Comments on: The power of Esperanto

By: Mike Jones

Mike Jones — Sat, 09 Dec 2023 17:49:13 +0000

Esperanto can help people learn English.

More specifically, parallel translation in Esperanto of a work in English is of help to ESL students. This is a goldmine of a cottage industry waiting to be developed.

some examples currently available:
Thomas Gray’s poem ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’ exists in parallel Esperanto translation, and can easily be found by googling for it. The same goes for his poem ‘Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes’. Both translations are in the public domain, with no attribution required.

By: marbuljon

marbuljon — Thu, 05 Feb 2015 21:03:57 +0000

Hej, I appreciate the link to the web article but sadly it doesn’t work! So I found it and here is a link that works (for now, anyway). The article is from 2012:

Swedish version:
http://www.lerumstidning.se/2012/07/ingen-esperanto-pa-gymnasiet/

La antaŭnomita ligilo nefunkcias, do trovis mi funkciantan:
http://www.lerumstidning.se/2012/07/neniuj-esperanto-kursoj-en-la-gimnazio/

By: Mike Jones

Mike Jones — Tue, 24 Dec 2013 03:52:04 +0000

Even if everyone in the world spoke English, and spoke it fluently, there would still be a need for another language. Every language is like a blanket with holes in it. The holes, however, are in different places for different languages. Therefore, the solution is simple: have an extra language on hand to fill the holes of the primary language when needed. Traditionally, French has served this role for English (to say nothing of the many expression from Latin used in English). For example, the plural of “Mr.” does not exist in English. When we need the plural, we simple use the French word for it: Messieurs. Thus, any “English only” policy would be self-defeating. One of the uses of Esperanto could be that of plugging the holes in whatever ethnic language is the primary one of a given milieu.

By: Nicole

Nicole — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 08:38:11 +0000

In reply to José Antonio Vergara. Jose Antonio, I agree completely with what you wrote.

By: José Antonio Vergara

José Antonio Vergara — Sun, 07 Oct 2012 12:45:03 +0000

Actually, our Esperanto phenomenon is deeply engaged with language awareness, the celebration of linguistic diversity and an active move towards reciprocal understanding on equal footing for ordinary people.

We Esperanto users do love languages, even to commit ourselves to this joyful collective initiative of language planning. The idea is so amazing, that it survived persecutions (under Hitler and Stalin, among others) and the current, money-led hegemony of English which makes us to look like naive loonies.

Well, it doesn’t matter. Esperanto provides us a completely different taste of freedom and dignity: it is not compulsory to learn it (unlike English for all of us, the 94% of the world population), but a conscious choice for an alternative, fairer communication with people all over the world.

By: José Antonio Vergara

José Antonio Vergara — Sun, 07 Oct 2012 12:34:29 +0000

It is nice to see an objective, positive mention of Esperanto coming from a professor of Applied Linguistics.
More commonly, such professors are prone to pass an easy judgement telling that something as “artificial” as Esperanto can’t exist and, therefore, they decide that it doesn’t exist. Facts are irrelevant, of course.

By: Sinjoro ENG

Sinjoro ENG — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 12:39:56 +0000

Good write up and Esperanto has more to offer now, especially for the children.

http://www.mondeto.com/1/post/2011/09/immediate-and-lasting-advantages-of-early-esperanto-1-brain-building.html

By: Sabine Fiedler

Sabine Fiedler — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 06:26:58 +0000

Thanks for this interesting post. As Arika Okrent writes in her book „In the Land of Invented Languages“ (2009: 110), “Esperantists today have it rough outside of Esperantolland (…) they are inevitably met with one of two responses: dismissive humour or sneering disgust.” The article on Esperanto in Herzberg in the German magazine “Der Spiegel” as well as your post inspired by it are different, they are a well-deserved reward for the Herzberg people’s year-long commitment to Esperanto. Even more interesting are the comments to your article. They show that – despite common belief – Esperanto is alive and kicking, and not only in Herzberg!
What has not yet been mentioned in the posts is that the linguistic features of Esperanto (above all its regular and productive grammar and the international character of its vocabulary) do not only make the language easy to learn, but they also raise pupils’ language awareness and highlight the links between languages. Studies have consistently confirmed that learning Esperanto facilitates subsequent learning of other languages. In this way Esperanto can even be a means to promote multilingualism and language learning.
Further information on this so-called propaedeutic effect of Esperanto and on other facets of planned languages and international communication can be found on the homepage of the Society for Interlinguistics:
http://www.interlinguistik-gil.de.

By: Brian Barker

Brian Barker — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 12:20:39 +0000

Esperanto is more widespread than people imagine. It is now in the top 100 languages, out of 6,800 worldwide. It is the 29th most used language in Wikipedia, ahead of Danish and Arabic. It is a language choice of, Skype, Firefox, Ubuntu and Facebook and Google translate recently added this international language to its prestigious list of 64 languages.

Native Esperanto speakers, (people who have used the language from birth), include World Chess Champion Susan Polger, Ulrich Brandenberg the new German Ambassador to and Nobel Laureate Daniel Bovet. Financier George Soros learnt Esperanto as a child.

Esperanto is a living language – see http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8837438938991452670

Their online course http://www.lernu.net has 125 000 hits per day and Esperanto Wikipedia enjoys 400 000 hits per day. That can’t be bad 🙂

By: Brian Barker

Brian Barker — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 12:18:52 +0000

In reply to Victoria.

For those who think Klingon should be the future international language please see http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8TQGVh025E4

By: KaGu:-}

KaGu:-} — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 07:10:20 +0000

In the suburb LERUM, in Göteborg, there is a local paper who did have the courage to publish a translation of a Swedish article on the prohibition of studies in Esperanto in the upper secondary school.

A person, probably a politician, who is hiding himself behind the signature “Svensktalande fd elev”, is complaining that the newspaper have put a translation in Esperanto of an article in Swedish in the same issue.

The person, who is complaining, seems to be a totally vision less person, who just think to the corner of the local block.

Pay a visit to http://www.lerumstidning.com/nyhet_visa.asp?id=16747&sidnamn=NYHETER#

and make a comment, if possible, in both English and Esperanto. It would be nice to make the people in Lerum, Göteborg aware of the existence of an international public that are in need of the translation.

By: Henriette Vanechop

Henriette Vanechop — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 01:50:08 +0000

An Aŭstralian friend came to visit me in company of a visitor from Mongolia. This gentleman did not speak English, and i do not understand Mongolian .After about 5 minutes getting acclimatised to each other’s slightly different accent, we happily talked together in .. ESPERANTO. Although here in Aŭstralia i fairly often speak Esperanto with friends, because, to me, Mongolia is “exotic” i treasure the memory …
Ĉion bonan, all the best, Henriette.

By: Nicole

Nicole — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 21:16:00 +0000

Often Esperanto and Klingon are mentioned together, but the aims are totally different. Very few people can speak Klingon fluently, According to the Wikipedia article about Klingon: “mastery of the language is extremely uncommon; there are only around a dozen fluent speakers of the language”. It is hard to say how many fluent Esperanto speakers there are, but obviously many, many more than for Klingon.

By: Victoria

Victoria — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 09:24:42 +0000

I’m fascinated by constructed languages and their power. I think a great example is also Klingon, a constructed language from Star Trek, which was, according to wikipedia and the Guinness World Records, “the most spoken fictional language by number of speakers” and along with Esperanto and the Lord of the Rings’ Elvish the most popular artificial laguage. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klingon_language. Klingon speakers are surely a powerful group. They even established a language institute, you can set up your google interface in Klingon http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=xx-klingon, etc. Not to mention all the money involved…
I would be interested in attitudes towards constructed languages. I’d suspect that Esperanto speakers may be judged positively as being “exotic” (although Esperanto is considered being “value-free”…). Surely people’s attitudes towards Klingon speakers are not that positive. I’d suspect they circle around “nerdy”, “geeky” or “bizarre”.

By: Penny Vos

Penny Vos — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 03:09:21 +0000

I had just such an experience in Germany. I was going to a conference in Alsace and had some days to spend between Frankfurt and there. I used Pasporta Servo to find an Esperanto speaker welcoming guests (there were several to choose from). He already had a Russian girl staying with him but I happily accepted the second couch and we had a wonderful time together. I don’t speak German and, although more Germans speak English than Esperanto, they would not necessarily have wanted to know me. Even if they did think I’d be good for their English practice, it would not have been as balanced an experience as it was for us, both pleased to be using our shared language.

By: Bill Chapman@gmail.com

Bill Chapman@gmail.com — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 13:16:25 +0000

My experience of Esperanto are thoroughly positive ones. Indeed, this language has some remarkable practical benefits. Personally, I’ve made friends around the world through Esperanto that I would never have been able to communicate with otherwise. And then there’s the Pasporta Servo, which provides free lodging and local information to Esperanto-speaking travellers in over 90 countries. Over recent years I have had guided tours of Berlin, Douala and Milan in this planned language. I have discussed philosophy with a Slovene poet, humour on television with a Bulgarian TV producer. I’ve discussed what life was like in East Berlin before the wall came down, how to cook perfect spaghetti, the advantages and disadvantages of monarchy, and so on. I recommend it, not just as an ideal but as a very practical way to overcome language barriers and get to know people from a very different cultural background.