Comments on: Resistance may be futile: Are there alternatives to Global English?

By: Gene Keyes

Gene Keyes — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 14:22:06 +0000

Interesting take on the Big 8, but you do indeed need to check out Esperanto more than just giving it a brush-off. Google “Esperanto” and you will get 109,000,000 results. I just returned from the 96th World Congress of Esperanto in Denmark: people from 67 countries and no translators needed. Esperanto is a global culture in its own right, with thousands of original and translated books, plus periodicals, podcasts, YouTubes, music and rock groups, and websites galore — mine includes the original pamphlet (in HTML, English) by Zamenhof propounding Esperanto in 1887. The Web has provided a big homeland to this international _second_ language, and you need not look to an obscure island for another one. It’s all around you already, all around the planet, all around cyberpace. Thinly spread; and still a long way to go, but that’s why the word “Esperanto” means “one who hopes”.

By: Brian Barker

Brian Barker — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 06:43:16 +0000

I don’t know if you or any of your colleagues are interested but the Esperanto-Asocio de Britio will have an Esperanto stand at the London Language Show at the end of October.

Tickets to the show are free, but you need to book using this link
http://www.thelanguageshow.co.uk/page.cfm/link=7

Amike salutas
Brian

By: Michjo

Michjo — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 02:37:55 +0000

The statement, “in 2006 the Guinness Book of World Records announced that for the first time Klingon had surpassed Esperanto in market share”, is false. What the 2006 edition of “Guinness World Records” actually said was that Klingon is the most widely spoken FICTIONAL language – not constructed language – by number of speakers – period.

A fictional language is one that was intended, designed and constructed to be the language of a fictional setting. This definition fits Klingon, Vulcan, Quenya and Sindarin – but not Esperanto, which has been not just intended but actually used, since its inception, as the language of a real community of real human speakers in real life. Since Esperanto is not a fictional language, any comparison between Klingon and Esperanto as fictional languages is meaningless. All the more so that the “had surpassed Esperanto” part was, in fact, added later as people picked up on the record but missed the crucial qualifier “fictional” in the original statement, thinking that since it was the most widely spoken (fictional) language, it had obviously overtaken Esperanto.

Esperanto is actually much *more* widely spoken than Klingon. As Tim points out, it is estimated that the number of proficient Klingon speakers – a couple of dozen at most – can go out comfortably to dinner together. With Esperanto, however, you’d have a bit of trouble fitting the couple of million or so proficient speakers (and growing, with almost no official support) into a restaurant. While not a huge number, it’s large enough, varied enough, widespread enough sustained enough to show that Esperanto works for anything.

You mention that English is spoken by 20% of the world’s population. You realize, of course, that that means that 80% speak no English whatsoever. English may be widely spoken, but at 20%, is hardly universal. That 20% figure also says nothing about the average level of proficiency, which is appallingly low, most being non-native speakers of whom few have succeeded in mastering a language that is deceptively difficult for the vast majority of the world’s population. What Esperanto offers is an alternative to English as an international auxiliary language, one that is easy to learn for everyone – yes, even in spite of its Indo-European lexical base, and yes, much easier to learn than Globish – without sacrificing anything in terms of expressiveness.

By: James Gilmore

James Gilmore — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 22:23:45 +0000

I’m a little worried that a professor of linguistics failed to research major points of his article before publishing. What does that say for linguistics as a field of study? However, trolling Esperantists for blog hits seems to be increasingly common amongst “journalists” and I have to wonder if this isn’t the case. Either way, ರ_ರ.

By: Bill Chapman

Bill Chapman — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 15:36:28 +0000

Esperanto works! I learned it in my late teens, and I’ve used it in speech and writing in a dozen countries over recent years. As a planned auxiliary language, it is easier to learn and use than national tongues, including English. I like the phrase “niche language” used here to describe Esperanto. It is not a rival to English, but it does jhave its place.

By: Tim Morley

Tim Morley — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 14:30:05 +0000

Where on earth did you pull that factoid from? Not only that “Klingon surpassed Esperanto”, but falsely attributing it to the Guinness Book of Records?

The annual week-long World Congress of Esperanto usually attracts around 2000 delegates, and every part of every event throughout the week uses Esperanto, so it’s safe to assume that pretty much everyone there is a very fluent speaker. It’s also safe to assume that they represent a tiny fraction of the total number of speakers, given that they’re the ones who will take a week off work, pay the conference fees, and their flights and hotels.

The President of the Klingon Language Institute cheerfully admits that “all the fluent Klingon speakers in the world could comfortably sit around a table in a restaurant”.

Try googling stuff. You find stuff out.

Cheers!