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What happened to Esperanto?


Dora M

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I read on Wikipedia that Esperanto is an artificial language devised in 1887 as an international medium of communication, based on roots from the chief European languages. It retains the structure of these languages and has the advantage of grammatical regularity and ease of pronunciation.

Is anyone here familiar with this language? And is it still in use? And where exactly is it being used?

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It's not really "used" anywhere. There are places in my city (Melbourne, Australia) that you can take classes in it, but it's more of a hobby. The problem is the logistics of convincing seven billion people to learn and use a new language! It's hard enough getting people to speak a second language in the first place, but convincing everyone to learn the same one is just impossible. It's a nice idea, but not really practical.

Besides, it would be a bit sad if we stopped using all other languages. Even though we could all communicate better, a lot of countries have been speaking the same language for hundreds of years, and there's such a beautiful history attached to them, that I would be sad to lose that.

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I think it's impossible to artificially introduce a global language, it's a failed project as seen. Governments already have a difficult determining what their population will be taught and a language that no one uses is not on that list.

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"Is anyone here familiar with this language? And is it still in use? And where exactly is it being used?"

Its speakers are scattered all over the globe: Pakistan, Indonesia, China, Japan, Portugal and so on.

I’ve made friends around the world through Esperanto that I would never have been able to communicate with otherwise. Over recent years I have had guided tours of Berlin, Douala, Yerevan 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 and in Armenia when it was a Soviet republic, how to cook perfect spaghetti, the advantages and disadvantages of monarchy, and so on. I recommend Esperanto, not as a hobby but as a very practical way to overcome language barriers.

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I always find it curious when people say that Esperanto isn’t interesting, because it’s artificial, when in fact it is now a living language.

The funny thing is that most people don’t realize what they really want. If you asked someone in the late 1800s, how they’d like to get around better, they’d say they wanted a faster horse! However, when I bought a car, no one objected to my purchase by saying, “What? That artificial horse?!” Now people in most parts of the world would consider you crazy if you bought a “natural” horse to get around town.

People see language as being one of the defining qualities that makes us human.  In any case, I’m just as happy to speak an “artificial” language as I am to live in an artificial cave (apartment), fly in an artificial bird (airplane), or look at an artificial window (TV)… so in these cases, “artificial” could also mean “improved.” And after all that, I must say that I still feel pretty human! See also http://bernd.wechner.info/Esperanto/psikologio.html

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"Is anyone here familiar with this language? And is it still in use? And where exactly is it being used?"

Its speakers are scattered all over the globe: Pakistan, Indonesia, China, Japan, Portugal and so on.

I’ve made friends around the world through Esperanto that I would never have been able to communicate with otherwise. Over recent years I have had guided tours of Berlin, Douala, Yerevan 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 and in Armenia when it was a Soviet republic, how to cook perfect spaghetti, the advantages and disadvantages of monarchy, and so on. I recommend Esperanto, not as a hobby but as a very practical way to overcome language barriers.

That's exciting to hear.  I'm glad to know of your firsthand positive experiences with Esperanto.  I never learned the language, but I remember as a child first hearing about it and I thought it was such a fantastic idea. 

It's a shame really that Esperanto has not taken hold in all these decades.  But ultimately, it's not really about vast numbers of speakers.  People have benefited from knowing and speaking the language with others and your experience is testament to that.

I'd be curious to know if others here have learned Esperanto and have had positive experiences in connecting with others. 

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To be honest, I've only learned of Esperanto from this site! There's another thread here that talked about a global language. On that thread, someone posted a link about Esperanto and it got me curious. I agree with what other posters have already mentioned though. I think that although it is a nice idea, it's impossible to find a practical use for this.

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"Is anyone here familiar with this language? And is it still in use? And where exactly is it being used?"

Its speakers are scattered all over the globe: Pakistan, Indonesia, China, Japan, Portugal and so on.

I’ve made friends around the world through Esperanto that I would never have been able to communicate with otherwise. Over recent years I have had guided tours of Berlin, Douala, Yerevan 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 and in Armenia when it was a Soviet republic, how to cook perfect spaghetti, the advantages and disadvantages of monarchy, and so on. I recommend Esperanto, not as a hobby but as a very practical way to overcome language barriers.

Thank you very much, Bill. I only heard of this language a long time ago from my father. It completely slipped my mind. I have never heard of it again here in Australia. But I see now from another Australian member that there are apparently classes available in the bigger cities.

I personally would like to learn it when I have more time available. I am curious to know whether Esperanto might actually help to provide a foundation for learning other languages more easily, since it is a mixture of a variety of languages.

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That's exciting to hear.  I'm glad to know of your firsthand positive experiences with Esperanto.  I never learned the language, but I remember as a child first hearing about it and I thought it was such a fantastic idea. 

It's a shame really that Esperanto has not taken hold in all these decades.  But ultimately, it's not really about vast numbers of speakers.  People have benefited from knowing and speaking the language with others and your experience is testament to that.

I'd be curious to know if others here have learned Esperanto and have had positive experiences in connecting with others.

After doing a little more research, I found out that there are between 100.000 and 2.000.000 million active or fluent speakers of Esperanto worldwide. And some even learnt it from birth. I never knew that.

But perhaps it is not a surprise since in Australia it is not very common.

I was thinking about the meaning of "artificial language". If I understand correctly, Esperanto is a combination of several different languages. I have a question: When is a language "natural" and when is it "artificial". And who decides over this? Personally I think that all languages that offer a way of communication are natural, whether they have evolved over a thousand years or only over 125 years.

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I actually picked up Esperanto a few years back because of some internet fanclub thing, but noone else I know in normal life uses it. It's a pretty nifty language because it's actually very easy to pick up and it's similar to a lot of European languages so you can sorta understand all the other languages as well!

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I first heard about esperanto about 20 years ago and was fascinated by the idea. I somehow got a course (I must have sent for lessons in the mail; I cannot recall) and I began learning it. I remember it was really enjoyable and interesting.

But as I thought about who I was going to use it with to talk to, I could not think of any case in which that would happen. Sadly I soon lost interest as a result. Although, I still enjoy the overall idea/ concept of being to talk to anyone anywhere.  :wink:

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I was wondering the exact same thing a while ago, and that's why I posted in this forum a very similar question.  My guess is Esperanto turned out to be a linguistic failure.  I only know a person who speaks it, he learnt it when he was very young, but I doubt he ever uses it.  I doubt anyone else in the world ever uses it.

Back when I was a teenager there were several site that were promoting this language, I even read bout an Esperanto association that offered some kind of hostel service for all those who could speak this language, as some kind of incentive, you know?  I guess that site no longer exists.

What a pity this didn't work out, in theory it was a great idea, but no idea what the heck happened! I guess that's the main issue with artificial languages.

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After doing a little more research, I found out that there are between 100.000 and 2.000.000 million active or fluent speakers of Esperanto worldwide. And some even learnt it from birth. I never knew that.

But perhaps it is not a surprise since in Australia it is not very common.

Wow! There are that many speaking Esperanto? Well this might just change my mind about the language. I mean, I guess if people put enough effort into it it could become even more popular. I just don't see people pushing for it more though. It's a shame really because I think it sounds great in theory.

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The idea of introducing an easy to learn worldwide language is a brilliant one in theory...

In practice however no one wants to learn it unless loads of other people already have, thus they never take off

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