures not to adopt opaque phrases with a special meaning to anywhere near the degree that occurs in national languages.

What you can see in the history is a tendency for further simplification, in the direction of greater consistency in the dropping of international borrowings in favour of building from a single root - eg komputero becomes komputilo.

sudanglo:Ceiger, you are not thinking this one through. Just because certain phenomena have occurred in a national language, it does not follow at all that they will in Esperanto.

We don't KNOW that do we? I'm at least using my imagination to explore if the possibility exists, you're just treating what you WANT to happen as if it WILL happen.

Esperanto is not just another language. It is a cultural creation with certain governing principles universally accepted by the community.

Erm, so are all other languages.

Reflect on it. How could, say 'esti' or 'havi' (classically irregular in national languages), become different from other verbs in the language in their formations.

es/has-haŭs-hajs? I don't know, I haven't been to the future. It's POSSIBLE, but if or how it will happen neither of us can NOT know.

When I get my time traveller's license, I'll find out for you.

It would require a totally new principle in the structure of the language, and would be such a violation of the consistency of Esperanto that its speakers would pounce on it immediately. It simply would never get taught.

Not when you have the whole world speaking it.

When you have 300,000 Esperantists, it's VERY easy to keep a SMALL community in check and weed out irregularities. Especially when practically EVERY normal speaker of EO today RESPECTS its traditions and "purity".

That won't be the case should it become an international language proper! Why would someone reluctantly taught it in school care about "tradition" and "keeping the language intact"? They wouldn't and they don't, thus why this international English you fear can actually scare you - because people who aren't part of the language's culture don't care about accidentally breaking rules over and over again, do they?

Estas could conceivably be shortened to 'stas in some circumstances but the basic structure root+gramatika finaĵo would remain. It would just be the adoption of a new root, or a coexistence of synonyms.

Indeed.

In all the development that Esperanto has undergone, can you think of even one example where the underlying universal wordbuilding structure has not been followed.

Neologisms? Apart from that it's never happened. The community is too small. There's no reason for it to happen yet, is there?

Wherever you look, irregular plurals, consistent spelling, grammatical gender, conjugation of verbs or whatever, there's no way Esperanto could begin to acquire the chaos of national languages.

[....]

What you can see in the history is a tendency for further simplification, in the direction of greater consistency in the dropping of international borrowings in favour of building from a single root - eg komputero becomes komputilo.

Esperanto's current demographics favour armchair intellectuals, so of course things are going smoothly.

It's when Esperanto's demographics, after the "fina venko", consists predominately of people who just speak it and don't care that much about grammar or tradition or regularity etc. Even if they heard that Esperanto was a good idea because of regularity etc, after a while if they aren't as dedicated as say most of us here, they'll eventually become desensitised and no longer care about speaking perfectly, and that's when things start to change.

====

You want Esperanto to stay pure? Don't give it to the world.

You want to give Esperanto to the world? Be prepared for the chance that it will change, it will become irregular, or there will be many who speak it wrong.

As we are now, there are enough diligent grammar nazis (sorry those who don't like the use of "nazi" there) to patrol the use of the language and help learners stop making mistakes.

We won't be enough if Esperanto takes off though will we? 300,000-1,000,000 can't manage a language population of a billion or more. That's just impossible.

The chances that Esperanto remains perfectly grammatically regular are close to null I'd say, but it's not impossible that it might stay regular, perhaps in an alternate universe where human nature was different.

EDIT: Also note that we can very easily pretend irregularities are simply "special forms", so even if an irregularity appeared the internal spin-machine would probably refuse to admit it.

RiotNrrd:
Non-esperantists may be more likely to hear pure Esperanto music than experience any other

kind of Esperanto art,...

I full agree to that. Music is the most proper possibility to participate at foreign language art events where someones doesn't understand the sung lyrics. I.e. in Germany, if someones has no talent to write nice lyrics. That doesn't matter. Just translate and perform it in English. If the tunes/music style is proper to the audiences, don't take care to that English lyrics the audience can not full grasp. Who cares. If someones try that with German lyrics. Hey, the would have to leave the stage. Or the audience folks will get a new beer. (Germany has a very liberal alcohol in public use law.)

RiotNrrd:
... but if they do they will make no effort to learn or understand the lyrics.

I believe that's different in Europe. Even if that is an contrary argument to the last sentences I wrote above.

RiotNrrd:
They might learn the words, though, if the Esperanto is just in the chorus.

Yes, I agree. If it comes to non-native languaged songs, mostly the refrain or chorus is that one, which impresses mostly. But I believe, that depends at the command of the songs language. I.e. if I hear German (my native language) Hip Hop i.e. of Dendemann or Wir sind Helden, Sportfreunde Stiller, Juli etc. I also impress parts of the lyrics. Or more in detail, I can grasp the full idea of a song which is sung in German. Of course, if I'm capable of grasping the overall idea of a song, I also remark parts of the song other than the refrain. Partly I'm capable do that for English lyrics.

RiotNrrd:
In the US, at least, when someone is presented with a language they don't understand, they

generally just ignore it. They have nothing to hang the new language on, so it just slides right

off them. The un-understood language becomes visual or auditory clutter, and not much more.

I believe, that should be at least different in the South of the U.S.. Spanish songs should be popular there, too. And what about the Mardi Gras events?

RiotNrrd:
For example, very, VERY few non-English songs will get airplay here (in fact, I can't think of more than three or four popular (chart-reaching) songs that were entirely in some other language; now that I'm trying to, maybe I can't even think of that many (99 Luftballoons (sp?), and Guantanamera, are about all that come to mind - I'm sure there must be at least a couple of others, though, and I'm no doubt musically behind the times).

Ha, ha! 99 Luftballons (99 Red Baloons) sung by Nena. I heard it was blocked some time at West-German radio stations before Reunion of Germany. But she can "wrap" German language very melodic.

I really like songs sung at my native language. Which is German. And definitly not English. I.e. Sportfreunde Stiller - Ein Kompliment (Original video)| Sportfreunde Stiller - Ein Kompliment (live) in English?! What a "horror"! Maybe that such called or better based on Hamburger Schule could be useful for Espo music, too. The Hamburger Schule music style gets first popular in German city Hamburg. It 100% focuses at German natives, because (maybe) only German natives accept music which is sung sometimes non-melodic but contains 100% honestly lyrics. This honestness maybe only German native speakers can recognize and of course and more important, these audience can high value it. That seems to be the success of that music style. That doesn't conflict with the fact that I like English language(d songs).

RiotNrrd:
Music in which Esperanto - maybe just one or two phrases of it - is mixed with mainly English (or whatever) would be preferable to pure Esperanto. In the former, it might be seen as a gimmick or curiosity, but in the latter it will simply never be heard.

Dolchamar tried that. The first edition of Trejn al Noŭer was "styled" that way. Take a hear to the interviews. The second edition recorded at Vinilkosmo studio is pure Esperanto styled.

Obviously the solution to the Esperanto question is to get only elitists interested, especially rich business people. The masses mean very little in the long run, and even the internet is little more than a playground for the idiots of the world. After all, don't the people basically have to do whatever the government and banks want?? Money talks, and it speaks English. You may get some christian nobodies, or some middle class intellectual types, but unless your target is much higher, you will not get Esperanto anywhere.

If I seriously wanted Esperanto to be enforced, I would seriously consider contacting British Petroleum and have them promote Esperanto to distract people from their oil spill. The highest authorities in the USA are banks. They can make a liberal turn into a conservative. They are all powerful. You will not do anything that they do not want. They create the debt-ceiling of the land. Talk directly to the Gods, not to their followers, when asking for succor.

You will only find, even if you are speaking Esperanto, that you are on a long-leash, but a leash none the less. There are leash laws in every land. Some lands have longer leashes, but there is always the ability to run too far and feel the leash tighten around your throat.

ceigered:

sudanglo:Ceiger, you are not thinking this one through. Just because certain phenomena have occurred in a national language, it does not follow at all that they will in Esperanto.

We don't KNOW that do we? I'm at least using my imagination to explore if the possibility exists, you're just treating what you WANT* to happen as if it WILL happen.

*.Maybe that's the character of any - sorry - narcissistic "movement", whose members are praticing imaginary internationalism-patriotism. Bonan nokton, verda fiereco.

qwertz:I believe, that should be at least different in the South of the U.S.. Spanish songs should be popular there, too. And what about the Mardi Gras events?

You have a lot to learn about the US...

There aren't many French songs sung in New Orleans at all. A lot of it is in a Cajun English dialect, which we can (for the most part) understand.