8 ms·

English is a (dominant) language of the web. Perhaps not quantitatively already, but qualitatively it still is. Time to draw some attention to contracted langu

by lcedp 13y ago

English is a (dominant) language of the web. Perhaps not quantitatively already, but qualitatively it still is. Time to draw some attention to contracted languages (i.e. Esperanto). It would be a much more unbiased and time-saving choice for the world community.

nawitus 13y ago
Esperanto wouldn't save any time. Actually, it would waste huge amounts of time, because billions of people would need to suddenly learn a new language.
- lcedp 13y ago
  It's not how the world works. Billions will not wake up at the morning and start doing something new. But it's possible over time. For instance, in Europe place of lingva franca took Latin, then French, then German, then English. English just happen to be lucky to arise in time of globalization and the internet. I speak 3 languages and after trying Esperanto I saw that claims that it can be learned in 1/10th of time required to learn English (or 1/20th Chinese) are true. Seems irrational to me that majority of the population wanting to join the world community have to learn language 10 times harder with having little chance of being fluent in it.
petercooper 13y ago
As a geek, I would vote for Lojban instead because it's syntatically unambiguous ;-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lojban http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lojban
- lcedp 13y ago
  Yes, it may be cool but it's not designed to be easy (for humans). Thus it's a very bad candidate for lingva franca.
MichaelGG 13y ago
Esperanto is far from "unbiased" - it's obviously extremely influenced by European languages. It's not a fundamentally great design either. E.g. no non-gender pronoun, for some reason. Use of diacritics and extra pronunciation rules are also a negative. Moving to Esperanto would not save time at all, and would be significantly more difficult for the many people that now have to learn yet another very Euro-centric language with complicated. And, there's really very little benefit to switching. Making up a language won't gain traction. Even most programmers can't figure out how to write/read decent programming languages Why on earth would we think the rest of humanity will accept it for spoken language? And at any rate, it'd have to be a lot better than Esperanto or alternatives for it to be worthwhile.
- lcedp 13y ago
  > Esperanto is far from "unbiased" - it's obviously extremely influenced by European languages. I agree here! It's so much easier to learn for English or Spanish speaker. But still Chinese or Japanese speaker will learn Esperanto 10 times faster then English. Huge improvement. > E.g. no non-gender pronoun, for some reason. Well, most languages including English doesn't have non-gender pronoun. Yet in Esperanto officially you can use "ĝi" (it) or "tiu" (that person) for referring to the person of unknown/unspecified gender. But people seem not to use it often. >Use of diacritics and extra pronunciation rules are also a negative. Majority of languages use diacritics or non-latin writing system and steel doing fine. It's not that hard. But as a trade-off you get one sound - one letter philosophy. > Moving to Esperanto would not save time at all, and would be significantly more difficult for the many people that now have to learn yet another very Euro-centric language with complicated. And, there's really very little benefit to switching. Moving to Esperanto is like moving from Latin numbers to Arabic. Yes, sorry, it will require at least some learning to use. > Making up a language won't gain traction. Even most programmers can't figure out how to write/read decent programming languages We don't need most to create something good. > Why on earth would we think the rest of humanity will accept it for spoken language? I don't thing so. But there are good reasons mentioned in this comment. > And at any rate, it'd have to be a lot better than Esperanto or alternatives for it to be worthwhile. It's pretty awesome, really. I was skeptical too until I tried.
mtts 13y ago
Most contracted languages in existence are ridiculous. Esperanto is especially bad: it's just a jumble of Germanic and Romance languages that is just as difficult for a native speaker of a non-Indo-European language to learn as the languages it steals from. In actual fact, English as a lingua franca isn't all that bad. It's a creole (of sorts) and therefore has a relatively simple grammar. The drawback to English is the fact that it's a Germanic creole and that Germanic languages have a comparatively large number of phonemes to work with. It would probably be more useful to most people in the world if a choice were made to go for a creole with a more reasonable number of phonemes, such as Swahili, Indonesian/Malay or Tok Pisin. Until that happens, however, using English is quite a reasonable thing to do.
- lcedp 13y ago
  > Most contracted languages in existence are ridiculous. You can call Esperanto ridiculous, but it's used in all aspects of life. It has a good poetry. I find its internet terms actually better then in some non-English languages. There are several native Esperanto speakers. For instance, George Soros. > Esperanto is especially bad: it's just a jumble of Germanic and Romance languages Well, English is a jumble of Germanic, Latin, and French. Doesn't make it bad though (I do love English very much, it's beautiful). >... that is just as difficult for a native speaker of a non-Indo-European language to learn as the languages it steals from. You are very wrong. See below. > In actual fact, English as a lingua franca isn't all that bad. It's a creole (of sorts) and therefore has a relatively simple grammar. The drawback to English is the fact that it's a Germanic creole and that Germanic languages have a comparatively large number of phonemes to work with. It would probably be more useful to most people in the world if a choice were made to go for a creole with a more reasonable number of phonemes, such as Swahili, Indonesian/Malay or Tok Pisin. Until that happens, however, using English is quite a reasonable thing to do. English is pretty hard language. It's harder to see this fact if you are a native speaker. But here are some benefits in learning of Esperanto vs English: 1) Much simple grammar with no exceptions. For instance, no irregular verbs. 2) Phonetic spelling. https://www.google.com/search?q=english+fish&safe=off&client=ubuntu&hs=P0r&channel=fs&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=kB7GUePFIcL-4QTMmYDQBg&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1440&bih=786#facrc=_&imgrc=3WeX9C1MhWHjvM%3A%3BBw4IJ0QcKtxg6M%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fweknowawesome.com%252Fwp-content%252Fuploads%252F2011%252F11%252Fghoti-fish-english.png%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fweknowawesome.com%252F2011%252F11%252F14%252Fwe-love-a-good-fried-ghoti-sandwich%252F%3B663%3B456 https://www.google.com/search?q=english+fish&safe=off&client... 3) Consistent word forming. For instance, compare: tree/forest/gamekeep vs arbo/arbaro/arbaristo, where 'aro' means collection, 'isto' means professional. 4) Tons of other goodies, I won't write it here.

by lcedp 13y ago

nawitus 13y ago

Esperanto wouldn't save any time. Actually, it would waste huge amounts of time, because billions of people would need to suddenly learn a new language.

lcedp 13y ago
It's not how the world works. Billions will not wake up at the morning and start doing something new. But it's possible over time. For instance, in Europe place of lingva franca took Latin, then French, then German, then English. English just happen to be lucky to arise in time of globalization and the internet. I speak 3 languages and after trying Esperanto I saw that claims that it can be learned in 1/10th of time required to learn English (or 1/20th Chinese) are true. Seems irrational to me that majority of the population wanting to join the world community have to learn language 10 times harder with having little chance of being fluent in it.

petercooper 13y ago

As a geek, I would vote for Lojban instead because it's syntatically unambiguous ;-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lojban http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lojban

lcedp 13y ago
Yes, it may be cool but it's not designed to be easy (for humans). Thus it's a very bad candidate for lingva franca.

MichaelGG 13y ago

Esperanto is far from "unbiased" - it's obviously extremely influenced by European languages. It's not a fundamentally great design either. E.g. no non-gender pronoun, for some reason. Use of diacritics and extra pronunciation rules are also a negative. Moving to Esperanto would not save time at all, and would be significantly more difficult for the many people that now have to learn yet another very Euro-centric language with complicated. And, there's really very little benefit to switching. Making up a language won't gain traction. Even most programmers can't figure out how to write/read decent programming languages Why on earth would we think the rest of humanity will accept it for spoken language? And at any rate, it'd have to be a lot better than Esperanto or alternatives for it to be worthwhile.

lcedp 13y ago
> Esperanto is far from "unbiased" - it's obviously extremely influenced by European languages. I agree here! It's so much easier to learn for English or Spanish speaker. But still Chinese or Japanese speaker will learn Esperanto 10 times faster then English. Huge improvement. > E.g. no non-gender pronoun, for some reason. Well, most languages including English doesn't have non-gender pronoun. Yet in Esperanto officially you can use "ĝi" (it) or "tiu" (that person) for referring to the person of unknown/unspecified gender. But people seem not to use it often. >Use of diacritics and extra pronunciation rules are also a negative. Majority of languages use diacritics or non-latin writing system and steel doing fine. It's not that hard. But as a trade-off you get one sound - one letter philosophy. > Moving to Esperanto would not save time at all, and would be significantly more difficult for the many people that now have to learn yet another very Euro-centric language with complicated. And, there's really very little benefit to switching. Moving to Esperanto is like moving from Latin numbers to Arabic. Yes, sorry, it will require at least some learning to use. > Making up a language won't gain traction. Even most programmers can't figure out how to write/read decent programming languages We don't need most to create something good. > Why on earth would we think the rest of humanity will accept it for spoken language? I don't thing so. But there are good reasons mentioned in this comment. > And at any rate, it'd have to be a lot better than Esperanto or alternatives for it to be worthwhile. It's pretty awesome, really. I was skeptical too until I tried.

mtts 13y ago

Most contracted languages in existence are ridiculous. Esperanto is especially bad: it's just a jumble of Germanic and Romance languages that is just as difficult for a native speaker of a non-Indo-European language to learn as the languages it steals from. In actual fact, English as a lingua franca isn't all that bad. It's a creole (of sorts) and therefore has a relatively simple grammar. The drawback to English is the fact that it's a Germanic creole and that Germanic languages have a comparatively large number of phonemes to work with. It would probably be more useful to most people in the world if a choice were made to go for a creole with a more reasonable number of phonemes, such as Swahili, Indonesian/Malay or Tok Pisin. Until that happens, however, using English is quite a reasonable thing to do.

lcedp 13y ago
> Most contracted languages in existence are ridiculous. You can call Esperanto ridiculous, but it's used in all aspects of life. It has a good poetry. I find its internet terms actually better then in some non-English languages. There are several native Esperanto speakers. For instance, George Soros. > Esperanto is especially bad: it's just a jumble of Germanic and Romance languages Well, English is a jumble of Germanic, Latin, and French. Doesn't make it bad though (I do love English very much, it's beautiful). >... that is just as difficult for a native speaker of a non-Indo-European language to learn as the languages it steals from. You are very wrong. See below. > In actual fact, English as a lingua franca isn't all that bad. It's a creole (of sorts) and therefore has a relatively simple grammar. The drawback to English is the fact that it's a Germanic creole and that Germanic languages have a comparatively large number of phonemes to work with. It would probably be more useful to most people in the world if a choice were made to go for a creole with a more reasonable number of phonemes, such as Swahili, Indonesian/Malay or Tok Pisin. Until that happens, however, using English is quite a reasonable thing to do. English is pretty hard language. It's harder to see this fact if you are a native speaker. But here are some benefits in learning of Esperanto vs English: 1) Much simple grammar with no exceptions. For instance, no irregular verbs. 2) Phonetic spelling. https://www.google.com/search?q=english+fish&safe=off&client=ubuntu&hs=P0r&channel=fs&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=kB7GUePFIcL-4QTMmYDQBg&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1440&bih=786#facrc=_&imgrc=3WeX9C1MhWHjvM%3A%3BBw4IJ0QcKtxg6M%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fweknowawesome.com%252Fwp-content%252Fuploads%252F2011%252F11%252Fghoti-fish-english.png%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fweknowawesome.com%252F2011%252F11%252F14%252Fwe-love-a-good-fried-ghoti-sandwich%252F%3B663%3B456 https://www.google.com/search?q=english+fish&safe=off&client... 3) Consistent word forming. For instance, compare: tree/forest/gamekeep vs arbo/arbaro/arbaristo, where 'aro' means collection, 'isto' means professional. 4) Tons of other goodies, I won't write it here.