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How Many Readers Speak Esperanto?
lifebouy asks: "I just read a story about a high school that teaches Esperanto. I've noticed the majority of Esperantists I have met are IT professionals, perhaps because it nurtures our need to explore new things. So I was wondering, how many Slashdot readers speak Esperanto? Has anyone else noticed the high rate of IT Esperantists?"
Look it's one thing to assume that
That's ok, and it's probably true.
But implying they are so nerdy as to speak Esperanto?
That, sir, goes too far!
For that, we will duel with plastic "light sabers" at dawn! (Nerd dawn that is, 1 PM local time.)
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
Mi paroli ne esperanto, vi malg^entila bul!
(For those that don't get it, it's a rough translation of "I don't speak esperanto, you insensitive clod!")
He who laughs last is stuck in a time dilation bubble.
If a person who speaks 3 languages is "trilingual" and a person who speaks 2 languages is "bilingual", then what do you call a person who speaks 1 language?
Answer: American
I think this illustrates the image that many people around the world have. Just about everyone in Europe seems to speak multiple languages. Perhaps Esperanto would be a good way for americans to get with the program globally ;)
"The value of a man resides in what he gives,
and not in what he is capable of receiving."
--Albert Einstein
Well then, here's some irony for you: the main reason I originally learned Esperanto was to communicate with Chinese people, and become acquainted with Chinese literature. Esperanto is big in China, just check out the Cxina Interreta Informa Centro if you need proof--and there is a great amount of Chinese literature availiable in Esperanto translation. This is better than reading Chinese lit in English or another European language, because in those translations it is a native speaker of the European language who produces the translation, and a lot of interpretation is required to do it (put any two translations of the Tao Te Ching side-by-side to see how divergent they can be!). But Esperanto lit is always translated by a native speaker from his own language into Esperanto, so at least the interpretation that goes into the translation comes from the same cultural context as the work itself.
But the biggest argument is, learning to read a literary work in Esperanto takes as little as a month, whereas if you're going to be reading Laux Sxe's "Kamelo Sxangxi" (to name a Chinese novel I've read in Esperanto) in Mandarin Chinese, and you're a native English speaker, you're going to be studying for years, not weeks. --Not that there's anything wrong with that, but that's a key thing about Esperanto, it's easy, so there's no reason you can't learn it AND Mandarin Chinese, even if you put 95% of your effort into the latter.
I have to agree that many conlangs are essentially masturbatory works: playthings, pet projects or (shudder) fanfic. But Esperanto (and several others, Esperanto is just the "best of breed") are different. They were constructed to address the language problem, which is essentially this:
Learning another natural language (well) is *hard*, and once you've done it you only know one more, you can converse with some new subset of the world populace, and at a sub-native fluency. You're still at a disadvantage against a native speaker.
But, if there were an easy language to learn (deterministic pronunciation, no iregular verbs, etc) that there were no native speakers of, everyone could learn it and use it as a common, neutral ground. Buisness could be conducted and treatys negotiated without one party being at a disadvantage, and with the effort required to learn one simple language one can now speak to the entire world.
That is the goal of Esperanto.
It is, to a degree, misty-eyed idealism. Everyone get's to keep their local cultures, idioms, and languages, but also gets the ability to communicate with everyone else in the world thru a second auxiliary language. Learning other natural languages would still be an option for scholars or hobyists (or anyone, in fact, just as it is now), but not at all necessary for the tourist, buisnessman, or head of state.
It cannot be debated that it would be a Good Thing (tm). I love the idea, and yes, I speak Esperanto. Do I think this idealistic state will ever come to be? No, not realisticly. Will I keep trying to promote Esperanto as a good idea? Yes.
I'm a hobyist (I've been labeled a language fetishist by some) and an idealist, but I'm also rational. If someone can come up with 1 sane argument against a universal auxiliary language, or a better candidate than Esperanto for this language, I'd love to hear it.
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I learned Esperanto in 1996 and it has proven very useful. I travelled through Europe several times, staying at no cost at the homes of Esperantists, and finally moved there for good by first working for an Esperanto youth organisation in Holland. It's been a ticket to lower-cost travel, a genuinely international social life, and ironically more effective learning of national languages.
For those who would say that learning English or Mandarin is more important because there are more speakers, the traveller to, for example, Chile can't just call up any English speaker there and request free lodging and hospitality. With Esperanto, however, that's pretty common. In spite of the smaller number of speakers, Esperanto is much more useful for travel.
However, Esperanto is pretty useless if you spend all your time in the US. A lot of American Esperantists, though, end up leaving the US like I did after they learn the language because it's a ticket to a much more diverse and interesting world.
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