Esperanto conspiracy theories about English?

[afree87]

Over the last two days I became slightly interested in Esperanto and its community. I started studying it a little, but then the introduction lesson reminded me of the unpleasant fact that the word for "bad" is "malbona" (literally, ungood) and I stopped.

Looking into the community was more fruitful and more than a little weird. The last time I checked the Esperanto community was a group of people around the world talking to each other about many things, making friends, and having meetings. The Internet has changed this. Now there are weird blogs out there with a political, conspiracy-minded bent, and people are reading them.

Often these seem to hint at British or American conspiracy, but the presence of physical Americans or Brits is shadowy and in the background, with their language itself being the oppressor.

Exhibit 1: http://languageequality.blogspot.com/ - note 19 subscribers - written in English


I went to USA and Germany for a wedding. We, Japanese, sat altogether far away from the rest.
We could not take part of any conversation because of our poor language level.
That made us feel as second class people, while fluent English speakers are always considered as first class citizens.

England will be the dominating Force in international Politics

RP9- R. V. Routh in 1941 said ‘England will be the dominating force in international politics, the professed and confessed arbiter of liberty, the world leader nation.
A new career service is needed, for gentlemen teachers of English, an army of linguistic missionaries, who must lay the foundations of a world-language and culture based on our own’.

If inaction on language policy in Europe continues, at the supranational and national levels, we may be heading for an American English-only Europe.
Is that really what the citizens and leaders of Europe want ?

During a patent conference in Takamatsu, I had the chance to say some words about language inequality for 10 minutes. Mrs. Hijima declared that she has been suffering for about 30 years -like many others- because of her failure to learn English and she will undergo that forever.

Exhibit 2: http://jespako.blogspot.com/ - written in English


Sadly, there are so many Malaysians who are still believing English is the best language. For many, they traded their mother tongue for English, an Imperialism language as quoted by Dr Robert Phillipson.

The best thing is not to sign any trade pact with the English countries, thus, reducing the purchasing of their English materials like books and films.


Exhibit 3: http://lingvo.org/GRIN_en.pdf - written in English

...each of the 394 million non-English-speaking citizens of the EU, including those from the poorest new Member States, are subsidising the British economy!

They're also making anti-English banners in English, etc.
http://lingvo.org/buntiga_en.png

I can understand if you don't like a language, but then why are you writing in it? :confused: Is this a very common thing in the Esperanto world today? How do they not reconcile what they practice with what they preach?

[Horatius]

..... but then why are you writing in it?



Because if they wrote it in Esperanto, no one else would be able to read it.

[Scott Sommers]

I read your post and got the feeling it had more to do with the foreign language use of English than Esperanto. The quotes you have in 'Exhibit 1' are about English. I don't know what your 'Exhibit 2' is supposed to be about, but Robert Phillipson has never written anything about Esperanto, as far as I know, and is best known for his work about the post-colonial use of English.

It looks to me like people trying to talk about some of the older research on the what some call 'Linguistic Imperialism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_imperialism).' What exactly does any of this have to do with Esperanto?

[carlitos]

You might find this thread (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=221384) interesting.

[Alareth]

William Shatner was the star of Incubus, the second feature film done entirely in Esperanto.

There has to be a conspiracy there somewhere.

[Stylesjl]

Doesn't really seem to be a conspiracy theory, more like bitterness that English has become the world's dominant language due to the large degree of cultural influence from English speaking languages.

[Jim_MDP]

Doesn't really seem to be a conspiracy theory, more like bitterness that English has become the world's dominant language due to the large degree of cultural influence from English speaking languages and indifference of the world toward Esperanto.

How's that?

[Scott Sommers]

Among scholars who write in this field, Phillipson is slightly out-dated. While there are still people who work on this kind of analysis, a more contemporary view on this problem is Bernard Spolsky, particularly his book Language Policy (http://books.google.com.tw/books?hl=en&lr=&id=RTk7gMprn1MC&oi=fnd&pg=PR8&dq=bernard+spolsky+language+policy&ots=OaYnEbnbND&sig=FLvXkzjxL_B9llCN0PVlVqpAytg&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=bernard%20spolsky%20language%20policy&f=false).

[Craig4]

Nothing succeeds like success.

[Captain_Swoop]

I started studying it a little, but then the introduction lesson reminded me of the unpleasant fact that the word for "bad" is "malbona" (literally, ungood) and I stopped

Why is it unpleasant.?
Why is that one word a good enough reason to stop studying?

[Horatius]

Why is it unpleasant.?
Why is that one word a good enough reason to stop studying?


Because it suggests that the language is doubleplusungood.

[SpitfireIX]

Because it suggests that the language is doubleplusungood.


And it's spoken by people in Eurasia Eastasia, and Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia Eastasia.

[Jim_MDP]

Because it suggests that the language is doubleplusungood.

And it's spoken by people in Eurasia Eastasia, and Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia Eastasia.

Well played, both of you.

You each get, next weekend, one hour without surveillance (as far as you know).

[SpitfireIX]

Well played, both of you.

You each get, next weekend, one hour without surveillance (as far as you know).


Nah, I just want what I always want; an hour in the hot tub at Club NWO with the redheads from the NWO Bikini Squad. And you're welcome to leave the surveillance cameras on, as long as I get a copy of the tape. ;)

[TSR]

Nah, I just want what I always want; an hour in the hot tub at Club NWO with the redheads from the NWO Bikini Squad. And you're welcome to leave the surveillance cameras on, as long as I get a copy of the tape. ;)
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You didn't get the memo? Due to budget cuts, we had to let the redheads go, and replace them with Alfred E. Newman and Howdy Doody. Apparently, they both came fairly cheap.

And the hot tub is right out: Alfie smears when wet, and Howdy warps -- and not the good kind of warped, I can assure you.
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[Jim_MDP]

Seems the NWO's just no fun anymore.

[TSR]

Seems the NWO's just no fun anymore.
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On the contrary, they were both chosen explicitly for their comedic value. That, and attracting the younger / adolescent demo -- seems recruitment is way off...

Did I mention we got them cheap?
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[crimresearch]

Esperanto seemed like a really good idea, I remember my grandfather being a proponent, and my Mom practicing it a bit.

It never reached its predicted place as the global language, last I checked it had faded into near obscurity, with a fraction of 1 percent of the world using it. It seems to have gained some traction recently.

I don't really see the challenge to Globish, since Esperanto is in no wise ready (nor is it likely to be anytime soon) to offer a replacement.

'Stop speaking the language of the oppressors and...' And do what exactly?

[TSR]

I don't really see the challenge to Globish, since Esperanto is in no wise ready (nor is it likely to be anytime soon) to offer a replacement.

'Stop speaking the language of the oppressors and...' And do what exactly?
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Umm, since Esperanto pre-dates Globish of either dialect, it was never meant to "challenge" them. Get back to us when UNESCO endorses them, or they are certfied CEFR or have more than a couple thousand words...

As to the last, you start some of your own, isn't it obvious?
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[crimresearch]

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Umm, since Esperanto pre-dates Globish of either dialect, it was never meant to "challenge" them. Get back to us when UNESCO endorses them, or they are certfied CEFR or have more than a couple thousand words...

As to the last, you start some of your own, isn't it obvious?
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I'm talking about the OP and the notion that the 'Esperanto community' whatever that may be,is decrying the use of English as a global language.

And how would someone do international business, politics, or anything else while they were starting one of their own?

[TSR]

I'm talking about the OP and the notion that the 'Esperanto community' whatever that may be,is decrying the use of English as a global language.

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Mostly they decry a perception that they are second class citizens if they do not use English.
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And how would someone do international business, politics, or anything else while they were starting one of their own?

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Seriously?

How many businesses have been started in which the founder *wasn't* working for someone else at the time?

Or have I misunderstood your question?

You have definitely misunderstood my statement which was meant to be an observation that many of those who complain about oppression have historically simply replaced that oppression with some of their own, and I felt most of the comments in the OP reflected this to a greater or lesser degree.
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[Dessi]

Over the last two days I became slightly interested in Esperanto and its community. I started studying it a little, but then the introduction lesson reminded me of the unpleasant fact that the word for "bad" is "malbona" (literally, ungood) and I stopped.
You're probably overthinking it :) Newspeak was designed to limit the creation of new words, Esperanto's agglutinative properties were intended to create new words from a considerably smaller pool of root words and affixes.

Presumably the affixes reduce the number of irregular verbs and adjectives, such as:

good/well/better/best = bona/bone/pli bona/plej bona
bad/badly/worse/worst = malbona/malbone/pli malbona/plej malbona

You can also create related word pairs without memorizing a ton of roots. Off the top of my head:

sana = healthy, malsana = unhealthy
granda = large, malgranda = small
alta = tall (height), malalta = short (height)
bela = beautiful, malbela = ugly
laŭta = loud, mallaŭta = soft
ami = love, malami = hate
amiko = friend, amlamiko = enemy
dekstra = right, maldekstra = left
luma = light, malluma = dark
frua = early, malfrua = late
supren = upward, malsupren = downward

Learning 10 roots + "mal-" gives you 10 related words with regular structure for free, which is presumably easier than learning 20 roots.

If there's any criticism of "mal-" words, its that people have a tendency to introduce word pairs using two roots and breaking the regularity of the root/mal+root structure. Example:

vera = true, falsa = false. Although malvera is perfectly acceptable in Esperanto grammar, falsa seems to be much more common.

And a few examples where the "mal" word has a subtly more or less restricted meaning:

mala = opposite, sama = same, malsama = different. Grammatically speaking, malsama means "not the same", which is not a logical equivalent to "opposite". Its true to state that a tree is not the same as or different from an elephant, so we'd say arboj kaj elefantoj malsamas; it makes no sense to say that a tree is the "opposite" of an elephant, we'd not say arboj kaj elefantoj malas.

There's no way to learn words like falsa or the distinction between mala/malsama except through rote memorization. Kind of a language quirk.

(Disclaimer: my EO isn't particularly good, I don't use it enough. Comments above should be correct, but I'm not making any guarantees of accuracy :) )

Looking into the community was more fruitful and more than a little weird. The last time I checked the Esperanto community was a group of people around the world talking to each other about many things, making friends, and having meetings. The Internet has changed this. Now there are weird blogs out there with a political, conspiracy-minded bent, and people are reading them.
Do you believe those comments represent the community as a whole? Lernu.net has a nice cross-section of well-informed people, none of them are particularly "conspiracy-minded".

Lots of people, when they first start to learn Esperanto, are really passionate the Esperanto could or should have become more popular than it really is. Its an attractive idea at first, but the idealism wears off after spending a while in the community. I've seen many EOists hold views that English is a crappy second language, but I believe they're outnumbered by everyone else who believes Esperanto is worth promoting because its fun to learn, the culture, and literature produced by the community are interesting in their own way. See Raŭmismo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raumism). (I personally made the effort to learn Esperanto because I couldn't learn anything else :) )

I can understand if you don't like a language, but then why are you writing in it? :confused: Is this a very common thing in the Esperanto world today? How do they not reconcile what they practice with what they preach?
Maybe to communicate the message to English speakers. Would you have been able to read those comments if they were in Esperanto instead?

Source 1 on language equality is broadcasting a message that Esperanto is a culturally neutral, easier-to-learn second language than English. Seems sensible that the target audience includes other English speakers.

I'm not sure what to make of Source 2.

Source 3 looks to be an English translation of an Esperanto article, presumably to make it more accessible to English speakers. Most EO sites provide translations in other languages, which is fairly common.

[Horatius]

Maybe to communicate the message to English speakers. Would you have been able to read those comments if they were in Esperanto instead?



And of course, this highlights exactly the problem with any "created" language. You learn a language in order to talk to the people who use that language on a regular basis. If I want to talk to Japanese people, for example, I'll learn Japanese, not Esperanto.

And it's simply a historical fact that, over the last century or more, there have been more non-English speakers who want to speak to English speakers, than vice versa.

What is my motivation to learn Esperanto, if I have no reason to talk to those who speak Esperanto?

[TSR]

And of course, this highlights exactly the problem with any "created" language. You learn a language in order to talk to the people who use that language on a regular basis. If I want to talk to Japanese people, for example, I'll learn Japanese, not Esperanto.

And it's simply a historical fact that, over the last century or more, there have been more non-English speakers who want to speak to English speakers, than vice versa.

What is my motivation to learn Esperanto, if I have no reason to talk to those who speak Esperanto?
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Dessi answers that in zir next line: Esperanto is a culturally neutral, easier-to-learn second language than English.

Yes, it's an uphill battle to get more people using it -- that doesn't mean it might not be worth fighting.
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[crimresearch]

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Mostly they decry a perception that they are second class citizens if they do not use English.
.

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Seriously?

How many businesses have been started in which the founder *wasn't* working for someone else at the time?

Or have I misunderstood your question?

You have definitely misunderstood my statement which was meant to be an observation that many of those who complain about oppression have historically simply replaced that oppression with some of their own, and I felt most of the comments in the OP reflected this to a greater or lesser degree.
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The OP was explicitly about a challenge that people should refuse to use English. I said that I didn't see how that challenge could be made to work, as described in the OP.

What you have added is not what I was addressing.

And your comment about 'working for someone else' seems completely disconnected, when I was clearly asking what people would do for a shared language to keep plying international business if they got rid of English.

A more logical plan would be to develop an international language first, and then dump the currently used one.

[Horatius]

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Dessi answers that in zir next line: Esperanto is a culturally neutral, easier-to-learn second language than English.

Yes, it's an uphill battle to get more people using it -- that doesn't mean it might not be worth fighting.
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"Worth fighting" for who? That's the problem. If I'm going to Japan, I could spend time learning Esperanto, which might let me talk to a few thousand people in Japan, if I'm lucky enough to run into them. Or I could learn some Japanese, which would let me talk to virtually everyone in Japan. Even if I could learn more Esperanto in the same time I spend learning a little Japanese, the Japanese is more useful, because I'd use it more.

You've got a major cart-and-horse problem here, and there's really no good way to solve it. Until there's a place called Esperantoland, where everyone speaks Esperanto, and everyone else in the world really wants to visit Esperantoland, there is no great motivation to learn Esperanto.

[Dessi]

And of course, this highlights exactly the problem with any "created" language. You learn a language in order to talk to the people who use that language on a regular basis. If I want to talk to Japanese people, for example, I'll learn Japanese, not Esperanto.

And it's simply a historical fact that, over the last century or more, there have been more non-English speakers who want to speak to English speakers, than vice versa.
No one is arguing that learning Esperanto puts you in contact with more speakers, or arguing that Esperanto is more popular than English.

Most Esperantists already realize that the whole EO-as-a-universal-second-language thing never really materialized. In principle, it would be nice to have a simple, culturally neutral language which doesn't require a huge investment to learn. In practice, English is popular because its popular. You just can't fight cultural inertia.

EOists usually promote the language because its built up a culture which is interesting in itself. Lots of poetry, music, books; a good number of Esperantists overlap with global humanitarian and peace movements; the community really loves getting to know other cultures, so much that Esperantists publish their names and addresses in the Pasporta Servo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasporta_Servo) so that traveling can stay in the homes of other Esperantists free of charge. Esperantists believe the culture and community built up around the language is worth preserving in itself, it makes the language more fun and interesting to learn.

If you happen not to be interested in Esperanto's culture, its speakers, or anything related to the language, don't learn it.