EdRobertson:

ceigered:Ease is also relative. In my opinion, Interlingua seems almost easier than Esperanto*, because it's pretty much regular, flexible (in pronunciation too), yet still stays very similar to existing, yet very popular, languages.

Sorry, but Interlingua is NOTHING like Esperanto. Interlingua is a language PROJECT. It's not a real language. Come back in 100 years when it's been in EXTENSIVE use by more than a handful of people.

Esperanto isn't a project. It's a living language.

Dude, you've shot down what I was saying with a non-argument (which contributes to some stereotypes about Esperanto/ists). What I'm saying is that the *ease* of learning, independently without external factors, is similar to Esperanto. In fact, the projects ARE quite similar too, cosmetically (the spirit in their creation is slightly different though, yet arguably two sides of the same coin).

To use the argument that Esperanto is a living language is valid, but in context, and without using that as an excuse to simply bash your opponents by going "YOU GUYZ DONT SPEAK REAL LANGUAGES!".

Fact is, when it comes to "global domination", neither Esperant nor Interlingua are really going anywhere are they?

(and also, as for your actual argument, you don't have much to stand on. Are you calling Interlingua speakers and their community and culture, no matter how small, non-existent?).

--

Note Ed I'm not trying to go up against you, but I think we could be heading down a trap with what you've said then.

3rdblade: Other people think that that goal is naive or not worth striving for; there's not much for them to talk about here.

That's actually relevant, since the discussion is for a) examining what sort of logical (as opposed to emotional angry ranting) counterarguments we might encounter, and how we could better position our strategy to circumvent that. And also because that bit about paying out globish or something like that came up which could be counterproductive to the cause...

There's already many good reasons out there for learning Esperanto. The problem is that some of them clearly aren't working enough, people are becoming disillusioned, or the arguments never worked in the first place for some, so it can't hurt exploring all avenues.

ceigered:

EdRobertson:Sorry, but Interlingua is NOTHING like Esperanto. Interlingua is a language PROJECT. It's not a real language. Come back in 100 years when it's been in EXTENSIVE use by more than a handful of people.

Esperanto isn't a project. It's a living language.

Dude, you've shot down what I was saying with a non-argument (which contributes to some stereotypes about Esperanto/ists). What I'm saying is that the *ease* of learning, independently without external factors, is similar to Esperanto. In fact, the projects ARE quite similar too, cosmetically (the spirit in their creation is slightly different though, yet arguably two sides of the same coin).

To use the argument that Esperanto is a living language is valid, but in context, and without using that as an excuse to simply bash your opponents by going "YOU GUYZ DONT SPEAK REAL LANGUAGES!".

Fact is, when it comes to "global domination", neither Esperant nor Interlingua are really going anywhere are they?

(and also, as for your actual argument, you don't have much to stand on. Are you calling Interlingua speakers and their community and culture, no matter how small, non-existent?).

I accept your point about the desirability of not being Esperanto-chauvinist, but ...

It is one thing to say a language with (realistically) 30000 fluent currently active speakers is a viable option. It is quite another to claim that for a project with (at most) 200 speakers who have many fewer opportunities to actually use their language, a fair number of whom speak Esperanto anyway.

Can I refer you to Detlev Blanke's "Interlinguistische Beiträge: Zum Wesen und zur Funktion internationaler Plansprachen" (unfortunately only available in German, I think). There he lists the 28 stages that a language project has to go through to become a real language which develops under its own steam, as Esperanto has done, and to quote F. de Saussure, "semiotic life begins".

Only Esperanto has ever done this, and there are good reasons to believe that none of the current "rival" projects will ever do this, if their hitherto rates of progress are anything to go by. Only a handful of projects, including Interlingua, got to stage 16, "Structural differentiation of the language community". Only Ido, at one point in its history, (other than Esperanto, of course) got to stage 19 "Worldwide presence" (i.e. really worldwide, and not just a few countries) at one point, but now Ido's back down to stage 15, "Meetings", or stage 16 at best.

I don't want to put projects down, but we have to emphasise that Esperanto isn't one any longer, and left that stage behind it nearly a century ago.

@ Ed (I won't cite everything you've written otherwise this is gonna be a massive message haha).

The numbers of Esperanto certainly are a benefit, and I think it's certainly useful to use them as an advertisement of sorts. I've put more effort into Espernato for that reason, since there's more people it can connect me to.

But the problem I find with 200 speakers not being enough is that some language communities have that amount or far less. On the other hand some language communities have many speakers but little culture at all.

I also think that the amount of speakers spread across the globe doesn't limit the potential of Esperanto's competitors, since they still have the potential to spread were certain factors to change, where as Esperanto also has the potential to stagnate at this stage.

Finally though, using Ido or Interlingua as examples, they're still languages, still being used and purposed inter-nationally, so I see little problem in including them in a similar category to Esperanto. Esperanto merely possesses a longer history and larger community (and subsequently as a combination of the two a longer developed culture). I don't think that makes it any more a language or not, merely it's been field tested more.

The culture aspect could potentially cause problems though. The existing Esperanto communities culture might be wiped out, washed out or come into conflict with a new culture should Esperanto grow. Languages with a smaller association with culture, particularly those that tend to align themselves with "science" (Interlingua, Lojban, and rather strangely Ido (I doubt Ido was scientifically inspired, knowing its history, but I've seen propaganda bout it)), those sorts of languages might actually avoid such problems.

(My biggest problem with comparing EO with other langauges is that size really means nothing. Manchu has 60 speakers, barely any use now in China and even Manchurian culture has been steamrolled by Han culture, so does that mean Manchu's now just a language project? Rather nowadays it is BOTH a language and project)

Other people think that that goal is naive or not worth striving for; there's not much for them to talk about here.

Well said, 3rdblade.

To put my point in different words, I think we are missing a trick in not being quite so ready to comment on the indequacies of national languages for international purposes.

This mainly comes from it being so time-consuming (and expensve) to get to a point where the poor eksterlandano can deal on an equal basis with the native speaker. An issue which Esperanto neatly side-steps.

Last night, I went to a small drinks party for a neighbour's birthday at which a Spanish girl was present, who in a desperate hope to improve her job prospects had booked herself up for a 6-week residential course to learn English.

You could judge instantly (she was half way through the course) that it wasn't going to do her any good - she had difficulty in following the most simple sentences.

One knew immediately that it was money down the drain, and one couldn't help thinking about the much higher level she would have reached in 6 weeks of Esperanto surrounded by fluent Esperanto speakers.

This requirement to know English, to get on in life, which is now so firmly established in many Continental countries is really unfair.

To demonstrate the advantages of Esperanto takes some time. You have to explain quite a bit. On the other hand virtually everybody in the UK has some direct experience of how English doesn't work for international communication - unless you happen to belong to an academic elite.

Although it's not politically correct to say so, I suspect that a lot of people in the UK are fed up with hearing their language mangled on a daily basis, and the primitive communication which ensues in their contacts with non-native learners of English (the much-vaunted international language).

The only way this is not going to get worse is if they start teaching foreigners English from birth. And then what happens to their own cultures?

Esperanto as a political cause may seem naive to some. But then other political causes, now fully embraced, have started from nothing and gone on to change public opinion.

Ed is quite right, Ceiger, and we've been over this ground before.

If you compare the number of speakers of a language that is dying out, with the number of speakers of an artificial language that is trying to grow, then although the numbers may be equally small, you are not comparing like with like.

The question of when a language becomes a language has been debated before, both in the Esperanto-language and the English-language forums (e.g. messages of 2011-03-05 19:43:00 and later). I don't agree with the criterion of world-wide diffusion, because this would count out most known languages before international travel became feasible.

Nor are numbers a good guide; Zamenhof first celebrated his creation in 1878, when only a handful of people spoke it in a preliminary form.

Zamenhof felt at a certain point that his language had become alive and that he had attained fluency in its usage, though that is a subjective indication, and therefore perhaps should be treated like anecdotal evidence.

In a generally literate culture, I would suggest that a good objective reference point for the establishment of a new language is the emergence of literature, as this implies that a sufficient stability of grammar and comprehensiveness of vocabulary has been reached, whether manifested in the publication of textbooks, original literature or translations from other language, whether in magazine or book form. For Esperanto I would use the publication of the Unua Libro in 1887.

With other languages like Ido or Interlingua, I would ask the question: has a stage comparable to the Unua Libro been reached, and if so, when? I leave these questions to others.

EdRobertson:

Borgo:And how do you do that?

Good question. The single most important thing I think we need to do would be to change how we describe our origins and the nature of the language. Esperanto is not a constructed language, still less artificial. It was not immaculately conceived by some idealistic guy in 1887. Esperanto is a real, fully-functioning living language, just like any other fully-functioning living language on the planet, and its new words are not made up or approved by some committee.

Esperanto was originally a proposal, one of a whole tradition of proposals at the time, in response to a perceived need, but it was the one that caught on, just like VHS became the videotape standard and not Betamax. It wasn't necessarily any better than the others, it just worked and was in the right place at the right time. What made the big difference was that then, over a generation or so of people actually using it, it gradually became a real language, and continues to develop and change and adapt to new circumstances today, just like any other fully-functional living language.

But with two differences: a) it's much easier to learn than any other language, and b) it's neutral, because it doesn't belong to any group in particular. In short, play down LLZ, and play up the other tens of thousands of pioneers.

Why learn it? A whole number of reasons:
a) It's fun to meet people from all round the world, and be able to talk to one another expressing what we really think.
b) what happens in (a) is also good for educational and personal development reasons,
c) and even networking.
d) It helps you learn other languages,
e) which also does (a), (b) and (c).
f) International friendship between people from different countries is a good idea, and racism and chauvinism is a bad idea. Forget the idea that what we're doing isn't political, it is. But with a small 'p'. EDE please note, I am never going to vote for you.
g) We're all humans - shouldn't we be able to talk to one another?

I didn't include bleating abstractly about so-called "language democracy" there. I think everybody sees through that one as just a selfish con to publicize Esperanto, without getting too controversial. If you want to support minority languages, try actually doing that. We'd get more respect. And I didn't include slagging off the English language, as if one culture was worse than any other, while at the same time trying not to notice Western military and economic imperialism, a much bigger problem. As for wittering on about the cost of translation, interpretation and language learning, in the EU etc., how do we get translators, interpreters and language teachers to come on board if we're talking about making them redundant? D'oh!

NICE ED,,,FULL DETAIL

erinja:The single most important thing to do is to learn the language.

After you have learnt the language well, then you can start to think about encouraging others to learn it.

If you do not speak it yourself, it does not do any good to try to convince others to learn it, to tell them how wonderful and easy it is.

As the famous writer Kabe said, "Esperanton plej necese devas lerni la Esperantistoj mem!" (Esperanto should be learnt, most importantly, by the Esperantists themselves)

LOL ERINJA..GOOD...

sudanglo:To put my point in different words, I think we are missing a trick in not being quite so ready to comment on the indequacies of national languages for international purposes.

We're not missing a trick at all. We're avoiding falling into a logical trap.

People who attempt to learn foreign languages are the kind of people we want. It means they're outward-looking, and open to other cultures, and prepared to come part of the way to meet and understand other people.

We don't want people who are inward-looking, those who prefer other people to speak something they're familiar with and make no effort themselves, people who despise foreigners, or people who are too stupid to learn at least the basics of another language.