I'm surprised with all the comments here that I haven't seen anyone mention the fact that a student might be sick from class. I know one semester I came down with mono and almost failed all my classes. If I could've watched them from bed with my computer, I would certainly have been able to learn more and get much better results. Almost all students get sick sometimes and I'd rather they stay home and watch a lecture on podcast than come in and infect the instructor and other students.
Well, considering neither of them have probably ever played Go before, it'll probably be even enough.:) That reminds me, I should go out and get myself a Go board...
While learning complicated literary usage and idioms might be overwhelmingly difficult for some, it is within the reach of any young people to learn enough of the local language in a couple of days that they can talk about local culture.
Of any young person?! This is insane! Do you really think everyone has the same linguistic abilities as you do? I know you... you are a very intelligent person and I admire that. I know for me, however, that I studied Slovenian for months and was never able to even get by in the language when I visited Ljubljana. After being in Slovenia for a month I was finally good enough to be able to ask for directions and order food in restaurants in Slovenian. Just because you are incredibly adept at languages, does not mean everyone else is.
If you spent time in the central office of UEA or became significantly active in the movement's central organisation, you would see that the core of the Esperanto movement is obsessed with forcing its ideals on the outside world, including the idea that only Esperanto should be used in international communication. The Esperanto congress, along with all its prohibitions of exchanging national languages, is seen as an ideal environment that the outside world should be transformed into. It's a cult, essentially. Some people on the periphery, like yourself apparently, might believe that it's not a threat, but since the core of the movement is so rotten--and they have the funding, the power, and they represent E-o to the world--Esperanto is a lost cause. Just give up.
Since you want to limit this discussion to those who have spent a year in the CO of UEA, I will have to speak up as a current board member of the World Esperanto Youth Organization and a former one-year-long volunteer in Rotterdam. Your aggression against Esperanto still surprises me. Did you really learn nothing as you spoke Esperanto and used it for all those years? I know travelling to other countries using Esperanto was quite educational for me and I know other Esperanto speakers have had similar experiences. I had a lot of experiences that I know I would not have if I had just been speaking English or trying to get by in the local languages.
Telling people they should learn a lot of languages to talk to people in each country you visit is bogus. There is no way a normal person could learn that many languages and have meaningful conversations with the locals that way. I learn Esperanto to give the locals a choice. They can speak to me in Esperanto or English. It's not limiting, it gives the other person a choice.
I have long since stopped trying to convince others to learn Esperanto. If they, however, see the benefits of it and want to learn it, sure I'll help them learn it. Esperanto is an academic pursuit, just like learning to play Shogi (Japanese Chess). I realize not many people will learn Shogi, but I enjoy playing it. Is it harmful, since people are learning and playing Shogi, they won't learn a game like Chess? People watching a Shogi game, after all, won't be able to understand the game, unlike if they were playing a more well-known game like Chess.
If you want people to use the majority international language English to speak to others, perhaps we should all use Windows too, since "everybody is using it."
I've read your essay. Several times. Yes, Esperanto is an exotic hobby. Leave it to us. Let us enjoy it. Thank you.
I think it's just a matter of time before the GBrowser comes out and then we wouldn't have to rely on any other web browser. After all, Google did register gbrowser.com in April 2004...
Why not use the thumb sensors they have on many modern laptops today? Then, if someone steals it, they can't use it. Needless to say though, they would surely find a way to hack that... It could also send a satellite tracing sensor if someone unsuccessfully tried to thumb-in, but of course, this too could probably be hacked...
Well, to answer your question, it looks like 19 slashdot readers who actually found this story confessed to speak Esperanto (or at least have comments so favorable to Esperanto that I can't imagine that they don't speak it). They're names are:
Wow, you haven't travelled much outside of Western Europe, have you? During my travels, I've asked on several occasions for the people I've been having great conversations with in Esperanto to have their hand at English. It's very amazing how incredibly horribly they speak it. I mean, they don't know such simple words like never and of course you have to repeat yourself three times on very basic phrases to get yourself understood... and my Chinese friend who studied English for seven years couldn't even understand me after that! I still admit I was quite shocked to find myself in a restaurant in Istanbul where a waiter didn't understand the question "How much does it cost?" I mean, you really can't get more basic than that!
I'm sorry, but thinking that everyone can speak English, but just doesn't want to is just being arrogant. I guess I shouldn't criticize you though, because before I really started travelling, I thought the same way.
These are common arguments against Esperanto. However, you have to pick some script for a language, so it would make sense to pick one that the most people already know (and for that matter six letters in Esperanto aren't in other languages, making it neutral in this regard). The Russian Esperanto speakers that I know tell me that this isn't a big problem for them and in fact, knowing Esperanto helped me considerably in learning the cyrillic alphabet.
As for pronounciation, I have had trouble understanding foreigners trying to speak to me in English (for example at the airport or even in tech support at my last US company) because of their accent, but I have never continually had problems understanding anyone in Esperanto because of their accent. Also, if Esperanto had pitches and inflections, it would make the language much more difficult even for people who have pitches and inflections in their own language.
As for its evolution, Esperanto has evolved with a worldwide speaking community, so it has, in effect, evolved internationally. Some even predict that it's use today in Africa will show us the future of Esperanto's evolution.
As for your last comment, Esperanto is not as culturally loaded as every other language. I say this because in general, those who can speak Indo-European languages can learn it in one year while those who are not from these languages, learn it in two years (my Chinese friend could speak Esperanto better after six months of studying than English after seven years). Yes, it's not fair. But, it's a lot fairer for all of us than using any national language for this task. Also, as you pointed out in your last posts, it's impossible to design a perfect language. No matter how someone would design a language, others would not agree with it.
Basically, it's easy to theorize about how Esperanto doesn't and could never work as an international language. It's another thing to use it every day as your working language (as I do) among people from different continents and see it work.
Unfortunately not. From what I remember, the study was done in 1987, and he only released it to the World Almanac and Book of Facts. I keep planning on visiting him one of these days to look through the research papers though. I mean if someone published a book on the number of Esperanto speakers in Esperanto, it might become a best-seller.;-)
No, it is estimated there are over a million people who have at one time dabbled.
No, it is estimated there are over TEN million people who have at one time dabbled. Based on the study by Professor Sidney S. Culbert, there are 1.6 million Esperanto speakers in the world (foreign service level 3 speaking ability) which has also been published in The World Almanac and Book of Facts. Here are his personal comments on the survey:
...I have personally conducted an on-the-spot stratified sampling of populations in dozens of countries during a period of over twenty years, using hundreds of hours in attempting to trace down every person within the selected areas of the selected countries who meet my criteria of "speaker of Esperanto." In addition, I have the largest collection of items in and about Esperanto to be found in the Western Hemisphere -- a collection which has been thoroughly searched for any clues which could improve my estimate. In short, I know more about the topic under discussion than any other person...
...It is, however, annoying to go to elaborate, carefully-planned, and time-consuming efforts to obtain data nowhere else available, and then to have the results incompetently criticized by someone who bothers neither to read the material carefully nor check on the "facts" which he offers in criticism...
When I visited Europe I tried speaking German in France. Very few Frenchmen knew German. But everyone knew English.
Funny, when I was in Strasbourg (France), almost everyone seemed to be able to speak German, but almost no one seemed to be able to speak English. Oh well, guess I should've hanged out in the more touristy parts.
Well yes, Esperanto has not been around for a thousand years, but it does however have more than a hundred years of history. It is indeed a stupid idea that languages are written down in stone and do not evolve. That's probably why Esperanto evolves. A former UN translator, Claude Piron, wrote a few notes on the evolution of Esperanto in his article: Evolution is Proof of Life.
It already has happened. There's over a million speakers around the world. While that does mean that I'm not likely to just run into someone on the street who speaks it (like I did in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), but when I travel to a new city, I can almost always contact someone there who will show me the city or give me a place to stay for the night. I did this countless times travelling through Brazil and Europe using the Pasporta Servo. So, it is already useful, just not yet in international commerce.
I'm a full-time volunteer for the World Esperanto Youth Organization in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. As of July 2002, I've been speaking Esperanto as my primary language travelling for six months through Brazil and Europe and then volunteering here starting in January 2003. I'm also a board member of Esperanto@Internet which has done projects like lernu! which is one of the best free language teaching environments online as well as the founder of the Wikipedia in Esperanto which has over 8,000 encyclopedia articles after two years of work by an international team from over 25 countries and is now the 9th largest language in the project.
As for a high-rate of IT Esperanto speakers, I think a lot of it comes from the fact that we aren't put off by the word artificial because we're familiar with fields of study like artificial intelligence. Also, people working in IT are more likely to like the idea of a "logical language" even though Esperanto isn't really logically per se since no living language can ever be completely logical. Esperanto was initiated out of the need for a just international language and started just like an Open Source Project. So, another reason that many Esperanto speakers are techies is simply because we tend to use the Internet more than other people.
Professor Culbert of the University of Washington did a worldwide survey of Esperanto speakers and found there to be 1.6 million speakers at Foreign Service Level 3, so I generally just say there's more than a million.
I'm a full-time volunteer at the World Esperanto Youth Organization, so I use Esperanto everyday as my working language, because it's our only common language here. Yes, believe it or not, not everyone can speak English here.
But implying they are so nerdy as to speak Esperanto?
Well, it's true that most people in the states think that all Esperanto speakers are nerds, but people in Europe generally learn Esperanto to go to international parties. Also, the Brazilian Esperanto scene is something to be seen...
Then you'll create a booksharing program and people everywhere will start reading illegal books. Move over Napster, illegal book sharing is the wave of the future!
Slashdot Mirror
So can Google.
http://www.google.de/search?hl=en&q=sqrt(-1)
I'm surprised with all the comments here that I haven't seen anyone mention the fact that a student might be sick from class. I know one semester I came down with mono and almost failed all my classes. If I could've watched them from bed with my computer, I would certainly have been able to learn more and get much better results. Almost all students get sick sometimes and I'd rather they stay home and watch a lecture on podcast than come in and infect the instructor and other students.
But, but, there's always Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarter_(U.S._coin)
Well, considering neither of them have probably ever played Go before, it'll probably be even enough. :) That reminds me, I should go out and get myself a Go board...
Since you want to limit this discussion to those who have spent a year in the CO of UEA, I will have to speak up as a current board member of the World Esperanto Youth Organization and a former one-year-long volunteer in Rotterdam. Your aggression against Esperanto still surprises me. Did you really learn nothing as you spoke Esperanto and used it for all those years? I know travelling to other countries using Esperanto was quite educational for me and I know other Esperanto speakers have had similar experiences. I had a lot of experiences that I know I would not have if I had just been speaking English or trying to get by in the local languages.
Telling people they should learn a lot of languages to talk to people in each country you visit is bogus. There is no way a normal person could learn that many languages and have meaningful conversations with the locals that way. I learn Esperanto to give the locals a choice. They can speak to me in Esperanto or English. It's not limiting, it gives the other person a choice.
I have long since stopped trying to convince others to learn Esperanto. If they, however, see the benefits of it and want to learn it, sure I'll help them learn it. Esperanto is an academic pursuit, just like learning to play Shogi (Japanese Chess). I realize not many people will learn Shogi, but I enjoy playing it. Is it harmful, since people are learning and playing Shogi, they won't learn a game like Chess? People watching a Shogi game, after all, won't be able to understand the game, unlike if they were playing a more well-known game like Chess.
If you want people to use the majority international language English to speak to others, perhaps we should all use Windows too, since "everybody is using it."
I've read your essay. Several times. Yes, Esperanto is an exotic hobby. Leave it to us. Let us enjoy it. Thank you.
Wikipedia isn't a forum. So... sounds like a direct attack on Slashdot.
I think it's just a matter of time before the GBrowser comes out and then we wouldn't have to rely on any other web browser. After all, Google did register gbrowser.com in April 2004...
Why not use the thumb sensors they have on many modern laptops today? Then, if someone steals it, they can't use it. Needless to say though, they would surely find a way to hack that... It could also send a satellite tracing sensor if someone unsuccessfully tried to thumb-in, but of course, this too could probably be hacked...
The final match result is a 2.0 - 2.0 draw, proving yet again that the day of the humans is over.
All Your Pants Are Belong To Us Well, someone had to say it...
Once our pants show the blue screen of death, we'll know that technology has gone too far...
LeninZhiv, InfiniteVoid, asimulator, bandy, Yaztromo, mutterer, amuzulo, UnuMondo, lburgbac, zhiwenchong, donh1942, bertilow, Quixotic137, goulo, wallywam1, riskyrik, litui, dvdeug, Via_Patrino
It would've been so much cooler if the answer had been 42. Damn.
I'm sorry, but thinking that everyone can speak English, but just doesn't want to is just being arrogant. I guess I shouldn't criticize you though, because before I really started travelling, I thought the same way.
As for pronounciation, I have had trouble understanding foreigners trying to speak to me in English (for example at the airport or even in tech support at my last US company) because of their accent, but I have never continually had problems understanding anyone in Esperanto because of their accent. Also, if Esperanto had pitches and inflections, it would make the language much more difficult even for people who have pitches and inflections in their own language.
As for its evolution, Esperanto has evolved with a worldwide speaking community, so it has, in effect, evolved internationally. Some even predict that it's use today in Africa will show us the future of Esperanto's evolution.
As for your last comment, Esperanto is not as culturally loaded as every other language. I say this because in general, those who can speak Indo-European languages can learn it in one year while those who are not from these languages, learn it in two years (my Chinese friend could speak Esperanto better after six months of studying than English after seven years). Yes, it's not fair. But, it's a lot fairer for all of us than using any national language for this task. Also, as you pointed out in your last posts, it's impossible to design a perfect language. No matter how someone would design a language, others would not agree with it.
Basically, it's easy to theorize about how Esperanto doesn't and could never work as an international language. It's another thing to use it every day as your working language (as I do) among people from different continents and see it work.
Unfortunately not. From what I remember, the study was done in 1987, and he only released it to the World Almanac and Book of Facts. I keep planning on visiting him one of these days to look through the research papers though. I mean if someone published a book on the number of Esperanto speakers in Esperanto, it might become a best-seller. ;-)
No, it is estimated there are over TEN million people who have at one time dabbled. Based on the study by Professor Sidney S. Culbert, there are 1.6 million Esperanto speakers in the world (foreign service level 3 speaking ability) which has also been published in The World Almanac and Book of Facts. Here are his personal comments on the survey:
Yes, this urban legend is widely spread. The best "proof" I could find against it though was this reply to the editor of the National Review.
Funny, when I was in Strasbourg (France), almost everyone seemed to be able to speak German, but almost no one seemed to be able to speak English. Oh well, guess I should've hanged out in the more touristy parts.
Well yes, Esperanto has not been around for a thousand years, but it does however have more than a hundred years of history. It is indeed a stupid idea that languages are written down in stone and do not evolve. That's probably why Esperanto evolves. A former UN translator, Claude Piron, wrote a few notes on the evolution of Esperanto in his article: Evolution is Proof of Life.
It's simply never going to happen.
It already has happened. There's over a million speakers around the world. While that does mean that I'm not likely to just run into someone on the street who speaks it (like I did in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), but when I travel to a new city, I can almost always contact someone there who will show me the city or give me a place to stay for the night. I did this countless times travelling through Brazil and Europe using the Pasporta Servo. So, it is already useful, just not yet in international commerce.
I'm a full-time volunteer for the World Esperanto Youth Organization in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. As of July 2002, I've been speaking Esperanto as my primary language travelling for six months through Brazil and Europe and then volunteering here starting in January 2003. I'm also a board member of Esperanto@Internet which has done projects like lernu! which is one of the best free language teaching environments online as well as the founder of the Wikipedia in Esperanto which has over 8,000 encyclopedia articles after two years of work by an international team from over 25 countries and is now the 9th largest language in the project.
As for a high-rate of IT Esperanto speakers, I think a lot of it comes from the fact that we aren't put off by the word artificial because we're familiar with fields of study like artificial intelligence. Also, people working in IT are more likely to like the idea of a "logical language" even though Esperanto isn't really logically per se since no living language can ever be completely logical. Esperanto was initiated out of the need for a just international language and started just like an Open Source Project. So, another reason that many Esperanto speakers are techies is simply because we tend to use the Internet more than other people.
Professor Culbert of the University of Washington did a worldwide survey of Esperanto speakers and found there to be 1.6 million speakers at Foreign Service Level 3, so I generally just say there's more than a million. I'm a full-time volunteer at the World Esperanto Youth Organization, so I use Esperanto everyday as my working language, because it's our only common language here. Yes, believe it or not, not everyone can speak English here.
Well, it's true that most people in the states think that all Esperanto speakers are nerds, but people in Europe generally learn Esperanto to go to international parties. Also, the Brazilian Esperanto scene is something to be seen...
Then you'll create a booksharing program and people everywhere will start reading illegal books. Move over Napster, illegal book sharing is the wave of the future!