Would You Support Esperanto?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by VetLegion

the founder of Esperanto, and IIUC many of his early followers, were Russian Jews of the universalist-utopian persuasion. Thats kinda the joke, that for most of them their native tongue already WAS a stateless international language.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by VetLegion
And if anyone thinks it would be too hard to learn a laguage nobody speaks, remember that Israelis resurrected a language that had no living speakers within decades. It's easy.

Hebrew had been used not only as a language for prayer, but for analysis of Jewish law, which meant it had been incorporating new words almost continuosly, on a variety of subjects, given the wide application of Jewish law. There were also reported instances of it being used for speech between Jews of different countries who lacked any other common language. In the early middle ages it had been used for philosophy, astronomy, secular poetry, etc. from around 1800 on it had been used by westernizers to bring secular subjects to eastern euro Jews, and quite a number of translations had been made into it.


And of course millions of ordinary Jews used it for prayer and text study. And huge numbers used languages like Yiddish and Ladino with extensive Hebrew vocab. And even with that, it was a difficult process, that was accomplished by sheer will, and with the impulse of nationalism to get over the bumps.

[VetLegion]

It's slightly modified German. Can Germans understand Yiddish? I understood the sentence in your first post even though my German is not very good.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by VetLegion
And if anyone thinks it would be too hard to learn a laguage nobody speaks, remember that Israelis resurrected a language that had no living speakers within decades. It's easy.

Its not hard to learn Esperanto, its just pointless.

Its not really much easier for an English speaker to learn than learning Spanish, and at least here, Spanish has like a thousand immediate applications.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by VetLegion
It's slightly modified German. Can Germans understand Yiddish? I understood the sentence in your first post even though my German is not very good.

the vocab is like 70% German,20% Hebrew, and 10% slavic and other. I just happened to use a common phrase with no Hebrew elements.

Oh, and its not 'modified' German,IIUC, its archaic German.

[Ecthy]

For a German, yiddish reads like a sort of accent in written form, sort of easy to understand. Even the hebrew(?) words that they use are understandable, for they made it into everyday German language - Mischpoke would be a prime example, although I can't seem to think of any more now. We have proverbs that are phonetic translations from yiddish, such as "Hals- und Beinbruch" when you wish someone luck - you don't really wish them to break their necks and legs, it's just from some yiddish "hasloche e broche" or something like that, which means good luck.

Spoken is different. Seen it in American movies and couldn't get a word.

[DanS]

Originally posted by VetLegion
But the point is sticking it to the Brits and Americans

Good luck on that.

English is already the standard in the EU.

[Provost Harrison]

You managed with Arnie's accent though

[Provost Harrison]

Yeah, stick with English...it is a fairly orderly language compared to bleeding French...shame the spelling is utterly ridiculous...

[Heresson]

My hometown is the capital of esperanto movement in Poland

There were esperanto lessons in my school, as well as italian, but I was too lazy to attend them

We did sing esperanto songs on music lessons, though. I remember nothing of it.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Barnabas
Why not latin?

Too much damn inflection. I tried to take a Latin course last fall and trying to learn the various word-endings (-um, -i, -orum, -o, -us, etc.) drove me to tears.

[Dinner]

Esperanto sucks and is completely worthless. English is spoken by well over a billion people already so it makes the natural choice for the language of the world. English is increasing its lead on a daily basis too due to loads of people learning English as a second language. I understand that China is especially pushing English these days since the government wants to increase international business for China.

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by VetLegion
I bet that within couple of years of constant media bombardment everybody would know the new language.

Not Americans, see System, Metric.



ACK!

[Will9]

English is the most spoken language in the world although it is third largest ntive language. Mandarin and Spanish are each larger in native speakers. Chinese has no Alphabet. Spanish is significantl behind English and Chinese in total speakers.

English simply became dominate at the right time to become the most spoken language for a long time. Even if Chinese gets an Alphabet, it will be to far behind by the time it even most Chinese learn it.

[Apocalypse]

Funny Red Dwarf excerpts:

Esperanto Woman: Mi esporas ke kiam vi venos la vetero estos milda.
Rimmer: Wait a minute, I know this one, don't tell me, don't tell me, don't tell me!
Lister: I hope when you come the weather will be clement.
Esperanto Woman: I hope when you come the weather will be clement.
Rimmer: Lister, don't tell me. I could've got that.
Esperanto Woman: Bonvolu direkti min al kvinsela hotela?
Rimmer: Ah... I remember this from last time...
Lister: Please could you direct me to a five-star hotel?
Rimmer: Wrong, actually. Totally, utterly, and completely wrong.
Esperanto Woman: Please could you direct me to a five-star hotel?

Esperanto Woman: La mango estis bonega! Dlej korajin gratulonjn' al la kuristo.
Rimmer: I would like to purchase that orange inflatable beach ball and that small bucket and spade.
Esperanto Woman: The meal was splendid! My heartiest congratulations to the chef.
Rimmer: What? Pause!
Lister: Rimmer, you've been doing Esperanto for eight years. How come you're so utterly useless?
Rimmer: Oh, it speaks! And how many books have you read in your entire life? The same number as Champion the Wonder Horse: zero!
Lister: I've read books.
Rimmer: Uh, Lister, we're not talking about books where the main character is a dog called "Ben."
Lister: I went to Art College!
Rimmer: You?
Lister: Yeah!
Rimmer: How did you get into Art College?
Lister: The normal way you get into Art College. The same old, usual, normal, boring you get in. Failed me exams and applied. They snapped me up.
Rimmer: Ah, but you didn't get a degree, did you?
Lister: No, I dropped out. I wasn't in long.
Rimmer: How long?
Lister: 97 minutes. I thought it was going to be a good skive and all that, you know? But I took one look at the time table and just checked out, man. I mean, it was ridiculous. They had, they had lectures at, like, first thing, in the afternoon. We're talking half-past twelve everyday. Who's together by then? You can still taste the toothpaste.

Rimmer: Holly, as the Esperantinos would say, "Bonvolu alsendi la pordiston? Lausajne estas rano en mia bideo!" And I think we all know what that means.
Holly: Yeah, it means, "Could you send for the hall porter? There appears to be a frog in my bidet."

They also use the word "nivelo" for level, which is esperanto.