| বিষয়ের পেজ: < [1 2 3 4 5] > | Artificially Re-Created English as international lingua franca থ্রেড পোস্টার: Thomas Johansson
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Thomas Johansson wrote:
In any event, a comparison between EVE and Esperanto might perhaps be fruitful.
Thomas, although I agree that discussing these things is most interesting, I am convinced that, unless you have rich friends or are acquainted with authorities who have a lot of money to spend, the project of EVE could advance as slow as Esperanto. At the current pace (and assuming that Ethnologue is correct in the first place), the expansion of Esperanto is:
2,000 "native" speakers from 1887 to 1996 = 18 "native" speakers p.a.
| | | | | esperanto the fastest-expanding language in the world | Feb 22, 2009 |
At the current pace (and assuming that Ethnologue is correct in the first place), the expansion of Esperanto is:
2,000 "native" speakers from 1887 to 1996 = 18 "native" speakers p.a.
Just for the sake of fairness towards Esperanto:
(1) I don't think Esperanto ever has intended to become a native language. It's aim has been to become an international second-language lingua franca. (Though I may be wrong about this.)
(2) In terms of that aim, it appears to me that Esperanto has done pretty well in terms of growth. From 1 speaker to 2,000,000 (as it currently appears) in about just a little more than 100 years - that's a very high growth rate percentage per year. Which probably makes it the fastest-growing second language in the world. I doubt English or any other language comes anywhere near.
Calculating a little, Esperanto should have a growth rate of approx. 12.6 % per year in order to have reached 2,000,000 speakers today since the first publication of the language in 1887. (With a growth rate of 9.9 % it would have reached 100,000 speakers.)
I have no figures for English, but assuming roughly that English was spoken by 30,000,000 persons in 1887 and has grown with 3.5 % per year, it should today be spoken by 1,994,545,415 persons (which is much more than the actual number of English-speaking persons today).
[Edited at 2009-02-22 22:43 GMT]
[Edited at 2009-02-22 22:46 GMT]
| | | | | Where does the figure come from? | Feb 23, 2009 |
Thomas Johansson wrote:
(2) In terms of that aim, it appears to me that Esperanto has done pretty well in terms of growth. From 1 speaker to 2,000,000 (as it currently appears) in about just a little more than 100 years - that's a very high growth rate percentage per year. Which probably makes it the fastest-growing second language in the world. I doubt English or any other language comes anywhere near.
Yes, but to continue with all the calculations, it is critical that we know where the figure of 2M esperanto speakers comes from. The famous "2 million esperanto speakers" are those estimated by Professor Sidney S. Culbert... who happened to be an esperantist. So his work should be taken with care about this matter.
This is one of this situations in which someone (who happens to be an interested party) gives a figure and everyone simply believes it and defends it with no further study, as finding out the truth would be against the interests of their project. This is our world and this is how things work here!
PS: I would not dare to judge whether esperantism is good or bad for the world, but defend the idea that projects are explained and propagated in a sincere manner and based on true facts.
| | | | esperantisto 
Local time: 14:38
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SITE LOCALIZER | Let’s put aside numbers | Feb 23, 2009 |
OK, if the numbers are questionable, let’s put them aside. The number-free facts are as follows: Esperanto is there despite all hardship it survived (during different periods of the Esperanto movement, esperantists were persecuted in the Soviet Union, in the Nazi Germany and in the United States). There are publications and broadcasts in Esperanto. There are native speakers of Esperanto, despite the fact that it was not initially intended to be a native language. Esperanto is a success, not a ... See more OK, if the numbers are questionable, let’s put them aside. The number-free facts are as follows: Esperanto is there despite all hardship it survived (during different periods of the Esperanto movement, esperantists were persecuted in the Soviet Union, in the Nazi Germany and in the United States). There are publications and broadcasts in Esperanto. There are native speakers of Esperanto, despite the fact that it was not initially intended to be a native language. Esperanto is a success, not a failure. No other planned language has ever reached this scope, and no simplified language too. Simplified languages are doomed to failure. Does anyone remember Europanto? A big buzz a couple of years ago, and nothing today. EVE will go this path as well. ▲ Collapse
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esperantisto
Local time: 14:38
2006 থেকে সদস্য
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SITE LOCALIZER | Back to the beginning | Feb 23, 2009 |
Thomas Johansson wrote:
…
This led me to think: What if there existed an EASIER VERSION of English available for people to learn?
Let's call it EVE (Easy Version of English).
…
Personally, I am seeing all this mainly as a playful linguistic exercise.
Right, this could be only a linguistic play
| | | | | Entirely agree | Feb 23, 2009 |
esperantisto wrote:
OK, if the numbers are questionable, let’s put them aside. The number-free facts are as follows: Esperanto is there despite all hardship it survived (during different periods of the Esperanto movement, esperantists were persecuted in the Soviet Union, in the Nazi Germany and in the United States). There are publications and broadcasts in Esperanto. There are native speakers of Esperanto, despite the fact that it was not initially intended to be a native language. Esperanto is a success, not a failure. No other planned language has ever reached this scope, and no simplified language too.
I just wanted to say that I agree entirely with this statement. Despite all the hardships, the project continues to exist and grow (no matter how fast or slow).
| | | | esperantisto
Local time: 14:38
2006 থেকে সদস্য
ইংরেজি থেকে রাশিয়ান
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SITE LOCALIZER | Glad to hear that you agree, but still there is a but: | Feb 23, 2009 |
Tomás Cano Binder, CT wrote:
the project continues to exist and grow (no matter how fast or slow).
What makes Esperanto stand out from the pack is that it is a real language, it is already more than a project.
| | | | | EVE and Esperanto are "simplified" in the same sense | Feb 23, 2009 |
esperantisto wrote:
No other planned language has ever reached this scope, and no simplified language too. Simplified languages are doomed to failure. Does anyone remember Europanto? A big buzz a couple of years ago, and nothing today. EVE will go this path as well.
This is really not fair to the idea about EVE. You are probably putting too much into the word "simplified" as I may have used it earlier about EVE.
What I mean is nothing more than "streamlining": that rules are identified and established (based on existing rules and frequent regularities in modern English) and that exceptions from these rules are kept to a minimum. In this sense, both Esperanto and EVE would be "simplified" languages. Esperanto was constructed in order to have a simple grammar, and so would EVE.
But neither language would be "simplified" with regard to ability of expression. The sort of simplification that I have mentioned would for instance not affect the ability of the language to express fine semantic nuances, etc.
In fact, EVE would in effect draw on the entire, current English vocabulary (and idioms) and would therefore be able to express itself with at least the same degree of semantic nuance and power as current, modern English itself.
For instance:
If English would say
"The child ran over to the house."
EVE would perhaps put this thus:
"The child runned over to the house."
(though for the moment ignoring differences in orthography/spelling)
This example illustrates that EVE might streamline (simplify) the imperfect form of verbs (runned instead of ran), but would still be able to talk about children, running, and houses and also express relations of movement and direction ("over to") as well as make references definite ("the").
Similar examples could be produced for any domain of discourse, not just simple examples like the above.
[Edited at 2009-02-23 23:09 GMT]
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The famous "2 million esperanto speakers" are those estimated by Professor Sidney S. Culbert... who happened to be an esperantist. So his work should be taken with care about this matter.
I agree with that.
In the Wikipedia article about Esperanto, I think they mentioned 100,000 speakers as the lowest estimate. Which would still give an average annual growth rate of 9.9 %.
| | | | esperantisto
Local time: 14:38
2006 থেকে সদস্য
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SITE LOCALIZER | I’m afraid, you miss something | Feb 24, 2009 |
Thomas Johansson wrote:
Esperanto was constructed in order to have a simple grammar.
This is not correct. Esperanto was constructed to have a planned, regular grammar, not a simple one. This is one of most common misconceptions about Esperanto In fact, some learners find certain grammar phenomena of Esperanto sufficiently hard (such as the accusative).
"The child runned over to the house."
…
This example illustrates that EVE might streamline (simplify) the imperfect form of verbs (runned instead of ran)
Thus EVE will sound like a broken English.I’m afraid, this won’t be appealing to the people. But OK, don’t mind my grumbling. Just go on and do. Prove, I was wrong!
| | | | | that's what I mean by "simple" | Feb 24, 2009 |
esperantisto wrote:
Thomas Johansson wrote:
Esperanto was constructed in order to have a simple grammar.
This is not correct. Esperanto was constructed to have a planned, regular grammar...
Ok, but that is exactly what I mean when I speak of a "simple" grammar.
By "simple", I don't mean "simplified", just that the system is set up in a way that makes it comparatively easy to learn and use.
| | | | FarkasAndras
Local time: 12:38
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esperantisto wrote:
Esperanto is a success, not a failure. No other planned language has ever reached this scope, and no simplified language too.
The fact that it didn't fail as spectacularly as all the others just makes it the best in a bad bunch, but doesn't change the basic facts. It was intended to be an international, dare I say, universal lingua franca. It isn't one and it doesn't look like it will ever become one. It failed.
Where are the international corporations that use Esperanto in their foreign relations? Where are the scientific conferences that use Esperanto - excepting Esperanto conferences? Which two countries have ever communicated in Esperanto, during, say, diplomatic talks?
Out of the 100,000-2,000,000 "fluent" speakers, how many took it up as a hobby or to meet the language proficiency requirements of their workplace or school? I'd wager most of them did. How many use it regularly for actual, real communication? Do you see tourists trying to use Esperanto in a foreign country?
Come on...
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esperantisto
Local time: 14:38
2006 থেকে সদস্য
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SITE LOCALIZER | Nonsense rhetorics | Feb 26, 2009 |
FarkasAndras wrote:
Where are the international corporations that use Esperanto in their foreign relations? Where are the scientific conferences that use Esperanto - excepting Esperanto conferences? Which two countries have ever communicated in Esperanto, during, say, diplomatic talks?
When the English languages was just ≈130 years old, how many international corporations used it in foreign relations? Scientific conferences? Did any two countries communicate in English? Latin and Greek were everywhere. And, possibly, many farkasandrases of that time said, English was a failure.
Come on…
| | | | | I told you... | Mar 6, 2009 |
Thomas Johansson wrote:
According to Ethnologue.com:
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Population 200 to 2,000 (1996).
Region Speakers in about 115 countries, used most widely in central and eastern Europe, China and other countries in eastern Asia, certain areas of South America, and southwest Asia.
Language use 2,000,000 second-language speakers (1999 WA). All ages.
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This is what I got replied from Ethnologue about where they got the figure from:
Email from Ethnologue.com:
Thank you for contacting the Ethnologue with your question about
Esperanto.
First of all, you should be aware that the web version of the Ethnologue
is a snapshot of the most current print edition (the 15th) and does not
reflect the current state of our database. Changes made to the database
do not appear on the Ethnologue website until a new print edition has been
released. The 15th edition was released in early 2005 and concurrent with
that an update to the website occurred. We expect to release the 16th
edition in a few weeks, at which time the website will be updated again.
The information that you quoted (200 to 2,000 native speakers) has been
taken out of the current database. Instead, we now list 2,000,000
second-language speakers. Professor Sidney S. Culbert of the University
of Washington in Seattle has done a comprehensive survey on Esperanto
language. Based on this survey, he concluded that Esperanto has about two
million speakers worldwide. If there are any first-language speakers, the
number is very small and the speakers are scattered.
So this takes us back to the famous study by Professor Culbert, who was a sperantist. Honestly unless this figure is confirmed otherwise, I cannot trust that number of 2 million people. Plain suspicious.
| | | | esperantisto
Local time: 14:38
2006 থেকে সদস্য
ইংরেজি থেকে রাশিয়ান
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SITE LOCALIZER | Thanks, Tomás! | Mar 6, 2009 |
However, even the fact, that S. Culbert was esperantist, per se does not make the figure dubious. It is a result of a comprehensive survey, thus, this result can be questioned only if someone proves, the the survey technique was faulty.
Nonetheless, even if this figure is exaggerated, it does not change the fact, that so far only Esperanto, only a planned language, made any success as an international language. Simplified languages ca... See more However, even the fact, that S. Culbert was esperantist, per se does not make the figure dubious. It is a result of a comprehensive survey, thus, this result can be questioned only if someone proves, the the survey technique was faulty.
Nonetheless, even if this figure is exaggerated, it does not change the fact, that so far only Esperanto, only a planned language, made any success as an international language. Simplified languages cannot achieve even this. ▲ Collapse
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