Talk:Esperanto/Archive 4

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Character of E-o

If you speak Esperanto, or would like to, you might be interested in the Esperanto wiki JerryMuelver hosts at http://unumondo.com.

> It seems, that http://unumondo.com doesn't exist anymore.

Esperanto's potential as a meta-language for machine translation is being explored by the traduki. Other useful links include http://www.esperanto.org and, for US-ians, http://www.esperanto-usa.org. The last can be contacted at ELNA, PO Box 1129, El Cerrito CA 94530; 1-510-653-0998 (real person), 1-800-ESPERANTO (automated info and information requests).

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Esperanto isn't an agglutinative language since it inflects: it has different cases as numbers distinguished by different suffices. Agglutinative languages can have inflections too; these aren't absolute categories...

Esperanto is fully agglutinative. Two or more grammar suffixes for the same word don't modify each other, and that's usual agglutinativity test. For example: -o + -j + -n is -ojn, it wouldn't have to be in inflective language. --Taw

It certainly looks agglutinative to me. Moreover, John Wells says, on page 27 of his book Lingvistikaj Aspektoj de Esperanto, "Ekzemploj de aglutina lingvo estas la turka, la japana, la zulua, kaj - kiel konate - la Internacia Lingvo Esperanto." ("Examples of agglutinative languages are Turkish, Japanese, Zulu, and - as is well-known - the International Language Esperanto.") There are not many people better placed to judge this than John Wells, so I've changed the article accordingly. --Zundark

Esperanto's grammar resembles that of a typical inflectional language better than that of a typical agglutinative one. The only reason people call it "agglutinative" is because its morphology was designed to be regular (no exceptions) and cleanly segmentable (a word can be divided into individual morphemes easily). A stereotypical agglutinative language (like Turkish), however, has a lot more morphemes per word. I would just stay clear of claiming Esperanto is "inflectional" or "agglutinative". Those words don't really mean that much. It's clearer to just say what I just did about how the morphology was designed. -- 171.64.42.82 06:58, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Ease of Learning

Is it just me, or does the "learning Esperanto" section reek of POV? No language is inherently more complex than any other. (see Pullum, Geoffrey K.: Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax, The) Also, the study by Williams, ttbomk, did not also compare a year of Esperanto before 3 years of French to a year of, say, Spanish, before 3 years of French. It's a well-known fact that after learning one foreign language, it is much easier to learn another. Can anybody present a study that shows conclusively that Esperanto makes it even easier to learn a foreign language than any other language? Please, I don't want to have an argument about "It's a well known fact that Esperanto is the easiest language to learn on Earth because the British Esperanto Association says so!!!"--Node 21:51, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I think that that was all that was meant - Esperanto has no "magic ingredient" that helps you learn other languages faster. It is merely the case that learning Esperanto, as with learning any other language, makes language learning slightly easier. -- Kwekubo 01:07, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I added back the "Learning Esperanto" section, changing "Esperanto has been proven" to "Numerous studies suggest". If you'd like to cite some studies that dispute the idea that Esperanto is easier to learn than other languages, you're welcome to do so. Please do not remove text that you feel is POV. It's better that you modify the existing article to a NPOV. --cprompt 15:32, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Numerous studies? Only one study was cited. Since I question the validity of said study, I temporarily removed the text (note my usage of comment tags instead of simply deleting the section). I feel that rather than it being MY responsibility to cite some studies that dispute the idea that Esperanto is easier to learn than other languages, that it is the responsibility of whoever added this section to prove the validity of said study. Again, no language is inherently more complex than any other. (see Pullum, Geoffrey K.: Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax, The)--Node 04:01, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

"No language is inherently more complex than any other"? Explain what you mean, please. -- Kwekubo 23:14, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Node, I do appreciate that you commented out the text instead of removed it. You are right to say that it is wrong to use the phrasing "numerous" studies when the article is only citing one. I am modifying the article so that the claims made by that single study don't seem like they're backed up by a tremendous body of research that may not even exist. I feel that this block may sum up your concerns in a reasonable way: However, the study failed to prove that Esperanto was responsible for this advantage specifically. It is likely that learning any language will benefit the future study of other languages. It would be greatly benefit the article if anyone could find any studies that prove or disprove the "Esperanto makes language study easy" or "Esperanto is easier to learn than other languages" hypotheses. Let me know what you think. --cprompt 04:17, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Hi guys, I have to hold my hand up that I changed this again - without realising that there was a recent discussion about it. I didn't like the phrase "studies show" either, so I put in "practical use", and changed "a good deal easier" to "many times easier". I claim justification for this in that on numerous occasions at international Esperanto gatherings I have met people who have been able to hold entirely functional conversations in E-o, after only a few months study - and more than once only a few weeks. I am aware that some may be unwilling to believe this, but I will ask them to accept that Esperanto is not just a theoretical exercise, and to defer to those of us who have experienced it. --Tiffer 23:19, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

To say that "No language is inherently more complex than any other" is fun and nice in a theoritical sense. But the Army intensive language training (one of the world's best language training schools, according to Mario Pio) spent four months on French and 12 on Russian or Chinese for a reason. I've talked to a linguist who spoke a little Cherokee, and she found it amazingly hard. In a very serious practical sense, some languages are harder then others, especially if you limit it to native speakers of the Indo-European family of languages, which is far and away the most common family for people to speak natively.

number of people who speak Esperanto

The Wikipedia article now says as a fact that there are 2 Million speakers. 2 million is also the number from the Esperanto FAQ (point 5, [1])

But I find very different numbers;

• tens of thousands to over a million [2]
• Statistics shows there are about 10 million Esperanto speaking people in the world [3]

Is it not more correct to just say it is unknown? Walter 10:06, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Your first source, Omniglot, is known to be a very unreliable source. A friend of mine and I have spotted numerous mistakes on that site in the past. The second I don't know much about, but seeing as it's specifically trying to promote Esperanto, it might be exaggerating deliberately, or using a very forgiving definition of an "Esperanto speaker". — Timwi 21:00, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I tinkered with the numbers paragraph a bit. Culbert died October 28, 2003. I think it's safe to say here he was a longtime Esperantist (see external links at his article).

"Survey" to me implies questionnaires and such, unless he conducted this kind of survey I think "estimate" is better here. I followed his annual World Almanac table for many years; it gave the (rounded) figure of 1 million for Esperanto until 15 or so years ago. — Cam 02:17, 2004 Jul 16 (UTC)

Moved content. Please incorporate

The following was at Esperanto etymology. I was just going to add it to Esperanto as a section, but it's not well enough written. Please incorporate the content into the article. There is more on Talk:Etymology — Chameleon Main/Talk/Images 14:57, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The Esperanto words were not chosen arbitrarily; most of them are coming from several important languages of western civilization. As Latin had a great influence on modern European languages, it looks like Esperanto is closely related to Latin.

Some words look exactly as they do in English, but the pronunciation is quite different: birdo (a bird), rivero (a river), teamo (a team), boato (a boat).

Sometimes, the connection is less obvious but nevertheless there is one, if we look a little further. For example, mano (a hand) does not resemble the English; but we have the same root in "manual" (pertaining to a hand), manufacture, manipulate, manuscript, manacles, maneuver, manifest, manner, manager, command, demand, emancipate, recommend, maintain, maintenance.

Latin is not the only language that influenced our european languages. If we go back to the mythical "indo-european" language, we will find more relations between English, Esperanto, and a lot of other languages.

Note that the root "hand" also occurs in Esperanto: handbalo, handikapo.

If you are interested, have a look at the next indo-european roots :

• AG (to drive forward)
• AK (sharp, pointed)
• AL (to feed, to grow)
• AL (other)
• KLEW (to close, to lock)
• MAN (hand)

Esperanto locale?

If there exist an Esperanto locale?  What are conventions for dates, time, numbers etc in Esperanto writing? — Monedula 06:19, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

One typically uses "." as the thousands separator and "," as a decimal point. Usually but not always 24-hour time with colon between hour and minutes. Dates - usage varies. The typical advice is to use a four-digit year and write out the month name or abbreviation thereof. --Jim Henry 13:39, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Opening paragraph comments

Since the first paragraph is the most widely read, I would make some changes as detailed below but I'll put them here for discussion (text only). My reasoning is that a lot of readers will only quickly skim the first paragraph so it should touch all the main points without any "fluff." (ex: what is Esperanto? Who/Where did it come from? What is the current status? Why should I care or who cares?)

Esperanto is the most widely spoken of the constructed languages.

this is a non-sequiter, what is a constructed language?

The link to the constructed language article makes it clear enough. --Jim Henry 18:33, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The name derives from the pseudonym (Dr. Esperanto) under which L. L. Zamenhof published the first work on the subject,

he created it, make that clear. "published the first work" is true but imprecise in its relevance. In other words, will a reader realize he created it and not just published first? Keep in mind they may not read past the first two sentences.

and literally means "one who hopes."

delete "literally", that is redundant. Actually I would just change this whole sentence to something like, "The name derives from the pseudonym (Dr. Esperanto) under which L. L. Zamenhof published the language."

Zamenhof, a Jewish oculist from Bialystok

"Jewish" irrelevent to Esperanto, keep in the Zamenhof article, "oculist" likewise irrelevent.

(now in Poland, but then part of the Russian empire), and living in Warsaw,

change to "(present-day Poland)"

published the Unua Libro (first book) of the language in 1887 after working on it for about ten years (see Esperanto history).

"ten years" comment irrelevent, especially in the introductory paragraph. Put in history section.

Example or suggested merging of first two paragraphs, editing them for brevity

Esperanto is a planned (constructed) auxiliary language. The name derives from the pseudonym (Dr. Esperanto) under which L. L. Zamenhof published the language in 1887. (see Esperanto history). His intention was to create an easy-to-learn language, to serve as an international second language (note: "auxiliary" and "secondary" in the original is redundant, likewise the comment about "rather than to replace" is redundant - that is inherent in the word "secondary" or "auxiliary") for global communication. Today Esperanto is used for many activities from travel, correspondence, cultural exchange, and language instruction.

OK, if "planned", "constructed" and "auxiliary" all link to appropriate articles. Also, in the second sentence "international auxiliary language" would suit better than "international second language". --Jim Henry 18:33, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

All the little tidbits I snipped out can be integrated into the longer body of the article. They don't belong in the first paragraph (ex: the raumist/pracelistoj debate).

Nice rewrite. Do you think it's worth mentioning in the last sentence that Esperanto is the most widely-spoken instance of any such language? Marnanel 03:30, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I like your suggestions, except for "second language". "International auxiliary language" is the established and, in my opinion, more suitable term for what this is talking about. The phrase is defined nicely in the first paragraph of the linked article. Cam 16:35, Aug 25, 2004 (UTC)

Here's my proposed rewrite of the rewrite:

Esperanto is a planned (constructed) auxiliary language. The name derives from the pseudonym (Dr. Esperanto) under which L. L. Zamenhof published the language in 1887. (see Esperanto history). His intention was to create an easy-to-learn language, to serve as an international auxiliary language for global communication. Today Esperanto is used for many activities including travel, correspondence, cultural exchange, literature, and language instruction; it is the most widely used constructed auxiliary language.

--Jim Henry 18:33, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

...OK, since there has been no further discussion on this for some time, if no one objects in the next week or so, I will replace the current first two paragraphs with my above proposed rewrite. Also, the third paragraph:

Angoroj (1964) was the first film produced in Esperanto. Incubus (1965, starring William Shatner) is the only known professionally produced feature film with entirely Esperanto dialogue.

is not relevant in the intro section; it should be moved further down and combined with brief notes on important poems, novels, and music in Esperanto, with cross-references to other articles. --Jim Henry 21:18, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

As no one objected, I have replaced the first three paragraphs with my proposed replacement. I moved the second paragraph further down and captioned it "Goals of the Esperanto Movement"; it still needs some more work. The third paragraph (on Angoroj and Inkubo) I simply deleted; it doesn't belong here unless we add a section on music, books, etc. as well, and those films are more thoroughly covered in the article on Esperanto film. --Jim Henry 20:41, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Sound of ŭ

In this article, it the pronunciation of ŭ is incorrecly listed as [U]. This is incorrect. [U] is the sound of "oo" in book, and ŭ is clearly not that sound. The correct pronunciation of ŭ is [w]. Take the name of the letter, "ŭo," pronounced "woh." However, if ŭ were pronounced as [U] as said in the article, it would be pronounced as the "oo" in "book" followed by the "o" in "or." Try saying that, and I can assure you it does NOT sound anything like "woh."

The word "ŭo" is a special case. In all other Esperanto words, ŭ is preceded by a vowel, e.g. aŭ, which is pronounced [aU]. Ŭ thus forms a diphthong with the previous vowel. [w] is not a vowel sound; like [j], [w] is generally followed by a vowel rather than preceded by one. [aw] is possible but hard to pronounce and sounds nothing like aŭ. — Timwi 10:46, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Unfortunately, it's not as simple as either explanation here. [U], [u], and [w] are all basically the same sound, with varying degrees of closure. [U] and [u] are generally used as vowels, and [w] is used as a consonant; the implication is therefore that the difference in closure between [u] and [w] is concomitant with the difference in closure between vowels and consonants. The question then becomes one of phonetic versus phonological representation. Clearly, ŭ is used in Esperanto to mark back closing diphthongs, but what phonetic symbol should be used to represent the closed portion of that diphthong? If we look to the traditions used in phonetically transcribing English, we find use of the lax vowel symbols [U] and [I], as in the diphthongs [aU] as in 'cow', [oU] as in 'go', [eI] as in 'hay', and [oI] as in 'toy'. This is because acoustic analyses have shown that the off-glides of these diphthongs are acoustically most similar to the [U] and [I] vowels, which exist as separate phonemes in English. A brief survey of the web has shown that there is not a lot of detailed phonetic description of Esperanto phonemes. Most of the descriptions of the Esperanto diphthongs are in terms of English diphthongs, so unless it can be shown that Esperanto diphthongs are in fact more close than English diphthongs, the symbols for lax vowels should be used to represent Esperanto off-glides. Nohat 17:39, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

the "in other languages" navigation link

how does one add हिन्दी (hindi) to the "in other languages" navigation box on the main page of the article on esperanto? there is now a faq on esperanto in hindi at http://hi.wikipedia.org/esperanto. antaudankon :>) Giridhar 10:45, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Done. Edwinstearns 13:31, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

oops! you have linked the article Hindi to the word 'hindi' in the navigation box. it's the article Esperanto ( http://hi.wikipedia.org/esperanto ) that needs linking to (just as the word 'italiano' -- above 'hindi' -- links to the italian article Esperanto). Giridhar 13:43, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Oops! Now it's done. Edwinstearns 14:42, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Contradiction

I wonder if someone who knows more about this than me can explain what's going on with 'it even has some native Esperanto speakers' (first paragraph) and 'Total speakers: est. 2 million (estimates vary greatly); none of these are native speakers' (fact box)? mat_x 18:55, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

(Okay, cool, looks like somebody resolved this already.) I think the problem was created by conflicting definitions of "native". Some might consider "native" to mean something related to one's homeland, and of course there is no country in which Esperanto is the official language, so in that sense it is impossible for one to be a "native speaker" of Esperanto. But in the context of constructed languages "native" can have a less (or more, depending on your point of view, heh!) restrictive definition, for example meaning something related to one's home. "Native Esperanto speakers" are those born into a home in which Esperanto is used, and grow up using it just like they use their national language. Ailanto 21:59, 2005 Jan 30 (UTC)

Esperanto is the most-spoken international language?

I thought that English was the most-spoken international language. Most schools in Europe require students to learn at some English. → JarlaxleArtemis 03:55, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It doesn't say that anywhere in the article. It only says that Esperanto is the most widely spoken constructed language. English isn't constructed. — If you're so fond of English, why didn't you learn it properly then? — Timwi 22:26, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Amen. I think that it means that Esperanto is the most widely spoken International Auxiliary Language flockofpidgeons 01:10 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Good article

Just wanted to say I realy enjoyed reading this article. Bawolff 06:12, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)