Esperanto
- Thread starter October Country
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I understand that Forrest J.Ackerman did the main work for Incubus, Esperanto translation
As far as English as the global language is concerned, I can only reply "What total arrogance." English, in no way can claim to be the global language.
What about the protection of endandangered languages. Esperanto certainly has a part to play in this please see http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_YHALnLV9XU
As far as English as the global language is concerned, I can only reply "What total arrogance." English, in no way can claim to be the global language.
What about the protection of endandangered languages. Esperanto certainly has a part to play in this please see http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_YHALnLV9XU
What about the fact that the majority of the whole world speaks it and it's possibly the easiest to learn and the one the most people in the world are familiar with...? Or the fact that it IS already officially accepted as the international language?Brian Barker said:
I dunno, that sounds like a pretty good set of reasons to me...
The "rules" of English are constantly being broken, and new words and slang... Well, there's just so much of it.Johnn Johnston said:
I live in London and if anyone says to me "everyone speaks English" my answer is "Listen and look around you". If people in London do not speak English then the whole question of a global language is completely open.
The promulgation of English as the World's "lingua franca" is unethical and linguistically undemocratic. I say this as a native English speaker!
Unethical because communication should be for all and not only for an educational or political elite. That is how English is used internationally at the moment.
Undemocratic because minority languages are under attack worldwide due to the encroachment of majority ethnic languages. Even Mandarin Chinese is attempting to dominate as well. The long-term solution must be found and a non-national language, which places all ethnic languages on an equal footing is long overdue,
The promulgation of English as the World's "lingua franca" is unethical and linguistically undemocratic. I say this as a native English speaker!
Unethical because communication should be for all and not only for an educational or political elite. That is how English is used internationally at the moment.
Undemocratic because minority languages are under attack worldwide due to the encroachment of majority ethnic languages. Even Mandarin Chinese is attempting to dominate as well. The long-term solution must be found and a non-national language, which places all ethnic languages on an equal footing is long overdue,
Very true. Even in Bath, which is way out in the west-country (possibly the 'whitest' region of the UK), you will hear many different languages spoken on the street.Brian Barker said:
English as a language is inherantly bound up with England's history, ie Empire. However, it is not as simple as 'England was the imperial aggressor, ergo English is oppressive'. Take for example Nigeria; a former British colony, where the territorial boundaries laid out in the 19th century had nothing to do with local tribal ethnic groups, consequently within the modern state of Nigeria there is multiple native languages, since Nigerian independence, the local population (including author of world renown Chinuah Achibe - i know i spelled it wrong, but im rushing this post) took English and made it their own. They have done this to serve their own practical interests: Education, state administration, international communication, literary and cultural recognition on the world stage, all made easier through the use and adaptation of English.
English is no longer owned by the English, we forced it on much of the rest of the world and those we forced it upon have taken it to serve their own purposes. Good for them.
As for international languages? While Esperanto interests me, I see a trend towards the localisation of common languages taking place in the future.
I nominate Zombie for the international language, a simple moan is all you need to express yourself
Example in english: I want some water
Zombie: *gesture towards water* uhhhh
English: I don't think that's true, you might have misunderstood that article
Zombie: UHHHHHHHHHH
English: I love you
Zombie: ahhhhh *moves towards with hands in the global hug position or ghp
Example in english: I want some water
Zombie: *gesture towards water* uhhhh
English: I don't think that's true, you might have misunderstood that article
Zombie: UHHHHHHHHHH
English: I love you
Zombie: ahhhhh *moves towards with hands in the global hug position or ghp
My reaction is as follows:
The possession by all ordinary citizens of a second language held in common depends upon learning it at school.
More than thirty years ago I discovered that Esperanto had not died of natural causes, but had been almost suffocated by teachers of modern languages as it was perceived to threaten their livelihoods. So I took the trouble to learn it and found it extremely useful. Now that the British project, Springboard to Languages, is available to everyone on internet, teachers of modern languages should embrace Esperanto as an ally to their cause. As the only teachers with the right to teach the rising generation a second language, they can equip not just the elite, but all of the citizens of the future with an international language - leaving them to choose to be taught national languages by teachers of modern languages.
Best wishes from David Curtis, in Weston-super-Mare, England.
The possession by all ordinary citizens of a second language held in common depends upon learning it at school.
More than thirty years ago I discovered that Esperanto had not died of natural causes, but had been almost suffocated by teachers of modern languages as it was perceived to threaten their livelihoods. So I took the trouble to learn it and found it extremely useful. Now that the British project, Springboard to Languages, is available to everyone on internet, teachers of modern languages should embrace Esperanto as an ally to their cause. As the only teachers with the right to teach the rising generation a second language, they can equip not just the elite, but all of the citizens of the future with an international language - leaving them to choose to be taught national languages by teachers of modern languages.
Best wishes from David Curtis, in Weston-super-Mare, England.
Well, it would be impossible to create a language that incorporates grammar or word structure equally from all languages and therefore it would of course be impossible to make Africans, Americans or Asians equally happy with it, but a global language ought to exist. But I don't think that there will be one in a reasonable future due to the fact that there is a good six billion people on this earth and they could never all agree on using a single language, even as a second language.
We could probably avoid many unpleasantries if we all spoke the same language, but then we would miss out on a great part of our national identity. Sigh... I wish it could work, but I doubt it will.
We could probably avoid many unpleasantries if we all spoke the same language, but then we would miss out on a great part of our national identity. Sigh... I wish it could work, but I doubt it will.
Isn't it one of the hardest to learn? Sure, any language is nice and easy when you grow up with it, but I've always heard that English is more challenging than something like Spanish. And please, the majority of the world? Last time I checked, 480 million isn't the majority of 6.7 billion-ish.Caliostro said:
Also, I'd say more people are familiar with Mandarin, http://www2.ignatius.edu/faculty/turner/languages.htm
Sorry, it's not one of the hardest.
Spanish is harder. German is harder. Russia is harder (especially if you are non-Slovakian, that is you are not Slovakian, Polish or Chech - that, plus new alphabet to learn), Polish is really hard to learn (especially our stupid grammar - where to use 'u' and where 'ó', where 'rz' and where 'ż', because both examples are same when you talk).
Hell, even my mother knows basics of English, and last language she got to study was Russian 20 years ago. But that's because we (the previous generation) were forced to learn it.
English is easy because:
1. It has pretty simple grammar (easy - easier - the easiest and so on).
2. It's adjectives don't change when you talk about a male or female. Although, you can't say a woman is handsome.
3. Doesn't have a lot of irregular verbs or nouns.
4. Verbs change form only in 3rd person. In Spanish, German, Polish and probably more, each person has it's own change.
Yeah, because that changing the -o to an -a for the feminine form of adjective was so intense back in 7th grade Spanish. Conjugating verbs is pretty basic too, even when you get into a new set of endings. It's just like "Ok, here are 6 more for (blank)"Abedeus said:
And aren't there tons of exceptions to the rules in English that you just have to memorize? English has quite a few anomalies that make it somewhat less accessible than other languages. It's definitely not the hardest, and might be somewhat easy to learn to speak poorly, but a lot harder to speak well.
Seriously, Spanish isn't that hard at all.
Interesting thought I just had, both English and Chinese (Mandarin?) are considered difficult languages to learn, but English is the most widely spoken language in the world and Chinese has the greatest number of speakers.
I guess where that's leading me is that ease of use and logic have very little to do with the popularity of languages.
Back to Esperanto though, surely a universal language should be one which is spoken by at least someone to begin with?
I guess where that's leading me is that ease of use and logic have very little to do with the popularity of languages.
Back to Esperanto though, surely a universal language should be one which is spoken by at least someone to begin with?
...Lol. The irony here is that I'm Portuguese. We have a lot more grammar and petty needless rules, much like Spanish. Not to mention it's also far more phonetically complex. English is pretty basic and straight forward, but elegant nonetheless.Shivari said:
First that study is almost 10 years old... Second, notice how almost no people speak it as a secondary language... You can't forget the Chinese are roughly 1/5th of the world population alone. However, if you look at the number of countries that speak it:Shivari said: