Esperanto, anyone?

[silvery]

I had a look at learning esperanto once, and very interesting it looked and said to be quick to learn.   Seems to be an amalgamation of a lot of languages from what I remember, and would be very handy for the EU I should think.

[meles]

I had a go for a while, just as the movement was losing impetus. It was all very logical, but kept some of the odd things  that probably makes English the lingua franca of the world (and yes, I know that is a contradiction in words  )

It retained nouns having a gender (which makes so many other languages hard for the English) and cases (which makes learning Latin, German and Russian so hard for the English and others).

It tried to mix the Latin and Germanic languages - but one language had already done that - English! 

meles

[Redroger]

Maybe that accounts for the ascendancy of English, along with Microsoft of course!

[meles]

Well, I think it does! English is very flexible and changes all the time. Hence my endless grumbles here and elsewhere about the language going to the dogs... 

meles

[Redroger]

Agreed, but remember the language continues to  evolve.

[meles]

I try, Roger - I try... 

meles

[EEnrike]

Reading the comment by Meles, again I have to ask why
people write about Esperanto without even consulting Google
first?

Esperanto is not losing impetus.
Today there thousands more books in Esperanto than 20 years ago. Many thousands of books and magazines can be read and/or downloaded from the web, (all for free) ... something that wasn't possible 20 years ago.

Only 25 languages have more entries in wikipedia than  Esperanto ... out of 278 languages which have wikipedias ... out of more than 6000 languages.

Somebody must be putting all those pages in the web. Add videos, music, hundreds of yahoo-groups and Google-groups, blogs, Skype, Ipernity, Facebook. If you Google the word "Esperanto" you will get more than 60 million occurrences.

If you open the page http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=eo you will see that even Google has a search page in Esperanto.

"It retained nouns having a gender"
It does not. Same as in English it has a few words like "actor" and "actress", or "husband" and "wife", or "Joseph" and "Josephine". The rules to make these femenines are regular, more like "Joseph" and "Josephine", or "heroe" and "heroine".

"... and cases"
There is only one case in Esperanto, that, even if it is  something that you have to learn, makes things more understable, and you don't need to consider word order.

"It tried to mix the Latin and Germanic languages"
Esperanto is not a mix. Words were selected by what Zamenhof though were the best known (in Europe) words for each meaning.

I had to learn English. I learned Esperanto because I think it is the right thing to do. English resulted hundred times more difficult ... even after I moved to the USA. Esperanto allows me to communicate with people all over the world.

[meles]

I bow with good grace to someone who knows better than I. 

meles

[Greensleeves]

I believe that although there has always been some interest in Esperanto in the UK, it has never really become as popular as elsewhere in the world, and that is possibly due to the fact that we are so bad/lazy at learning other languages. 

Whilst I am not an Esperantist, my parents were, and I was aware that both of them had penfriends all over the world.  In particular they  had contacts in various European countries - particularly Eastern Europe - as well as Japan and China.  China in particular in the 1960s was very keen to promote Esperanto, hence the stream of gifts my father received - all in Esperanto.

I would like to think that Esperanto is still flourishing in the world, and I am rather pleased to read EEnrike's comments regarding its popularity.  I know that my father worked tirelessly for many years to promote it;  I am sure he would be rather pleased to know that over 20 years after his death, his name is once again linked to Esperanto!