Sudanglo, you seem to be going through a rough patch at the moment. Some of the statements you've made here are very shocking.

EdRobertson:If you're going to take the piss out of something, make it something that deserves to have the piss taken out of it, like people who expect people to speak English when they themselves make no effort at all to learn other people's languages, or the little-Englander mentality of the BBC which has closed its pronunciation department and SEVEN years after Maria Sharapova won her first Wimbledon title, its commentators have STILL not learned how to pronounce her name. Now THAT'S ignorance. (Stress on the second syllable, if you're interested).

More that "Shara'pova" is now like the default. I get where you're coming from, but it's a bad subject to hold arguments on. I mean, if I became famous in Japan, it'd be unrealistic to expect them to say 'mere'dith, not meredisu. Similarly, in English, many foreign sounding CVCV etc words tend to end up having penultimate stress. More or less an unofficial part of the language. It just makes things clearer in the community and all.

I actually get shocked when I hear perfect pronunciation of English words in other languages and go "how on earth do you guys do that?! doesn't it get annoying after a while? " .

(bout the Japanese thing, I'd just "nipponicise" my last name to something cool like "marejizu" for fun anyway).

Sudanglo:Obviously one would be selective in ones targets. Attacking the struggling economic migrant is perhaps not fair play. But mocking those who use the argument that the world already has an international language in English, by pointing out the realities of such usage, seems fair game.

Well, it's still a bit of a problematic situation - we're essentially paying out how one language can't service the whole world, and then providing Esperanto as a solution to do the exact same? What happens 25 years down the track after Esperanto gets "accepted", and we find out that stubborn school children who don't want to learn a second language but have to for economic reasons later in life still suck at their 2nd language? The ridicule will go straight from English to Esperanto....

To prevent that, even if it helps competitors of Esperanto, the Esperanto community first needs to make sure the world is ready to accept a world language like Esperanto, and make sure we have a fertile ground to plant our green little language. We might actually have to play give and take to ensure long term survival. Sure, making slightly hypocritical statements about English might get us the "vote", but we might not survive the "next election" when people become disillusioned, if you get my drift.

sudanglo:are we supposed to just meekly allow the world to adopt Globish without a word of protest.

This was addressed to Miland, but I'd like to add another 5¢.

I ask - what is wrong with Globish if the world happily accepts it? Can we do the same things with Globish that we could do with Esperanto?

In fact, could Globish be a better vehicle for Esperanto's ideals than Esperanto?

We could compare this to a very efficient (and well built) petrol engine, compared to a solar-powered motor that can't really run for long but does a good job at it when it can. Ultimately, the dirty petrol engine will be more reliable and take us further quicker. The solar motor might be clean, but at this stage it's not developed enough to carry us where we want to go.

Who knows, perhaps if we sacrafice a bit of the environment a little longer, the benefits from using the dirty petrol engine could pay off and allow us to upgrade to a more efficient clean fuel solution later (Mr. Solar motor v2 ).

A tough question, and I know some might go "pff, he's full of rubbish, everyone knows Esperanto's better than English, anyone can see that due to (cites obvious reasons)", but is it really better?

If we just "assume" it's better, that's fine for us, but what about everyone else? Even if Esperanto is better, if we haven't thought about how it could be worse, what will doubters say? They'll pick us apart.

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(PS, one example positive of globish - it already has worldwide penetration and people sorta get it. Esperanto is still lagging behind a bit in that regard. Sure, Interlingua has a similar benefit to Globish, but due to its lack of competitiveness (it's 50 years younger than EO and its creator didn't feel like advertising it too much Esperanto-style, so it's like a runner refusing to run a race in a way. In this case, Globish is slightly less fit than the rest of the runners, but he's got determination - Esperanto's too busy wondering if he should continue running the race or not, since he's got other things on his mind. And Klingon's the streaker.)

razlem:Are you out of your f---ing mind? This is how wars start, sudanglo. If people hear Esperantists "attacking Globish" or "battle cries", they'll liken the movement to terrorism.

This reaction is a bit extreme. In general, such harsh reactions only convince those who say them in the first place.

Re the idea, I think the sudanglo's idea of pointing out the deficiencies of Globish, rather than the benefits of EO, is sound, but knowing Esperantists as I do and just from some of the reactions here, I think one would be hard pressed to find many Esperantists who'd want to be negative in that way. Most of us see ourselves as nice people who wouldn't do that kind of thing. In fact I think a lot of people are attracted to EO because it matches how they think about themselves. However, nice guys often do finish last, as the saying goes...

Also if it actually did happen, I don't think the reaction would be much, because the impact of EO on the rest of the world is so small right now. Just some noise from a minor political movement. No wars of terrorism would result. The people who do come to EO because they think it matches their kind personality might turn away if they get a bad impression of some kind, which would not be desirable for the movado.

There is a big difference in the reasons people study English or Esperanto; the former is largely for business and 'livelihood', the latter for altruism. EO is too far away from the idea of 'survival' to ever arouse very angry passion. The altruism angle is the key, I think. Everybody wants to think that they're a good person and do right by others, right? (Even if they habitually don't!)

In 2011 I think a viral video would work better, as well as the other stuff I mentioned before.

Re the idea, I think the sudanglo's idea of pointing out the deficiencies of Globish, rather than the benefits of EO, is sound

Thank you for your support 3rd Blade.

But I claim no originality for the idea. It was Zamenhof himself who argued that the only rational solution to 'la lingva problemo' is an artificial purpose-built language belonging to no one, rather than a national language.

Chainy, you can be as shocked as you like, but the Esperantist position (as opposed to the Raŭmist approach) is that national languages are unsuitable vehicles for international communication.

The only way you can consistently argue that Esperanto is a good thing, but Globish is a not a bad thing, is if you limit your concept of Esperanto to that of a language hobby, using justifying arguments like Ed's - it's jolly for international holidays.

By the way, Ed if it's OK for the Scots to reclaim their cultural identity by promoting Gaelic (or for that matter for the Welsh to stick up bi-lingual roadsigns in a country where everybody speaks English), then what is wrong with the English objecting to drowning in a sea of Globish?

There's a trivial but obvious point to be made here. You can't actually come to fully appreciate the advantages of Esperanto without actually making the effort to learn it, which few are keen to do. On the other hand the deficiencies of Globish are experienced by many at first hand.

The views of many political/society changing movements have risen to universal acceptance from a David and Goliath situation. Think now of how attitudes have changed to smoking, and to the environment.

And Ceiger, the structure of the language pretty much guarantees that if Esperanto became more more widely taught then any 'broken Esperanto' would be far more acceptable than the horrors of Globish.

sudanglo:And Ceiger, the structure of the language pretty much guarantees that if Esperanto became more more widely taught then any 'broken Esperanto' would be far more acceptable than the horrors of Globish.

Are you sure? Is not Esperanto sort of a "Globish" to the Romance languages with its pseudo-latin appearance?

Obviously Romance speakers have more tolerance for that sort of thing since romance languages tend to look very similar to each other, where as English speakers consider anything non-standard to be bad (why Scots was for a long time considered to be "Bad English" - which is essentially what it started off as, very non-standard English, then it became its own language).

Also, if we insist on being language nazis (forgive the term of phrase for those who don't like it), that'll simply result in Globish speakers being English speakers.

Actually, for Australians I think we consider "Globish" to be just English with an accent, and I'm sure many other English speakers feel the same. There's nothing particularly special about it. Nothing horrific about it.

As far as I'm concerned, English is already too "screwed up" that any amount of pruning to it would fix it up and send it back to its hayday. The great vowel shift, British colonisation, and many other factors assured that.

Also, if you try to break "proper English" off from this notion of "Globish", you'll only be accelerating any chance of a proper split. Worst case scenario, what happens if the world then decides GLOBISH is correct, and we English speakers are too conservative? Then WE'LL be the ones paying catchup

All hypothetical of course, but I can't see any benefit of being grammar nazis.

I just want to say that I find many of the opinions expressed here by Sudanglo to be very silly (for obvious reasons). It would be very easy to pick apart and ridicule Sudanglo's flimsy 'arguments' but I can't be bothered wading through it all right now. I don't want to waste my time on it.

ceigered:Can we do the same things with Globish that we could do with Esperanto?

You said it. Globish sounds to me like Basic English with twice the vocabulary. 1500 words is the level of Juna Amiko, or perhaps pre-university studies of any foreign language. So a suitable comparison might be Esperanto as attained by progresantoj.

Globish thus sounds to me like a sound foundation in English as a second language, and adequate for survival.

However Esperanto in principle should be able to deal with any international discussion at any level, especially peace-making. Could Globish manage that with 1500 words?

Ok, so I've decided to respond to the rather iffy statements of Sudanglo.

sudanglo:For a start perhaps we could organise a concerted attack on 'Globish' (international English as it is actually spoken).

A feeble bunch of whining Esperantists launching a 'concerted attack' on Globish?! That just sounds utterly preposterous.

sudanglo:
I, for one, am fed up with hearing the ugly vowels, jarring consonants, and primitive grammar of our evergrowing immigrant population here in the UK.

Deary me, get over it. I can imagine how difficult it is for them to learn English. I myself have been living in France for the past six months and I'm having rather a hard time learning French! Luckily, the locals here don't have your dodgy attitude.

sudanglo:
And hardly a televison or radio bulletin passes without some interview with an Eksterlandano whose command of English is sorrowful.

This would still happen with Esperanto. Have you not heard how badly people often speak it?! It's often barely intelligible - ok, so Esperanto is easier than other national languages, but it still requires a lot of effort. It's no magical solution!

sudanglo:
Forget about the classic English virtues of tolerance and fairmindedness. It's time to start taking the piss - or to establish a tradition of correcting every mispronunciation, misuse of vocabulary and mangling of grammar, every time we encounter it.

Taking the piss?! That's just stupid and very rude. You won't win any friends with that kind of attitude.

sudanglo:
Speak English or Esperanto, not Globish, should be the battle cry.

Battle cry?! Oh dear. You're really trying your best to humiliate Esperantists.

Ultimately if Globish works, then Esperantists should indeed support it. There's no denying that Globish does function rather well as an international language, which can only be a good thing.

Yes, we can say that Esperanto is capable of being even more effective - we all know the arguments. But that doesn't mean that we have to be against other forms of international communication!

Sudanglo seems to be rather miffed that Globish is somehow having a bad influence on his beloved native form of English. Well, I think that's rather exagerating the situation. All languages are influenced by others, they always change here and there. There's no problem with that.