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From: urban@spp2.UUCP (Mike Urban)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Esperanto
Message-ID: <1163@spp2.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 27-Oct-86 14:50:38 EST
Article-I.D.: spp2.1163
Posted: Mon Oct 27 14:50:38 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 28-Oct-86 06:31:09 EST
References: <102@ritcv.UUCP> <2081@ihlpa.UUCP> <212@sjuvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: urban@spp2.UUCP (Mike Urban)
Distribution: net
Organization: TRW, Redondo Beach  CA
Lines: 80

In article <212@sjuvax.UUCP> tmoody@sjuvax.UUCP (T. Moody) writes:

>6.  Esperanto *is* spoken by many people, including me.  Every year, there
>is an international congress, which is generally attended by people from
>about fifty countries.  The last one was in Peking, at which it transpired
>that there are about 400,000 Esperantists in China alone.  It is hard to
>estimate how many Esperanto speakers there are in the world because, among
>other things, it is hard to define "Esperanto speaker."  Book sales and
>society memberships are unreliable indicators because many Esperantists
>cannot afford to buy books or pay dues.  They learn from friends and
>borrowed books. A fair guess would be one or two million.

Yes, but a large number of these speakers are probably *very* basic-level
speakers, having at some point been exposed to the language via
free courses, or having read a book on the subject but never spoken the
language.  Relatively few of the Chinese Esperantists can actually
speak the language beyond very simple sentences, and almost none of them
had ever spoken it to non-Chinese speakers prior to this year.
On the other hand, the large number of worldwide "speakers of
English" are calculated with similarly loose criteria.  

>7.  You can learn Esperanto from books.  It is taught in schools in some
>countries, and in universities.  In the United States, it is taught in
>the summer at San Francisco State University, and during the regular
>term at U. Santa Barbara, I believe.  Esperanto is the tenth most taught
>language in Finland. 

And the *second* most taught language in China!  This may tell us more
about what the Chinese think of the Russians nowadays than it tells
us about Esperanto :-)   

>8.  The main advantage of Esperanto over natural languages, as an international
>medium, are (a) it is not the national language of any country or ethnic
>group;

No, but it *is* rather obviously European in origin, and hence does have
certain ethnic associations.  I don't see any way to "fix" this problem in
a practical way, however.

 (b) it is easier to learn than any natural language, because it is
>more regular.  Proposition (b) is often criticized on the assumption that
>Esperanto is only easy for the speakers of Indo-European languages to learn.
>In response, it is fair to say that speakers of Indo-European languages will
>find Esperanto easier than speakers of non-Indo-European languages will, but
>even speakers of non-Indo-European languages will find it easier than other
>natural non-Indo-European languages.  The best way to confirm this (indeed,
>the only way) is to ask Japanese and Chinese and other non-I-E language
>speakers who have studied both Esperanto *and* other foreign languages.

Well, I did attend the Universala Kongreso in China this year, and
spoke with both Chinese and Japanese Esperantists.  China, by the
way, is a striking example of how well-known Esperanto can become
with even a little bit of government muscle behind it.  Large numbers
of  classes, a govt-funded international Esp'o magazine, payment of
workers for time off when they host foreign Esperantist visitors
(which is, of course, a little bit like selling Elephant Damage
Insurance in Idaho).  The fraction of Chinese learners who go on to
become fluent in Esperanto is rather small--mostly, the Chinese are
using Esperanto as an introduction to Indo-european language concepts
and vocabulary.  Everyone seems to agree that learning English is
*much* easier for the Chinese after they've learned the elements of
Esperanto.

One of the Japanese Esperantists I met had studied English for four
years, and (in frustration) took up Esperanto for about 6-8 months.
I spoke to him both in English and Esperanto, and his Esperanto was
very noticeably more fluent than his English.  He also seemed to be
very embarassed speaking English.  This is one of the non-linguistic
advantages of Esperanto--you don't have the embarassment of fouling
up someone else's native language.  We have some gentlemen from France
working here at TRW this week.  We've discovered that those of us
who know (some) French are primarily using it for short practice
sentences among ourselves!  We're too embarassed trying to speak it
to our visitors.
-- 

   Mike Urban
	...!trwrb!trwspp!spp2!urban 

"You're in a maze of twisty UUCP connections, all alike"