6 ms·

Here's perhaps the only large-scale critique of Esperanto from a linguistic perspective, as opposed to a reactionary[1] or nationalist[2] one: http://jbr.me.uk

• taoistextremist 9y ago
  To be fair to Esperanto, when it was invented English wasn't nearly the lingua franca it is today, and the Internet didn't exist. I don't think it's fair to critique it just because its original intent was as an auxiliary language. I would argue that intent failed. But it has native speakers, and it has communities who use it, and that itself justifies a language's existence.
  • msla 9y ago
    Esperanto has nothing to be ashamed of as regards its history or current use, but if it's being touted as a modern auxlang which should be used more often, there are a number of problems its promoters have to come to grips with.
    • akvadrako 9y ago
      It's not perfect, but practically it's still the best option. Of all the candidates for an easy to learn international language, it has by at least an order of magnitude the most speakers and materials. For example, the Esperanto wikipedia is larger than the Arabic one. I also haven't seen any of the other conlangs demonstrate they can be both as expressive and easy to master.
    • taoistextremist 9y ago
      I don't think it's any worse than other auxiliary languages (which I think are all doomed to failure if that's really their goal as opposed to just building a community). I don't know if you can really attack the languages for "problems" if it starts being adopted to the point that it evolves like a natural language (as Esperanto has done). Anything "inefficient" or the like about the language will be changed to the point that native speakers find it suitable.
  • jcranmer 9y ago
    When Esperanto was invented, the major powers of Europe were pretty much England, France, and Germany, and French was already the primary language of diplomacy and high culture. At the time, polyglottalism was a feature of, e.g., scientific literature (French and German die out only in the mid-to-late 20th century), but practically speaking, learning just English, French, and German would give you a fairly "universal" coverage, and possibly even just French. So credible lingua francas already existed back then.
    • wahern 9y ago
      Esperanto arose at a particular time and place where linguistic and ethnic divisions fractured communities and even families. We all know that English, German, and French were long used--and are still used--to project power. But where Zamenhof lived this aspect of language played out in a much more complex, violent, and personal manner. While the late 19th century was an unprecedented period of peace and prosperity for Western Europe, it was exceptionally violent for the lower-classes in much of Central and Eastern Europe. The point of Esperanto wasn't just to be a shared language. Much more importantly to Zamenhof and early Esperantists, the point was a language that wasn't bound to provincial, ethnic, or religious identity. This backfired in the early 20th century as Esperanto became associated with, e.g., Jewish and Anarchist groups. But it seems like in the latter 20th century Esperanto reverted to an internationalist language without association to any distinct political movement. And in that sense it's once again a reprieve from and perhaps an antidote to provincial power dynamics, notwithstanding its European language bias.
• laretluval 9y ago
  Esperanto was invented in an explicitly Eurocentric colonialist context. A nice early Esperanto song goes: En densa Afrika ĝangalo sovaĝaj nigruloj sen Di' jam solvis la lingvan problemon, per tam-tam' disiĝas la kri'... This sounds very ominous now.
  • cobbzilla 9y ago
    Wow, I didn't think about its origins that way at all, but it makes sense given the timing/context of how it began. For the unenlightened (like me), Google Translate renders this as: "In a dense African jungle savage negroes without Di 'have already solved the linguistic problem, by so-called'" [1] Yeah, not sure if I'd say "ominous", but it's definitely a double-take. It reminds me a bit of the Indian scene from Disney's Peter Pan (1953) [2]. When it was made, I guess it was supposed to evoke a sense of wonder about the fantasy/dreamlike-nature of their adventure. But in the modern day, it just comes off as "wow, that's incredibly offensive." What's funny is the cultural/time context. I saw the Peter Pan film as a child (in the 1980s) and I do not remember thinking it was patently offensive. In fact, iirc in US in the 80's it was not considered politically incorrect to use phrases like "Indian giver" or play games like "Cowboys and Indians" with your friends, etc. I think Esperanto's early history might also suffer from this sort of cultural baggage. [1] https://translate.google.com/#auto/en/En%20densa%20Afrika%20%C4%9Dangalo%20sova%C4%9Daj%20nigruloj%20sen%20Di'%20jam%20solvis%20la%20lingvan%20problemon%2C%20per%20tam-tam'%20disi%C4%9Das%20la%20kri' https://translate.google.com/#auto/en/En%20densa%20Afrika%20... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Pan_(1953_film)#Controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Pan_(1953_film)#Controve...
    • antognini 9y ago
      "Di'" is a poetic rendering of "Dio", or God.
      • cobbzilla 9y ago
        Thanks. And now it's even worse; the phrase they were going for (and Google didn't pick up) must have been something like "godless savages". Just lovely.
• sevensor 9y ago
  My biggest problem with the idea of a universal language is that it might lead us to understand each other better. This would cause no end of strife and suffering. Suppose it caught on. Imagine the trolling that would happen once anybody could troll anybody else, anywhere in the world!
  • colanderman 9y ago
    The Esperanto Facebook group does invite some "interesting" political posts; viewpoints you never see in national language forums (for better or worse...).
• ruricolist 9y ago
  One could argue that Esperanto's reliance on derivation through affixes makes it in a practical sense a Semitic language in European clothing.
• b0rsuk 9y ago
  English is common, but it has some serious flaws: * ambiguity * tons of exceptions * in my opinion, it's too simple for its own good, which results in overloaded words. Because individual words, especially the short ones, carry little meaning, you bang two or three of them together and get a completely different meaning.
  • danmaz74 9y ago
    My only real gripe with English is the spelling being almost completely not phonetic. If only we could fix that...
    • Al-Khwarizmi 9y ago
      And additionally, the phonetics itself is more complex than needed. Spanish has only 5 vowel sounds, corresponding to the 5 vowels of the Latin alphabet, as does Japanese. English has 20. This is quite a big deal for learning when your native language has a smaller phonetic inventory. My English level is officially C2 (the highest level in the EU framework) and still, I have to think for a second or two before using the words "sheet" and "shit"...
      • danmaz74 9y ago
        > English has 20. I never even realized this... wow.
• colanderman 9y ago
  Surprisingly this is actually the reason Esperanto is somewhat popular in China. My understanding is that it is often used as a "stepping-stone" language before teaching European national languages. (I have no source for this, beside anecdotes, and having met someone who taught such a course - among other languages - at a Chinese university.) (I don't know why you're downvoted, you bring up a valid point.)
• im_dario 9y ago
  Pretty much spot on critique. I agree that Esperanto has a fairly thriving community but it doesn't cut as a proper auxiliary language. I think the concept of Esperanto should be redone under current linguistics knowledge and technology. We will probably end with another half-backed attempt but maybe it would advance Humanity a little more towards having a shared neutral language.