El dom, 12-08-2012 a las 13:06 +0200, Sven Barth escribi?:
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On 12.08.2012 12:35, J?rgen Hestermann wrote:
> Am 2012-08-12 03:28, schrieb Avishai:
>> I couldn't agree with you more about English :) But it seems like the
>> whole world wants to learn English (or American which is a completely
>> different language). Very strange, but such is life. I have one foot
>> in the West and one foot in the Middle East.
>>
English is one of the worst international languages (Irregular spelling, high polysemy, phrasal verbs, duplicated vocabulary from Latin and German (Get in, enter). For example Spanish or Farsi are easier to learn languages. But the a language is not the international languages because of its "linguistics virtues", but because of the country that supports it. Latin has been la international language for many years. Spanish was the international language (Some words used by Shakespeare are Spanish because it was the golden century of the Spanish Empire) until then Wold War II, French was the diplomacy language. In communist countries, Russian was the international languages.
International language has nothing to do with the language, but with the country behind that language.
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> What could be an alternative?
One could try to use the language that was planned as an international
language: Esperanto (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto )
Note: I don't know any Esperanto and so can't tell how easy/hard it is
to learn.
For some years I was involved in Esperanto. It was a nice experience, and I still keep in touch, and some times I read esperanto and go to a meeting if it's very near from my home, just to see how it goes. But I stopped devoting time to esperanto a lot of time ago.
* Esperanto has a lot suffixes and prefixes, a way of compounding roots to get new words so you have to learn a lot less roots. (most roots are Germanic and romanic, so if you speak one of these languages you need less effort)
* When you see a written word there is only on way to read it, and when you hear a word there is only one way to write it.
* The rules of grammar are perfectly regular. (by the way, many people thinks that esperanto is very similar to western languages, that's true for roots, but grammar is... different)
* There is no "Yes, in theory is correct, but we never use that word/phrase/structure in such context"
Compared to a natural language it is very easy. There are experiments that show that students that have learned esperanto for a year are as fluent in esperanto as students of French in three/four years. After studying seriously esperanto for a year, with the aid of a dictionary, you can read any book in esperanto. Can you do the same with Sweden or Swahili?
Nevertheless don't believe the hype. A lot of people thinks that, after learning the "rules" and affixes in a week, can speak esperanto. Wrong you must learn a lot the vocabulary and become fluent it. Contrary to those who think esperanto is not a real language, unfortunately it is a language so you have to study it, learn the vocabulary, the syntax, the use of prefixes etc in such way that as soon as you want to say something you pick the right words and grammar immediately. It takes a lot of time of regular studying and using esperanto.
Beside this, there is a lot of idealists that thinks that esperanto should be the international auxiliar language. They go to every meeting, support it, go to courses but they really don't speak the language. They are known as "eternal beginners". On the other hand there a lot of people that had learn esperanto by themselves but are not part of the Esperanto wave, don't take part in party-meettings, are not registered in any esperanto club or organization etc, but are very fluent reading and speaking esperanto.
If you want to travel see the world not as a common tourist, esperanto is very good. If you want to reach literature that you seldom see in you language, give a chance to esperanto. If you want to talk with people from a other countries, esperanto is good. Most people out of airports, hotels etc almost can't speak English, so you hardly will be able to talk with them.
If you have some intelectual curiosity for languages, Esperanto is an interesting experiment and there is a lot of stuff out there.
But if you don't want to travel, you don't want to know other cultures. If you want to learn esperanto only if it is useful (as a replacement of English). Don't waste your time with esperanto. For example, I have no interest in British culture, or USA culture, or travel to UK or USA. English is a tool for me. Esperanto isn't a useful tool from a practical point of view and never will be.
If you want to support the idea of a neutral international language. Forget it, esperanto will never be an auxiliar international language, as I said above the "de facto" international language is the ruling country's language. Period. Perhaps in the future Chines or Arabian.
Santiago A.
