Some people thinks Esperanto would never success because many people would be reluctant to replace their language. This is not what Esperanto is for. Esperanto is created for communication with different launguage speakersand it repects native languages. Well, it may really fail because English is doing this job nowadays, but I still think Esperanto is worth learning because of its educational benefits.
Maybe it is a failed idea, but it was successful for me. I was struggling with Russian and German and English and Italian before I just had to take a language test for graduation, so I put some effort into Esperanto. They said it will be less difficult then the others. And yeah, before I couldn't pass a base level exam, now in Esperanto instead of the required medium level exam, I could take the professional level after a year of hard work. But after that for my surprise English became easy too.
That is the beauty of Esperanto. I speak English and French and could make out most words before I started learning Esperanto. It is quite remarkable in that way.
I don't consider Esperanto as a failure, more like a work in progress, and the people I know who speak the language would agrue the same point. I myself, started studying Esperanto about a year ago, and find it quite enjoyable to learn. I have far greater confidence with it than I do with French for which I studied for 10 years! P.S. I happen to know more Esperantists than French speaking people.
The socks occasionally stress their words incorrectly... Esperanto is always stressed on the penultimate syllable. For instance, I'm sure I heard them say an-KAU instead of AN-kau.
@chocolatedonut31 Anyone can speak it with any accent, there is no set standard and most tend to speak with one which is similar to the one they speak or whichever they feel sounds the most comfortable to them. It is also heavily based on Latin languages [Also Germanic (German and English primarily) with a bit of Slavic in it] so one will definitely notice a correlation between the language and use of Romantic accents.
I liked the ending lol:) and the sock puppets, uh, they are puppets, right? :) I have a couple picture postcards on which some people tried to communicate. I will take a look at them and see how it appears. Maybe put here at utb :) mvh
@shootanputan Esperanto isn't supposed to replace national languages. It would be nice though if every country had Esperanto as an official second language.
That's pretty close. Many words do sound similar to Italian. The reason for this is that Professor thought Italian is the best sounding language of all. Thus, every noun in Esperanto ends with letter O. The phonetic system was taken from Slavic languages as the easiest way to pronounce words. The result might sound close to the hybrid of Russian and Italian. Wonderful language.
I spoke english (or I tried) during the three last weeks during a travel in United States. What a difficulty it was for me to know the right way to pronounce words (above all letters "i", "ea", "e"). Never the same pronunciation ! How it would have been easier for me to use esperanto and its constant rules of pronunciation ! More I use esperanto more I understand how it simplifies international communications.
Oh, definitely. I never thought talking socks would ruin Esperanto for everyone. That's an accomplishment to be proud of! Thanks for your critical thoughts. Feel free to write as much as you like about the video. I'm having fun reading all the comments here. Cheers, nevenretro. ;)
It has words from Spanish, Italian, German, English.... the list goes on. It is neutral in the sense that it is equally easy to learn for most of the people, not in the sense that it should sound unrecognizable for everybody.
As far as learning Esperanto for Chinese people, I cannot argue that it is more difficult than for Westerners. This is due to a lack of cognates. Frankly, Chinese people will have this problem with almost ANY language, not just Esperanto. Chinese also has inconsistencies that Esperanto does not. The Counting words are a good example.
Well, since numerical superiority was not the goal of Zamenhof... in fact, Esperanto's goal was to allow any two people from different nationalities to communicate on an equal basis, and there are a lot more than 2 Esperantists, so Esperanto has succeeded way beyond the author's imagination. It was not invented, it was initiated by Zamenhof. The language has evolved naturally through usage. Esperanto is the only means to communicate on such an equal level.
I'm trying to attain fluency in Esperanto so I can go to conventions and meet people with whom I otherwise wouldn't be able to easily communicate. I want to be able to travel across Europe, and take up residence with Esperantists along the way. I don't think there's any reason to try to convince the naysayers or pay them heed.
Esperanto is 1. Not too western. English is 100% Western. Esperanto has an agglutinative language structure, similar to Central Asian languages. 2. Esperanto is easy to learn, has native speakers and has succeeded in all the objectives of the founder. 3. It is not sexist to distinguish between males and females by the use of the -ino suffix. It greatly simplifies the language.
Good point ^^ but and I guess most languages would have the vowels in it anyway. I think their could be a more 'fair' universal language in any case. I am a fan of esperanto. Sorry i gave ur comment minus when I meant to give it a plus :( sorry. ^^ peace
Erm ... no, you are wrong. Esperanto has just as big a vocabulary as any other language. Which is obvious, as the Esperantonian vocabulary is derieved from that of other languages.
Again, see my response to rylifox! This is circular reasoning (look it up if you don't know what that is)! You can't use the fallacious conclusion that English is better because it has more speakers to support the opinion that Esperanto SHOULDN'T have more speakers! If more people WERE to learn Esperanto, it WOULD have more speakers, which in turn gives more people reason to learn it! What is so hard to get about this?
I hate to disagree, but I think you are a bit misinformed. Esperanto has the easiest morphology of any language I have ever studied. True, it has declensions. There are only two cases, however; nominative and accusative. This is a positive since it allows freedom in word order and is not difficult to learn. As far as conjugations, I would like to learn which verbs are conjugated and how. I've never seen them.
Spanish has a relatively freely moving sentence structure...not always, but especially in questions one can phrase them with the same words in many different ways. English is almost just a gender-neutral as Esperanto... But considering over 500 million already speak English fluently, and even more at a relatively working level, while only an estimated 2 million can work with Esperanto, English is a better choice to learn for general international communication, wouldn't you say?
Lojban is hard to speak. I think it was originally created as a computer language, so although it can function like any other full-fledged spoken language, the number of particles and word endings gets complicated =( I like Esperanto better =)
@bacofishtaco It's considered "failed" because Dr. Zamenhov created Esperanto to make a universal language; A language the whole world would speak. He thought this would bring everyone together, but the truth is, countries want to keep their languages, it's a part of identity and culture. The language itself didn't fail, but I guess you could say Dr. Zamenhov failed.
The problem is not the alphabet. Grammatically, Mandarin is almost a simple as Esperanto since the morphology is not complicated. Esperanto is more difficult for Chinese speakers simply because of the lack of cognates. This is easily overcome, IMHO.
Though I learn esperanto I REALY don't like it. I don't care bout gramatics and stuff, the lingvo is VERY simple and easy to learn. What I don't like about it is that is sounds like a salad from spanish, german, italian and a couple of other languages. The result is something very unpleasant for the ear. I don't think esperanto will ever reach it's goal.
@Kwekwe no, it doesn't say "f u c k this!" it says "fakte" (in fact, de hecho, en fait...), the adverb of fakto = fact. It would be as "factly" in English.
"... and better sound than this." Aha! So whether a language is good or not is decided by your personal auditory tastes! We will remember to let you know when we make a new languages again, so you can give your blessing! "Ideal for lazy learners..." Aha! Instead of bringing forth valid arguments against the language, you start an ad hominem attack against its speakers! You are a master of rhetorics!
Most people in the world take from 7 to 10 years to learn English... and even then they can´t speack it fluently. Esperanto takes from 4 months to 2 years. The average learning time is 6 months. A chinese learns in 2 years, I heard, but only because the alphabet is different. Besides, esperanto is neutral... it isn´t from any country.
@summer9380 yeah i know what you mean but if someone wants to learn italian it's a good thing to me. i mean, it's like when you like a band and don't wanna tell your friends 'cause it's "yours" ..that's just stupid because that way you're not supporting your band. if you're jealous about your language you're not supporting it and if anyone did that way your language would die. it's a paradox :) anyway you're lucky also cause if the main lang of the world was italian you all would be fucked xD
@purplemutantas I like the idea but think that the implementation of this language as international language will led to the extinction of many languages around the world.Small countrys with small maket will make there music,filmes,news etc...all in Esperanto so they can sell it to the world and have a bigger audiencie.Then emigrantes go the does countrys and prefer always to learn Esperanto and not the first language of the country!
".....whooo-kay. If you wanna be that way." Yes, just pretend that the other guy is the jerk. "I'm not critical of Esperanto at all." Err ... yes, you are! "However, native languages still retain more poetical power for their speakers, I think. that's all" Repeating something that was just rebuttled ad nauseum does not make it true!
it's may be successful but i'd never(NEVER!) want to live in a world where all the languages, which are a big part of a civilization's identity, disappeared. We should pick one to be the world's official one..but there's already english so i don't see why we should take a new one.
What, did you learn English from a text book? No one uses "lame" as a word for a disability anymore (or at least very rarely). Lame means pathetic/dumb/boring.
"I am sure homo neanderthalensis had a more complex structure ..." Aha! So you can tell the structure of a language just by listening to it for a few seconds! Unfortunaly, I don't know this language you call "homo neandethalensis."
@summer9380 that's not about the culture but i think it's more about dumb hyper-conservative people..sharing is always a good experience when it comes to something that can enrich others life ;)
"English is far more popular and taught way more." Again, circular reasoning. You conclude that English is better because it has more speakers, and you use this conclusion to claim that Esperanto should not be spoken by more people.
This argument is bogus anyway! Esperanto is sexist because female nouns are different from male nouns? Well, guess what! This means in reverse that male nouns are different from female nouns! But people only complain about sexism against WOMEN, which is kinda ironic!
well, I think I'll start with Esperando rather then Spanish. Is so simple for me, well it will be then the 6th Language is Sooooooooooooo, funny Mi estas ... malsana ayayaiiiiiiii
kakakakakakakaa I did'nt pay closer atention... but the pronuciation sucks there .... The right pronunciation would be... saLUton! mia NOmo EStas Roberto! saLUton Roberto! Mi EStas ProfeSoro espeRANto! ANkaux... no anKAUX...kakak every word in esperanto the strong part isn't the last one... but the one before the last...
Some people thinks Esperanto would never success because many people would be reluctant to replace their language. This is not what Esperanto is for. Esperanto is created for communication with different launguage speakersand it repects native languages. Well, it may really fail because English is doing this job nowadays, but I still think Esperanto is worth learning because of its educational benefits.
Hooray! How does it go?
Maybe it is a failed idea, but it was successful for me. I was struggling with Russian and German and English and Italian before I just had to take a language test for graduation, so I put some effort into Esperanto. They said it will be less difficult then the others. And yeah, before I couldn't pass a base level exam, now in Esperanto instead of the required medium level exam, I could take the professional level after a year of hard work. But after that for my surprise English became easy too.
That is the beauty of Esperanto. I speak English and French and could make out most words before I started learning Esperanto. It is quite remarkable in that way.
@shootanputan
That contradicts the goal of Esperanto. It's not supposed to have ties to any nationality. It should be spoken by everyone, however.
I don't consider Esperanto as a failure, more like a work in progress, and the people I know who speak the language would agrue the same point.
I myself, started studying Esperanto about a year ago, and find it quite enjoyable to learn. I have far greater confidence with it than I do with French for which I studied for 10 years!
P.S. I happen to know more Esperantists than French speaking people.
The socks occasionally stress their words incorrectly... Esperanto is always stressed on the penultimate syllable. For instance, I'm sure I heard them say an-KAU instead of AN-kau.
It's a language.
What do you think what languages are good for?
@chocolatedonut31
Anyone can speak it with any accent, there is no set standard and most tend to speak with one which is similar to the one they speak or whichever they feel sounds the most comfortable to them. It is also heavily based on Latin languages [Also Germanic (German and English primarily) with a bit of Slavic in it] so one will definitely notice a correlation between the language and use of Romantic accents.
I liked the ending lol:) and the sock puppets, uh, they are puppets, right? :)
I have a couple picture postcards on which some people tried to communicate. I will take a look at them and see how it appears. Maybe put here at utb :)
mvh
youtube recommendations 18 years late
@shootanputan Esperanto isn't supposed to replace national languages. It would be nice though if every country had Esperanto as an official second language.
That's pretty close. Many words do sound similar to Italian. The reason for this is that Professor thought Italian is the best sounding language of all. Thus, every noun in Esperanto ends with letter O. The phonetic system was taken from Slavic languages as the easiest way to pronounce words. The result might sound close to the hybrid of Russian and Italian. Wonderful language.
I spoke english (or I tried) during the three last weeks during a travel in United States. What a difficulty it was for me to know the right way to pronounce words (above all letters "i", "ea", "e"). Never the same pronunciation ! How it would have been easier for me to use esperanto and its constant rules of pronunciation !
More I use esperanto more I understand how it simplifies international communications.
Oh, definitely. I never thought talking socks would ruin Esperanto for everyone. That's an accomplishment to be proud of!
Thanks for your critical thoughts. Feel free to write as much as you like about the video. I'm having fun reading all the comments here. Cheers, nevenretro. ;)
Socks speaking Esperanto make me giggle. Why don't my socks do that? All my socks do is get lost in the dryer. ;)
So what's the point of Esperanto then?
Is that Mario Hugo from 31 Minutos?
It has words from Spanish, Italian, German, English.... the list goes on.
It is neutral in the sense that it is equally easy to learn for most of the people, not in the sense that it should sound unrecognizable for everybody.
this is defidently going on my presentation about esperanto!
You should have directed this comment towards PompadourSamurai who would have needed it more.
I almost understand everything !! Because I speak Spanish, English, and Italian.
What did that puppet say at 0:35? Listen real closely.
nevenretro:
We aimed to do the impossible: speak Esperanto very badly! ;)
As far as learning Esperanto for Chinese people, I cannot argue that it is more difficult than for Westerners. This is due to a lack of cognates. Frankly, Chinese people will have this problem with almost ANY language, not just Esperanto. Chinese also has inconsistencies that Esperanto does not. The Counting words are a good example.
@Konsept0 I think the puppet at 0.35 says "**** this!" Well spotted!!! :-)
For people who don't speak the same native language to talk to each other in a simple secondary language that's easy to pick up.
Well, since numerical superiority was not the goal of Zamenhof... in fact, Esperanto's goal was to allow any two people from different nationalities to communicate on an equal basis, and there are a lot more than 2 Esperantists, so Esperanto has succeeded way beyond the author's imagination. It was not invented, it was initiated by Zamenhof. The language has evolved naturally through usage. Esperanto is the only means to communicate on such an equal level.
No, Esperanto is NOT a failed idea!
Quite the contrary!
If you had read the description, you would know that this video is not serious.
Pickiness: Stress is on the penultimate syllable. So estas is stressed on the e not the a. Pickiness ends.
"What is the gold?" I'd say it's Black Hills.
"I don't think there's any reason to try to convince the naysayers or pay them heed."
But the naysayers stunt the growth of Esperanto!
Are the socks actually speaking?
I'm trying to attain fluency in Esperanto so I can go to conventions and meet people with whom I otherwise wouldn't be able to easily communicate. I want to be able to travel across Europe, and take up residence with Esperantists along the way. I don't think there's any reason to try to convince the naysayers or pay them heed.
Yes, it needs to get rid of declensions and conjugations. Chinese does just fine without them.
Cxu cxi tiu filmo estas esperante? Mi dubas pri tio...
I'm 12 years old and i'm learing esperanto.
I isn't difficult and its very nice to learn.
Esperanto is 1. Not too western. English is 100% Western. Esperanto has an agglutinative language structure, similar to Central Asian languages. 2. Esperanto is easy to learn, has native speakers and has succeeded in all the objectives of the founder. 3. It is not sexist to distinguish between males and females by the use of the -ino suffix. It greatly simplifies the language.
"I prefer English..."
Aha, so it's settled! The entire world must learn English because some guy on the internet says so!
i don't speak esperanto but I am fluent in French, Spanish, and English. Why does Esperanto sound so "Spanish heavy." Maybe it is just the accent.
They see me trollin'
Good point ^^ but and I guess most languages would have the vowels in it anyway. I think their could be a more 'fair' universal language in any case. I am a fan of esperanto. Sorry i gave ur comment minus when I meant to give it a plus :( sorry.
^^ peace
Erm ... no, you are wrong.
Esperanto has just as big a vocabulary as any other language.
Which is obvious, as the Esperantonian vocabulary is derieved from that of other languages.
Again, see my response to rylifox!
This is circular reasoning (look it up if you don't know what that is)!
You can't use the fallacious conclusion that English is better because it has more speakers to support the opinion that Esperanto SHOULDN'T have more speakers!
If more people WERE to learn Esperanto, it WOULD have more speakers, which in turn gives more people reason to learn it!
What is so hard to get about this?
I hate to disagree, but I think you are a bit misinformed. Esperanto has the easiest morphology of any language I have ever studied. True, it has declensions. There are only two cases, however; nominative and accusative. This is a positive since it allows freedom in word order and is not difficult to learn. As far as conjugations, I would like to learn which verbs are conjugated and how. I've never seen them.
I predict by the 31st century everybody off the face of the earth will speak Esperanto
Spanish has a relatively freely moving sentence structure...not always, but especially in questions one can phrase them with the same words in many different ways.
English is almost just a gender-neutral as Esperanto...
But considering over 500 million already speak English fluently, and even more at a relatively working level, while only an estimated 2 million can work with Esperanto, English is a better choice to learn for general international communication, wouldn't you say?
Lojban is hard to speak. I think it was originally created as a computer language, so although it can function like any other full-fledged spoken language, the number of particles and word endings gets complicated =( I like Esperanto better =)
"Bonko is better than Esperanto because it has less words and is made from more than European languages."
How does this make it better?
Plus, it's spelled "actually".
@bacofishtaco It's considered "failed" because Dr. Zamenhov created Esperanto to make a universal language; A language the whole world would speak. He thought this would bring everyone together, but the truth is, countries want to keep their languages, it's a part of identity and culture. The language itself didn't fail, but I guess you could say Dr. Zamenhov failed.
The problem is not the alphabet. Grammatically, Mandarin is almost a simple as Esperanto since the morphology is not complicated. Esperanto is more difficult for Chinese speakers simply because of the lack of cognates. This is easily overcome, IMHO.
Poor Professor Esperanto... he had an aneurism and..collapsed... O.O (*Begins dialing 5551234)
good one!
2022?
"It's old and faulty."
You said it, so it must be true!
No need to back up you assertions with evidence, god forbid!
Let´s have fun!!! Just It!!!
Hear, hear!
Though I learn esperanto I REALY don't like it. I don't care bout gramatics and stuff, the lingvo is VERY simple and easy to learn. What I don't like about it is that is sounds like a salad from spanish, german, italian and a couple of other languages. The result is something very unpleasant for the ear. I don't think esperanto will ever reach it's goal.
@Kwekwe no, it doesn't say "f u c k this!"
it says "fakte" (in fact, de hecho, en fait...), the adverb of fakto = fact.
It would be as "factly" in English.
"... and better sound than this."
Aha! So whether a language is good or not is decided by your personal auditory tastes! We will remember to let you know when we make a new languages again, so you can give your blessing!
"Ideal for lazy learners..."
Aha! Instead of bringing forth valid arguments against the language, you start an ad hominem attack against its speakers!
You are a master of rhetorics!
Most people in the world take from 7 to 10 years to learn English... and even then they can´t speack it fluently.
Esperanto takes from 4 months to 2 years.
The average learning time is 6 months.
A chinese learns in 2 years, I heard, but only because the alphabet is different.
Besides, esperanto is neutral... it isn´t from any country.
Haha. So cute!
I agree.
Yes, and you do not need to support you claim with evidence, nosiree, just say "The other guy said it" and it MUST be true!
ok, that last part was just plain weird
@summer9380 yeah i know what you mean but if someone wants to learn italian it's a good thing to me. i mean, it's like when you like a band and don't wanna tell your friends 'cause it's "yours" ..that's just stupid because that way you're not supporting your band. if you're jealous about your language you're not supporting it and if anyone did that way your language would die. it's a paradox :)
anyway you're lucky also cause if the main lang of the world was italian you all would be fucked xD
Thats's dankoN!
@purplemutantas I like the idea but think that the implementation of this language as international language will led to the extinction of many languages around the world.Small countrys with small maket will make there music,filmes,news etc...all in Esperanto so they can sell it to the world and have a bigger audiencie.Then emigrantes go the does countrys and prefer always to learn Esperanto and not the first language of the country!
Trumps English? Where are the masterpieces of Esperanto literature? Where are the amazing Esperanto songs?
".....whooo-kay. If you wanna be that way."
Yes, just pretend that the other guy is the jerk.
"I'm not critical of Esperanto at all."
Err ... yes, you are!
"However, native languages still retain more poetical power for their speakers, I think. that's all"
Repeating something that was just rebuttled ad nauseum does not make it true!
ili estas unu tere bone video, gratulon
it's may be successful but i'd never(NEVER!) want to live in a world where all the languages, which are a big part of a civilization's identity, disappeared. We should pick one to be the world's official one..but there's already english so i don't see why we should take a new one.
Good! I would always question the neutrality of a translator. If you want to say something, say it yourself.
i DONT think it's THAT neutral.. sounds like a simplified Spanish ...
What, did you learn English from a text book? No one uses "lame" as a word for a disability anymore (or at least very rarely). Lame means pathetic/dumb/boring.
"I am sure homo neanderthalensis had a more complex structure ..."
Aha! So you can tell the structure of a language just by listening to it for a few seconds!
Unfortunaly, I don't know this language you call "homo neandethalensis."
cxarma video :D
I speak MORE than one language, how MORE nice for me. hehe
@summer9380 that's not about the culture but i think it's more about dumb hyper-conservative people..sharing is always a good experience when it comes to something that can enrich others life ;)
It sounds rather Italiano.
ĝi estas tre amuza ^_^
It uses already existing words, so it sucks!
(Sarcasm!)
Gxi placxas al mi via posxto. Esperanto estas tre amuza. Mi sxatas gxin. :)
"English is far more popular and taught way more."
Again, circular reasoning.
You conclude that English is better because it has more speakers, and you use this conclusion to claim that Esperanto should not be spoken by more people.
This argument is bogus anyway!
Esperanto is sexist because female nouns are different from male nouns?
Well, guess what!
This means in reverse that male nouns are different from female nouns!
But people only complain about sexism against WOMEN, which is kinda ironic!
It sonds like a russian speaking italian.
well, I think I'll start with Esperando rather then Spanish.
Is so simple for me, well it will be then the 6th Language
is Sooooooooooooo, funny
Mi estas ... malsana ayayaiiiiiiii
i don't like esperanto, it's to latin. i like germanic languages more.
jes jes...
mi rimarkis tionn
doloras al miaj oreloj.... rsrsrsrs
mi faris komenton
kaj estas en la fino... mi kredas...
rsrsrsrs
gxis
Similas al mia...
Multo bon! Gratias. (iste message in interlingua, visita "interlingua . com" )
English can't be. Is phonetically so complex and has a lot of 'exeptions' to the point it becomes trivial.
LOL
kakakakakakakaa
I did'nt pay closer atention... but
the pronuciation sucks there
....
The right pronunciation would be...
saLUton! mia NOmo EStas Roberto!
saLUton Roberto! Mi EStas ProfeSoro espeRANto!
ANkaux... no anKAUX...kakak
every word in esperanto the strong part isn't the last one... but the one before the last...
Try lernu (dot) net
Esperanto sucks. It is a dry language as that other guy said.
These guys have a bad Esperanto pronunciation. Don't try to imitate them!
How many languages do you know? English is not THAT good...