I've tried to generate interest in Esperanto a lot where I live, and I get the most positive reactions when I don't play up the political neutrality or history of it!

I tell people about the actual language, and what excites me about it. Then once they find it interesting, I show them how a lot of the thing things that they like about it are due to its constructed nature. I point out how similar the vocab is by giving them a couple example sentences and showing them that they can already get the gist of the meaning. I then tell them how short a time it took to get to this level of understanding. So I show them how easy it is, rather than declaring how easy.

In their minds it then becomes like a more accessible latin, a more simple way of getting experience with vocab that'll help them elsewhere.

Eventually people get curious about its history and the motivations behind it when they are interested enough. Seemingly not the other way around. Then they cement the idea of usefulness with their initial interest.

I suppose this style is harder to advertise on a large scale. Though I am trying, through a blog that doesn't have pages of history or lofty goals, but just points out the interesting bits. But it certainly requires a lot of effort!

I think you are right Eldanar. Too often the accounts of Esperanto begin with the history of its birth. This can be offputting, and is far less interesting than demonstrating by example how the language works.

I noticed, when I was doing a stint at the Language Show in London how immediately attractive to the general public were the posters put out by the Springboard group, which, listing certain Esperanto words and their equivalents in other languages, illustrated how much the European languages have in common and how this is reflected in Esperanto vocabulary.

Anything that demonstrates how acessible the language is, is likely to produce a positive response.

Furthermore if you show that in many European languages the word for snake (for example) is practically the same as Serpento in Esperanto, this at one fell swoop makes the language seem less 'artifical', with all the negative connotations that that label bears.

Ceiger, I do not imagine that the General Public supposes that Esperanto is to be shunned because it has lexical deficiencies.

They can easily imagine that in an artificial language you could have a word for 'screwdriver', or an abstract concept like 'discomfort'.

Rather, I think it is, that they have difficulty in imagining how Esperanto can have situational idioms - appropriate turns of phrase for use in specific contexts, with a recognized import.

They immediately and quite rightly suppose that Esperanto is used only in limited situations because there is no community or society in which Esperanto is in daily use.

To chat someone up in English you might enquire whether you might buy them drink. In French your enquiry is whether they want to take a glass (prendre un verre).

Joe Bloggs instinctively suspects that observing the social niceties in Esperanto must necessarily be problematic. It can't work as a 'real' language for social communication, which is a major function of language.

Handling this prejudice has to be an important aspect of how we promote Esperanto. And no amount of blathering about how Esperanto is 'just another language' is likely to overcome this natural suspicion.

With regard to this, the General Public has instinctively got it right.

sudanglo:Ceiger, I do not imagine that the General Public supposes that Esperanto is to be shunned because it has lexical deficiencies.

They can easily imagine that in an artificial language you could have a word for 'screwdriver', or an abstract concept like 'discomfort'.

Rather, I think it is, that they have difficulty in imagining how Esperanto can have situational idioms - appropriate turns of phrase for use in specific contexts, with a recognized import.

I dunno, I reckon only a few would be able to jump to that conclusion. To be honest, if it's the general public we're talking about, I don't think the thought of vocabulary or idioms would have even crossed their minds. Such things are assumed to exist if we call Esperanto a language, even a made-up one.

sudanglo:Handling this prejudice has to be an important aspect of how we promote Esperanto. And no amount of blathering about how Esperanto is 'just another language' is likely to overcome this natural suspicion.

With regard to this, the General Public has instinctively got it right.

Once again, I don't think it's a natural suspicion at all, if it even exist. You'd have to be grabbing at straws an awful lot to reach that conclusion, and there's nothing to tell you you're right or wrong without having learn Esperanto or listening to a critic of esperanto (who could only make that statement if they knew Esperanto intimately enough), which barely count as the general public.

So unless we're counting people who have listened to the opinions of an ex-esperantist-turned-critic intimately enough to have formed a rather interesting opinion on Esperanto without having learnt it, I don't think the general public care about such precise themes.

(following on from last message)

My general experience with the general public who know of Esperanto is that they are suspicious about the neutrality aspect, since the language looks so European (normally something said by someone who's studied languages from both sides of the globe), or that no one would speak it. Artificiality is another concern, but only if worded wrong (I often push the message that it's "made up, but like how an android is a made-up human, not as in a fairytale" etc).

And then, there's the overwhelmingly big group of people who have learnt bits and pieces of many languages like Esperanto, or heard of them and looked at them, but don't feel they have time to learn languages and even if they did would probably learn something they find more interesting to them personally.

There's positive interest in the idea of actually talking to someone using the language though, and what's more what you talk about (I mean precise recollections of conversations, not things like "you can talk about anything [/propaganda]")

I don't think the thought of vocabulary or idioms would have even crossed their minds. Such things are assumed to exist if we call Esperanto a language, even a made-up one.

Agreed Ceiger, that it is a natural assumption if Esperanto is a 'real' language. But from many reactions that I have encountered, the assumption is that Esperanto can't be a 'real' language.

There has to be a place where it is in daily use for all normal functions for it to be like a 'real' language. And ignorant as the General Public may be, they know there is no such thing as Esperanto-land.

This, I think, is the main stumbling-block that needs to be addressed in propaganda.

Perhaps if we spoke of Esperanto as a communication tool, or made less sweeping claims for it rather than grouping it with the natural languages, this might be more productive and of course more realistic.

I understand perfectly the desire to present it as just another language in these politically correct times where any discrimination is frowned upon, but its essential 'artificiality' is one of its principal advantages and to disguise this is to throw the baby out with the bath water.

sudanglo:There has to be a place where it is in daily use for all normal functions for it to be like a 'real' language. And ignorant as the General Public may be, they know there is no such thing as Esperanto-land.

Ah true, now I see where you're coming from. Perhaps when such a question comes up, it'd be useful to draw comparisons. E.g., the original Lingua Franca, or Romany, or other "orphaned cultures", where a culture has grown up without a land.

Perhaps if we spoke of Esperanto as a communication tool, or made less sweeping claims for it rather than grouping it with the natural languages, this might be more productive and of course more realistic.

I think we can go half way. It's not right to say Esperanto is separate from natural languages, when it's mostly inspired by the and was created in a way that wasn't particularly ground breaking (which is why it feels so natural). But things like "Esperanto, THE international language" are definitely very dramatic and exaggerating no doubt .

I understand perfectly the desire to present it as just another language in these politically correct times where any discrimination is frowned upon, but its essential 'artificiality' is one of its principal advantages and to disguise this is to throw the baby out with the bath water.

That's assuming that Esperanto's artificiality includes features that can't possibly arise in natural languages, which is wrong otherwise Esperanto would be unspeakable by humans

There's nothing more we can stress than we already are, e.g. regularity and a logical-enough system. Esperanto's artificial creation doesn't really set it aside from naturally formed languages in any other way, since the fact is that it was invented by a relatively normal human mind.

So, stressing artificiality will be merely a redundant history lesson and reaffirmation of the language's lack of irregularity etc. It should be mentioned, but since Esperanto's in a transition period between conlang and natural language, and since even then it's a conlang which is basically a neatened up version of a natural language (a cyborg language?), I don't think we can push too far in either direction without creating some sort of discrepancy.

Perhaps "Esperanto, the cyborg language - natural language augmented with artificiality, at the service at whoever speaks it".
Robocop's cool, after all

ceigered:
But things like "Esperanto, THE international language" are definitely very dramatic and exaggerating no doubt .

idolinguo.org.uk: "...The Esperanto movement had built up a fervour which gave it a quasi-religious quality. The basic grammar and vocabulary of the language were treated as 'untouchable', and anybody who questioned their sanctity was regarded as a heretic!..."

Does it describe the past or is it still on issue?

qwertz:idolinguo.org.uk: "...The Esperanto movement had built up a fervour which gave it a quasi-religious quality. The basic grammar and vocabulary of the language were treated as 'untouchable', and anybody who questioned their sanctity was regarded as a heretic!..."

Does it describe the past or is it still on issue?

It depends on what you call an issue.

The basic grammar and a core vocabulary of Esperanto are considered untouchable. That is still current. The meaning is that we consider the basis of the language to be fixed. We will no longer accept changes to certain basic aspects of the language.

A heretic? Not really. A few people want to change the things that are considered unchangeable. But their changes are not accepted as normal Esperanto. The changed language is not "new Esperanto" or "improved Esperanto"; rather, it is a new language based on Esperanto.

Incidentally, Ido is also closed to changes. Maybe they don't speak too loudly about this, but you can't go and change the core of Ido today either.

For practical purposes, I believe that Ido is now as fixed as Esperanto is.

erinja:

qwertz:idolinguo.org.uk: "...The Esperanto movement had built up a fervour which gave it a quasi-religious quality. The basic grammar and vocabulary of the language were treated as 'untouchable', and anybody who questioned their sanctity was regarded as a heretic!..."

Does it describe the past or is it still on issue?

It depends on what you call an issue.

The basic grammar and a core vocabulary of Esperanto are considered untouchable. That is still current. The meaning is that we consider the basis of the language to be fixed. We will no longer accept changes to certain basic aspects of the language.

A heretic? Not really. A few people want to change the things that are considered unchangeable. But their changes are not accepted as normal Esperanto. The changed language is not "new Esperanto" or "improved Esperanto"; rather, it is a new language based on Esperanto.

Incidentally, Ido is also closed to changes. Maybe they don't speak too loudly about this, but you can't go and change the core of Ido today either.

For practical purposes, I believe that Ido is now as fixed as Esperanto is.

I don't see why a fixed unchangeable core grammar would be a bad thing, honestly. If the grammar functions and allows one to articulate their thoughts with a degree of coherence, why muddle around with it and cause confusion? Esperanto grows and evolves, but to change core concepts would render any attempt to learn it meaningless and fruitless. People would just up and leave.