Ĉu vi parolas Esperanton?
A few years ago I visited Skipton Castle in Skipton, North Yorkshire. Although this lovely part of Yorkshire gets more than its fair share of visitors, Skipton Castle I think it would be fair to say, does not yet quite register on the international ‘must-see destination’ list. Put it this way, it is not the Louvre, the Forbidden City, the Statue of Liberty or the Tower of London.
Despite this, the Castle was geared up for an international audience and offered an impressive range of written guides in several languages – English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Russian, Japanese and Esperanto. Taking a rather battered looking English guide, I couldn’t help but notice that the Esperanto version still looked as pristine as the day it came from the printers.
Since that trip to Skipton Castle, I’ve often thought of those neglected Esperanto guides with amusement, wondering who on Earth speaks this contrived international language. Well, today my curiosity got the better of me and I finally turned to the worlds favourite source of (mis)information, wikipedia, only to discover that there are actually 200 to 2000 native Esperanto speakers (as many as that?!), 10,000 fluent speakers and 100,000 active speakers. Esperanto is also apparently on the school curriculum in China, Hungary and Bulgaria. You’d think that English, French, Spanish or indeed Chinese would be more useful but hey, why not be optimistic?
For Esperanto is a language based on optimism if nothing else. esperanto.net tells me that it is a language ‘designed to facilitate communication between people of different lands and cultures’ because ‘unlike national languages, Esperanto allows communication on an equal footing between people, with neither having the usual cultural advantage favouring a native speaker.’ Fair enough.
The funny thing for me is that despite its promise of simplicity and no irregular verbs, I would prefer to struggle away with my failing French and lapsed Japanese than learn something that was invented by a Polish eye specialist in 1887. There is something beautiful and grounded in the organic nature of language and although all those quirky irregular verbs don’t actively help promote world peace, they probably reflect our complex lives more than contrived scientific constructions.
But here’s to Skipton Castle’s embracing of Esperanto. You don’t get that at the Tower of London.
Tags: language matters
March 12th, 2009 at 10:03 am
is esparanto really a language developed on the basis of communication nee cultural advantage? i mean – its still uses the conventional western alphabet. ugg ur gonk (pretend this isn’t communicating by txt- oh and that implies you need to write and read to learn a language) could a language be developed entirely based on grunting or do grunts in different languages carry alternative meanings? oof or is this just me being stupid because you know i’ve always just wanted to bark at people anyways…
March 12th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
I feel bad to say that I had never even heard of this language until your blog post.
March 12th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
There was an Esperanto shop in Holland Park Avenue for years, probably up until about 15 or 20 years ago. I never went in, but I was sorely tempted.
It’s sad really, as it’s a language that’s utterly failed to catch on.
March 12th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
Hello Sheepish, I think that Esperanto does fall down on the old ‘cultural advantage’ thing. I mean, look at these phrases. Since they look so suspiciously similar to other European languages you might well be able to guess what they mean…
Bonan matenon (Good morning)
Mi ne komprenas vin. (I don’t understand)
Dankon. (Thank you)
The language still comes with European constructions and cultural baggage, and its clearly easier to learn Esperanto if you already speak a Latin/Greek based language. If you’re Chinese and learning Esperanto you may as well just learn English!
Keith, my point exactly!
F-C, Working in an Esperanto shop sounds like my ideal kind of job. As there clearly wouldn’t be any customers, I really could just blog, read and daydream all day…
March 13th, 2009 at 9:53 am
I knew a woman a few years ago who was a fluent Esperanto speaker, and something of an evangelist for the cause. She was involved in lots of well intentioned but quite paternalistic charities, and her view of Esperanto as a tool for pan-cultural unity – by imposition if needs be – was a sort of extension of her general ‘these people just don’t know what’s good for them’ attitude.
She certainly put me right off the whole idea.
March 14th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Wow! You knew someone who spoke Esperanto? Who with? Was there a secret society of Esperanto speakers? And what makes someone want to learn this language in the first place?
And I am increasingly not buying this ‘pan-cultural unity’ concept. Everyone knows that the true universal language is the language of love…
Blurgh.
March 15th, 2009 at 10:52 pm
I’m a Welsh-speaking Englishman who has visited Skipton Castle using the guide in Esperanto. Now I could have followed the English one, of course, but I was happy to use the Esperanto version.
I’ve used Esperanto in some fifteen countries (Bulgaria, Slovenia, Italy, Finland …), and returned earlier this month from Cameroon, where the language gave me access to the homes and lives of ordinary people there.
March 16th, 2009 at 5:03 am
The word stock of Esperanto has mostly latinate roots, because latinate languages are the most widely understood. The grammar and morphology, however, have much in common with non-European languages. Here’s how a UN translator explained it: http://bit.ly/GaYKZ
One of the nice things about speaking Esperanto is that it enables you to find free lodging with friendly locals all over the world. I have an American friend who used the Pasporta Servo (“Passport Service”) to travel across Europe a few years ago. She toured for about sixteen months, and she still speaks fondly of all the nice people she met… http://www.tejo.org/eo/ps_lingv_en
March 16th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Hello Bill and Hoss, thanks very much for stopping by and commenting.
It is great to hear from Esperanto speakers as it seems like such a hidden world unless you look into it. Your experiences suggest that Esperanto can take you a long way indeed and there is a close-knit, yet world-wide community out there.
And Hoss, the language site you gave the link for is particularly interesting. I understand more about how it works – Esperanto is attempting to combine the best bits of other language systems you could say?
But is it really that easy to learn? Did you teach yourselves? It does seem relatively straight forward compared to French and English which does appeal!
March 16th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Yes, I think your description about combining the best bits is about right. Essentially, the elements of Esperanto are descended from earlier languages, in much the same way modern English is descended from the collision of old Norman French with the Germanic dialects once spoken by the Angles and Saxons. It isn’t so much that any particular bit is “better” than another, but in Esperanto this synthesis had some conscious planning involved, at least initially. Instead of features being chosen haphazardly by military conquest, economic influence etc., they were chosen for ease of use, flexibility, and the ability to faithfully express texts from diverse national literatures in translation.
As to ease of learning: I hesitate to say that *any* language is easy; by necessity, human languages are difficult and full of subtleties. Esperanto is undoubtedly much easier than most, however. There is still a lot to learn, but you can spend your time learning meaningful things rather than memorizing verb conjugations, irregular pronunciations, or the “gender” of inanimate objects. :-) For example, once you learn how to conjugate one verb (which takes all of about five minutes) you’ll know how to conjugate every verb you’ll ever encounter.
The agglutinative system of word formation also helps to maximize what you’ve already learned. A simple example: once you know the root for “dog” (“hund-”) and the suffix for “offspring”(“-id”), you automatically know how to say “puppy” (“hundido”) without having to learn a new word. The same works for any animal. No need to memorize a different baby name for each species, e.g. cow/calf, hen/chick, goat/kid, kangaroo/joey, etc.
In terms of hard numbers, various studies since the 1930s have shown that students can aquire a basic proficiency considerably faster in Esperanto than in other languages: typically in a quarter of the time. Learning Esperanto also seems to help with subsequent language acquisition. Primary schools in the UK are taking advantage of this by teaching Esperanto as part of the “Springboard to Languages” program: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto#Language_acquisition
Finally, to answer your question: yes, I started out with a British textbook “Teach Yourself Esperanto”, believe it or not, and then went on to a tutored course on the Net: http://pacujo.net/esperanto/course/
Being able to actually speak with people from other countries and have a conversation was really rewarding, so I went on to study the language formally at university. In the States (where I’m from) where the options are sparse, the best university program is at the University of California, called NASK: http://esperanto.org/nask
March 17th, 2009 at 10:00 pm
Thanks for all this info Hoss. It’s been a bit of an eye-opener and I definitely appreciate your passion for the language. It sounds as though Esperanto would be very interesting to students of lingustics, not just people wanting to communicate as such. You never know, when I finally conquer all of French verb conjugations I might well have another look at Esperanto!