Esperanto, anyone?

[Greensleeves]

That is really interesting, arty.  I think the idea behind Esperanto was wonderful and my father, who continued his interest in Esperanto until his death, had contacts all over the world.  When I moved house recently, I discovered an interesting treasure which he had received as a gift from China  in the 1960s:  The Works of Mau Tse Tung in Esperanto.

[kiwihalfpint]

It was taught at the school I went to which was a long time ago !  
Arty

Certainly was, I was about 8/9 years old when I learnt it and think we had an hours lesson twice a week.

Cheers
KHP

Edited:  No Arty, I wasn't at the same school, I am here, and you were over there

[Redroger]

I discovered an interesting treasure which he had received as a gift from China  in the 1960s:  The Works of Mau Tse Tung in Esperanto.

I had a copy (in English) quite a lot of it made sense in a very logical Oriental way.
If we are to proceed wwith European integration should Esperanto be used as a common language throughout the Union, or would Latin be preferable?

[FosseWay]

What puzzles me, and perhaps the translation will give the answer is "Why should an Englishman (presumably) write a journal in a language other than his native tongue"?

I kept a diary for a number of years, including one spent living in Italy. I wrote a number of the entries in Italian or in a mixture of Italian and English, in particular those which had to do with mundane everyday living, work etc. where many of the words would have been in Italian anyway. Musings about emotional stuff, life, the universe and everything I wrote in English.

[Redroger]

Understandable, but there is not to my knowledge a country called Esperant. Is there?

[FosseWay]

RR -- You originally asked why someone might choose to write their diary in a language other than their native tongue, and my response was to this. But I agree, choosing to write it in Esperanto is slightly unusual.

[Greensleeves]

I did wonder whether a serviceman was allowed to keep a journal when on active service?  Maybe this was one of the reasons why he chose not to keep it in English.

[EEnrike]

I suppose that for many people that want to practice a language while learning it, the easier thing to write, would be about the things just done, the things familiar to the mind at that moment ... after writing for a while, that becomes a journal.

And writing a journal in Esperanto is not unusual at all ... at least among people that speak Esperanto, as testified by the one found by Greensleeves.

I found interesting the opinions given about Esperanto, without even trying to Google the word "Esperanto". Google would have pointed to about 60 million occurrences of the word Esperanto in the web. That doesn't count the pages written in Esperanto without mentioning the word, neither the pages written about Esperanto in languages that spell Esperanto in a different way or using different alphabets.

Esperanto was published in 1887, 123 years ago. Most of this time, the use of Esperanto was growing, without counting the periods of both World Wars. During the government of Stalin, Hitler, and other "nationalistic" liders, many Esperanto speakers were sent to Siberia, and or killed, just because they always tried to communicate with people from other countries.

There is a vast library of Esperanto works: books, magazines, web pages, blogs, pod casts, videos. You can find thousands of them in the web, for free. You may start at this page:

   Resources to learn and use Esperanto (400 links)
      http://esperantofre.com/edu/iloj01a.htm

Esperanto is a living language, spoken in at least half of the countries of the world.

Get to know Esperanto ... you will be surprised with the results.

[Redroger]

I did wonder whether a serviceman was allowed to keep a journal when on active service?  Maybe this was one of the reasons why he chose not to keep it in English.

Even more dangerous than an English journal I would think.