Esperanto : a good solution to both babelization and (English) globalization

Bastian

The Living Force
eoste said:
What's interesting to note, is that nowadays English replaced the role of Latin, being the NWO elite's language...
May be Esperanto could be a solution, but it looks too much like globalisation.
Diversity sounds better to me.
:rolleyes:
So, we would have Esperanto & globalization on one side, and diversity on the other side ?

Well, the reality is more that we have English, the Empire & globalization on one side, and Esperanto and diversity on the other !

Esperanto is one of the best real solution existing now, because :
1/ it was designed as the "International language" (la "Ilo" = la internacia lingvo), an auxiliary language to allow intercommunication between the people of (at least) Europe or even the world (as Europeans have conquered most of it so European languages are spoken on all continents), allowing the people to keep (or develop) their own primary language, thus allowing the diversity
2/ it's the only constructed language with a significant number (millions) of people speaking it, and it's a living language, with a "native" literature, and new words are created to "match" the real world : for instance, Tut-Tera Teksaĵo (TTT) is the Esperanto name of the World Wide Web (WWW).

In fact, Esperanto was proposed as the working language for the League of Nations (ancestor of today's UN), but the French delegate then disagreed, because French was the language of diplomacy at that time (nowadays it's more English).
Wikipedia said:
After the Great War, there was a proposal for the League of Nations to accept Esperanto as their working language, following a report by Nitobe Inazō, an official delegate of League of Nations during the 13th World Congress of Esperanto in Prague. Ten delegates accepted the proposal with only one voice against, the French delegate, Gabriel Hanotaux. Hanotaux did not like how the French language was losing its position as the international language and saw Esperanto as a threat, effectively wielding his veto power to block the decision. However, two years later, the League recommended that its member states include Esperanto in their educational curricula. For this reason, many people see the 1920s as the heyday of the Esperanto movement.
_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto#Early_proposals
Wikipedia said:
The official languages of the League of Nations were French, English[32] and Spanish (from 1920). The League considered adopting Esperanto as their working language and actively encouraging its use, but this proposal was never acted on.[33] In 1921, Lord Robert Cecil proposed the introduction of Esperanto into state schools of member nations, and a report was commissioned.[34] When the report was presented two years later, it recommended the adoption of Cecil's idea, a proposal that 11 delegates accepted.[33] The strongest opposition came from the French delegate, Gabriel Hanotaux, partially in order to protect French, which he argued was already the international language.[35] As a result of such opposition, the recommendation was not accepted.[36]
_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Nations#Languages_and_symbols

Esperanto was supported by the labor movement in many countries during late 19th & early 20th centuries, gaining new spin after the WWI butchery, but was fought in a bloody manner by both Hitler & Stalin...
Wikipedia said:
As a potential vehicle for international understanding, Esperanto attracted the suspicion of many totalitarian states. The situation was especially pronounced in Nazi Germany, Francoist Spain and the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin.

In Germany, there was additional motivation to persecute Esperanto because Zamenhof was Jewish. In his work, Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler specifically mentioned Esperanto as an example of a language that would be used by an International Jewish Conspiracy once they achieved world domination.[9] Esperantists were killed during the Holocaust, with Zamenhof's family in particular singled out for murder.[10] The efforts of some Esperantists to expel Jewish colleagues and align themselves with the Reich were finally helpless and Esperanto was forbidden in 1936. Esperantists in German concentration camps taught the language to fellow prisoners, telling guards they were teaching Italian, the language of one of Germany's Axis allies.
(...)
In the early years of the Soviet Union, Esperanto was given a measure of government support, and the Soviet Esperanto Association was an officially recognized organization.[12] However, in 1937, Stalin reversed this policy. He denounced Esperanto as "the language of spies" and had Esperantists exiled or executed. The use of Esperanto was effectively banned until 1956.[12]
_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto#Responses_of_20th-century_totalitarian_regimes_to_Esperanto


Moreover, it is generally considered that for someone whose French is the mother tongue, it's a lot (ten times) quicker to learn Esperanto rather than English, because Esperanto is a lot more simple and logical.
Wikipedia said:
Various educators have estimated that Esperanto can be learned in anywhere from one quarter to one twentieth the amount of time required for other languages.[28] Claude Piron, a psychologist formerly at the University of Geneva and Chinese–English–Russian–Spanish translator for the United Nations, argued that Esperanto is far more intuitive than many ethnic languages. "Esperanto relies entirely on innate reflexes [and] differs from all other languages in that you can always trust your natural tendency to generalize patterns. [...] The same neuropsychological law [—called by] Jean Piaget generalizing assimilation—applies to word formation as well as to grammar."[29]

The Institute of Cybernetic Pedagogy at Paderborn (Germany) has compared the length of study time it takes natively French-speaking high-school students to obtain comparable 'standard' levels in Esperanto, English, German, and Italian.[30] The results were:

2000 hours studying German = 1500 hours studying English = 1000 hours studying Italian (or any other Romance language) = 150 hours studying Esperanto.
_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto#Education

(To be continued...)
Ĉu vi komprenas Esperanton ? ;)
 
Bastian said:
Esperanto is one of the best real solution existing now, because :
1/ it was designed as the "International language" (la "Ilo" = la internacia lingvo), an auxiliary language to allow intercommunication between the people of (at least) Europe or even the world (as Europeans have conquered most of it so European languages are spoken on all continents), allowing the people to keep (or develop) their own primary language, thus allowing the diversity
2/ it's the only constructed language with a significant number (millions) of people speaking it, and it's a living language, with a "native" literature, and new words are created to "match" the real world : for instance, Tut-Tera Teksaĵo (TTT) is the Esperanto name of the World Wide Web (WWW).

As good as all this may be (or sound), I tend to disagree. First, there is no real culture behind Esperanto, and a language without a culture ends up being devoid of lots of meanings, and is not able to "evolve naturally", only artificially, in the same way as it was created.

Second, yes, it's very easy to learn, but they have made it so simple that it is very restricted in what one can or cannot say.

Third, just because it has borrowed terms and structures from several languages, it doesn't mean that their respective cultures will be better understood, much the less respected. In a way, I think it creates a false (and simplistic) idea of what each culture really is all about.

Fourth, I'm not sure that your statement 1 is true. I think it would be more a case of people NOT developing their mother tongue's skills. Whatever is easy and quick would prevail, to the detriment of all the "richness" that goes with learning a language AND the culture at the same time.

Fifth, concerning your second statement, there are other artificial languages that create words to "match the real world". But that doesn't make them better. That is easily done, but it adds a cognitive burden to the speakers. Why create different words, unless it is done with the purpose of being clear on concepts that really matter, that describe reality as it IS, as much as possible? That's what is lacking, IMO.

That's just my take on it, of course. Ideally, we would have a language (even English, which is, IMO, the best nowadays, since it allows both for economy and precision, all the while borrowing from lots of different cultures and allowing for diversity), that describes reality as it is. But the problem is that language evolves based on the culture of the people who speak and write it. And VERY few people see reality as it is, or even want to go there. So, it's kind of hopeless in our time, I'm afraid. And I personally don't see Esperanto acomplishing anything better. To me at least, it's just an artificial (and another cognitive load) of saying the same thing, spreading the same lies, all the while feeding the illusion that the Babel problem is lessened. :(

My 2 cents.
 
It's not a case of having Esperanto & globalization on one side, and diversity on the other side.

Only that, as Ailén pointed out, it would not change much of anything at all.

Finally, English might allow for diversity nowadays...
Somehow like Democracy would be the "least worst" of all political solutions :P
 
Looks to me like translating between languages or translating all languages to Esperanto is no different from translating a dictionary from one language to another. Dictionaries contain definitions and seem to be mostly self-referential the more abstract they get. Meaning, the definitions are mostly, or often circular, due to the words continually referring to other words within the same dictionary without really communicating much experiential meaning, or substance.

It's no wonder that Esperanto "attracted the suspicion of many totalitarian states" since any propaganda machine would probably have to be rebuilt from scratch, making sure all the politically and socially relevant concepts in the new language matched the deeper subconscious views of the world that the totalitarians have a vested interest in maintaining.

Of course, that's probably a reason why it could be viewed as a good thing too, so it might be worthwhile to look a little deeper as eoste and Ailén allude to.

Think about how any language has a ground of assumptions. For example, assume the world is flat and our language, with it's metaphors, analogies and other representations all include meanings involving a sense of "flatness" for purposes of consistency within the language.

If English and all other English-like languages assumed "flatness" was at the bottom of everything, wouldn't they still all be wrong if the world was really roundish? Would any one be more right than another? Could 'Esperanto' or the idea of moving all languages into it be more like that "sound and fury, signifying nothing?"

So, no, I don't think it's a good solution. Educating others about pathology and psychopathology seems to hold so much more promise.These are just some of my thoughts and they could be in error somewhere, so think of them as just my 2 cents.

-----------------------
Edit: additions to clarify meaning
 
Ailén, how long did it take you to inform yourself about Esperanto ?
(Your message are usually more relevant than this one.)
Ailén said:
As good as all this may be (or sound), I tend to disagree. First, there is no real culture behind Esperanto, and a language without a culture ends up being devoid of lots of meanings, and is not able to "evolve naturally", only artificially, in the same way as it was created.
That's wrong : there is a culture behing Esperanto : books (25,000+) and magazines and music are written (or translated) in it.

For instance, the Esperanto version of Wikipedia ranks 27th (with 170,000+ articles) among others, ahead of Danish.
_http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias

Is that "real" enough ?

Second, yes, it's very easy to learn, but they have made it so simple that it is very restricted in what one can or cannot say.
That's completely wrong : one can write poetry or philosophy or whatever in Esperanto, and some people did.
For instance, poetry :
_http://www.dmoz.org/World/Esperanto/Kulturo/Literaturo/Poezio/Originala/

(And as you read French, please read this article about poetry in Esperanto by a former UN translator :
http://claudepiron.free.fr/lettresouvertes/poesie.htm )

Third, just because it has borrowed terms and structures from several languages, it doesn't mean that their respective cultures will be better understood, much the less respected. In a way, I think it creates a false (and simplistic) idea of what each culture really is all about.
Few structures were borrowed (beyon common ones like nouns/adjectives/verbs, masculine/feminine/neutral, or past/present/future) - the intention was to keep the grammar as simple as possible (it can be learned in one hour !).
_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto_grammar

Used roots come from latin and romanic (70%), germanic (20%), slavic and old greek languages ; some rare were created.
_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto_etymology

The language was just created to be easy and quick to learn and use, in order to exchange with foreigners.

Fourth, I'm not sure that your statement 1 is true. I think it would be more a case of people NOT developing their mother tongue's skills. Whatever is easy and quick would prevail, to the detriment of all the "richness" that goes with learning a language AND the culture at the same time.
Well, that's already the case with English. People (we) are lazy, aun't they ?

And Basic/Simple English, once designed, was promoted, by people like Churchill to become the language of the "empire"...
Churchill (writing to Roosevelt in April 1944) said:
My conviction is that Basic English will then prove to be a great boon to mankind in the future and a powerful support to the influence of the Anglo-Saxon people in world affairs.
_http://www.eamonn.com/2012/05/when_churchill_flirted_with_ba.htm

Using English as the international language is giving native English speakers a serious asset in business or diplomacy...

Fifth, concerning your second statement, there are other artificial languages that create words to "match the real world". But that doesn't make them better. That is easily done, but it adds a cognitive burden to the speakers. Why create different words, unless it is done with the purpose of being clear on concepts that really matter, that describe reality as it IS, as much as possible? That's what is lacking, IMO.
Well, it does apply to any language, doesn't it ?
That's just my take on it, of course. Ideally, we would have a language (even English, which is, IMO, the best nowadays, since it allows both for economy and precision, all the while borrowing from lots of different cultures and allowing for diversity), that describes reality as it is.
That would be ideal, for sure.
(And in fact Esperanto and other constructed languages are as much or more concise and precise than English. Of course, a constructed language designed to achieve this aim is better than any natural one.)
To me at least, it's just an artificial (and another cognitive load) of saying the same thing, spreading the same lies, all the while feeding the illusion that the Babel problem is lessened. :(
Well, you can lie in any language, can't you ?

Sometimes I even wonder if languages were created (or used) first to lie - compared to telepathy !
 
[quote author=Bastian]
Sometimes I even wonder if languages were created (or used) first to lie - compared to telepathy ![/quote]

Sometimes I wonder if languages were created in order to crystallize telepathy into something that could be more easily polarized and ponerized. :)
 
:) we must not forget that, in first instance Esperanto was created as a second language to communicate between more then, let's say 5 languages. Not as replacement for the own language.
Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indian, and so on. Are really hard to learn in a few years.
They have very hard time to learn English. In other words, they have difficulties to pronounce the english words. With Esperanto you can go to this country's find community's speaking Esperanto and talk to them without learning each one of the languages, what would take probably decades.

I found the idea of using Esperanto very helpfull.
 
I agree with what Ailén and others said. More over, I think that being an artificial language makes it a kind of fake attempt to revert the Tower of Babel effect, like trying to make it in an artificial an subjective way.

For now, I think it is easier to use english, a very complete and versatile language. But if one day we want to have a kind of world language, I would prefer to do research on Nostratic or 'Protoworld', which are kind of mother tongues of humanity, rather than forcing a new one made out of a subjective mixture of words from a few European languages.

I mean, the real paleo-language would be better than Esperanto.
 
Bastian said:
Ailén, how long did it take you to inform yourself about Esperanto ?
(Your message are usually more relevant than this one.)

Well, well, would you be a bit identified with this topic by any chance? Sorry if you didn't see any relevance in my post and that offended you, Bastian. I think whatever identification you have with this also made you misunderstand what I wrote (see below). It's nothing to get offended about. But, assuming your question was honest, I researched about Esperanto's creation, structure and phonetics years ago. Not that it means much, anyway.

Ailén said:
As good as all this may be (or sound), I tend to disagree. First, there is no real culture behind Esperanto, and a language without a culture ends up being devoid of lots of meanings, and is not able to "evolve naturally", only artificially, in the same way as it was created.
That's wrong : there is a culture behing Esperanto : books (25,000+) and magazines and music are written (or translated) in it.

For instance, the Esperanto version of Wikipedia ranks 27th (with 170,000+ articles) among others, ahead of Danish.
_http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias

Is that "real" enough ?

You missunderstood me. When I said "culture", I didn't mean what you are referring to, but real people's habits, customs, etc. There are no "Esperanto's people". Take Klingon, for example. It's an artificial language, very creative indeed, and there are dictionaries and even translations of Shakespeare, and some people speak it. That doesn't make it a useful language, IMO, because it is artificial. There are no real people behind it, and it only reflects an imagined civilization. See my point?

I find it interesting that you decided to argue around this point, which is pretty straight forward. IMO. Not meaning to generalize here, but as a foreigner in France, this is something I've witnessed several times any time any discussion about "culture" comes up. What some people here consider to be the "French culture" (books, etc.) is not what is meant by culture nor understood by the "French culture" outside of France, I think.

Second, yes, it's very easy to learn, but they have made it so simple that it is very restricted in what one can or cannot say.
That's completely wrong : one can write poetry or philosophy or whatever in Esperanto, and some people did.
For instance, poetry :
_http://www.dmoz.org/World/Esperanto/Kulturo/Literaturo/Poezio/Originala/

(And as you read French, please read this article about poetry in Esperanto by a former UN translator :
http://claudepiron.free.fr/lettresouvertes/poesie.htm )

See above. By "simple", I don't necessarily mean the vocabulary or the grammar (although I still maintain that it is fairly simple compared to most "natural" languages. See Klingon again. Both grammars are simple - you said yourself how much shorter it takes to learn it-, both go through several gymnastics to express the same thing a natural language would in a more natural way, as far as I can tell). I mean the simplicity of the "reality" behind it. It can't evolve naturally, because people aren't evolving naturally with it. See my point?


Third, just because it has borrowed terms and structures from several languages, it doesn't mean that their respective cultures will be better understood, much the less respected. In a way, I think it creates a false (and simplistic) idea of what each culture really is all about.
Few structures were borrowed (beyon common ones like nouns/adjectives/verbs, masculine/feminine/neutral, or past/present/future) - the intention was to keep the grammar as simple as possible (it can be learned in one hour !).
_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto_grammar

Used roots come from latin and romanic (70%), germanic (20%), slavic and old greek languages ; some rare were created.
_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto_etymology

The language was just created to be easy and quick to learn and use, in order to exchange with foreigners.

But that doesn't change what I said above, I think. I was just addressing your point about "babelization" and "English (globalization)". That's what you decided to call this thread, right? Having a vernacular can be useful, but I think the main thing is that Esperanto adds a cognitive burden without adding anything to reality, and without helping the issues (I thought) you wanted to discuss. Or so I think.

Well, that's already the case with English. People (we) are lazy, aun't they ?

Sure. But then, you can't use it as an argument like you did. Read what you wrote on your first post.

And Basic/Simple English, once designed, was promoted, by people like Churchill to become the language of the "empire"...
Churchill (writing to Roosevelt in April 1944) said:
My conviction is that Basic English will then prove to be a great boon to mankind in the future and a powerful support to the influence of the Anglo-Saxon people in world affairs.
_http://www.eamonn.com/2012/05/when_churchill_flirted_with_ba.htm

Using English as the international language is giving native English speakers a serious asset in business or diplomacy...

Definitely. But that is reality. Using Esperanto won't necessarily change that, I don't think. I think it's beter to speak AND understand the language "of the Empire", and then learn to make the best out of it.

Fifth, concerning your second statement, there are other artificial languages that create words to "match the real world". But that doesn't make them better. That is easily done, but it adds a cognitive burden to the speakers. Why create different words, unless it is done with the purpose of being clear on concepts that really matter, that describe reality as it IS, as much as possible? That's what is lacking, IMO.
Well, it does apply to any language, doesn't it ?

Indeed. That's why I wrote what I wrote. Creating Esperanto is, IMO, like trying to reinvent the wheel.

(And in fact Esperanto and other constructed languages are as much or more concise and precise than English. Of course, a constructed language designed to achieve this aim is better than any natural one.)

Well, I think it depends on what you mean by concise and precise. Overall, I haven't found a language that is better than English, except in rare examples. But if you know of some, I'd be interested in hearing about it!

Well, you can lie in any language, can't you ?

Absolutely. So my point is, it is not a different language that will solve communication problems or reduce pathology, or even diminish the power of the "Empire". That has to come from the people, who then will modify language accordingly. We can only hope, anyway! ;)
 
The idea of a one world language leads to many questions

What about people who speak tonal languages, such as Chinese or Vietnamese, or the clicking languages in Africa? Or what about people who speak Ergative languages, such as Basque?

What about people who want their language, such as the Native Americans or the Ainu, who have put massive amounts of work into revitalizing their language?

As Kaigen states, many languages have difficulty with pronunciation. I would like to hear 'e-sper-anto' pronounced by a native Japanese speaker because native Japanese speakers have difficulty with consonant clusters.

All the world speaking one language doesn’t really work because there would be strong dialectal differences. For example, if Esperanto became a universal language, the way it would be spoken in one country would be very different from the way it is spoken in another country. This would be due to the culture and environment, as Ailen mentioned above. Eventually, each version of Esperanto would turn into it's own language. An example of this is the differences between Mexican Spanish and Spain Spanish and Catalan Spanish. :)
 
mimimari said:
The idea of a one world language leads to many questions

What about people who speak tonal languages, such as Chinese or Vietnamese, or the clicking languages in Africa? Or what about people who speak Ergative languages, such as Basque?

What about people who want their language, such as the Native Americans or the Ainu, who have put massive amounts of work into revitalizing their language?

As Kaigen states, many languages have difficulty with pronunciation. I would like to hear 'e-sper-anto' pronounced by a native Japanese speaker because native Japanese speakers have difficulty with consonant clusters.

All the world speaking one language doesn’t really work because there would be strong dialectal differences. For example, if Esperanto became a universal language, the way it would be spoken in one country would be very different from the way it is spoken in another country. This would be due to the culture and environment, as Ailen mentioned above. Eventually, each version of Esperanto would turn into it's own language. An example of this is the differences between Mexican Spanish and Spain Spanish and Catalan Spanish. :)

I basically agree with you mimimari. The only difference would be about the written language, which would be understandable by everybody. Not too bad actually...
And what about an objective language, based on the principle of relativity and concentrated around the idea of conscious evolution ?
See: http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,28310.30.html
 
I think its a better use of time to find objective ways to express what one means using the pre existing languages, in special the "language of the empire" as Ailén put it, because of the problems stated above.
And since language evolves to cater to the needs of expression of the population, it would be only natural that after some generations of struggling to find ways to communicate objectively common concepts and concepts not so common (psychopahy for example), the terms would crystallize in a somewhat different language. The extent of difference being perhaps the amount of new concepts that the language adresses. OSIT.

I hope this is understandable.
 
I don't really understand the point of learning Esperanto as a universal means of communication when we have been using for many years - and with a lot of success I might add - English for that very purpose? Isn't this very forum the proof of that? Don't we communicate efficiently here thanks to English and a common specific vocabulary?
Why fix it if it ain't broke?

I agree with Ailén about the lack of culture of Esperanto. And books and songs written in (or about) a particular (artificial) language does not a culture make...
In this respect, Esperanto reminds of some French people who insist on saying 'courriel, message électronique or mel' instead of e-mail and 'gomme à mâcher' instead of chewing-gum... Just to make a point of avoiding English at all costs.

My two cents...
 
Mrs.Tigersoap said:
...
I agree with Ailén about the lack of culture of Esperanto. And books and songs written in (or about) a particular (artificial) language does not a culture make...
In this respect, Esperanto reminds of some French people who insist on saying 'courriel, message électronique or mel' instead of e-mail and 'gomme à mâcher' instead of chewing-gum... Just to make a point of avoiding English at all costs.

My two cents...

Except that if there is a lack of culture of Esperanto, this is not the case with French, by far.
And in Quebec avoiding English is much more pronounced.
Identification for sure. Also a way to say to the Anglo-Saxon Empire something like "wait a minute, we are alive and want to preserve our singularity, our inheritance". About the same with "the Native Americans or the Ainu, who have put massive amounts of work into revitalizing their language", as mimimari wrote...
 
Eoste said:
Except that if there is a lack of culture of Esperanto, this is not the case with French, by far.

That's why I don't understand why some seem to feel so threatened by a few words like email 'invading' their language...

Eoste said:
Identification for sure. Also a way to say to the Anglo-Saxon Empire something like "wait a minute, we are alive and want to preserve our singularity, our inheritance". About the same with "the Native Americans or the Ainu, who have put massive amounts of work into revitalizing their language", as mimimari wrote...

And there is nothing wrong with that. However, English as an international language and preserving one's cultural heritage and language need not be opposed.

Again, just my two cents.
 
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