Esperanto - easy and the least risks
Esperanto *has* a culture. It is learnable by children, elder people and someone less educated. It is neutral. The words you learn stem from European languages; for dog, puppy, kennel, male dog, female dog you need to learn just one word: hundo, hundido, hundejo, virhundo, hundino are derived. So one reaches active perfect speaking capability quite soon. A jewel of a second native-level language. It does not stop you from learning a third language (might even help). The expressiveness is just what I am missing in the international conferences with their interesting themes but limited English. And though I am personally an anglophile, such a waste as introducing English in German kindergardens displays a subjective collective frenzy I would not have thought possible, as it will have absolutely no effect. Rather we should learn to love expressiveness of languages. I am at my fifth foreign language. I am Dutch, living in Germany with my Bulgarian wife, using Esperanto natively at home, with an Esperanto Linux and all. Let Esperanto just be a cheap second language. Whether valuable to learn is everyone's own decision. I have looked at Ido and Interlingua (to both good luck), and Esperanto is definitely unique. Even if you do not learn it, you *could* learn it fast. And know it 100% perfect and use it actively.
Sent by: Joop Eggen
Comments
I decided to learn Esperanto some 3 years ago, to much derision from family and friends.
Their main critism was that you would be stuck with people with whom you had nothing in common.
I know what they mean but I don't think it's true. There is a particular type of person who wants to learn Esperanto. Usually people who are outgoing, interested in international affairs, social justice and travel.
It is the height of arrogance that English speakers expect others to learn their language.
Because, no, English is NOT spoken by the majority of the world! Native speakers of English will soon be outnumbered by those who learn it as a second (or third or fourth) language and, before you know it, it will have hived off into all sorts of hybrids or dialects which will bear little resemblance to this English that we presently speak.
Economic muscle means that, in a few years, Spanish or Russian might be the new 'international' language.
Esperanto was never meant to be a unifiying language. It was always meant to be an easy to learn second language to enable the preservation of other, minority, dialects.
I haven't really worked that hard at it, to be honest, but even so I am more confident and can put together more complex sentances than I could have even considered in French (which I struggled to pass at higher level).
I'm a big fan. My family are less convinced, although the fact that 'How are you?' is translated as 'Kiel vi fartas?' has given it more than a little appeal!
Whatever happened to Esperanto, which was very popular in the 1930's, and touted as the easy to learn "universal language"?
You never hear of it now! Or am I wrong? Will my grandchildren be learning Mandarin
to get ahead, in the brave new world of the future? As it looks like the US is on its way down.
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