Esperanto, what kind of language is it?

Esperanto has nothing to do with Spain. Its grammar is very different from those from European languages. It does have similarities with Chinese for example. Esperanto is not just a code, but a whole language allowing to express feelings for example with great precision. William Auld wrote poems in Esperanto. This is the second part of a talk I made a couple of years ago for future language teachers at the University of Sydney. It is read by my friend Pat.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Esperanto
• Zamenhof
• auxiliary language
• William
• Auld
• languages
• University
• of
• Sydney
• artificial
• grammar
• Chinese
• Japanese
• numbers
• poetry
• Nobel
• prize
• Tolkien
• The
• lord
• the
• rings
• fiat

[Kanguruo]

@Sennuba

Let's just say that I don't agree with you about the role of God in languages.

[Kanguruo]

I wonder who is "they"

I am using it everyday to communicate with my friends from different countries. Next week we have a Zamenhof day with Esperanto singers from the Netherlands who will entertain us very nicely, I am sure.

And why should they not use it again when it is a language that enables to communicate so much better than English which takes too long to be mastered.

[Kanguruo]

@IkarusKommt

I'd like to know how many books you read in Esperanto to be able to judge that it has no quality literature.

Thanks for showing us so clearly that you speak about something you know nothing about. Esperanto is a real human language, just that its history is not as long as other languages. Esperanto is certainly not sterile, it has a big community of speakers that influence its evolution.

[Kanguruo]

@IkarusKommt

I think you are very confused about languages. Why would you need a dictionary to determine what you see? Learning Esperanto is so much easier than learning natural languages.

We do have lots of translations in Esperanto: Tolkien's lord of the rings, etc. Harry Potter has been translated into Esperanto but if it has not been published it is just because of financial reasons

[IkarusKommt]

@Kanguruo The thing is that natural languages, unlike eo, make clear morphological distinction between nouns and other noun-like forms. In eo, you canot determine what you see without a dictionary.

I hope eo literature does not begin and end in Auld. Where's normal literature? Where's Twilight or Dark Elf in eo? Even shitty Harry Potter books are translated in most niche languages like Macedonian, but not in eo.

[Kanguruo]

A substantivized adjective is used as a noun, so what term do you use for words that are nouns or words that are strictly speaking not nouns but used as nouns?

[Kanguruo]

@IkarusKommt

Wastepaper? Have you read for example La infana raso by William Auld? Have you read Marjorie Boulton? William Auld was nominated for the Nobel prize for literature. You can write very bad poetry in English or very good, exactly the same in Esperanto some people write bad poetry, some are talented and write very

good poetry.

[IkarusKommt]

There's many wastepaper and translations. So eo has no quality literature.

"2000000 people" — it's definitely overstatement. But even it's true, we see that eo failed as international language, due to quality issues.

"artificial language" — it's artificial, AUXILIARY language. It will never be as good as real human language.

"all languages are man-made" — wrong, languages are society-made. eo has no society, it's sterile and is to be forgotten, despite of the which real language rules next.

[IkarusKommt]

@Kanguruo "The grammar is not very similar to European languages" — the eo grammar is a calque of other EU languages.

"it is easy to see, whether words are nouns, advectives, adverbs..." — it does not. For instance, it's not possible to see whether it's a noun, substantivated adjective or gerund.

"Many people write poetry in Esperanto" — wastepaper does not become literature only because it's written in a certain language.

[Kanguruo]

@IkarusKommt

Could you please explain where you see deception and manipulations.

[IkarusKommt]

What a load of deception and manipulations.