Thread: Esperanto

Does anyone here speak it? I'm learning it, and I'm curious if anyone else speaks it.

Interesting language but I think it is not spoken widely enough to catch my interest. If I were to study a non-spoken language, I would rather choose Latin.

Anyway, here is a link I found on the language
http://anaproy.homeip.net/eocourse/

chu vi estas esperantisto?
I learned something some years ago, but forgot many when it comes to writing. Reading is much simpler.

I started an on-line course about three months ago, did the first lesson and haven't done anything more since. I would like to learn it, but I haven't really got the time to do so right now.

By far the best site to learn it is lernu.net. You will reach fluency in about six weeks. The downside is that you don't get enough practice with it in real life unless you go to those overpriced, dork-filled Esperanto congresses.

Why would anyone want to learn Esperanto? Only a bunch of @@@@@ @@@@s speak it.

I really don't like planned languages in general (Klingon, Tolkein's made up language like elvish, etc). I mean it's a great concept and all but it's not catching many people's interest and not appealing enough for average people to learn it.

I am sort of interested in Slovio though because it's a pan-slavic language that tries to take the most simple forms of words that is throughout all the slavic languages and make it understandable to everyone who speaks any slavic language.

I don't see how you can compare Klingon or Elvish (both of which are languages invented for fictional races in entertainment) and something which was expressly created for international diplomacy. The purpose of Esperanto was not for "average people" to speak one language everywhere. It was created so that someone from Country A could speak to people from Countries B, C, D, ... ad infinitum, and all of them would understand each other without having to spend 12 years becoming fluent in each other's languages. Its true place would be in an organization like the United Nations or in business meetings between, say, a Japanese business and an American one. If every ambassador spoke one simple language that only takes a few weeks to become fluent in you wouldn't need to hire and pay hundreds of translators. Esperanto was never intended for some Joe Schmo to use in his daily life with his neighbors nextdoor. Zamenhof merely desired a simple to learn, common language for international use that was 100% politically/economically neutral. Unfortunately, most governments have been reluctant to use it for whatever reason (for an interesting historical look at their resistance to a universal diplomatic language, The Guardian has a good article here http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story ... 49,00.html)

What about "la lojban"?

I study Latin in school (for six years now). The cool thing about Latin, although it's a dead language, is that it has a great culture behind it and the fact that most European languages were influenced by it

I study Latin in school (for six years now). The cool thing about Latin, although it's a dead language, is that it has a great culture behind it and the fact that most European languages were influenced by it

And if you want to work at the Vatican, you will need it.

The problem with Latin is that it's not exactly the world's easiest language. The idea behind Esperanto was to create an easy language with simple and logical grammar and easy to memorise vocabulary.

P.S. I've heard of parents speaking Esperanto to their kids, so native speakers of Esperanto exist.