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Esperanto is not universally easy to learn. It’s easy to learn for Occidental people, because it’s biased toward European languages from which it takes most of

by hk__2 7y ago

Esperanto is not universally easy to learn. It’s easy to learn for Occidental people, because it’s biased toward European languages from which it takes most of its roots. Lots of choices made in Esperanto are arbitrary decisions that don’t sound natural at all to someone coming from another linguistic area.

aaaaaar 7y ago
I think it is. -phonetic spelling -no exceptions, no irregular word forms -simple grammar, few conjugations -much faster vocab acquisitions due to correlatives These are all huge advantages. Even if word stems are 100% new, the amount of total memorization required is drastically smaller.
psychoslave 7y ago
Well, there is no absolute scale regarding "easy to learn", it always depends what is your current language background and the discrepancy it has with the new language you aim to learn. That said, Esperanto stays way much easier to learn than any Occidental language, even for people having a Roman language as native language. Now, surely you can come with even more easier to learn language, which dodge some of the most criticized defects of Esperanto, like Western centrism vocabulary. Maybe Toki Pona is a candidate on this point. To my mind, what makes Esperanto more interesting than other planed language is its community and an already large body of original cultural works. Sure it's far less smaller than what you can get with English, but it's already enough to occupy more than a human life span. That is interesting, to my mind, in the measure of the low cost you have to pay to enter it. As a person with a Roman native language, I don't doubt that learning Mandarin, Japanese or some Bantu language would give me far more exotic enlargement of my world view. However the cost is also probably several orders of magnitude greater. At this price, I think anyone can learn both Esperanto, get full access to what it can gives, and invest just a bit less in any of the other aimed languages. At worst it will make you slightly less skilled in that ones, but that is not even certain as while learning more languages you generally become better at learning more languages.
- hk__2 7y ago
  I started learning Esperanto but I abandoned due to the lack of cultural work around it. I felt like Esperanto could only bring me new, constructed culture, rather than existing one. When you learn Italian you discover the Italian history and its culture ; when you learn Spanish you learn the history of Spain and its culture ; etc. When you learn Esperanto, you learn… the history of Esperanto and that’s pretty much it. Virtually nobody learns Esperanto as a native language, meaning there’s no region in the World you can travel to and feel immersed in Esperanto culture. Also, I don’t think Esperanto would be viable as a unique global language in the long term: we don’t have the same culture everywhere in the World, we don’t all think the same way, and so some regions would eventually start creating words that are unique to them. Slang is also something that is by definition very localized. While a universal language would be awesome for international communication, I feel like we would still end up with localized languages, local dialects of Esperanto.
  - psychoslave 7y ago
    Well, I didn't experienced this lacks. To my mind, anything that has history is also linked to a specific culture, so I don't get your point here. Esperanto does come with its own culture, grown through human communications, original works, its artifacts[1], local events and international congresses. Maybe its not enough to meet your personal definition of what a culture is, but it does suffice for mine. There are some people who count Esperanto among there native languages, but that's just a byproduct of having Esperantists that mate having Esperanto as unique common language. Most Esperantists, to my knowledge, don't seek to make Esperanto the native language of everyone. The goal is not to be an "universal" language either, but an international auxiliary language. So it's perfectly compatible with proliferation of local languages. >there’s no region in the World you can travel to and feel immersed in Esperanto culture. You mean, like Herzberg am Harz – the Esperanto Town[2]? But really, that's not the point, if you want to feel immersed, you can go at local events or international congresses. You can travel virtually anywhere in the world using Pasporto Servo[3] and stay some time with a fellow Esperantist if you want to gain acquaintance with most foreign cultures out there. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zamenhof-Esperanto_object https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zamenhof-Esperanto_object [2] http://esperanto-urbo.de/page.php?pid=80300003 http://esperanto-urbo.de/page.php?pid=80300003 [3] https://www.pasportaservo.org/ https://www.pasportaservo.org/

by hk__2 7y ago

aaaaaar 7y ago

I think it is. -phonetic spelling -no exceptions, no irregular word forms -simple grammar, few conjugations -much faster vocab acquisitions due to correlatives These are all huge advantages. Even if word stems are 100% new, the amount of total memorization required is drastically smaller.

psychoslave 7y ago

Well, there is no absolute scale regarding "easy to learn", it always depends what is your current language background and the discrepancy it has with the new language you aim to learn. That said, Esperanto stays way much easier to learn than any Occidental language, even for people having a Roman language as native language. Now, surely you can come with even more easier to learn language, which dodge some of the most criticized defects of Esperanto, like Western centrism vocabulary. Maybe Toki Pona is a candidate on this point. To my mind, what makes Esperanto more interesting than other planed language is its community and an already large body of original cultural works. Sure it's far less smaller than what you can get with English, but it's already enough to occupy more than a human life span. That is interesting, to my mind, in the measure of the low cost you have to pay to enter it. As a person with a Roman native language, I don't doubt that learning Mandarin, Japanese or some Bantu language would give me far more exotic enlargement of my world view. However the cost is also probably several orders of magnitude greater. At this price, I think anyone can learn both Esperanto, get full access to what it can gives, and invest just a bit less in any of the other aimed languages. At worst it will make you slightly less skilled in that ones, but that is not even certain as while learning more languages you generally become better at learning more languages.

hk__2 7y ago
I started learning Esperanto but I abandoned due to the lack of cultural work around it. I felt like Esperanto could only bring me new, constructed culture, rather than existing one. When you learn Italian you discover the Italian history and its culture ; when you learn Spanish you learn the history of Spain and its culture ; etc. When you learn Esperanto, you learn… the history of Esperanto and that’s pretty much it. Virtually nobody learns Esperanto as a native language, meaning there’s no region in the World you can travel to and feel immersed in Esperanto culture. Also, I don’t think Esperanto would be viable as a unique global language in the long term: we don’t have the same culture everywhere in the World, we don’t all think the same way, and so some regions would eventually start creating words that are unique to them. Slang is also something that is by definition very localized. While a universal language would be awesome for international communication, I feel like we would still end up with localized languages, local dialects of Esperanto.
- psychoslave 7y ago
  Well, I didn't experienced this lacks. To my mind, anything that has history is also linked to a specific culture, so I don't get your point here. Esperanto does come with its own culture, grown through human communications, original works, its artifacts[1], local events and international congresses. Maybe its not enough to meet your personal definition of what a culture is, but it does suffice for mine. There are some people who count Esperanto among there native languages, but that's just a byproduct of having Esperantists that mate having Esperanto as unique common language. Most Esperantists, to my knowledge, don't seek to make Esperanto the native language of everyone. The goal is not to be an "universal" language either, but an international auxiliary language. So it's perfectly compatible with proliferation of local languages. >there’s no region in the World you can travel to and feel immersed in Esperanto culture. You mean, like Herzberg am Harz – the Esperanto Town[2]? But really, that's not the point, if you want to feel immersed, you can go at local events or international congresses. You can travel virtually anywhere in the world using Pasporto Servo[3] and stay some time with a fellow Esperantist if you want to gain acquaintance with most foreign cultures out there. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zamenhof-Esperanto_object https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zamenhof-Esperanto_object [2] http://esperanto-urbo.de/page.php?pid=80300003 http://esperanto-urbo.de/page.php?pid=80300003 [3] https://www.pasportaservo.org/ https://www.pasportaservo.org/