Talk:Esperanto/Archive 4

This is an archive of past discussions about Esperanto. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

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Esperanto symbol

I think it's misleading to present the jubilea simbolo as the symbol of Esperanto. At the top of the page, it makes it look like it's some kind of official emblem, and it's not. The verda stelo (green star) isn't "official" either, but it's far more widely accepted and recognized. We should either put both of them, or just the green star. And we should note that neither is "official." --n-k 02:32, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. kwami (talk) 22:36, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Not sure

Really diacritic letters make Esperanto "difficult to learn" ??? ... maybe they are difficult to write at computer, but don't make esperanto difficult to learn... --Iosko (talk) 21:23, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

And the note in the same paragraph about how Ido and Interlingua address the supposed problems of E-o being harder than necessary for speakers of European languages might should note (if we can find a suitable source to cite for it) that they (or at least Interlingua) simultaneously are harder for speakers of non-European languages to learn. Really it's "speakers of Romance languages" and not "speakers of European languages" in general that Ido and Interlingua are easier for. --Jim Henry (talk) 16:21, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Improvements...

Saluton. I see that this page is very messy, and could be improbed a lot. Many other languages have this as very good article. Some of the problems here:

there is too much... even correlatives in the main page! (those should stay in the grammar page) - result: this page is boring to read, and not fluent;
NPOV the criticism section has just one point of view, the "defence" is missing (i can understand, many don't like this language, but no defence is too much);
some part can be reduced or be deleted, for example "useful sentences" can stay in other pages, this is not a course, but an enciclopedic article;
other line guide of wikipedia...

Ĝis! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.10.72.157 (talk) 10:38, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

For User:N-true: maybe you are ineducated, that i wrote was quite educated and kind, and reasonable. For the other users who don't know, please check this in the history of the page:

(Undid revision 233086746 by 83.10.72.157 (talk) I am pro responses-to-the-arguments, but not pro uneducated, false ones.)

There is a will to don't improve this? Where is the uneducateness? --83.10.72.157 (talk) 12:38, 20 August 2008 (UTC) -- NOW REGISTERED AS user:iosko

What this article needs: cited material. What this article doesn't need: more uncited arguments over the criticism section.--Prosfilaes (talk) 15:58, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

What else this article needs: the whole article needs to be re-writed (this doesn't mean to delete contents, but to change their position, if they are good). Fluency. In the main page of esperanto should be a

presentation of the language and its ideals
creation of Esperanto
its history and the community of esperantists
(a little of) grammar
practice uses
Famous esperantists
recognitions and uses of international Entities (Unesco, candidate for the Nobel this year, etc.)
Esperanto and religions
...
criticism

Good examples can be the featured articles in other languages. Also something shouldn't be here, this page should be for people that never heard about esperanto, and don't want to read about correlatives, i guess. If they want to see correlatives, they can go in the page with grammar of esperanto. Here there can be short sections, something like the 16 rules of the fundamento. Does anybody want to collaborate to this? This can be a featured article, if the work will be good ... ;) --Iosko (talk) 20:06, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to, but not sure I can afford the time. kwami (talk) 22:34, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I would argue against basing the grammar section of this article (much less the Grammar of Esperanto article) on the "16 rules". The 16 rules are of historical importance, both as the original blueprint for the language and as having a gradually decreasing influence on the way the language has been presented and taught, but they are too vague and incomplete to be regarded as a real grammar of the language.

It's probably a good idea to overhaul the whole article. I took the article through peer review a few years ago and I'm not sure anyone has done a global revision of the article since then; most of the revisions since then have been locally improvements but might not have improved the article-as-a-whole. But like kwami I don't think I have the time to do such an overhaul any time soon. --Jim Henry (talk) 16:27, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, time is also my problem... About 16 rules, i don't mean to use just them, but to make a list of brief rules. or maybe brief explanation about every part of speech (article, prepositions, pronouns, nouns-adjectives-verbs-adverbs, conjunctions). Few rows with example for them (nouns-adjectives-verbs-adverbs can be in the same part). One very important part missing in the main article is some part of the esperanto creation, i'll do something. --Iosko (talk) 18:03, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Added Borovko letter --Iosko (talk) 21:24, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Who speaks esperanto ???

Hi! i've never heard of this language before and i have some questions. Why would somebody learn this language when we have english, german, italian and many other known languages?? Where this language is spoken? How is this language learned?? in schools?? Who uses esperanto to travel and who is meeting other persons in esperanto languages? Is this language spoken in US ?? in Europe all everywhere??? Why?Where?When?How?Who?Camaradianis (talk) 20:37, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi. You really might want to read the article, I think it answers most of your question. Reasons are different for many persons. I learned it because I like languages and Esperanto grammar was particularly easy (for me). Others might learn it because they find it easier than English or German or Spanish, while other people just like its idea and philosophy, so they give it a try. While there are other, arguably more useful languages, it takes remarkably longer to become fluent in them. Esperanto is spoken by people all over the world, I'd dare say there are Esperantists in every country in the world, except for maybe the extremely small island nations like Vanuatu, Aruba or Réunion. You can learn Esperanto in many ways... books, courses on the internet, downloadable guides, etc. I will teach Esperanto at my university, next semester, so that's an option too. Here in Germany there are also schools, where Esperanto is offered as a extrecurricular subject. Not sure about other countries, but I think it's similar there. Many people use Esperanto to travel and there are Esperanto meetings all over the world every once in a while (i.e., very often!). We have a small weekly one in our city, where about 3 to 4 people come together, but most are much bigger. And yes, of course there are also many Esperantists in the USA. I know some of them. There might be even more in Europe. And also in Africa and Asia. Hope that helped. There's a good online course at http://www.cursodeesperanto.br.com — N-true (talk) 21:25, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability verifiable

I learned because I'd basically failed at Spanish and a guy I knew who spoke 12 languages (I've seen him in action) recommended Esperanto. After that, Japanese was easy. I'd support teaching it to all elementary school kids, so that when they go on to high school they won't be intimidated by foreign languages. kwami (talk) 23:13, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I started learning it because it sounded cool, structurally. Later on I realized I was becoming moderately fluent in it after a few months of fairly casual study, and I decided to put more time and effort into becoming really fluent in it; it took me about two years, as compared to fourteen years of studying French in which I've not managed to become truly actively fluent. I learned it mainly through the Internet, partly through books bought by mail-order, partly through a course taught by a local Esperanto speaker, and partly through the three-week immersion course that was then at San Francisco State, now at the University of San Diego. I think most of the younger (under 40) people I know started learning it via the Internet. Because of health problems I haven't done much international travel, but I've hosted Esperanto-speaking guests in my home several times, and acted as tour-guide for Esperanto speakers visiting Atlanta. The people I've hosted or shown around the city or both were from Japan, Germany, the Netherlands, Iceland, and Spain; I may be forgetting one or two. I've also had email correspondence with Esperanto speakers in more countries than I can think of or count offhand, primarily Brazil, Japan, Bulgaria, Russia, and Italy.

I'm reasonably sure there are considerably more Esperanto speakers in Europe than in the USA; I suspect English-speaking countries tend to have fewer Esperanto speakers relative to their population than other countries whose citizens have similar wealth and amounts of leisure time. Still, you can probably find one or more Esperanto speakers in almost every major city in the U.S.A., and a fairly large number in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco. --Jim Henry (talk) 23:30, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks everybody for this answeres ;). I think esperanto has small chances to become what is english today... Everybody actually meets through english( at least here). I am not a native speaker of english, but i speak it very well and fluent(i think).. and i am still learning english at school.. by the way i have just starded highschool :D tody was my first day. I learn english in10 years.. i dont know.I was speaking fluently for a long time ago. I thinik i am gonna learn esperanto :D:D I heard is brainfriendly( i dont know exactly what is that). I also learn german in my school. but is a hard language and i dont actually want to learn it.... i think it is the most brainfucking language compared to esperanto.... i think i will learn this language a bit later, cause i start school and the romanian school is really brainfucking and brainkilling. We have 8 ours tomorow :(( and i am 15 years old....:((:(( The law sais no more that 6 but they kill us :((:((. I now have health problems because this school :((. Anyway...intresting things about esperanto ;)

I would not say you're speaking English fluently - you're making lots of mistakes :) but I'm sure one day you will speak Esperanto fluently. It's not that logical, but sufficiently regular. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.166.230.47 (talk) 02:45, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Same vowels as Japanese?

Esperanto has the five cardinal vowels of Japanese, Spanish, Swahili, and Modern Greek.

Someone just recently added Japanese to this list. Haven't we been over this before? Japanese has an unrounded 'u' and a voiceless unrounded 'u'; it's close to Esperanto's vowel system than many other languages, but still hardly the same. --Jim Henry (talk) 23:30, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, needs to be reverted, again. kwami (talk) 19:33, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Template placement

The {{Esperanto}} template's current placement, taking up so much room in the right column, squeezes the references section so it's hard to read. Can we move it to the end of the article, maybe right above the conlang-related articles template? Mabye ditto with all the category templates at the beginning of the see also section? --Jim Henry (talk) 16:43, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

"by far" as a value judgement

"by far" is not a value judgement; it is not terribly concrete, but I'd say that any English speaker would agree that a 10:1 ratio classifies as "by far".--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:37, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

"By far"

So, the article states that Esperanto is by far the most commonly spoken constructed language (or so it says). One user had a problem with that phrasing, stating that "by far" is POV. I fully agree with Kwamikagami, IJzeren Jan and Prosfilaes that a number 1000× as big as the next-large conlang (Interlingua or Ido, I suppose) is clearly big(ger) enough to merit the addition of "by far". User Antonielly asked where that margin for the inclusion of a "by far" be — I'd say, this is not relevant for the article, be it 5×, 10× or 20× as big... here we apparently have 1000×, what's this if not "by far"? Please discuss. — N-true (talk) 13:02, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't mind "by far" somewhere else in the article, but I don't think it belongs in the first sentence. The first sentence should be just a simple definition. Imagine as a first sentence "Hydrogen is by far the most common chemical element in the universe." This is technically true, and might belong somewhere in the article on hydrogen, but sounds odd to me as the first sentence of an encyclopedia article. Maybe the second sentence would be a better place for a "by far" statement here. --Cam (talk) 17:28, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, being unencyclopedic is a legitimate objection, claiming non-NPOV is not. kwami (talk) 19:36, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for opening a discussion topic in the talk page. I actually do not feel comfortable with the qualification "by far" in an encyclopedia that values NPOV because such quantifier is vague, imprecise and subjective: what is "bigger by far" for someone can be "clearly bigger, but far from being very much bigger" for someone else. See Sorites paradox. I believe User:AcroX has indicated that such qualification is POV for the same reasons.

I think this quest for consensus provides a nice opportunity to improve the article with more objective (or at least sourced) data. I would welcome something like: "Esperanto is the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language in the world. According to author X [ref.], its speaking community is at least Y orders of magnitude bigger than the speaking community of any other constructed IAL."

It does not need to be those words, of course; my point is just that a concrete numerical estimation (with indication of sources) indicating how big Esperanto is when compared to the 2nd place in the IAL speaker ranking would be NPOV, since it is an objective number. Then each individual reader that would judge whether, in his (subjective) POV, "by far" is or is not a fair qualification in his opinion.

Just for the record, in my POV, "by far" does make sense, but I argue that it is my subjective POV, and your mileage may vary. After all, there is no way to objectively say how much is needed for us to add the "by far" qualification.

I hope I 've made my concern clear for you. I believe we will soon reach a consensus. Thanks for reading. --Antonielly (talk) 23:46, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

One possible reason to avoid using "by far" in the opening paragraph is that it will cause some readers to roll their eyes and exclaim "oh God this article was written by fanatical Esperantists, most likely it can't be trusted." Because this is an issue in which communication is often dominated by partisans, such exuberant language casts doubt on the reliability of the entire article. Anyway, let's ask those who favor including "by far" to search their souls and tell us why they want it in that paragraph. --Rikat (talk) 04:45, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Rikat, I completely agree with you. Anyway, since consensus hasn't been reached yet, I am just going to add a "request for clarification" tag for the expression "by far" in the article's 1st sentence. I hope the discussions will continue for us to improve the text of the article and, after that, remove the unpleasant clarification tag. --Antonielly (talk) 19:15, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

I think Rikat's argument here is perfectly valid and thinking about it, I agree. I change my opinion: it should indeed be excluded from the first sentence. Not because it's POV (it clearly isn't, or otherwise words as "frequently", "often", "large proportion", "very seldom", which occur quite frequently(!) on Wikipedia, would be POV as well). But because of the influence it might have on some readers. "By far" doesn't add much useful information to the article anyways. — N-true (talk) 00:04, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

"largest" is just as POV and violating of the Sorites paradox; given any two quantities and the same logic, someone might think they are in fact approximately equal, especially when dealing with the vague estimates and large error bars of IAL speaker counts. The Sorites paradox is purely about logic and has nothing to do with reality.

Personally, I don't waste my time communicating with people who demand I search my soul in what's supposed to be a rational discussion.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:56, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Cam, that 'by far' is stylistically inappropriate for the intro regardless of accuracy. All the tags were making a mess of the intro, and I moved the phrase down to to Demographics. Citation would require a decent estimate for the number of Interlingua speakers, which may prove difficult. kwami (talk) 00:18, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Non-existing letters

I'm confused about one thing. If the aim was to create a language, simple and without conjugation. Why create letters that don't exist in other languages. Is there a reason for using special letters instead of consonant combinations? McCharraigin (talk) 23:39, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

The reason was so that the alphabet would be completely phonetic. As you see, Zamenhof defined optional consonant combinations (ch, gh, etc.), but these sometimes cause difficulties. One is the problem of computer sorting: ach- should come after aco-, not before. Another is compound words, such as flughaveno, which means "airport". This is formed from the roots flug- and haveno, and is NOT fluĝaveno. (The x-system, in my opinion, should be used in emailing and other temporary computing—if the diacritical letters are not available—and the standard diacritics should be used elsewhere.)

Note that Ido, a spin-off of Esperanto, does not have special characters: it has fewer sounds than Esperanto and is slightly more non-phonetic. Jchthys _cont. 02:35, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Just a minor correction: it is phonemic, not phonetic. A phoneme may represent a range of equivalent sounds/phones (which are not the same, but have the same function in a given specific language). For instance, open "o" and closed "o" are different sounds/phones independently of language. They are equivalent (may be freely exchanged with each other) in Spanish, but not in Portuguese (as in "avô" [grandfather - closed "o"] and "avó" [grandmother - open "o"]). Therefore open "o" and closed "o" are a single phoneme in Spanish, but not in Portuguese. And they are different sounds/phones universally, even in languages where they are functionally equivalent.

In Esperanto, open "e" and closed "e" are the same phoneme (represented by "e" in writing), open "o" and closed "o" are the same phoneme (represented by "o" in writing), etc. The perfect alignment between graphemes (letters/symbols) and phonemes (not sounds/phones) is what makes the Esperanto alphabet a phonemic one (but it is not phonetic at all). --Antonielly (talk) 03:24, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Back to the original question: the problem is that a sequence like sh could mean the sound of s plus the sound of h, like "grass hut" in English. (You can have a phonemic script with digraphs, that's not the problem.) Zamenhof was used to languages, such as Russian and Czech, which have few or no digraphs, and where one letter pretty much stood for one phoneme, and vice versa. However, he didn't want to copy the orthography of an existing language in an age of intense nationalism in Europe, so he created new letters that would be associated with no language in particular. kwami (talk) 06:32, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

"[...] he didn't want to copy the orthography of an existing language in an age of intense nationalism in Europe, so he created new letters that would be associated with no language in particular.". That is very interesting! Do you have a source for that? If sourced, this design rationale could be included in the article (and would be a satisfatory counter-argument to a common criticism). --Antonielly (talk) 21:17, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Don't recall specifically. Prob'ly Don Harlow. Eo wiki doesn't seem to mention it. But it wouldn't be much of a counter argument anyway: the criticism isn't that Z didn't use the Czech alphabet, really it's that he didn't use Western European conventions. People making these criticisms mostly object to an international language not looking like their national language. kwami (talk) 22:37, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I see, but why do words like grass hut and flughaveno have to be seperate sounds. If two letters make that sound why not have it that way? Is it only for better understanding if you don't speak the language very well? For example in Swedish, the word varsågod which is pronounced /vaːrʃɔːgoːd/ but is made up by the words var så god which are pronounced /vaːrsɔːgoːd/, but now when I think about it foreigners have problems with that. Hm, I feel like I'm contradicting myself. Anyway, thank you all for your help and contribution. McCharraigin (talk) 21:53, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand the question. I don't know Z's exact motivations, but I would assume that he wouldn't want "sh" because that would be sometimes /ʃ/ and sometimes /sh/. He was trying to make the language unambiguous and without exceptions, and "one letter, one sound" was part of that approach. kwami (talk) 22:07, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

It was suppose to turn out as a question but I felt I was contradicting myself so I stopped half way through. Anyway, thanks everyone for their help. McCharraigin (talk) 17:09, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually, we see this as problem because we use computer, but in the past, just few people used typewriter, and most of the people handwrote. It was a simple solution to create such letter, and the " ^ ˘ " diacritics were present in all typewriters able to write French, that was in that time the most important language. We are used to press keys on keyboard of our computer, but using a typewriter it was simple to write "s" and ^ separately. Later, when the internacia lingvo arrived in France, some French started to criticize that because the Eastern European languages were considered not important for them (even if diacritics were in French). So it was some estetical criticism when it started, and in the last years it became a problem in e-mailing (until the unicode will not be used in all servers, we must still wait at least 2 years to be 100% sure that our email in any language with any character non included in ASCII will be safely delivered - some more patience). --Iosko (talk) 19:25, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Not related to anything, from scratch? Maybe not true!

> As a constructed language, Esperanto is not genealogically related to any ethnic language.

Is this true? I've heard esperanto being mentioned as "pidgin spanish", that is a very much simplified version of spanish or an attempt at creating a too few rules artificial neo-latin language.

Supposedly native english and german speakers find it difficult to learn esperanto, because it is "so much like spanish" and they find its logic and spelling too alien. 91.82.33.216 (talk) 21:29, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

A friend of mine who knows a lot of languages has told me that Esperanto is very much like Spanish, and it can be roughly "read" with a basic understanding of Spanish. Alan16 ^talk 21:56, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

The key word is "genealogically". Like pidgins and creoles, constructed languages are not derived from other languages via gradual linguistic change. Spanish (or better yet Italian) did not evolve into Esperanto, Esperanto was created from Italian and other roots. kwami (talk) 06:28, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Estetically it looks like Spanish or Italian, but if you compare its grammar with Sp, Ita and English, you will notice that a lot comes from English: the verb doesn't change for the person (as in English, with the difference that En changes the 3rd person of the present and that esperanto doesnt use words like "do" to ask or negate, let, shall, will ...), there is just one determinative article like in Eng (here a further semplification, there are not indeterminative articles, but still, italian has 3 sing. + 3 plur. determinative articles + indeterminative articles; also Sp changes articles with number and gender); the plural is made by adding -j and in Eng. and Sp -s is added (in Italian the last vowel changes, and nothing is added). So it cannot be considered a semplification of spanish, but it could be considered a semplification of indoeuropean languages + the agglutinative structure. The fact that it sounds like Latin languages it was almost a forced chose, because they are the easiest to be pronounced than germanic and slavic languages (it's easier for an english to pronunce correctly an italian word, than for an italian to prounuce correctly an English word - just check the phonology of English and how many phonemes it has, and the same is for slavic languages) --Iosko (talk) 19:42, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I need help for translation

I speak no very good english , sorry , I think that link is intresting for you . This the link about rapport grin http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapport_Grin -- 90.34.218.110 (talk) 16:51, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Maybe as source, but here, not in the french wikipedia, where it has already been deleted. --Iosko (talk) 20:24, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

It's still there in wiki-fr. kwami (talk) 21:31, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

IF you need autentic "rapport grin" you can see eye hier http://cisad.adc.education.fr/hcee/documents/rapport_Grin.pdf —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.18.35.183 (talk) 20:49, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Can francophone please check a source?

"A study realise in panderborn academie in germany showed that 150 hours of esperanto = 1000 hours of italian = 1500 hours of nglish = 2000 hours of german"

Source for this is http://cisad.adc.education.fr/hcee/documents/rapport_Grin.pdf (in French). Could a francophone please review this article to:

- (a) Verify that the facts as stated are in this article.
- (b) (Maybe more important) Provide some context. Hours of Esperanto = hours of other languages for speakers of what languages? (Article is in French, about a German institution, and references English and Italian.) -- Thanks. -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 15:35, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

On page 81 (83 by pdf count) it says,

Flochon (2000 : 109) note que « l’Institut de pédagogie cybernétique de Paderborn (Allemagne) a comparé les durées d’apprentissage de plusieurs groupes d’élèves francophones, de niveau baccalauréat, pour atteindre un niveau dit ‘standard’ et comparable dans quatre langues différentes : l’espéranto, l’anglais, l’allemand et l’italien. Les résultats sont les suivants : pour atteindre ce niveau, 2000 heures d’études de l’allemand produisaient un niveau linguistique équivalent à 1500 heures d’étude l’anglais, 1000 heures d’étude de l’italien et… 150 heures d’étude de l’espéranto. Sans commentaire ».

Flochon (2000:109) notes that, "The Institute of Cybernetic Pedagogy at Paderborn (Germany) has compared the learning times of several groups of Francophone students, at a high-school level, to obtain a comparable 'standard' level in four different languages: Esperanto, English, German, and Italian. The results are as follows: to obtain this level, 2000 hours of study of German produce a language level equivalent to 1500 hours of studying English, 1000 hours of studying Italian, and ... 150 hours of studying Esperanto. Without comment" [I think this might mean 'nothing more needs to be said'].

Flochon, Bruno, 2000 : « L'espéranto », in Gauthier, Guy (ed.) Langues: une guerre à mort, Panoramiques. 4e trim. 48: 89-95.

kwami (talk) 22:34, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

I see that 65.26.125.199 removed this from the article, with the comment "Deleted seemingly meaningless sentence." I've re-added it, in User:Kwamikagami's translation, to the section "Education".
I see that our current cite #27 reads "Protocols of the annual November meetings in Paderborn "Laborkonferencoj: Interlingvistiko en Scienco kaj Klerigo" (Working conference: Interlinguistics in Science and Education), which can be obtained from the Institute of Pedagogic Cybernetics in Paderborn. Also in the works by Frank, Lobin, Geisler, and Meder."
As far as I can tell, this is referring to a separate publication/study from Paderborn, but if anyone knows otherwise we may want to tweak the cites. -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 20:13, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

A literal translation doesn't read so well in English, so I'll paraphrase it. kwami (talk) 20:24, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

From what I get, 150 hours of Esperanto are required to attain a "good" level in ESPERANTO, while for example 1500 hours are required for a similar level IN ENGLISH, that doesn't mean 150 hours Esperanto = 1500 hours of english —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.69.250.247 (talk) 19:31, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

see http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapport_Grin and http://www.internacialingvo.org/public/126_plena.htm and http://www.internacialingvo.org/public/study.pdf —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.7.58.145 (talk) 08:18, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Number of esperanto speakers

The number of esperantists wrote, is usually the one of Coulbert (1960s): it's a little out of date, but it's the only possible source so far. However, I heard that the Guinnes world record has a more recent estimate, does anybody know if this is true, and which is the estimated number? --Iosko (talk) 11:57, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

At Google Books I was only able to find

is now estimated from textbook sales to have a million speakers. (1983)

and

It is now estimated (by textbook sales) to have a million ... (1993)

Those at least sound like what we already have. kwami (talk) 15:04, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Ehm... the number I heard was 6 million, that's why I am curious to know it is true. Unfortunately I cannot find the site that gives this number now (with guinness book as reference, but it was not mentioned from which year).--Iosko (talk) 12:31, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Fall of (the) empire

Having a little dispute on how to translate la pereo de la imperio. The second "the" is not colloquial in English. Yes, we can say "the fall of the Roman Empire", and after that is established, refer back to it anaphorically with "the fall of the empire". However, when introducing the concept, it is "the fall of empire". For example, in James Breasted, A History of the Ancient Egyptians, chapter 24 is "the fall of the empire" only because it is anaphoric to chapter 22, "the empire of Ramses II". However, in Charles Hemans, A History of Ancient Christianity and Sacred Art in Italy, chapter 5 is "the fall of empire", as there is no such direct anaphora: chapter 3 is merely "the first Christian emperors". That is parallel to what we have here: we are not discussing the Soviet empire, and then anaphorically saying that the empire fell on a certain date, but rather introducing the concept of "the loss of empire". This is a difference in the use of the articles "the" in English and "la" in Esperanto. kwami (talk) 16:10, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

"Colloquial" is definitely the wrong word here; this is not a phrase characteristic in any form of casual informal speech. Personally, as a native English speaker, I can't imagine ever using empire without "an" or "the" proceeding it. I guess I can see it as a parallel to phrases like "the loss of democracy", but "the loss of the empire" is perfectly fine English, and even preferable to my ear.--Prosfilaes (talk) 16:41, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I think Kwamikagami meant "idiomatic" rather than "colloquial". Both "fall of empire" and "fall of the empire" seem idiomatic to me, though I prefer "fall of the empire" in this context. --Zundark (talk) 16:57, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, sorry, idiomatic. Prosfilaes, as for "can't imagine ever using empire without "an" or "the" proceeding it", over a quarter of the hits for "fall of (the) empire" in Google books do not have the article, and for those I checked, the reason appears to be just as I outlined above. When you get to "loss of (the) empire", the form without the article is actually the more common form. This is clearly perfectly idiomatic English.

You get the form without the article in cases like "a classic problematic of political philosophy: the decline and fall of Empire". I just came across a book, The end of empire?: the transformation of the USSR in comparative perspective, entirely parallel to how the phrase is being used here. kwami (talk) 19:21, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I looked at the exact context of the statement here. Simply "Empire" would fit talking about empires in general, and "the empire" would fit talking about a specific empire. The latter is the case in this instance: the article in Monato is about the fall of the Soviet Union.—Jch thys 00:35, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Thus my example, which contradicts your understanding: The end of empire?: the transformation of the USSR in comparative perspective is also about a specific empire: the same one, in fact. "The end of the empire" would occur when discussing a particular empire; "the end of empire" is used when announcing an event. Therefore an idiomatic translation in English would not have a "the". kwami (talk) 08:44, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Given that native speakers are telling you they would prefer "the end of the empire", it should be obvious that an idiomatic translation could have a "the" no matter how much evidence you bring forth that an idiomatic translation could also have a "the". As you say above, even in "loss of (the) empire", the "the"-less version is merely the more common.--Prosfilaes (talk) 15:18, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

But they don't mean the same thing! One isn't merely more common; it is the idiom that conveys the appropriate meaning. What we have now is like saying "the losing of the empire"—technically correct, and possibly something native speakers would say, but hardly what we'd want in an encyclopedia article. kwami (talk) 17:08, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

You’re right, they don’t mean the same thing. Only “the fall of the empire” carries the correct meaning, since the article is about the fall of the Soviet empire in particular, not the fall of empire in general.—Jch thys 18:23, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Again, you don't apparently understand this rather common construction. "Fall of empire/end of empire/loss of empire" cannot be parsed into its constituent parts, any more than can "watch television" (cf. "listen to the radio"). "Fall of empire" is used for cases of a particular empire, as the citations, which you apparently didn't bother to read, attest. This is like debating with someone who argues that "go to bed" is incorrect English if the person is going to their own particular bed, and that we must write "go to the bed" or "go to their bed" instead. kwami (talk) 00:21, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

OK, I’ve just never heard that construction. Might be a dialect difference between you and me. In any case a Google search at least confirms “fall of the empire” as more common.

Thanks for not edit-warring!—Jch thys 03:51, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Institut für Kybernetische Pädagogik

The Institut für Kybernetische Pädagogik used to exist (here's an entry for it in the catalog of the German National Library). I suppose one can question the work that was done there, but the Institute's former existence doesn't seem disputable. The "Laborkonferenco: Interlingvistiko en Scienco kaj Klerigo" would be the Werkstattgespräch "Interlinguistik in Wissenschaft und Bildung" which apparently used to take place annually. --Cam (talk) 04:37, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Equal?

I fail to understand why Esperanto is regarded as a neutral language when the vocabulary obviously derives mainly from the Romanic languages. (not to mention that it have inherited the ugly pronunciation and overall melody) Wouldn't a English sounding "neutral" language be most successful? As English is probably the best known language in the world. 213.67.41.107 (talk) 04:10, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

This article doesn't call Esperanto neutral except in a quote by William Auld. Do you want to remove the quote? --Cam (talk) 12:31, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

It's described as "neutral" because it does not belong to any one nation. Frognsausage (talk) 22:01, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

What does "most widely spoken constructed language" mean?

In his edit summary, ChildofMidnight asks "What does "most widely spoken constructed language" mean?". Quite simply, there exists a set C of constructed languages. Let f(c ∈ C) equal the number of speakers of the language, and let e be the element of C such that f(e) is maximized; in that case, you will find that e is Esperanto.--Prosfilaes (talk) 03:02, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

And the Edsel is the most popular car named after a family member of an auto company executive that starts with the letter E. The opening sentence should tell you what Esperanto is and summarize the article, not produce some bit of trivia. It would be informative to note how many people actually speak it, for what purposes, and in what context, rather than hypeing up its status with some arcane and misleading status out of context. Esperanto is not spoken widely and isn't an official language anywhere. So why would we start the article off with "is the most widely spoken language..."? Are you trying to deceive readers? How about Esperanto is a constructed language developed by XYZ in YEAR. It's purpose is to... It is used by ... to ... but was never widely adopted. You know, something informative??? ChildofMidnight (talk) 05:58, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. There are thousands of constructed languages. Most of them are so unnotable that they are not even listed in lists of constructed languages. Esperanto, on the other hand, is both the most famous and the most widely spoken. That is its claim to notability, and the reason it has an article in Wikipedia. Therefore we should have that info in the title. It is neither hype nor misleading, whereas omitting the info would be misleading: it is more important than who created it, when, and why. If the article implies that Eo is more important than it actually is, the fault is not in this statement. kwami (talk) 07:32, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Okay, can we note that it's the most widely spoken of constructed languages in the third sentence after we've explained what the subject is? ChildofMidnight (talk) 16:38, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

IMO no, because that *is* the subject. If Eo weren't the most widely used conlang, we wouldn't be bothering with it. People learn Eo because they want to learn a conlang; they learn IA or others because they don't like Eo. That doesn't imply Eo ranks high in absolute importance, any more than saying Yezidism is the most widespread pre-Zoroastrian religion of Iran suggests that it has any significant importance on the world stage. kwami (talk) 19:47, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, it's very unfortunate that you insist on an introductory sentence giving it accolades of popularity out of context rather than one that complies with WP:Lead by providing "a concise overview of the article." It should define the topic, establish context, explain why the subject is interesting or notable, and summarize the most important points. ChildofMidnight (talk) 21:37, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

What is Esperanto? It's a constructed language, specifically speaking an international auxiliary language. Okay, but out of the set of such languages, what makes this one distinct? It's by far the most widely spoken. So that's what should start out the article. Zamenhof in 1887 is an unambiguous definition, but doesn't tell the reader that doesn't know about the language anything.

In any case, your new text is horribly problematic and doesn't really address what you're complaining about. "a language developed to be logical and appropriate for use as an international language." is confusing, as Esperanto is not a logical language and is redundant with calling it an [[[international auxiliary language]]. "is studied mostly as a novelty of well intentioned grammatical artifice that was never widely adopted or practiced." is simply wrong, to start with; I think very few Esperanto speakers would say they studied it as a novelty. International community is a big goal, though hope for the final victory still resides in some speaker's hearts. Frankly, that sentence fails NPOV; "well intentioned" is almost always a POV construction outside a quote.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:23, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm always happy to have someone with expertise make sure the wording is precise. It would have been great if the description of Esperanto had been tweaked instead of resorting to a wholesale revert to a statement about how popular it is that doesn't provide context or an explanation of what it is in the first place. But I'm outvoted. So, c'est la vie. I suspect you are very familiar with the subject and aren't considering how it reads to a general audience that wants to learn more about the subject. ChildofMidnight (talk) 01:36, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I assume the readers have a reasonable comprehension skills or are at least willing to read through the first paragraph, which includes the lines "Esperanto has had continuous usage by a community estimated at between 100,000 and 2 million speakers for over a century, and approximately one thousand native speakers. However, no country has adopted the language officially." Perhaps if you don't know much about a topic, you shouldn't be adding lines about why people speak it.--Prosfilaes (talk) 12:52, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Some statistics

It's difficult to know the number of esperantists. If you are interested: http://parracomumangi.altervista.org/StatistikojUzoSept09.pdf and http://parracomumangi.altervista.org/StatistikojAWSept09.pdf contain some statistics about the famous Kurso de esperanto, the usage of September. It can help to estimate, is not something exact, it's not easy to understand the number of people who learned Esperanto, but it can help. For example: 6309 downloads for Windows (kurso.exe); for Linux: 458 (kurso-3.0.deb) + 132 (kurso-3.0.i586.rpm); total 6899. Maybe 50% of those learned esperanto in september? or 30%? or (pessimistic) only 10%? the latter would be 690 new Esperantists only by this course (but the esperanto associations are hundred or thousand in the world). We can only estimate, but the statistics can be used as/if you want. The website sais it was authorized by the administrators of Kurso de esperanto to public the statistics. Mi amike vin salutas —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.4.163.214 (talk) 19:33, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Google search result

I just did a Google search for "esperanto". The first result was this Wikipedia article, but with a description saying:

"Description of Esperanto with answers to arguments against its use as an international language."

This doesn't seem really objective. Any possibility to change that in the Google results? 188.60.49.11 (talk) 15:26, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Useful Phrases

I'm learning Esperanto now, and they are teaching me to say, "Mia nomo estas ...." not "Mi nomiĝas" which is what is under useful phrases now -- 98.203.152.242 (talk) 08:03, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

There are lots of ways to say things. Mia nomo estas X is the English way. Use whichever you want, but we shouldn't be listing them all. (X estas mia nomo. Nomo mia X estas. X: jen mia nomo. Oni nomigis min X. Jam tro!) kwami (talk) 09:26, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Researched links etc that are removed

Recently I took a lot of time and effort to improve the Esperanto article. However today all of it has been removed again. I put in more links etc. If you don`t agree with an addition made thats oke, but everything has been wiped out again even the information i added about travel networks. Please state why you move or don`t approve of my addidions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Douwebeerda (talk • contribs) 12:56, 7 January 2010 (UTC) Ethnologue is a good source according to my viewpoint on language subject, also if you want to change that, just change that, right now you are also destroying many new links I and also other persons made. So instead of just wiping everything i would prefer it if you talked to me or talked on the discussion section.

Also it just needs to give an overview. This is what ethnologue says, there is already discussion about the number of speakers in the section. In the summery it seems not useful to me to have big debates about numbers, and personally i find the etnhologue number more trustworthy than any other source i have seen. A research by one german student seems to be less trusty then this authoraty on language.

So please talk instead of undoing everything I and other people made to improve the Esperanto article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Douwebeerda (talk • contribs) 12:19, 8 January 2010 (UTC) Douwebeerda (talk) 12:24, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

This has been gone over numerous times. For one thing, Ethnologue is hardly a reliable ref. For another, when others dispute your claims, the polite thing to do is to discuss the changes on this page and attempt to come to agreement. It is not polite to call them vandals. You might want to read WP:Edit warring and WP:Vandalism.

I've protected the article for a day, to stop tit-for-tat reverts while we discuss your points. kwami (talk) 12:38, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

But why do you also remove links i made to pasporta servo, about the international meetings that are held. Why do you destroy all of my editions and not just your number? That is what i do not get. I put a lot of effort in my changes, and apparently you like nothing of that but dont give arguments. So why do you also remove the other stuff? And still you dont give any arguments why your source is better? Why is a finnish study made by one person better than ethnologue according to you? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Douwebeerda (talk • contribs) 12:43, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Because that's your job, and I've got other things to do. I'm just policing the article. You restored the edits that you knew others had objected to; if you had only restored the pasporta servo stuff, that would probably have been the end of it.

As for sourcing, as I've said several times already, we've had this debate numerous times. I'll leave it to the editors who first objected to your edit to explain it to you. kwami (talk) 12:48, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

To kwami,

What is normal in these cases? since the person that wiped all my additions also hasn`t given any reasons yet. Douwebeerda (talk) 12:57, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

None of your changes have been wiped out. They're all there in the page history. They can be restored at any time.

The normal thing to do is just this: start a discussion. (Prosfilaes is likely offline at the moment.) If you do not get satisfaction through discussion here, consider WP:Dispute resolution. Remember, we're a bunch of people who often have opposing points of view, so each of us trying to push through what we want first and talking second is not a viable tactic in the long run. Not to say that most of us don't try from time to time ;) kwami (talk) 20:13, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

ToProsfilaes, please respond.

Ethnologue is a good source according to my viewpoint on language subject, also if you want to change that, just change that, right now you are also destroying many new links I and also other persons made. So instead of just wiping everything i would prefer it if you talked to me or talked on the discussion section.

Also it just needs to give an overview. This is what ethnologue says, there is already discussion about the number of speakers in the section about number of esperanto speakers. In the summery it seems not useful to me to have big debates about numbers, and personally i find the etnhologue number more trustworthy than any other source i have seen in the article.

So please talk instead of undoing everything I and other people made to improve the Esperanto article. Douwebeerda

I have a job; I can't check Wikipedia every few hours.

Ethnologue is a lousy source for any one language, because all it does is echo other sources. In this case, I think it's almost certainly wrong or at best out of date; I see no modern estimates that come close. I note the estimates based on Hungary's census, which I would think would skew high, aren't anywhere close. Like Marcus Sikosek, I've done my own estimates based on the Esperanto speakers of Greater Boston, many of whom I've met. For Boston to have its fair share of those two million speakers, literally 99% of the fluent Esperanto speakers in the area must never show up at meetings. In addition to WP:NPOV and WP:V we have a responsibility not to mislead the readers, and the combination of those three factors to me demand that we should never just give the largest of a set of controversial numbers.

Your other edits were similarly concerning; "Esperanto has had continuous usage by a community estimated at between 100,000 and 2 million speakers for over a century" is neutral and encyclopedic; "Esperanto has grown since the start in 1887 from the idea of one person to an internationally living language which is now being spoken by 2 million people in 115 different countries." is POV, uses the questioned numbers uncritically, and what does 115 different countries mean? A count of every country where an Esperantist resides can't be current, has no clear definition (there's between 192 and 203 countries, depending on whose list you use) and is just unhelpful. To the extent that such a number might be useful, we could mention how many national associations there are.

You deleted the sentence "However, no country has adopted the language officially." which is important, as that's one of the ways a language is measured in the world.

It's Boulogne-sur-Mer, not Bologne sur mer. That's a minor point in some ways, but when I see a bunch of edits with obvious mistakes like Bologne sur mer, it makes editing the good parts in and reverting just the parts I find distinctly problematic or wrong take so much more time.

"This falls short of" is neutral; "This isn`t yet", assuming that's an apostrophe (outside of its use as a grave accent, its use in Unix, and use as the ASCII character itself, ` shouldn't appear in Wikipedia), isn't neutral, since "yet" implies it will be in the future.

You made big chops in the criticism section that were consistently biased towards Esperanto. Esperanto's phonology is far from its most well-thought out feature, but you removed a claim that it was "provincial" (which it is). You removed the sentence "Many critics see its aspirations for the role of a preponderant international auxiliary language as doomed because they believe it cannot compete with English in this regard." (which is very true, and very citable, and critical to why it hasn't been a huge success.) You biased the criticisms; instead of stating the criticism neutrally (it is a list of criticisms), you added "according to some people" and the like. "Esperanto asymmetry in gender formation, which can be found in almost every language," is POV; it's an attempt to poison the criticism before it's even stated. In reality, Esperanto's style of asymmetry in gender formation is probably unique to Esperanto, and while I suspect gender is tangled in the heart of virtually all languages on the planet, it's tangled in each one in a unique way, and certainly dentisto / dentistino stuff is not in "almost every language". The criticism section is the hairiest and most problematic in the article, which is why I tend to head for the revert button whenever I see it light up in a mess of uncomparable diffs.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:15, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your explanations. And my apologies for the removing of critical data. I see that that is why you also removed my additions on other fronts. I will try to redo those additions. I still think it is important that people see in how many countries it is spoken since this stresses the international orientation of the language. Your idea sounds usefull as to stress that, I`ll have a look into that. Douwebeerda —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.83.204.191 (talk) 21:57, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Panjabi is probably spoken in s.t. like 115 countries too, but we don't consider it an international language. I think some other criterion is needed. kwami (talk) 09:54, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Criticism's location in the article

WhisperToMe add a POV tag to the Criticism section with a note "Criticism should be distributed throughout the article". I disagree strongly. Esperanto is a language, and the article should read like other language articles. Grammar, history, orthography, etc., etc. should be as neutral as possible. All the fuss about Esperanto as a international language project should be confined to one section; if you want to know about gender in Esperanto, you should be able to find what it is without a confounding blizzard of argument about what it should.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:58, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Anyway, that's not what a POV tag is for. I'll remove it. kwami (talk) 01:04, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

The POV tag is necessary for the section, not because of the content but because of the organization. I do not believe that the arguments above work, considering the Barack Obama article
Think about the Barack Obama article - note the lack of a "criticism" section
"Criticism of Barack Obama" redirects to Public image of Barack Obama - If one wants to discuss the public image of the language in one section or sub-article, that is fine. But it must have this name and have both positive and negative aspects.
"if you want to know about gender in Esperanto, you should be able to find what it is without a confounding blizzard of argument about what it should." - The gender section is indeed the place for info about praise and criticism about gender in Esperanto; the reader should be forced to read the information. By having a criticism section a reader already biased one way or another can read a section that "confirms" his beliefs.
I will immediately let the NPOV noticeboard know of this case.
WhisperToMe (talk) 18:55, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard#.22Criticism_section.22_at_Esperanto_language WhisperToMe (talk) 18:57, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

First, I'm personally offended that you post a POV tag to the article without following the instructions to post to the talk page, and then when someone does post to the talk page you run off to the Noticeboard before you even discuss it. That's not the way we do things around here.

Let's look at Barack Obama, say Barack_Obama#Legislation:

Obama cosponsored the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act.[68] He introduced two initiatives bearing his name: Lugar–Obama, which expanded the Nunn–Lugar cooperative threat reduction concept to conventional weapons,[69] and the Coburn–Obama Transparency Act, which authorized the establishment of USAspending.gov, a web search engine on federal spending.[70] On June 3, 2008, Senator Obama, along with Senators Thomas R. Carper, Tom Coburn, and John McCain, introduced follow-up legislation: Strengthening Transparency and Accountability in Federal Spending Act of 2008.[71]

I don't see any place where it criticizes him, despite there being pages of criticism of these bills. I don't see anything in Barack Obama that would be the equivalent of dumping the criticism section in Esperanto all over the article.

Again, it's completely unWikipedian to tells us that the article name must be Public image of Esperanto. There's certainly room for discussion here, but the public image of Esperanto has nothing to do with what's in the Criticism section, most of which is pretty esoteric.

"the reader should be forced to read the information." Really? So if you want to know about the meter, you should forced to read about how it totally sucks and is unusable, and how it completely rocks and it's the Imperial units that suck? That's another page that a huge argument against your solution; it doesn't even mention the controversy about the meter, it just tells you what it is. Esperanto at the very least shouldn't spread the controversy about the language all over the page; you should be able to read about what it is.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:14, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure that the NPOV board was the exactly the right place for this, but I saw it there and am responding. I can understand why WhisperToMe might have considered it an NPOV issue though because some of the language does seem to be problematic. Specifically, bullet point 4 in that section contains the phrase "...unimaginatively provincial..." without the phrase being part of a direct quote. Using those words outside a direct quote implies that it is our judgment the language is unimaginatively provincial which would violate NPOV.

Furthermore, I have to agree with Whisper that the criticism of gender belongs in the section about that issue, rather than segregated and isolated from the relevant content as it is. there are other points that could also be redistributed into the body of the article, but probably best to discuss them individually. I hope that other editors will consider these points; at the very least it should be possible to trim the criticism section and rewrite a few of those phrases. Doc Tropics 00:22, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't see where in English grammar or French grammar it goes after the language for how it uses gender. Esperanto is a language that has been in use for a hundred years; surely we should be able to describe what it is neutrally without getting off into how someone is unhappy with its design. Again, I refer to meter, which discusses the unit of length without once mentioning how some people think it's much worse than yard/feet/inch and other people disagree.--Prosfilaes (talk) 02:00, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

"unimaginatively provincial" is a summary of a type of criticism, not a novel judgement on our part. I agree with Prosfilaes that the criticism section should stay separated. Eo deserves such a section, because it is a language project, not just a language, and so reception of the language is pertinent in a way that it wouldn't be for Balinese. But it *is* a language, and a description of the language should be just that: a description of the language as a language. Criticism belongs in a section of social impact & public response. kwami (talk) 06:04, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Esperanto will now be teached in brazilian Public school

with reference to "In Brazil, an effort is being made to approve a law to teach Esperanto in public schools.[28]"

See: hubpages .com/hub/Brazilian-Schools-Will-Teach-Esperanto http://www.senado.gov.br/agencia/verNoticia.aspx?codNoticia=95294&codAplicativo=2 http://www.pagef30.com/2009/09/15-september-2009-esperanto-approved-by.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.208.62.72 (talk) 07:32, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Pakistani translation

The founder of 'Pakistana Esperanto-Asocio' Prof. Allama Muztar Abbasi from Murree Pakistan wrote several books on Esperanto and compiled the Esperanto-Urduo Vortaro (Esperanto-Urdu dictionary). Moreover, he is the first Pakistani who translated Qur'an from its original text into Esperanto. The translation of Qur'an with the name of Vera Libro was published in 2000.

Does this mean that the Qur'an had been translated to Esperanto before, but this is the first such translation by a Pakistani? How is that notable? If this is the first translation, how is the translator's nationality relevant to that sentence? —Tamfang (talk) 07:42, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Mi forigos la paragrafon. —Tamfang (talk) 08:25, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

'cz' in Esperanto

Some people, such as the editor who reverted me, seem to believe that 'cz' can not occur in Esperanto words. I would recommend to those to study a little bit how this language works, before reverting others. In Esperanto, compound words can be formed by adding the root of one word to another. So, the root 'pac' and the word 'zorgo' can combine to 'paczorgo'. While that's not a word I've seen before, it is by no means foreign to the language. — Sebastian 22:12, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I now realize that the editor who reverted me does at least have a strong interest in Esperanto, having e.g. been the main editor of Esperanto etymology. Still, it would be nice to assume a little bit of good faith and consider that other people, too, may know what they are writing about. — Sebastian 22:43, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Aren't there some roots with gz? —Tamfang (talk) 08:24, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Do you mean cz? None that I know of. It would be hard to pronounce (voiceless+voiced s in a row), so it's unlikely. --Schuetzm (talk) 15:33, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

No, I mean gz, which is two voiced consonants in a row. If such roots exist, they're a better illustration of the problem than compounds with cz. —Tamfang (talk) 22:53, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Good idea to look at other letters. That gives us an even better example: "uz", which sorts after "ux", which is used for "ŭ". That certainly is uzed in Esperanto roots! — Sebastian 23:20, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, in the RETA Vortaro, it would order reuzpapero and reŭmatismo incorrectly. — kwami (talk) 04:44, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

I was assuming roots. At least in the dictionaries I have, that's how words are ordered. Also, I think it would have to be pacozorgo, since the shift in voicing would have made paczorgo almost impossible for s.o. like Zamenhof to pronounce, so I'd argue that cz actually is foreign to the language. — Kwamikagami — continues after insertion below

No, it doesn't have to be: "Oni ne uzas ligfinaĵon [kiel "-o-"] en tiaj kombinoj, kie la antaŭelemento plej nature fariĝas A-vorto".[1]. But a better example are actual roots containing "uz" - see above. — Sebastian 23:20, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

That link is down, but that's not how I read it from PAG: a nominal or adjectival head in a compound nominalizes the flankelemento (I forget what that is in English); so yes, if you wanted the flankelemento to be adjectival, you'd use the intrafix -a- rather than -o-. But the point may have been that you don't create compounds for what can be expressed by adj + noun the way you do in German, which is the closest I see in PAG to the Bertilow quote.

But Eo prides itself on being written the way it's pronounced. If you can't pronounce paczorgo, you shouldn't write it either. As the PAG puts it, the intrafix is elidable when its preservation is not required for pronunciation or other considerations. They specifically note that Z retained the -o- between consonants that differed in voicing, as here, or when it avoids gemination (affixes as in mallonga excepted). — kwami (talk)

The idea to change the -o- to -a- is nice, and I wish Zamenhof had had that idea, but it doesn't look like he did: The quote continues «Ekzemple dikfingro = "fingrospeco, kiu kutime estas pli dika ol la aliaj fingroj"». Here are a cloned and a cached version: [2] [3]. — Sebastian 04:26, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't assuming bad faith, I just disagreed with you. — Kwamikagami — continues after insertion below

I believe you; I never had the impression you assumed bad faith. (More on your talk page). — Sebastian 23:41, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Tamfang, words with kz are often (perhaps generally) pronounced as if they were gz, but they aren't spelled that way. (One of the few irregularities in the language.) — kwami (talk) 15:41, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

But why assume roots? This could be how an alphabet listing of threads in Usenet was sorted.--Prosfilaes (talk) 19:57, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Unwarranted self importance

Come on, one thousand native speakers? This article needs more NPOV and less fanboy/girl-isim. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.234.123.137 (talk) 04:25, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

I'd be a bit more careful before calling others "self-important"; such labels may fall back on the name-caller. The number is sourced to a university study, have you taken a look at that? Fair enough, that's not an official count, but it's the best we have. If you have anything better, please let us know. BTW, the fact that there are native Esperanto speakers is undisputed, some are even very cute. — Sebastian 20:29, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

in section Criticism

"Esperanto phonology is unimaginatively provincial" - is it scientific opinion? --ZmiLa (talk) 10:46, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Obviously not. It's just a criticism some voice (notice how some have managed to voiced pretty conflicting claims about its cultural status: "no culture" vs. "European"). I have removed the provincialness criticism, as I just checked its source and couldn't find the claim in there, with the closest thing to it being that it "is a constructed language with Romanic and Germanic roots, Belarussian phonology, and Slavic semantics", which is descriptive, not critical, in nature. The point thus smells like OR to me. --JorisvS (talk) 13:23, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

lede

I took out the stuff about Eo being spoken, written, on the radio, etc. Come on, it's a language, and we don't bother with stuff like that in the ledes of other language articles. On the other hand, I changed the propedeutic wording to 'superior', as that's the point. (All languages have propedeutic value.) — kwami (talk) 23:31, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Useful Phrases

The name of the useful phrases section should definitely be changed because it doesn't seem very wikipedia like. I am sure you'll find something in WP:NOT. Jbhf1 (talk) 16:43, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, we should probably direct the reader to Wiki Books or s.t. — kwami (talk) 22:59, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

"constructed language" vs "constructed international auxiliary language"

The article begins with the indisputable claim that Esparanto is the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Lower down, however, there is the claim to be the most widely spoken constructed language which is more disputable, as this includes "constructed" national languages like New Norwegian, largely the creation of Ivar Aasen and spoken by about half a million Norwegians according to the Wikipedia article on it. I would suggest correcting or qualifying this. Geoff Bache (talk) 18:49, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I've never seen New Norwegian considered a constructed language, though. It is a a standardized Norwegian dialect. There are a couple languages out there that are sometimes tossed around as constructed languages, Hebrew language and Filipino language, but they're not normally so classified.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:48, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't think language planning counts as construction. Definitely not Filipino, which is a political fiction. Hebrew is a more interesting case, but it's reconstructed, and not intended to be a new language. — kwami (talk) 22:59, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Other interesting cases in point are Rumantsch Grischun and Bahasa Indonesia. In my opinion, what matters is that these standardised languages were actually constructed: the material they were based on is of secondary importance. As such they can at least in part be categorised as constructed languages. The same goes for reconstructed languages, too: Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Germanic themselves were of course no constructed languages (if we assume they existed at all), but contemporary reconstructions no doubt are. —IJzeren Jan _Uszkiełtu? 23:50, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't know about Rumantsch, but Indonesian is just Malay. Standardization of an existing language is hardly the same thing as inventing a new one. If you tell Indonesians they speak an artificial language, I'm sure they would disagree. As for pIE, there actually is a conlang based on that. Otherwise, no-one uses these reconstructions, so they aren't languages today. — kwami (talk) 00:26, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I know about Modern PIE, but here I was rather referring to scientific reconstructions (which can differ greatly, see f.ex. Schleicher's fable). In my opinion, the whole difference between artificial and natural languages is artificial in itself. Instead, you can say there is a scale between those two extremes. A standardised language for a group of existing dialects is closer to the constructed end of the scale than those dialects themselves (although even they will undoubtedly contain "created" elements), but less close than for example an umbrella language like Folkspraak or my own Slovianski, while the latter are closer to natural languages than, say, Esperanto, which in turn is closer to the natural languages than Klingon. The question at which point of the scale natural languages end and constructed languages begin is subjective, and whatever solution you pick, there will always be a huge gray area. Therefore, the only criterium that can be evaluated objectively is: "how, where and when did this particular form of the language come about?" As for the how: in how far was it based on actual usage? As for the where: was it created behind a desk or in a conference room? As for when: the most current opinion AFAIK is that if a constructed language has second-generation native speakers, it ceases to be artificial and start to be natural. This last thing disqualifies most of the examples (except Rumantsch), because even if they started off as constructed languages, they can no longer be considered as such. Nevertheless, I think Geoffbache has made a good point, and IMO there would be no harm in adjusting the text accordingly. Regards, —IJzeren Jan _Uszkiełtu? 01:00, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

We could then say that all languages are constructed, and for that matter also artificial, and on the other hand that Esperanto is natural. But no-one uses the terms that way. No-one thinks of Spanish or Italian as being constructed; words and phrases mean what they're used to mean, not what they could be argued to mean given literal interpretations of their components. If they were, you could argue that the southernmost point of Europe is Tierra del Fuego, since Europe is a "continent", a "continent" is a continuous landmass, and South America is part of the same continuous landmass as Greece. That's just not how the word is used. — kwami (talk) 01:35, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I think "this particular form of the language" isn't the right tool; a constructed language should be distinct enough from any other to be its own language. As long as New Norwegian or Rumantsch Grischun are dialects of Norwegian and Rumantsch, they aren't constructed languages. Hebrew really is the exception, but whatever modifications were made, it's certainly treated as the natural continuation of Biblical Hebrew and not as a constructed language.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:46, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

That is beside the point. Whether a language is constructed or not does not depend on the material it is based on, but on the way it came into being. Basic English is considered a constructed language as well (a subset language, to be precise). What really distinguishes constructed languages from natural languages is that they have an author (or a group of authors) and a purpose (which may well be serving as a Dachsprache for speakers of several dialects), while natural languages by definition do not (or at best, a codifyer and/or a regulating body). But like I said, it's a more like a scale with a huge gray area, and while I'm not saying that Nynorsk is artificial, it surely is more artificial than for example Finnish. In other words, every natural language has artificial elements and every artificial language has natural elements. However, it is impossible to tell at which point one group ends and the other one begins. —IJzeren Jan _Uszkiełtu? 12:54, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Most categories are fuzzy. By that token, it's impossible to day from night, but we still use the words relatively unambiguously. — kwami (talk) 17:43, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I am not an expert on categorisations of language, but if words whose meaning isn't self-evident are to be used on Wikipedia, then I think some sort of attempt at a definition should be made. I don't think distinguishing between a "planned language" and a "constructed language" is like distinguishing night and day, and while "constructed auxiliary international language" is a bit of a mouthful, it is at least clear what is meant. I also don't really buy the "different enough to be a language in its own right" thing. As as Swedish speaker I can say that they're sufficiently different that I can understand standard Norwegian pretty easily but New Norwegian is mostly a closed book to me. As I'm sure you know, a language is just what you get when you combine a dialect with an army and a navy :) Geoff Bache (talk) 18:37, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

But isn't Basic English a "constructed auxiliary international language" by the argument being used here? For that matter, isn't regular English?

I agree that we need to define our terms, but that's why we link constructed language. In any case, once we introduce the full concept in the lede, we really don't need to repeat the whole thing with every mention. — kwami (talk) 19:08, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, Basic English is most definitely a constructed auxiliary international language. That's how it is usually classified, anyway. But well, as far as there is any doubt, let's take another example: Latino Sine Flexione, a.k.a. Interlingua de Peano. Like Basic English, it doesn't have a word of its own (which was quite a clever move if you ask me, since everybody can buy the dictionary around the corner), just a grammar that's about as simplified as Interlingua's. Nevertheless, LSF is always classified under the constructed languages. And why? Because it has an author (Giuseppe Peano) and a purpose international auxiliary language).

Obviously, Nynorsk, Modern Hebrew, Rumantsch Grischun and the like are no international auxiliary languages. But like the latter, they do have an author and a purpose, the difference is only that the purpose is different. They form a separate subcategory of the constructed languages, namely those that were intended to become the umbrella language of a nation. And unlike auxlangs, they tend to grow into natural languages fairly quickly.

All in all, I agree that it would be foolish to write "constructed auxiliary international language" all the time when we mean Esperanto etc. and not Nynorsk etc. But in this particular sentence it wouldn't hurt to add the word "auxiliary". After all, night is night and day is day, but for some the night ends at sunrise, for others at 6 AM. —IJzeren Jan _Uszkiełtu? 19:32, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I linked 'constructed language', which should make it obvious what we mean. Adding "auxiliary international" won't solve the problem if s.o. wants to insist that English and French fit the bill, and aren't necessary for anyone using a little common sense. — kwami (talk) 20:00, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Number of speakers

Participants in this WikiProject might be interested in http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/esperanto-parolantoj-en-la-mondo/ (blacklisted), whose results might be later reported in reliable sources. (This talk page is on my watchlist, and I will watch here for a reply or replies.)
—Wavelength (talk) 15:54, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Criticism

Why is there a criticism section within the Esperanto page? No other language contains a criticism section, you don't see English, French, or even Cherokee with paragraphs devoted to criticisms. People seem to forget that this is a living language like any other, and a lot of modern speakers such as myself don't learn the language for its passed ideals - we learnt it because a) Our parents spoke it, or b) I just love the language, and love being able talk with anyone from any country. I think if its necessary to have a criticisms then it should be a separate page criticising the underpinning ideals of the 'movement' behind the language - because the movement and the language are not always necessarily the same thing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 110.141.187.161 (talk) 10:43, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Criticism is central to Esperanto. It is a language project as well as a language, and you can hardly bring it up without a discussion over whether something could be improved. That rarely happens with English or French. There is prescriptive grammar and spelling reform where they are treated as language projects, but nothing like what goes on with Esperanto. — kwami (talk) 10:53, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

What makes you think Esperanto is still a language project? Anyone who’s actually learnt the language and regularly uses it would know that it’s impossible to get any new sweeping changes used within the language, and it has been this was since before World War 1. The only people who try reforming the language are those who've learnt it for a week - assume they know a better way to do something - ask the community on general learning websites such as like lernu - get shot down - then either give up on Esperanto or learn it the way everyone else has for the past 100 years. As a fluent Esperantist I can tell you for a fact the you can pick up any Esperanto book from any period over the plus 100+ years and be able to read it like it was written five minutes ago, the only thing that has changed with the language is the size of its vocabulary. It is no longer a language project, and to think otherwise is naive. Another thing; Esperanto is a much more complete language then most other 'natural' languages of the world, you can find books in Esperanto on such subjects as Korean butterflies but good luck finding the same material written in Cherokee. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.228.212.150 (talk) 07:03, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Of course it's still a language project. The fact that it's not an ongoing project is a tribute to its success, but it is a language project nonetheless. It's quite common to critique it, say it should have been done better (generally meaning more like my native language), whereas although people may grumble about German gender, they don't normally engage in debates on what to do about it. You're right that fluent speakers generally leave off such things, but we're not writing this article for fluent Espists. For the general public, it's a novel language project, and they may debate whether it's better to learn Eo or something like ILL; some Espists move on to Ido because of these ideas. Since only a minuscule number of speakers are native, that's all relevant to our article. Sociolinguistically, Eo is not a normal language.

I find it odd that you would say Eo is "complete" because it has a reasonably sized lit. Cherokee isn't "complete"? You sound like those critics who claim Eo isn't a "real" language because it's artificial, dismissive of anything you don't feel ownership of. — kwami (talk) 09:42, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

The difference is I'm not insisting Cherokee is a language project, and if you search around on the web you will find plenty of instances in which people discuss reforming English or German - German even went under a mini reform, however only partially worked. Yes Esperanto was a language project, however it isn't any longer - it couldn't work as a language project amongst its 10,000 - 2 mil speakers if people took all these reformers as serious. Anyways I made my objection for all to see, so I'll end this discussion now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.228.212.150 (talk) 23:40, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

What you're talking about with German is standardization, which is an artificial process. However, there's a huge difference between a project to tweak an existing language (often just orthography, and not the language itself), and a project to create a new language. We wouldn't call a dog an artificial life form just because it's been artificially bred. There are criticisms of language reform movements, and we cover those. There are criticisms of prescriptive grammar, and we cover those. There are likewise criticisms of breeding hip dysplasia into dogs and genetically modifying maize, and we cover those. I don't see why Eo should be given a free pass just because the criticisms potentially deal with the entire language. — kwami (talk) 00:25, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Actually, as I read the section cold, there seems to be more than enough reliable sources supporting the material to justify its presence. MARussellPESE (talk) 04:31, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

By extension however, there should be a criticism section added to the pages on Volapük, Interlingua, Ido, and all other conlangs. It is unfair to single out Esperanto for criticism. I find it even more ridiculous because it is also one of the oldest modern conlangs, and was also one of the first to achieve any widespread usage. — Ferroin (talk) 20:31, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

If you can find sources of criticism for those other conlangs to cite, go ahead and add them. Is anyone being prevented from doing so? I've seen criticisms that Ido is too Western-Eurocentric, and criticism of Volapük's choice of vowels and complexity. The fact that they haven't been included doesn't mean that Esperanto has been "singled out". It just means that Esperanto has a larger community of people who are interested in it and are motivated to add more material to its Wikipedia page. You couldn't do this for "all other conlangs" because most conlangs don't have a sizable community, and haven't received enough attention to receive much (or any) criticism, except for that which is launched at conlangs in general. Acidtoyman (talk) 21:57, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Estimates

The 'number of speakers' is estimated to be between 10,000 and 2,000,000. This is quite wide - is this a typo or should I be looking for more information? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.214.89 (talk) 17:19, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

What it's saying is that detractors have tried to show that there are only 10,000 speakers in the world, whereas supporters have tried to show there are as many as 2,000,000. Neither number would be easy to prove given:

the speakers are spread around the world
speakers are not required to register themselves as speakers
it's difficult to determine how fluent a speaker must be to be considered a speaker

Looking at it that way, and considering how heated debates between supporters and detractors can get, it would actually be surprising if the range wasn't so wide.

Although maybe the article should try to make that more clear. CüRlyTüRkey^Talk_Contribs 23:12, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Phonology

Before going into complicated details I think this paragraph should explain the simple basic principle:

principle of "one letter, one sound"

The above sentence appears correctly in the article "phonology", would make this paragraph better readable.

For me as a german, this principle is very valuable. In English, we and you have to learn everything twice, orally and in writing. Through, rough, ghost, thorough: the gh has many different pronounciations. In other languages it is less complicated as in English. Italian has a similar g- respectively gh-complication: Lamborghini, spaghetti, Gina, but less than English. In Esperanto each letter has only one sound. --Hans W (talk) 15:47, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

I think mentioning the principle here would be good. However, strictly, orthographic concerns are irrelevant to the phonology. Therefore I've added it to the Writing-system section, where this is quite appropriate. --JorisvS (talk) 16:55, 1 January 2011 (UTC)