spw2562@ritcv.UUCP (Steve) (10/17/86)
Can someone please explain what Esperanto is? I've never heard of it
until just this week. If it's as widespread as I gather it is from the
recent posting about it, I might give learning it a shot. But not right
away, though.. I'm having enough trouble relearning Spanish and learning
ASL at the same time. What's ASL you ask? American Sign Language. Note
that this is a language in itself, NOT English on the hands. I.e., it has
it's own grammer and structure, signs that convey concepts that don't have
an exact English equivalent, etc. I may be taking German soon to. To
bad they don't offer French here. That's another language I'd like to
learn. *sigh*
Guess what else ? Surprise! I'm an American! 8-]
==============================================================================
Steve Wall @ Rochester Institute of Technology
UUCP: ..{allegra|seismo}!rochester!ritcv!spw2562 Unix 4.3 BSD
BITNET: SPW2562@RITVAXC VAX/VMS 4.4
Disclaimer: I said THAT?!? Naw, couldn't have been me...normt@ihlpa.UUCP (N. R Tiedemann) (10/20/86)
> Can someone please explain what Esperanto is? I've never heard of it > . . . > Steve Wall @ Rochester Institute of Technology Esperanto is a "universal" language that was invented by an international group of linguistics about 20 (I think) years ago. They intended for it to be the language that everyone in the world would learn and be able to communicate with. It incorporated different grammerical structures and words from most of the modern languages and invented some new ones to boot. To my knownledge it never made it past the linguistics conventions. It is not really spoken by anyone, and the only place one can learn it is from a book. If you go to any college library there will be a couple of grammer manuals on Esperanto. (I looked them up once at the UW in Madison.) Norm Tiedemann ..ihnp4!ihlpa!normt AT&T Bell Labs
venu@umcp-cs.UUCP (Venugopala R. Dasigi) (10/21/86)
In article <2081@ihlpa.UUCP> normt@ihlpa.UUCP (N. R Tiedemann) writes: >> Can someone please explain what Esperanto is? I've never heard of it >> . . . >> Steve Wall @ Rochester Institute of Technology > > Esperanto is a "universal" language that was invented by an international >group of linguistics about 20 (I think) years ago. They intended for it to >be the language that everyone in the world would learn and be able to communicate >with. It incorporated different grammerical structures and words from most >of the modern languages and invented some new ones to boot. To my knownledge >it never made it past the linguistics conventions. It is not really spoken >by anyone, and the only place one can learn it is from a book. If you go to >any college library there will be a couple of grammer manuals on Esperanto. >(I looked them up once at the UW in Madison.) > > Norm Tiedemann > ..ihnp4!ihlpa!normt > AT&T Bell Labs Esperanto was invented late in the 19th century by a Polish person. It is highly phonetc; once the spelling and pronunciation rules are mastered, anyone can spell a word if he/she hears it and pronounce a word if he/she sees it. Also, the grammar is simple, inflections are all regular, and words belonging to a given part of speech end in the same letter. The vocabulary is easy to master for any person speaking a European language. If one knows his/her own native language and Esperanto, in principle, he/she should be able to communicate with everybidy else! The idea is as simple as that and I read in the introduction of some Esperanto book that there are more than one million people in the world who can speak Esperanto! Of course, language frequently reflects culture and an artificial language as neutral as Esperanto is a problem in this sense. (That's why everybody needs two languages, as mentioned above!) Also, any language evolves in time and it is difficult to imagine an artificial language evolving in time! I was instantly attracted by the very idea of esperanto when I first came across it, but I sure would like to know the views of a "practicing Esperantist." In particular, is it a practical idea in today's world? Are there any associations that promote Esperanto? Are any governments doing anything about it? (I understand there was some real interest on the part of several governments initially...) --- Venu Dasigi -- --------------------------------------------------------------- Venugopala Rao Dasigi UUCP : {seismo,allegra,brl-bmd}!umcp-cs!venu CSNet : venu@umcp-cs ARPA : venu@mimsy.umd.edu US Mail: Dept. of CS, Univ. of Maryland, College Park MD 20742.
danny@joevax.UUCP (Dan Kahn) (10/21/86)
> Esperanto is a "universal" language that was invented by an international > group of linguistics about 20 (I think) years ago. > ... > it never made it past the linguistics conventions. It is not really spoken > by anyone... I'm a lover of natural languages, not an Esperanto enthusiast, so I'll leave it to others to set the record straight, but I have a general comment. When a friend asks you a question that you're not sure of the answer to, it is natural to say, "Well, I THINK..." even tho there's a good probability you'll be wrong. The Net, with potential world-wide distribution and enormous numbers of readers, is no place for "well I think" answers to questions whose correct answers can easily be determined with a little research. Dan Kahn Bell Communications Research Morristown, NJ
credmond@watmath.UUCP (Chris Redmond) (10/21/86)
>Can someone please explain what Esperanto is? I've never heard of it >until just this week. If it's as widespread as I gather it is from the >recent posting about it, I might give learning it a shot. But not right Esperanto ("hope") is an artificial language, developed early in the 20th century by a man named Zamenhof. His theory was that there is need for a language which can be spoken internationally -- not necessarily in daily life, but at the level of diplomacy, world trade and so on -- and that national pride prevents any existing language from filling this role. So he developed Esperanto, which is based on word roots and natural grammar of (mostly) the major European languages. Spoken, it sounds much like Italian. Because the words are largely from existing languages (and languages which already have a lot in common) Esperanto is quite easy to learn -- though I have to admit I haven't really learnt it! A few of its nouns: patro father (Latin pater, English paternal) patrino mother ('in' makes a masculine noun feminine) hundo dog (German hund, English hound) stelo star (Latin stella, English stellar) steloj stars (j, pronounced like English y, makes a noun plural) All nouns end in o; all adjectives end in a. La verda stelo, the green star, is the symbol of Esperanto. All verbs end in s -- I believe it's as for present tense, os for past tense, is for future tense, but I may have those turned around. And so on. No irregularities, no silent letters. There are some magazines published in Esperanto, and the organizations which promote it claim that several hundred thousand people speak the language. I suspect that they do so mostly when they travel to meet other Esperantists. There are other artificial spoken languages, by the way, including Interlingua (something like Esperanto, I believe -- years ago I used to subscribe to some scientific journal which for some reason published abstracts of all its articles in Interlingua) and Babm (a bizarre construct produced by a Japanese enthusiast). CAR
kaufman@nike.uucp (Bill Kaufman) (10/21/86)
In article <2081@ihlpa.UUCP> normt@ihlpa.UUCP (N. R Tiedemann) writes: >> Can someone please explain what Esperanto is? I've never heard of it >> . . . >> Steve Wall @ Rochester Institute of Technology > > Esperanto is a "universal" language that was invented by an international >group of linguistics about 20 (I think) years ago. They intended for it to >be the language that everyone in the world would learn and be able to communicate >with. Weelll, no. It was invented by a Polish (Russian) eye doctor around 1877. The rest is true, though. From a (much too) short study of it, it's about 40% Latin, 40% German, and the other 20% a combination of Russian, Chinese and Japanese. It uses *thoroughly* regular grammer--all nouns end in 'o', adjectives in 'a', and verbs in 's'. Lots of prefixes and suffixes give a lot of room for expression. Pretty neat language, for a guy who was *far* from being a 'linguist'. -Annoyingly, Bilbo. ___________________________________________________________________________ "The French, they are a funny race./They fight with their feet, and..." -Norbert Sykes. DISCLAIMER is a trademark of Kaufman Enterprises. I await my royalties. E-MAIL: nike!orion!kaufman FLAMES: There are no flames. Re-check your opinions. (Forgiv any mising 'a', 'e', 'd', 's'; I'v got a ticky kybord.) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
tmoody@sjuvax.UUCP (10/21/86)
In article <2081@ihlpa.UUCP> normt@ihlpa.UUCP (N. R Tiedemann) writes: >> Can someone please explain what Esperanto is? I've never heard of it >> . . . >> Steve Wall @ Rochester Institute of Technology > >Esperanto is a "universal" language that was invented by an international >group of linguistics about 20 (I think) years ago. They intended for it to >be the language that everyone in the world would learn and be able to communicate >with. It incorporated different grammerical structures and words from most >of the modern languages and invented some new ones to boot. To my knownledge >it never made it past the linguistics conventions. It is not really spoken >by anyone, and the only place one can learn it is from a book. If you go to >any college library there will be a couple of grammer manuals on Esperanto. >(I looked them up once at the UW in Madison.) > > Norm Tiedemann > ..ihnp4!ihlpa!normt > AT&T Bell Labs 1. Esperanto was created by a single individual, Dr. L. L. Zamenhof, in 1887. 2. It was, and is, intended to be a universal auxiliary language for international communication. 3. About 85% of the Esperanto word roots are borrowed from Latin, but English, German and other languages are sometimes called upon. 4. The grammar appears to be basically Indo-European. 5. Morphologically, it is a highly agglutinated language, more so than any other Indo-European language. In terms of agglutination, its closest neighbors would be Turkish, Japanese, and Zulu. 6. Esperanto *is* spoken by many people, including me. Every year, there is an international congress, which is generally attended by people from about fifty countries. The last one was in Peking, at which it transpired that there are about 400,000 Esperantists in China alone. It is hard to estimate how many Esperanto speakers there are in the world because, among other things, it is hard to define "Esperanto speaker." Book sales and society memberships are unreliable indicators because many Esperantists cannot afford to buy books or pay dues. They learn from friends and borrowed books. A fair guess would be one or two million. 7. You can learn Esperanto from books. It is taught in schools in some countries, and in universities. In the United States, it is taught in the summer at San Francisco State University, and during the regular term at U. Santa Barbara, I believe. Esperanto is the tenth most taught language in Finland. 8. The main advantage of Esperanto over natural languages, as an international medium, are (a) it is not the national language of any country or ethnic group; (b) it is easier to learn than any natural language, because it is more regular. Proposition (b) is often criticized on the assumption that Esperanto is only easy for the speakers of Indo-European languages to learn. In response, it is fair to say that speakers of Indo-European languages will find Esperanto easier than speakers of non-Indo-European languages will, but even speakers of non-Indo-European languages will find it easier than other natural non-Indo-European languages. The best way to confirm this (indeed, the only way) is to ask Japanese and Chinese and other non-I-E language speakers who have studied both Esperanto *and* other foreign languages. -- Todd Moody
d@alice.UucP (Daniel Rosenberg) (10/22/86)
In article <2081@ihlpa.UUCP> normt@ihlpa.UUCP (N. R Tiedemann) writes: >> Can someone please explain what Esperanto is? I've never heard of it >> . . . >> Steve Wall @ Rochester Institute of Technology > >Esperanto is a "universal" language that was invented by an international >group of linguistics about 20 (I think) years ago.... About 100 years ago, actually, by one Polish oculist, Ludwig Lazarus Zamenhof. >of the modern languages and invented some new ones to boot. To my knownledge >it never made it past the linguistics conventions. It is not really spoken >by anyone, and the only place one can learn it is from a book. If you go to >any college library there will be a couple of grammer manuals on Esperanto. >(I looked them up once at the UW in Madison.) > Norm Tiedemann > ..ihnp4!ihlpa!normt > AT&T Bell Labs I really speak it. It is taught in a night class in New York City. There are *active* Esperanto associations around the world. High level courses are held each summer at San Francisco State University, and it is estimated by the membership of the various organizations that almost a million people have at least a rudimentary grasp of Esperanto. For more information and a free postal lesson course, you can write to: Universala Esperanto-Asocio United Nations Liaison Office 777 U.N. Plaza New York City, NY 10017 or Esperanto League for North America Box 1129 El Cerrito, CA 94530 or Canadian Esperanto Association P.O. Box 2159 Sidney, B.C. V8L 3S3 CANADA (If there is sufficient interest I will post the first postal lesson to sci.lang.) -- # Daniel Rosenberg (CE) @ AT&T Bell Labs, Murray Hill # disclaimer: These opinions are necessarily mine, not my employer's. # UUCP: {ihnp4 || research || allegra}!alice!d AT&T: 201/582-6455 (work) # INTERNET: (ARPA, whatever) possibly: d%alice.btl@csnet # "We're not in the eighth dimension! We're over New Jersey!" - BB
SPU@PSUVMA.BITNET (10/22/86)
sorry, but the explanation you gave of what esperanto is is *totally* off
the wall. i believe you may have in mind another international language,
though it was made up well over 20 years ago. it is called interlingua
(i believe) and its sole purpose was for international scientific conventions.
esperanto, on the other hand, was made up by one man--dr. zamenhoff of poland
in the latter part of the 1800's. it is alive and well today (interlingua is
dead). there is a variety of literature (original and translation), radio
transmissions (international), and national esperantist groups. it is taught
as a modern language in some countries of the world. the movement has
died down a bit over the last decade, but it is far from dead. it likely
will *not* die out any time soon--it has already survived about a century.
it claims several million speakers today.
"la inteligenta persono lernas esperanton facile kaj rapide!"
"the intelligent person learns esperanto easily and rapidly."
-------
* K. SCOTT SHAY * *****************************************
{AKGUA,ALLEGRA,IHNP4,CBOSGD}! * EACH MAN'S LIFE TOUCHES SO MANY OTHER *
PSUVAX1!PSUVMA!BITNET!SPU * LIVES; AND WHEN HE'S GONE, IT LEAVES *
SPU@PSUVMA (BITNET) * AN AWFUL HOLE. *
* --CLARENCE(THE ANGEL) FROM *
* "IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE" *
*****************************************amos@instable.UUCP (10/22/86)
It takes only 16 hours (1 hour lesson + homework) to learn the language in a level high enough to read a newspaper or a technical publication freely. Join now, and you'll be with us for the 100th anniversary celebrations next year! For a mail-group, contact Mike Urban at ...!trwspp!spp2!urban I hope he won't mind having his address put on the net; I guess if he was listening he would have responded by now - the amount of nonsense some people (those who misspelled 'grammar') post off the top of their heads is amazing! -- Amos Shapir National Semiconductor (Israel) 6 Maskit st. P.O.B. 3007, Herzlia 46104, Israel (01-972) 52-522261 34.49'E 32.10'N
tmoody@sjuvax.UUCP (10/23/86)
In article <3949@umcp-cs.UUCP> venu@umcp-cs.UUCP (Venugopala R. Dasigi) writes: > >Of course, language frequently reflects culture and an artificial language >as neutral as Esperanto is a problem in this sense. (That's why everybody >needs two languages, as mentioned above!) Also, any language evolves in time >and it is difficult to imagine an artificial language evolving in time! Not only does language reflect culture, but it can also *create* it. In a sense, this is exactly what Esperanto has done. Anyone who insistst that Esperanto has no speech community and no culture needs to become more familiar with the facts of the matter. There is a large and interesting body of Esperanto literature, both original and translated. There are periodicals, scholarly journals, congresses, songs, etc. True , the Esperanto speech community is not geographically contained; but it is held together and propelled into the future by the very interest and commitment of Esperantists. The Esperanto movement *is* the Esperanto culture. Out of this culture emerge the standards of intelligibility that function within the language. In addition, Esperanto has evolved, and continues to evolve. It's evolution is not random or chaotic, but it is nevertheless real. Many words have been added, according to need and demand, while others have become "archaic". The same is true of patterns and structures at the sentential level. The "right" Esperanto accent has emerged from the crucible of many speech interactions, according to the principle of maximum intelligibility. >I was instantly attracted by the very idea of esperanto when I first came >across it, but I sure would like to know the views of a "practicing >Esperantist." In particular, is it a practical idea in today's world? Are >there any associations that promote Esperanto? Are any governments doing >anything about it? (I understand there was some real interest on the part of >several governments initially...) > >--- Venu Dasigi Well, it's practical, because it has been demonstrated again and again that it works. Of course, the only way to appreciate that is to use the language with someone who does not speak English. That is the watershed point for any Esperantist. The Universala Esperanto-Asocio has its headquarters in Rotterdam, and it maintains a consulting relationship with the United Nations (where it also has an ofice). There are numerous national organizations, such as the Esperanto League for North America (ELNA), at P.O. Box 1129, El Cerrito , CA. As for government involvement, there are mixed results. In the People's Republic of China, Esperanto is taught in several dozen universities, and it is unlikely that that would be the case without government support. Perhaps someone who attended the recent Universala Kongreso in Peking could give us more information about that. In Yugoslavia, there is some government support for Esperanto. I believe that some other Eastern European countries have similar arrangements. On the whole, though, government support has been weak and intermittent. The overall strategy of the movement is to promulgate Esperanto among individuals and societies until it is generally recognized as the effective medium that it is. -- Todd Moody
peierls@svax.UUCP (10/23/86)
In article <2808@watmath.UUCP> credmond@watmath.UUCP (Chris Redmond) writes: >There are other artificial spoken languages, by the way, including >Interlingua (something like Esperanto, I believe -- years ago I used >to subscribe to some scientific journal which for some reason published >abstracts of all its articles in Interlingua) and Babm (a bizarre >construct produced by a Japanese enthusiast). Another one is Loglan, invented by James Cooke Brown in the late fifties. Brown has been revising his language since then with the help of other Loglan enthusiasts. I've been following the discussions for the last ten years or so. Loglan is international in the sense that the primitive objects of the language were chosen to suggest corresponding words in the eight most spoken languages in the world (they use a complicated metric for this). It is syntactically unambiguous, and it uses a fairly small set of phonemes, so it might be of interest to people who do speech recognition. A fairly small YACC grammar has been constructed to parse correct utterances. I've had a lot of fun playing with the possibilities of this language; there are a lot of unexpected things one can say concisely in Loglan that need long circumlocutions in English. Are there any Loglanists out there on the net? -- Name : Tim Peierls Address : peierls@svax.cs.cornell.edu Paths : ihnp4 floyd sun seismo topaz harvard fluke \ cmcl2 / shasta \ rochester / uw-beaver \------ cornell!peierls ------/ Scotch : Laphroaig
dgary@ecsvax.UUCP (D Gary Grady) (10/23/86)
In article <691@nike.UUCP> kaufman@orion.UUCP (Bill Kaufman) writes: > >Weelll, no. It was invented by a Polish (Russian) eye doctor around 1877. >The rest is true, though. > >From a (much too) short study of it, it's about 40% Latin, 40% German, >and the other 20% a combination of Russian, Chinese and Japanese. >It uses *thoroughly* regular grammer--all nouns end in 'o', adjectives >in 'a', and verbs in 's'. Lots of prefixes and suffixes give a lot >of room for expression. Pretty neat language, for a guy who was *far* >from being a 'linguist'. Wellll, no. There is nothing of deliberate Chinese or Japanese origin in the language and I suspect Romance (Latin) roots are more predominant than you suggest. Verbs end in s only in the indicative mood, and nouns and adjectives end as you say only in the nominative singular. I disagree that Zamenhof was "far from being a linguist." He was fluent in Lithuanian, Polish, German, and Russian, knew at least some Yiddish (Esperanto "Ho, ve!" comes from "Oy vay!"), knew enough English and Hebrew to translate Esperanto books from them, had at least studied Latin and Greek, and I'm sure I'm leaving out a few. Oh, yeah, Italian. Considering the status of linguistics at the time, I suspect Zamenhof was as much a "linguist" as any professional linguist of his day. The language itself, while certainly flawed, was pronounced a "masterpiece" by a committee of the French Academy of Sciences, which would certainly never bestow such an epithet on, say, English! :-) -- D Gary Grady (919) 286-4296 USENET: {seismo,decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary BITNET: dgary@ecsvax.bitnet
norman@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU (Norman Ramsey) (10/24/86)
In article <2081@ihlpa.UUCP> normt@ihlpa.UUCP (N. R Tiedemann) writes: >> Can someone please explain what Esperanto is? I've never heard of it > Esperanto is a "universal" language that was invented by an international Is there an "Esperanto society"? Does anyone know how I can get more info about meetings where Esperanto might be spoekn? -- Norman Ramsey norman@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu Pianist at Large
tim@uw-nsr.UUCP (tim@uw-nsr) (10/25/86)
In article <2808@watmath.UUCP> credmond@watmath.UUCP (Chris Redmond) writes: >Esperanto ("hope") is an artificial language, [ ... ] > >A few of its nouns: [ ... ] > > stelo star (Latin stella, English stellar) > steloj stars (j, pronounced like English y, makes a noun plural) ^ ^^^^^ ^ ^^^^ ^^^^^^ > [ ... ] But how does Esperanto treat nouns that are sort of hybrid between singular and plural, or singular in one language and plural in another? I'm referring to nouns such as the English pants/trousers, glasses/bifocals, scissors, hair, mathematics, etc.
ludemann@ubc-cs.UUCP (10/26/86)
The "Oomoto-kyo" religion (headquarters: Kameoka, Kyoto-fu, Japan) has an international bent. They encourage knowledge of Esperanto for their people. How successful this is, I don't know; whenever I have dealt with them, I have used Japanese or English. They have published some books using Esperanto and have had some conferences where Esperanto was (apparently) heavily used. However, for their ritual, they use fairly old-fashioned Japanese. The nuances (and sounds) are impossible to translate. [exercise for Japanese students: translate "kashikomi, kashikomi".] (Except for the fact that I have found them very nice folks, and have taken a traditional arts course at their headquarters, I have no affiliation with Oomoto.)
janw@inmet.UUCP (10/27/86)
>Esperanto is a "universal" language that was invented by an >international group of linguistics about 20 (I think) years ago. Not exactly: it was invented by one man, Ludwik Zamenhof, back in the 19th century. Jan Wasilewsky
jvc@stl.UUCP (Vic Churchill) (10/27/86)
In article <102@ritcv.UUCP> spw2562@ritcv.UUCP (Steve Wall) writes: > [... esperanto ..] I might give learning it a shot. But not right >away, though.. I'm having enough trouble relearning Spanish and learning >ASL at the same time. ------Yes. It shows. >[...] I.e., it has >it's own grammer and structure, signs that convey concepts that don't have ^^^ ^^^^^ >an exact English equivalent, etc. I may be taking German soon to. To ^^ ^^ >bad they don't offer French here. --------- Too bad they don't offer English. >Guess what else ? Surprise! I'm an American! 8-] --------- No. I'd never have guessed. > >============================================================================== > Steve Wall @ Rochester Institute of Technology > UUCP: ..{allegra|seismo}!rochester!ritcv!spw2562 Unix 4.3 BSD > BITNET: SPW2562@RITVAXC VAX/VMS 4.4 > Disclaimer: I said THAT?!? Naw, couldn't have been me...
urban@spp2.UUCP (Mike Urban) (10/27/86)
In article <212@sjuvax.UUCP> tmoody@sjuvax.UUCP (T. Moody) writes: >6. Esperanto *is* spoken by many people, including me. Every year, there >is an international congress, which is generally attended by people from >about fifty countries. The last one was in Peking, at which it transpired >that there are about 400,000 Esperantists in China alone. It is hard to >estimate how many Esperanto speakers there are in the world because, among >other things, it is hard to define "Esperanto speaker." Book sales and >society memberships are unreliable indicators because many Esperantists >cannot afford to buy books or pay dues. They learn from friends and >borrowed books. A fair guess would be one or two million. Yes, but a large number of these speakers are probably *very* basic-level speakers, having at some point been exposed to the language via free courses, or having read a book on the subject but never spoken the language. Relatively few of the Chinese Esperantists can actually speak the language beyond very simple sentences, and almost none of them had ever spoken it to non-Chinese speakers prior to this year. On the other hand, the large number of worldwide "speakers of English" are calculated with similarly loose criteria. >7. You can learn Esperanto from books. It is taught in schools in some >countries, and in universities. In the United States, it is taught in >the summer at San Francisco State University, and during the regular >term at U. Santa Barbara, I believe. Esperanto is the tenth most taught >language in Finland. And the *second* most taught language in China! This may tell us more about what the Chinese think of the Russians nowadays than it tells us about Esperanto :-) >8. The main advantage of Esperanto over natural languages, as an international >medium, are (a) it is not the national language of any country or ethnic >group; No, but it *is* rather obviously European in origin, and hence does have certain ethnic associations. I don't see any way to "fix" this problem in a practical way, however. (b) it is easier to learn than any natural language, because it is >more regular. Proposition (b) is often criticized on the assumption that >Esperanto is only easy for the speakers of Indo-European languages to learn. >In response, it is fair to say that speakers of Indo-European languages will >find Esperanto easier than speakers of non-Indo-European languages will, but >even speakers of non-Indo-European languages will find it easier than other >natural non-Indo-European languages. The best way to confirm this (indeed, >the only way) is to ask Japanese and Chinese and other non-I-E language >speakers who have studied both Esperanto *and* other foreign languages. Well, I did attend the Universala Kongreso in China this year, and spoke with both Chinese and Japanese Esperantists. China, by the way, is a striking example of how well-known Esperanto can become with even a little bit of government muscle behind it. Large numbers of classes, a govt-funded international Esp'o magazine, payment of workers for time off when they host foreign Esperantist visitors (which is, of course, a little bit like selling Elephant Damage Insurance in Idaho). The fraction of Chinese learners who go on to become fluent in Esperanto is rather small--mostly, the Chinese are using Esperanto as an introduction to Indo-european language concepts and vocabulary. Everyone seems to agree that learning English is *much* easier for the Chinese after they've learned the elements of Esperanto. One of the Japanese Esperantists I met had studied English for four years, and (in frustration) took up Esperanto for about 6-8 months. I spoke to him both in English and Esperanto, and his Esperanto was very noticeably more fluent than his English. He also seemed to be very embarassed speaking English. This is one of the non-linguistic advantages of Esperanto--you don't have the embarassment of fouling up someone else's native language. We have some gentlemen from France working here at TRW this week. We've discovered that those of us who know (some) French are primarily using it for short practice sentences among ourselves! We're too embarassed trying to speak it to our visitors. -- Mike Urban ...!trwrb!trwspp!spp2!urban "You're in a maze of twisty UUCP connections, all alike"
SPU@PSUVMA.BITNET (10/28/86)
This is just a short posting regarding the linguistic ability of Zamenhof,
the inventor of Esperanto. It was said that he was an amateur linguist in
one posting, and a good one in another. Actually, the former is more
correct. Zamenhof *did* speak many different languages to some degree, but
this in no way alludes to his being a linguist. A linguist is a sort of
language scientist--not a person who speaks many languages (although
linguists do often speak many languages also). Being multilingual does
not a linguist make, Mercutio.
-------
* K. SCOTT SHAY * *****************************************
{AKGUA,ALLEGRA,IHNP4,CBOSGD}! * EACH MAN'S LIFE TOUCHES SO MANY OTHER *
PSUVAX1!PSUVMA!BITNET!SPU * LIVES; AND WHEN HE'S GONE, IT LEAVES *
SPU@PSUVMA (BITNET) * AN AWFUL HOLE. *
* --CLARENCE(THE ANGEL) FROM *
* "IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE" *
*****************************************cipher@mmm.UUCP (Andre Guirard) (10/28/86)
In article <219@sjuvax.UUCP> tmoody@sjuvax.UUCP (T. Moody) writes: >Well, it's practical, because it has been demonstrated again and again that >it works. Of course, the only way to appreciate that is to use the language >with someone who does not speak English. That is the watershed point for >any Esperantist. For any Esperantist whose native language is English, I think you mean. -- /''`\ DISCLAIMER: Ideas should not be Andre Guirard, ME ([]-[]) held responsible for the people (Maksimuma Entjero) \ o / who believe in them. ihnp4!mmm!cipher `-'
dgary@ecsvax.UUCP (D Gary Grady) (10/30/86)
In article <2808@watmath.UUCP> credmond@watmath.UUCP (Chris Redmond) writes: [in an otherwise quite accurate article] >Esperanto ("hope") is an artificial language, developed early in the >20th century by a man named Zamenhof. "Esperanto" is the noun form of the present active participle of esperi - to hope, and as I noted before the first work in Esperanto appeared in 1887. >All verbs end in s -- I believe it's as for present tense, os for past >tense, is for future tense, but I may have those turned around. Close: indicative mood is -as for present, -is for past, -os for future. To form a passive participle from the indicative, drop the s and add a t and either an o (for a noun) or an a (for an adjective) or an e (for an adverb). For an active participle, prefix the t with an n. The infinitive ends in i, the imperative in u, and the conditional in us. That's the whole of the law, everything else is commentary. >There are other artificial spoken languages, by the way, including >Interlingua (something like Esperanto, I believe -- years ago I used >to subscribe to some scientific journal which for some reason published >abstracts of all its articles in Interlingua) and Babm (a bizarre >construct produced by a Japanese enthusiast). There are (at least) two interlinguas. The one you're talking about was developed by a team of linguists working under (I think) a grant from somebody's will. My recollection is that it was intended purely as a written language, and it is quite easy to read for anyone who knows some romance language. The other was invented by the mathematician Peano who converted Latin into an analytic language on the order of English. (This is sometimes called Latina sine flexione - Latin sans inflections - for obvious reasons.) Babm, if I remember correctly, was distinguished by a syllabary instead of an alphabet (not surprising, considering its Japanese origins). There have, of course, been many, many others, including Hogben's Interglossa, created by shoving Graeco-roman root words into Chinese grammar (sort of Peano gone berserk). Most of the international languages have been attempts to improve on Esperanto. (Little known is the fact that Zamenhof himself offered a revised Esperanto!) To my knowledge, none of them is actually spoken, although some show up in print on occasion. One possible exception is Ido ("offspring") a "naturalized descendent of Esperanto in which "ke" is spelled "que" and direct objects take the accusative only when they precede the verb, etc. I heard a couple of years ago that there was an Ido club still in business in Switzerland, although its members are all quite old. -- D Gary Grady (919) 286-4296 USENET: {seismo,decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary BITNET: dgary@ecsvax.bitnet
dturner@imagen.UUCP (Mea Yew) (11/03/86)
>>Esperanto is a "universal" language that was invented by an >>international group of linguistics about 20 (I think) years ago. could some one tell me where i could buy a good book to learn esperanto. also if anyone has any information about people who speak it could you send that to, thanks in advance david -- ---- It's not my planet monkey-boy Name: David R. Turner Mail: Imagen Corp. 2650 San Tomas Expressway, P.O. Box 58101 Santa Clara, CA 95052-8101 AT&T: (408) 446-3412 UUCP: ...{decvax,ucbvax}!decwrl!imagen!dturner
neal@drutx.UUCP (McBurnettND) (11/10/86)
>could some one tell me where i could buy a good book to learn >esperanto. also if anyone has any information about people who speak >it could you send that too. Our site is finally getting sci.lang, so I can contribute my $.02. This is my basic overview for the beginning Esperantist. Enjoy! -Neal McBurnett, ihnp4!druny!neal, 303-538-4852 -------------------- Here is my best advice on good Esperanto sources: how to learn, what to buy, what to read, what to join, etc. I'm quite receptive to the experiences of others, so send me your comments! Learning Methods: Of course, the best way to learn is to find a friend who knows it. Either ELNA (below) or I may be able to point out a person or club in your area. If you have the time, San Fransico State University offers a series of 3 week intensive courses in Esperanto each July (this year from the 1st to the 22nd). It is a great way to learn, and also a great way to get a cheap vacation in the Bay area (in dorm rooms). They always have some students from foreign countries and some of the best teachers in the world. You could also go to a similar course in other countries: Bulgaria, Switzerland, and Hungary, to name a few. Contact Cathy Schulze, 410 Darrell Rd, Hillsboro CA 94010, 415-352-1796 The next-most-convenient way is the Free Postal Course. Either ELNA or I can send you the first lesson, and as you mail in each lesson, your instructor will mail you the next one. You get a certificate at the end (10 lessons). You will probably want to buy Well's Dictionary (below) if you take the Postal Course. It takes about a week of mail delay per lesson. I highly recommend Claude Piron's "Gerda Malaperis". If you add a Well's dictionary, I might consider it a self-contained course. It is a mystery story, so there is good motivation to continue! Also, Piron is a psychologist, and has studied how to teach languages. He picked 750 of the most common word roots (from which you can form over 7000 actual words), and introduced them slowly, repeating each one several times after the first introduction so you can pick them up easily. ELNA has several other beginners courses. I recommend the book "Step by Step in Esperanto" and the cassette course "Jen Nia Mondo". Immediately after you get past the basics, I recommend two things: an intermediate text, such as "Pa^soj al Plena Posedo" and a translation of a favorite English book of yours into Esperanto. I have "Winnie la Pu", "La Eta Princo" (The Little Prince), and "Besto Farmo" (Animal Farm). Thus I can practice translating by myself both into and out of Esperanto. Finally, a lot of beginners get pen-pals in other countries. Books: (Order from ELNA (Esperanto League of North America, Box 1129 El Cerrito, CA 94530) or call them with Visa/MC (415 653-0998)) "Esperanto Dictionary" by Wells ("Teach Yourself" series). (Sometimes available in bookstores.) All English-speaking Esperantists should have one. It has a grammatical summary, and probably has enough information for you to read anything.... Both English-Esperanto and Esperanto-English. "Plena Vortaro": Esperanto-Esperanto dictionary. All Esperantists should have this because of the innumerable examples of word usage. Don't be scared of an all-Esperanto dictionary: you'll quickly get used to it, and it is much better to learn to associate new words with their intrinsic meaning rather than the English equivalent. Get out of the habit of translating! "English Phrases and Expressions in Esperanto": very useful for learning how to express English idioms in Esperanto. Good for demonstrating how common and baffling idioms can be! "False Friends" is a useful list of words that don't mean what you would assume as an English speaker (granda == 'big', not 'grand' in all it's meanings, adulta == adulterous, not adult....) The serious esperantist will want to get the Plena Ilustrita Vortaro, an unabridged Esperanto-Esperanto dictionary with plenty of examples. 1303p., $45 John Wells, a linguist at the University of London, wrote "Lingvistikaj Aspektoj de Esperanto" (in Esperanto), which is the closest thing I've ever found to a fun, readable book on comparative linguistics. Only $5.50. If you're interested in the Dutch company BSO's research effort to translate semi-automatically between European languages using an Intermediate Language based on Esperanto, ELNA has a $20 feasibility study on it. It is extremely well done, with lots of good references. The work is being funded by the European Economic Community. A. Witkam, "DLT: Distributed Language Translation -- a Multilingual facility for videotex information networks." Songs: "Kantofesto" is a fun collection of songs, with chords and music. For those who still wonder if "literature" can be written in Esperanto, you can get Margaret Hagglers PhD thesis on the subject from the University of Michigan's microfilm service: "Esperanto Language as a Literary Medium", 1971 It's quite interesting! The answer is definitely "yes".... If you intend to travel, get the "Pasporta Servo": 600 people in 53 countries who will put you up for free! Literature: I can personally recommend "La Infana Raso" by Auld (a classic novel-length poem), "Fianco de l' Sorto" by ??, (young love, war), and "Voja^go al Kazohinio" by Szathmari (a revealing philosophical novel dealing with the relation between emotion and reason, competition and cooperation). Friends have recommended Nemere's "La Fermita Urbo" (science fiction) and "Kredu Min Sinjorino" by Rossetti. I welcome more input in this category (both positive and negative!) Tapes: At some point you will surely want to hear some Esperanto. Many of the courses come with taped lessons, but you can get a feeling for how beautiful the language can be from some popular music. Piron has a wonderful tape out: "Frandu Piron" is a collection of original and translated folk songs. "Baf!" is another collection of folk songs, with some very powerful songs translated from a variety of languages. "Per Nia Nura Vol'" is some neat feminist music from Italy, with transcriptions. "Kontakto" brilliantly satirizes the movement. There are all kinds of cheap records of speeches at conferences (much easier to understand than poetry or music....) Finally, ELNA runs a tape lending library with hundreds of tapes. Magazines: El Popola ^Cinio is a neat magazine from China. Monato is an international version of "Newsweek" (monthly, $26, but well done, with jokes, crossword puzzles, etc.) I especially enjoy reading the ongoing debates in the letters to the editor. Internacia Komputado (computing), published in Hungary every 3 months, is something I would recommend either to a computer scientist here who wants to learn the Esperanto vocabulary, or to a Nigerian who wanted to learn about computers. Fonto is a monthly literary magazine from Brazil. UEA (below) publishes two magazines: "Esperanto" carries official news on the movement. "Kontakto" is a good magazine for new Esperantists: lots of interesting, easy to read articles (many assume only a 500 morpheme vocabulary: try that with English!) Organizations: It's good to join ELNA and the Universala Esperanto-Asocio (UEA) ELNA gives you a membership list so you can look people up when you travel in the US, and discounts on some books. They also publish an interesting newsletter. UEA (Nieuwe Binnenweg 176, 3015 BJ Rotterdam, the Netherlands; (010) 36 15 39) gives 3 great things to its members: Jarlibro ("yearbook"): 400 pages packed with information and 3600 addresses in 70 countries of people who will help you when you travel. Also information on specialized associations: vegetarians, stamp collectors, scientific disciplines, ham-radio operators, teachers, environmentalists, etc. Esperanto Katalogo: 350 pages densely packed with listings of books, tapes, magazines, etc. "Esperanto" magazine. Travel: The congresses are a fun way to meet lots of people and get active in the movement. You can stay year-round at 2 locations: La Chaux-de-Fonds in Switzerland and Pisanica in Bulgaria. Another resort is Gresillion in France. They all teach courses, sponsor excursions, etc. The "Pasporta Servo" book and other address lists you can acquire at congresses enable you to plan a personalized vacation with esperantists. You can also join UEA for the Jarlibro. Misc: Steve Allen and ELNA have recorded a 30 minute public TV documentary on Esperanto which your local PBS affiliate can get. I have a list of over a dozen daily short-wave radio broadcasts worldwide, but I haven't been able to pick any up with my cheap equipment. The 71st Universal Congress was in Beijing China from July 26th to August 2nd, 1986. The international youth organization, TEJO, had its conference ("IJK") in Neurim Israel from the 14th to the 21st of August, 1986. Both congresses will be in Poland in 1987. That is the 100th anniversary of Esperanto, so they will be spectacular. Computer specific stuff: I have the largest on-line dictionary I have yet heard of: 3000 words, Esperanto-English, with parts of speech. Soon I will have a list of all 39000 words listed in the Plena Ilustrita Vortaro. I have a separate guide to this: there's a lot! -Neal McBurnett, ihnp4!druny!neal, 303-538-4852, 494-6495 at home 4825 W. Moorhead Cir, Boulder CO 80303 USA
dgary@ecsvax.UUCP (D Gary Grady) (11/11/86)
In article <8073SPU@PSUVMA> SPU@PSUVMA.BITNET writes: >. . . Zamenhof *did* speak many different languages to some degree, but >this in no way alludes to his being a linguist. A linguist is a sort of >language scientist--not a person who speaks many languages (although >linguists do often speak many languages also). Being multilingual does >not a linguist make, Mercutio. We should remember that linguistics as a science is rather young. In the 19th century, as I understand it, linguistics was largely confined to what we would today call comparative linguistics and philology. Zamenhof was probably as knowledgeable in the linguistics of his day as many academic linguists. I do indeed know the difference between a linguist and a polyglot. -- D Gary Grady (919) 286-4296 USENET: {seismo,decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary BITNET: dgary@ecsvax.bitnet