Talk:Esperanto/Archive 7

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Contents

Suggestion for rewording sentence in intro

I wrote what I think is a better sentence; you decide:

"Some state education systems offer elective courses in Esperanto; there is a large body of evidence that suggests learning Esperanto is useful preparation for learning other languages (see Propaedeutic value of Esperanto)."

The current wording says "there is evidence that..." which makes it appear, on some underlying level, as if the evidence is not concrete- yet, reading the article on Propaedeutic value of Esperanto leave little room for doubt. There is little to none when it comes to legitimate arguments against this claim, so I think making that a little more clear in this language would be a right ambition.

Also, I am not intimately familiar with stylistic guidelines, but I would prefer to redirect straight to the "propaedeutic value" page, but failing that, at least to the section on propaedeutic value on this page. As of now, it is pointing to "Esperanto and education" (or something) section on this page.

Opine, please. Lackinglatin 12:52, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Hitler reference

Under the criticism section is a quote by Hitler about how Jews want everyone to learn a single language, like Esperanto, so that Jews can more easily take over the world. As thrilling as that logic might be to someone, that is indeed not a valid criticism of the language. You could use this logic for any single language, and instead I read here that this one set out to not replace other ethnic languages. So I removed the quote from Mein Kampf someone had inserted into this article. I noticed it did not appear in the criticisms article so it must not really carry favor. Right?! Abisai 02:16, 13 June 2006

This is a tough one. On the one hand, I find it repugnant to include the Hitler quote. On the other hand, it is an historically interesting fact that Hitler was aware of Esperanto to the point of including a reference to it in Mein Kampf. Waitak 07:01, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Abisai that that quote had no place in this article. We might include it in History of the Esperanto language, where it is already being alluded to. Marcoscramer 00:32, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
Ok HOLD ON. Iv'e read Mien Kampf (I'm not racist, it's just a good look into hitlers mind) I don't remember him saying much about the Jews and esperanto and what he did say wasn't exactly what I would call Vailid Criticism, it's also kind of rare when he talks about jews and esperanto... to tell you, the book isn't about the Jews... it's about him, his life, and scociety's shortcomings. he mentions the jews alot less than people give him credit for. but yeah, In the book, I wouldn't have put that there...

Dejuismaster 18:08, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Esperanto is sexist?

Under the critismes section is a statement that it is sexist? Anyone care to explain why it's not vandalism? Frenchman113 18:23, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Are you asking about sexism or racism? Esperanto is considered sexist because words are by default considered male and must be modified to be female. The partial neutering of the base word doesn't help; a convention of dentists would have dentistoj present, but may have dentistinoj as speakers.--Prosfilaes 21:07, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
Check the article Gender-neutral language. And by the way, is it me, or was the criticism section bigger before? (I guess some biased Esperanto fanatics reduced it to make their conlang look more shiny) - 81.15.146.91 23:26, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
No, actually, it was expanded as a separate article. Currently under Esperanto as an international language, but there's been talk of splitting it yet again to be able to devote more space to criticism of the language per se. kwami 00:26, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I personally rarely use the -in- suffix, I do not see it as necessary. I would use "dentisto" for both male and female dentists and this is the normal rules of Esperanto. The -in- suffix is only there if you want to be specific. Only in words where gender distinction is necessary (patro, patrino) will you see the -o ending used to indicate someone male. --Revolución (talk) 02:31, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

That's a big "only". Some of the most basic words in Esperanto - patro, viro, frato, knabo - are male unless the -in suffix is added, and this is a real problem if you have a goal of expanding the acceptance of Esperanto.--RLent 15:33, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
If you use the -in- suffix to be specific, how do you talk about male foo?
With the prefixoid "vir-", e.g. "virdentisto". --Jim Henry 16:19, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
It's the same ambigious mess in Esperanto as it is in English, if not worse. And there is such a criticism, and it's fairly common, whether you agree with it or not.--Prosfilaes 06:29, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
I see two problems with the inclusion of this criticism in its current phrasing in the article...
    • 1.) Many natural languages, such as Spanish, follow the same or a similar pattern; English as well as Spanish tends historically to default to male form with the pronouns, when gender is unknown or meant to be non-specific - in English especially, this is sometimes labeled "sexist", although since "they" in the singular is supposedly ungrammatical (even though it's increasingly frequent in coloquial English), and "it" (the only "grammatically correct" neuter pronoun in English) would be considered insulting as "it" is generally used only with non-human creatures or inanimate objects... I don't know how you'd get around that while still working within the rules of English, unless you went to using "he or she", which can get cumbersome (I write, which is why it concerns me at all. I do use a "they" as a singular, though, to get around it. Stuff the official grammar rules, it makes sense). In any case, therefore, since that pattern follows or closely paralells those found in several natural languages, how the language itself can be considered sexist, I'm not entirely sure. Would it not be the people who use it, or particular usages, as opposed to the language itself?
The language itself can indeed be considered sexist. Since men and women (viroj kaj virinoj) constitute people (viroj), the idea that vir- and -in- constitute sex-equality is severely chauvanist. A bovo is cow, but a virbovo (person-cow) is somehow more masculine? Being female is not a subclass of being male, despite thousands of years of oppression based on this idea. Languages can be, and in most cases are sexist. --Oren 20:51, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
This post is full of factual mistakes: "Viroj" doesn't mean "people" but just "men". "Bovo" doesn't mean "cow" as in female cow, but is sexually neutral (like "cattle"). "Virbovo" is hence not literally "person-cow", but rather "man-cattle". Marcoscramer 10:11, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Furthermore, the addition of the particle -in- is referred to as making the feminine to be a subclass. The term subclass is quite simply interpretive. One might just as unreasonably say that being female is some extra quality that is superior, and that male is the ambiguous case, rendering Esperanto a sexist language in favor of women. Indeed, a linguistic critique of sexism needs to do more than assume sexism and search for evidence. It has to demostrate that the language carries a natural bias that deprecates women. In most cases, there are cultural biases applied to language, but it's hard to nail down an actual linguistic bias.
Having said this, I wouldn't mind a system whereby vir was the root, but not male, virinoj was feminie, and vironoj was explicitly male. I think such a thing, as well as adding a epicene third-person pronoun in addition to male, female, and neuter would be quite helpful, but the main issues are not linguistic, but cultural. Language is a facet of culture, and it evolves with culture. Critique of a language is a valid means of cultural change, but if it's overly fanatic, it'll alienate the very community whose views need changing. --Christian Edward Gruber 13:25, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Actually singular they is quite old and well-established in English. --Jim Henry 23:58, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
    • 2.)At current, I see absolutely no citation for this view within that section. If it is "fairly common", why is there no link to such a criticism in that section? Such a potentially inflammatory remark about a language certainly could use one to keep it truly NPOV, in my opinion.
Runa27 07:53, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
So what if many languages do the same thing? Many languages have a complex set of cases and grammatical genders, but I wouldn't let that absolve Esperanto if it had the same complexities. As it is, Esperanto is horribly worse than English, with every occupation having both male and female forms.
Every person-word having optional male and female forms, the unmarked form of most words being unmarked for gender... see Revolución's comments of 4 December, above. --Jim Henry 23:58, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
From "Teach Yourself Esperanto", "Sxi estas mia plej bela amikino. She is my most beautiful friend. Li estas mia plej bona amiko. He is my best friend." There's absolutely no discussion of it being optional, and those sentences are examples of plej, not -in. I don't know whether those translations are correct, or if it should be "She is my most beautiful female friend." -in is listed in the table of suffixes and prefixes in the back, but not vir-. That was updated in 1987, so if it's a new thing, it's a very new thing. It's simply not true that this is the way the language is presented or probably even used in many cases.--Prosfilaes 00:14, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
amiko is a special case, perhaps. It's not inherently masculine like patro, filo, edzo and a handful of other words. But for whatever reason, speakers seem to use -in to mark it explicitly feminine more often than with other potentially gender-neutral words like the profession terms form with -ist. See the table I've added at the end of this section. --Jim Henry 16:11, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
There's absolutely no citation for this view because it's one word in a completely uncited section. Try looking at the links below the article with criticism, such as [1]. --Prosfilaes 19:03, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
But, yes; Esperanto has been criticized as sexist, however weak the grounds of this criticism, & mentioning such criticism is not out of place in the article. --Jim Henry 23:58, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Statistics for use of in with various person-words

Google hits for each word plus kaj: --Jim Henry 16:11, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

amiko 132,000
amikino 18,300

verkisto 78,300 [2]
verkistino 886 [3]

instruisto 63,000
instruistino 15,100

kuracisto 32,200
kuracistino 318

dentisto 703
dentistino 24
 (many of these 24 hits are in discussions of gender-neutral language!)

fripono ("scoundrel")  690
friponino  33

"Instruistino" for some reason is marked more often than the other profession terms I checked, or than amikino. I only checked one non-ist person word.

Not to mention:

malĉastulino ("slut")   298
malĉastulo ("male slut") 97

How's that for sexist? :-) --CJGB (Chris) 20:49, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Critics to Criticism

It seems an edit war has begun. Anonymous user, what is your justification for the placement of a link to a two-paragraph weblog post to this Wikipedia article? I do not think it is appropriate. -- Cam 02:43, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I've deleted both the link and the link it's a response to. The original screed has little more reason to be here than the weblog post that responds to it.--Prosfilaes 03:58, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
OK by me. -- Cam 04:42, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm not crazy about letting Anonymous User veto the link to first article, which struck me as fairly substantial (well, OK, a screed, but a thousand times more substantial than Mike Fox's rejoinder). --Chris 06:17, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
I don't see why we need to link to a non-notable screed. It's not of a factual nature, it's heavily controversial, and it's not notable in and of itself at all.--Prosfilaes 07:10, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

population estimates

Okay, I think I've found the ref to the 8M figure that keeps cropping up as the number of speakers of Esperanto: Grolier International 1980: "Approximately 8,000,000 people throughout the world speak Esperanto". Mario Pei in 1969 (Wanted: a World Language) said 10M. Of course, this hinges on what we mean by able to speak; I'm not recommending these figures, just documenting where they come from. kwami 06:38, 18 December 2005 (UTC) [4] says: 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.
Alternate names La Lingvo Internacia
Classification Artificial language
Language use 2,000,000 second-language speakers (1999 WA). All ages.
Language development Bible: 1900–1910.
This is most trustworthy information source I could find about the no. of E-o speakers. I am really curious where the "100 000" estimate comes from.

Estimating the amount of Esperanto speakers is about as reliable as estimating the amount of people who can play chess. Of course you can count those who play in the big leagues. You might also be able to count those organised in clubs, though there you'd already have the problem of finding all the clubs (including those not part of head organisations) and getting them to collaborate. But actually there are a lot of people who learned chess from a book, a website or an acquaintance and these are just impossible to count or even estimate, particularly if you're talking internationally.

Vocabulary

"Vocabulary from Romance and Germanic sources". Hmm, anybody care to guess where the word kaj comes from? --Revolución (talk) 02:53, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Put it in the article. The infobox doesn't need a complete rundown of where every word in the language came from. It's a tool designed to give a quick run down of the major points, not exacting detail. --Prosfilaes 03:15, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
It's Greek, as are one or two other basic words like pri, and the nominal declension. That info is in the Eo vocab article, where there's a list of all languages directly contributing to the original vocab. kwami 20:55, 25 December 2005 (UTC)


It comes from greek "Και" [anon.]

Population ... again

[5] says: 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. Alternate names La Lingvo Internacia Classification Artificial language Language use 2,000,000 second-language speakers (1999 WA). All ages. Language development Bible: 1900–1910. This is most trustworthy information source I could find about the no. of E-o speakers. I am really curious where the "100 000" estimate comes from. Gebeleizis.

I took it from Jukko Lindstedt, a Finnish linguist and expert on denaska Esperantists. He's probably also the original source of the figure of 1000 native speakers.--Chris 20:55, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
Check the earlier discussion on this. Ethnologue has never estimated the Esperanto population. They merely repeat the WA figure. WA has never estimated the Eo pop either; they use the 1.6M estimate, and round off to the nearest million. However, others who have tried to replicate the 1.6M figure have only been able to find a fraction of the expected number of speakers. The UEA itself estimates that there are at least tens of thousands and "may be" several hundred thousand speakers. Because of this, it is irresponsible to report 2M figure as if it we had any confidence in it. I'm reverting to the range of figures, which is more honest. If you have any primary sources that support a specific figure, please share it with us. Ethnologue isn't particularly "trustworthy", it's just more complete than anything else. kwami 22:12, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

In Rochester, NY, USA, I know 20 people fluent in Esperanto ina 1 million people area. With a round approximation of 300 million in USA, it gives us 6000 people. For 6.5 billion Earth population we'd have about 130 000 people. But we should not forget that in USA only 9% of the population can speak a foreign language while in Europe over 50% can. Esperanto is notably little spoken in the USA, so I'd consider the number at least 20 times higher myself. If I'd go for the data in my native village where 3 people out of 500 speak the lannguage, we get about 40 million speakers (which is, of course, an exageration the other way). Another way to check it out is the Orkut community: from 12 million people using it there are at least 2000 who speak Esperanto (based on the forums). By this statistics we get 1.1 million people speaking Esperanto. So, how can I accept an estimate as low as 100 000 based on NO PROOFS? So, unless you can find me a more detailed study and more credible source than Ethnonogue, I'll have no choice but to keep correcting the no. of speakers to the 2 million value. Gebeleizis

Please read the Demography section of the Esperanto article. The fact is, estimates of 1.6 or 2 million are controversial. The sidebar should not suggest a consensus on the issue. --Chris 02:16, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, I have calculations showing well over 3 million speakers. So, we either put 150 000 - 3 million or we leave it at 2 million. UEA does not represent everything connected with Esperanto. Also, the authors cited in the demographic section are from 1986 and 1989. In 16 years with a lot of internet acces is feasible that the no. of speakers is signifficantly higher in 2006. As I said, I'd estimate it at about 3 million but for the moment have only approximate studies. So, as I've shown you two exampls of estimates from particular to general, please show me a simillar one that contradicts the values I've displayed. Gebeleizis

We're still waiting for your evidence for the 3M figure. kwami 03:14, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm not deprecating your calculations; but the point is not to do original research, but to cite the work of qualified authorities. Culbert's and the Ethnologue's 1.6m/2m figure counts; so does Lindstedt's 100K (which I will try to reference in the next few days). In terms of which figure is the most credible, my personal belief is that fluent Eo speakers number no more than few hundred thousand. Why? I'll give you my top 3 reasons, though I could come up with more.
  • The best-ever census of Eo speakers was Dieterle's 1927 survey which estimated 127,000 club members. If we guesstimate that this meant 100K fluent speakers, then Culbert & Co. are projecting a 16-fold increase by the early 1990s, or an average growth rate of about 4 percent per year. Trouble is, none of the hard evidence we have points to those kinds of growth rates. Attendence for the last 10 UKs (1996-2005) was only about 40 percent higher than for the first 10 UKs (1905-1914). Rates of book publication and anecdotal evidence about press runs show a similar pattern (lots of growth in the last 10 years, of course, but that's because of on-demand publishing, most likely).
  • Documented Esperanto activities appear to involve only about 100K persons a year. Now, while it's certainly possible to be a fluent Eo speaker and never go to Eo clubs or conventions etc., it can't be terribly common for people to become fluent speakers and remain fluent for years without taking part in some organized activity. We;re not talking about people who go through the Teach Yourself Esperanto course and then read a bit of Eo on the internet. The Foreign Service Level 3 standard of fluency used by Culbert is fairly exacting.
  • Calculations like yours make the error of projecting limited samples onto the world population. While it's undoubtedly true that Eo is stronger in Europe than in the US, you can't make the same assumption about Latin America, Africa, India, and much of Asia. (The question of Eo usage in China deserves a detailed discussion on its own.) A large portion of the world's population is shut out of intellectual activities like Esperanto by poverty and lack of education. Affinity groups like Orkut don't have the same characteristics as the global community. Their members are self-selected to have more interests, more leisure, and be more engaged in community-building than some poor guy carting around a load of bricks in Dakha. Sikosek's surveys in Cologne and elsewhere are relevant here.
I'm not saying this proves a low pop. figure, but I do think it gives enough credibility to figures like Lindstedt's that they are worth including. Just providing a 1.6m or 2m figure gives a false sense of consensus on this issue.--Chris 12:44, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
The truth is that in South America, Korea and some parts of China Esperanto is on the rise. Also in Africa. About a language: I don't know how many languages do you speak. I am fluent in seven (including Esperanto). What I can say is that, once you speak a language well enough, you will not forget it for the rest of your life. One does not have to practice all the time a language in order to stay fluent in it. I haven't spoken Esperanto for a no. of years and when I found other people speaking it I didn't have to relearn the language. US is almost for sure one of the countries with a low no. of Esperanto speakers. And I think there are more than the 6000. I guess the only way to "convince" you is to get data from every single country, as the 100 000 no. is obviously a grose underestimation (I also do not see any proofs of it, so why should I believe it?). From 1927 the Earth population increased about 4 times. And even if we take only 40% increase, as the congress attendance, we obtain 177,800 people, almost twice as much as the 100,000 estimate. And all the data points the Esperanto speaking population did not decrease. The 3 million no. came from a calculation where I counted on alexa.com the no. of pages conencted with keyword "Esperanto" and compared them with the keyword for other national languages (French, Romanian, German, etc). As the official no. of speakers for those languages was known, I could get a correlation factor. The tendency was for that factor to be lower for languages with many speakers. The best approximation gave me around 3 million speakers. And if someone would have tried to find me in Rochester NY as an Esperanto speaker one year ago (also my cousin, who speaks it, too), would have failed as nothing showed it publicly. So, in your opinion I guess I simply don't exist because someone can't "find" me. Very scientific way to draw conclusions, indeed...
Gebeleizis
I do not mean to be rude, Gebeleizis, but I would expect a little more academic rigor from a student of physics. How can you ask for "proofs" for an estimated number of speakers, when we don't even have proofs for physics? It's very possible, for example, even likely, that pages about conlangs are heavily represented on the internet compared to pages about national languages. There may be many pages in Romanian, but the number of pages about Romanian would presumably correlate with the number of students of Romanian (probably a rather small figure) rather than with the number of native speakers. If the student effect is tenfold, just a guess, then your 3M guestimate becomes 300k. By your approach for Eo, we might think that Klingon has a substantial base of speakers, when there are probably no more than a few dozen who have any proficiency at all. And hypotheticals about whether someone would have found you in an imaginary study you set up as a strawman aren't convincing either. 100k as a low-end figure may be a bit low, but it's one of the few estimates we have.
I have no other choice than start writting emails to every organisation of every country and try to get official numbers. You complain of my approach, but the other "proofs" are even weaker than mine, with the low estimates. It will take me some time to get a comprehensive list of Esperanto speakers, though. I think my studies were decently good for the sparse data available. Now I'm beginning to be curious: how is the no. of English speakers estimated? Or of other languages? So, if you don't like my proofs, why should I accept your "proofs". What's better about them, honestly? General peoples' opinion? Why don't we do the same for the laws of physics? Just let's vote for the law of gravity or for the Relativity Theory. It's really a shame to read the lines above: "How can you ask for "proofs" for an estimated number of speakers, when we don't even have proofs for physics?", this really shows me you also have no proofs for the other numbers of Esperanto speakers and just want to put there the general people opinion (and missconception). So, maybe at least we should add: "It is generally believed, with no solid proofs, that ****** people speak Esperanto".
What in the world are you talking about? Of course there is no proof. You are not going to find any proof. There is no proof of GR either, as you would know if you were really a physicist. (Forgive my doubts, but if you don't understand that proof has no place in science, let alone in statistics, I have to wonder.)
It is not "generally believed" that there are 2×105~6 speakers; those are just the estimates we have. And no, we're not going to add "with no solid proofs" to the article, any more than we would to every other estimate in the encyclopedia. It's completely obvious that it's an estimate.
Write to all the Eo organizations you like; if they had the data you want, someone would have already compiled it. People have been trying to compile it for a century! kwami 23:11, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
About physics you are 100% wrong. GRT HAS BEEN prooved experimentally. If you don't know that, then I'm really dissapointed by the people supervising Wikipedia. Or now you're going to start teaching me even my own profession? I'm building right now a neutron detector for the most powerful laser experiment in the USA. And I am open for a discussion on any field of physics. I think you should be a bit more modest thinking about what you know in fields where specialists work. And I suggest you should learn to respect the people who know more about you on certain fields. So, don't try to give me physics lessons, you'll only look ridiculous. About Esperanto, I'll come back when I have more data (or if I can get more data). Is this encyclopedia really a place for people with no manners? Anyway, I have more important things to do than to prove that the Earth is not flat. Or to show to some kind of "smart butt" the limits of his knowledge. Don't expect me to go and check back in a few hours your "smart" reply. I'll come back when I have more data about the no. of Esperanto speakers. Gebeleizis
Maybe it's a language problem. Nothing is proven in physics, or any science, only demonstrated with varying degrees of certainty. That's why GRT is called a theory. Only mathematics involves proof. The cognates or translations in other languages of the English word 'prove' might not be subject to such a limited definition. kwami 00:34, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Estimates run from 10,000 all the way up to 40,000,000.Cameron Nedland 21:46, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
If you're citing Don Harlow's page, he points those numbers out as completely unreasonable. An encyclopedia is not the place to point out what probably amount to uninformed guesses, unless those uniformed guesses are important (used by a president, or something.)--Prosfilaes 03:44, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
Well, alright. I just thot those #s were intresting.Cameron Nedland 15:15, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Learning Esperanto

The article claims:

There is evidence that learning Esperanto before another foreign language improves one's ability to learn that language — so much so that it takes less time to learn both than it would to learn just the second.

Do you have a citation? I would contend that this might be true for a lot of the european languages but not for chinese, hindi, urdu, bantu languages......etc, etc,...

Yes, there's a ref. just after your quote. And if you follow the link where it says, for more details see..., you'll find a bunch more. (In fact there have been criticisms that there were too many.) You're right, most of the studies involve European languages, but one Australian study involved an Asian language. My own experience leads me to believe that that study is credible and that the benefit works for "exotic" languages as well as "average European" ones. kwami 05:26, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
I remember looking at that Australian study a couple of years ago. I got the impression that the propedeutic effect was stronger for Romance and/or Western languages, but it did exist for Asian ones (Japanese and Indonesian if I remember correctly). There was another study that showed a stronger effect for Italian than Hungarian. No surprise.--Chris 12:09, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
I looked at that Australian study again (called EKPAROLI), and frankly it set off my bullshit alarm. Students who had studied Esperanto in primary school were better at learning languages in high school than those who'd studied other foreign languages. However, the language they had most frequently studied in primary school was Japanese - a language that (according to other data in the report) was generally loathed by the children and taught by extremely underqualified staff. So the positive effect shown for Esperanto may be better explained as a negative effect of low-quality instruction in Japanese. The fact the author didn't bother to break out the figures by language background (just classing students as having Esperanto or non-Esperanto) suggests sloppiness or deliberate fudging.--Chris 23:20, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
How can I learn Esperanto?Cameron Nedland 21:46, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
There's a list of online resources part way down the external links section of the article, or you can try the ELNA learner's site here. Looks like there's a club in Kansas City, MO. If you prefer books, I personally like Butler's Step By Step in Esperanto (US$16), but there's other stuff around. kwami 01:43, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
Thank you. Kansas City is only a couple hours from hours from where I live. I gotta check that out sometime. Once again thanx alot!Cameron Nedland 15:40, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

How to estimate population

This is the best way: take the online population of smaller languages that aren't studied as a foreign language by all that many people, such as Hungarian, Lithuanian, Icelandic, etc. Looking at the internet penetration in a country compared to the population gives a mostly accurate count of the # of people that use that language on the internet. After that, take a few dozen phrases that don't appear in guidebooks or simple language courses (so no 'how are you' but rather 'the one that built it', 'not so much as', 'I wasn't that thirsty', etc). Search for the number of occurrences by language and compare that to Esperanto. After estimating the online population it should be pretty easy to guess the real population. Esperanto would have a much higher percentage of online users than other languages, probably over 90%. Ido, Interlingua and others would probably be around 99% (I've seen a very few that are old and don't use the internet). It might be said that since Esperanto is almost never used as a maternal language that people wouldn't be able to write as much as they would in their own language, but at the same time people are often eager to go out of their way to use the language just to support it, so I think that would even out. Estimating the population in this way would be a project that would take a number of people and it should include proponents of other IALs as well to give it more legitimacy, and a number of people that can make sure that phrases chosen are appropriate (ie, nothing that could turn up in a search as another language). The Esperanto phrases should also be without chapeloj, because then you have to search with the h-system and x-system as well. Better to have '...ne havas katojn' than '...ne havas pagxojn'. The first one gives zero results, by the way. Turn it into 'ne havas katon' and you get three. I suggest a wiki be created on pbwiki.com if a project like this is to be started up. Mithridates 01:23, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Original research, and no way to verify the results. It wouldn't even tell us the comparative internet presence of various languages, because we have no way of ensuring that the phrases used for the different languages have similar frequencies in those languages. kwami 02:26, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, it wouldn't be for Wikipedia. I just want to know the answers myself. It wouldn't be all that hard if a few people from each maternal language were present to give advice and to verify whether a phrase is normally used or not. Languages like Korean wouldn't work because of the varying levels of politeness that would throw off the numbers, but with a large enough sample with enough languages it would be possible to get a more accurate picture than what we have now. Simple enough phrases like "I don't like", "If I could", "I don't think so" and so on would be most appropriate. Mithridates 03:12, 9 January 2006 (UTC)


I do not believe it is our job to estitmate the population, that is I think, origonal research.

I believe it is our job to cite some sources. It seems that the sources contradict. Ok. We report that.

Is it more complicated then that?Sethie 03:40, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

The study Mithridates proposed could be done and the results published on the Conlang Wikicity; then we could cite the results here -- as one more estimate in addition to the three we already have (Culbert, Lindstedt, Sikosek). But I think that similar rough studies have already been done by just using a group of words which are collectively unique to Esperanto (e.g. "la + kaj"). --Jim Henry 17:49, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

That would circumvent the origonal research rule by the letter of the law, but not the spirit... what is wrong with just using the sources we have? Sethie 17:56, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with using numbers that we already have but I have a feeling that a lot of people are quite curious and just want to know, whether for wikipedia or not. Mithridates 23:57, 9 January 2006 (UTC)


Place several ads for well-paying jobs where you must speak Esperanto "looking for new CEO necessity : he must speak Esperanto..." you'll find 2 000 000 speakers in a couple months. Until then, I would be surprised if there were over 10 000 who were fluent Stettlerj 20:26, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Deleted link

I've deleted the link to Esperanto Discussion. I visited the site, which consists of a newly minted form, with only a single article in it from the forum admin. It's a nice idea, but it doesn't belong in a Wikipedia article until it's proven itself by attracting a community. Waitak 13:08, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

It seems Esperantio.com already has several members on its forum. It is a free site, well intentioned and in the true spirit of Esperanto. I do not see the harm in allowing it to be here, unless someone has a vested interest in the other forum that is listed.
This forum has three members. It keeps on getting re-added after being deleted, which just shows bad manners. The relevant guideline is WP:EL — this is cearly not a useful or necessary link, seeing as there seem to be other fora. Consensus seems to be against linking to it. — Gareth Hughes 20:04, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
It had no members at all when I first deleted it. Good to see that it's beginning to attract some, but this still doesn't merit inclusion here. Waitak 08:21, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

We have run into this problem before, for example on the politically relatated sections. It is desirable to have alternate fora and not promote merely one to the exclusion of all others. It may be someone thinks their particular forum should be shown on Wikipedia to the exclusion of all others. My vote is let Esperantio.com stay. It provides an alternative to the single forum listed, and is good for the Esperanto community.

If it were a major forum, it might be worth keeping. What's good for the Esperanto community is irrelevant to what should go into this article; that's WP:NPOV. As it is, Wikipedia is not a collection of weblinks, and this doesn't satisify any criteria I can imagine for adding a link to it. It doesn't have historical importance, it's not currently a useful resource, it's not well-known, etc.--Prosfilaes 19:24, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

One problem with Wikipedia is people stake out their turf and patrol it to keep competing sites out of the links. You can justify this in a number of ways, but the reality is still the same. Nowhere is this more painful than in the Esperanto section, Esperanto having been created in a spirit of goodwill and sharing. As usual, a good thing becomes subverted to personal interests.

And using it for free advertising... — Gareth Hughes 17:41, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Pen pal service

I don't want to advertise the Esperanto Pen Pal Service by giving it a section of its own on this very high-profile article. I think it's more in line with the AfD discussion to reduce it to an external link, so I'll do that now. If anyone wants to write some prose on the general phenomenon of pen pal services in Esperanto, that would be a lot better. Melchoir 23:57, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Link bronken?

Is the "Esperantido (Esperanto-inspired projects)" link broken in the criticism section?

No. Marcoscramer 22:20, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Ease

Just how easy is Esperanto to learn? Obv. it would be easier if you are dedicated, but .. would it be said to be easier than say German or what? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Loserdog3000 (talk • contribs) .

I'm by no means an Esperanto fan, but for an English speaker it's undoubtedly much easier to learn than any other language. The question is to what degree it's worth learning.--Chris 23:48, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
I think that should say easier than any *natural language*. Novial is certainly easier than Esperanto for English speakers and probably Ido is too. Nov ialiste 14:41, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
Not that I doubt you (okay, well... maybe I do a little...) but are there studies that show that Novial is easier than Esperanto for English speakers? Waitak
No. How to find out: take a native English speaker who has previously studied neither. Get them to study Esperanto for x hours over y weeks (say 50 hours over 20 weeks to reach some useful level). Then get them to study Novial for 50 hours over 20 weeks. Then ask them which is easier. Of course, you should repeat for statistical significance. 20:02, 6 June 2006 (UTC) (I am a native English speaker and I have studied both, as well Interlingua and to a lesser extent Ido and Occidental.)
Watch it, you'll start a flame war among the various auxiliary-language partisans - not a pretty sight! Basically all of the so-called "Euroclone" auxiliary languages are dead easy for speakers of English or one of the Romance languages. Objectively speaking, Novial lacks some of the features that English-speaking Esperantists find difficult - consistent marking of the accusative case, for example. However, it has its own peculiarities, I seem to recall. Isn't that -um ending for abstract nouns possibly a problem? Anyway, the main problem with Novial is that it was almost more of an experiment than a real language. Hardly any speakers, ever, and a constant reforms, so anyone who's writing it is practically a pioneer... whereas Esperanto is a relative stable language with well-defined community norms.
The use of -um meaning abstract was never consistently established. So -u can always be used. The test Novial wikipedia has been accepted: it now awaits a developer to create the real one.Nov ialiste 20:02, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
Personally, I found Interlingua easier than Esperanto (which I still haven't mastered, even for passive reading), but I was motivated. Even if it didn't turn out to be terribly useful in itself, what you learn can serve as intellectual capital for other purposes - Latin, technical and scholarly vocabulary, or Romance languages. Esperanto offers those advantages to a lesser degree. On the other hand, the existence of a large Esperanto community is a powerful motivation for many. Auxiliary-language proponents have always obsessed about ease of learning, but usefulness (even things like, it makes a good hobby) is more important.--Chris 16:35, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
It's probably easier than any natural language for almost any Indo-European language speaker, short of really similar langauges. I would say it's certainly easier than German; remembering the genders and various grammatical endings along with a wealth of strong verbs was pain.--Prosfilaes 02:46, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
I would say it's a fraction simpler than Norwegian for an English speaker. Norwegian is pretty easy with verb conjugations, and even the strong verbs conjugate in much the same way that irregular ones in English do, so it feels pretty natural to learn. Mithridates 15:26, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
Really? I should take a look at it. I've heard that Frisian is the easiest foreign language for English speakers, but knowing a Scandinavian language would be cool. --Chris 16:35, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
Frisian is pretty similar to the way English used to be, but I'm pretty sure verb conjugation is just as annoying as any other Germanic language. Norwegian and the other two major Scandinavian languages have some of the easiest verb conjugation there is. Just the fact that they never change depending on who is doing the action saves the student a huge amount of work. Just put an -r on the end of a verb and it's conjugated, no matter who's doing it. Check out http://www.verbix.com and compare Norwegian to a few other languages. Actually here's an example. Mithridates 18:39, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
Frisian? I would think Scots would be easier than Frisian. I can damn-near (excuse the language) read the whole Scots Wikipedia!Cameron Nedland 16:15, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
If you're counting Scots as a separate language, yes. Actually some of the English Caribbean patois may also be fairly easy for standard English speakers.--Chris 18:00, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
Oh yeah, Afrikaans is also super easy too. In addition to that its similarity to Dutch is an added plus, and apparently it's more similar to standard Dutch than a lot of Dutch dialects, in spite of the fact that it's much easier to master. Mithridates 19:24, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Nice article

Hi, I just wanted to say that this is a wonderful article. I learned a lot about Esperanto by reading this article and the other related article. I want to learn Esperanto now that I have read the pages.  :) lol. I love the portal too. Bye and keep up the good work maintaining the pages. Bye --Starionwolf 06:34, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

um... thanks? we enjoyed witing it...

Further Criticism

Shouldn't the criticism section include the problem that Esperanto is neither widely spoken nor indiginous to any location. In terms of learning a second language most people chose to speak a diversely spoken Language (English, Spanish, Russian) or the national language of the country which one intends to travel to (or is likely to, such as learning French in a British School). While I like the ideals of Esperanto, and would be interseted to learn it, the fact that I cannot usefully speak it in any country is a major disadvantage. --Timdownie 23:47, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

This is really not the page to multiply criticism on criticism. Esperanto as an international language is much more appropriate. Furthermore, as per WP:NOR and WP:V, we do not report on our own criticisms, but instead report on the notable criticisms of others.--Prosfilaes 16:20, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

An example or two in sound

I'm not sure where I should put them, but wikicommons has two sound files of Esperanto--one is a person rehearsing a speech by Zamenhof and the second is the Lord's prayer (see this link).-- The ikiroid  23:09, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Esperanto and Novial compared

Might the article "Esperanto and Novial compared" be included in the Esperanto navigation box (as are the comparisons with Interlingua and Ido)?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto_and_Novial_compared

Done.--The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 21:36, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Official language of the Catholic Church, instead of Latin?

See this news (in Esperanto). Adam78 20:53, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

  • You might want to check the date that article was published... --Kwekubo 21:25, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
That would be very cool.Cameron Nedland 22:28, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
i.e., as Kwekubo implied, it was an April Fools joke article. --Jim Henry 18:53, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Movie references

I noticed that there are now two references to the Charlie Chaplin film - one in Esperanto#Culture and the other in Esperanto#Popular culture. It doesn't seem to me that it belongs in both. Should there be a single section in the main article that summarizes Esperanto film? Any opinions? --Waitak 14:54, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I now removed the reference to usage of Esperanto in popular culture from the "Culture" section, because this section only covers Esperanto culture, not usage of Esperanto in English language culture. We have a seperate section for that. Marcoscramer 10:11, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Useful phrases

I've compared some of the phrases under the 'useful phrases' section to the English wikibook on Esperanto and to an article in Esperanto. My conclusion: the phrases aren't all that accurate.
For example, the phrase My name is ... would need to be Mia nomo estas ... according to the wikibook. Unless there is some special reason to make it "Mi nomiĝas ..." (which, according to wikibook, would translate someway like 'I come to be called ...' or 'I become called' [literally]) (I don't know Esperanto yet), I suggest that this be altered. Otherwise, please let me know. --JorisvS 22:09, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Both phrases are used in Esperanto. Neither is wrong. "Mi nomiĝas ..." means "I am called." --Cam 23:53, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

So is the suffix -iĝ somewhat like a passive marker? Or how else must I view it?
Maybe it is useful to include both sentences for the purpose of showing that both are right. --JorisvS 20:36, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

More or less. Words are very flexible in Esperanto, and any roots can be combined so long as the result is grammatical and isn't meaningless. -iĝ- can also mean 'to become' - for example, "La ĉambro varmiĝas", the room is becoming warm. I'd guess most people use "Mi nomiĝas...", simply because it's quicker to say.--Kwekubo 21:02, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, this flexibility is fine to me, as long as I know what an affix means. I've not yet figured out its exact meaning. So: What is thus the semantic connection between the -iĝ- in "La ĉambro varmiĝas" and in "Mi nomiĝas"? --JorisvS 11:03, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Think of -iĝ- as a marking intransitivity, a counterpart to the transtive marker -ig- (yes, Zamenhof could have made them more distinct). "La ĉambro varmiĝas" 'the room warms up' versus "La fajro varmigas la ĉambron" 'the fire warms the room'. Or "Mi nomiĝas Fredo" versus "Mi nomigas mian filion Tedo" 'I call my son Fred'. "La ĉambro varmas", btw, just means 'the room is warm', without any indication of causality. But I don't really know what "Mi nomas Fredo" would mean, if anything.--CJGB (Chris) 18:01, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Actually the verb nomi is already transitive, so -ig- is not added. In a nutshell, every verbal root in Esperanto is either inherently transitive or intransitive. To make a transitive verb intransitive, you add -iĝ- (as in nomi => nomiĝi). To make an intransitive verb transitive, you add -ig- (for example, stari (to stand up) => starigi (to set something up, make something stand up)). --Kwekubo 18:45, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

(How) can you distinguish between the two? Just by learning the correct translation, or is there some underlying principe to it? --JorisvS 21:38, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, basically you have to memorize the transitivity of verb root words as you learn them. -ig- and -iĝ- are a lot more distinct in speech than in writing, fortunately. --Jim Henry 02:29, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

R. Kent Jones and Christopher Zervic

Why has R. Kent Jones' name been delinked in the references section, while Christopher Zervic now has a stubby article? Jones is considerably more famous within the Esperanto movement, but neither has any fame outside it AFAIK. With no offense to Mr. Zervic, I have half a mind to nominate the article for deletion -- being coauthor of a pamphlet and president of a local Esperanto society does not make for encyclopedic notability. Kent Jones had a number of other publications, offices and so forth to his credit, but I'm not sure even he would meet Wikipedia's notability criteria. If so, materials for an article on him can probably be found in the issue of Esperanto USA which appeared shortly after his death. (Even eo:Kent R. JONES has been nominated for deletion, though maybe for problems other than non-notability.) --Jim Henry 13:21, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Esperanto speakers growing faster than world population

I thought this was interesting:

In 1927, when the population of the earth was around two billion, Dr. Johannes Dietterle of the Reich Institut fur Esperanto in Leipzig carried out a survey from which he estimated a speaking population for Esperanto of some 128,000 persons. Today the population of the earth is around six billion, and the number of speakers of Esperanto is on the order of two million.

Seems to worth noting. This information came from http://www.webcom.com/~donh/efaq.html#growing. Cameron Nedland 21:37, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

That does sound worth noting. Zazaban 00:03, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Don is great guy, but definitely an Esperanto zealot, so I'd take some of his more speculative claims with a grain of salt. It's true that if we use Dieterle's 1927 estimate of 126,000 as a baseline and Culbert's nearly 2 million as the present-day figure, we get a fairly high growth rate of 15x or so over 60 or 70 years. But other estimates would show a bare doubling or even a decline.
I suggest we stick with documenting the current range of estimates and allowing Wikipedia users to do the math, if they care to.--CJGB (Chris) 02:16, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Okay, fair enuf.Cameron Nedland 03:08, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Spiritism

Looks like someone reverted a paragraph about the Brazilian Spiritists' support of Esperanto, saying it wasn't relevant to the section. Do y'all reckon it would be more appropriate under "History" where the article talks about Oomoto and Baha'i? Or should we add another section (or spin off another article) to talk about religions and other movements or organizations that have more or less supported Esperanto? --Jim Henry 14:53, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Personally, i don't believe it is relevant. Many other orgs are now supporting Esperanto. The Brazilian Spiritists are not the only ones anyway. -- Szvest 15:03, 22 August 2006 (UTC) User:FayssalF/Sign
Is religious use of Esperanto more prevalent than use among social, humanitarian or other kinds of groups? It's certainly interesting to know which groups advocate and use Esperanto, but I think that the treatment in the article should match the actual usage. If religious groups tend to use the language more than other groups, it's worth saying so. Just my $0.02. I do definitely agree that the paragraph on Esperanto in Spiritism doesn't belong in the Goals section. Waitak 15:27, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
That was my point Waitak. The usage of Esperanto by religious groups doesn't prevail on non-religious usages. I won't object of course if someone proves me wrong. -- Szvest 15:33, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Forster's book on the Esperanto Movement says that Esperantists (British Esperantists, at least) are more likely than the average person be either strongly religious or strongly atheistic, and less likely to be moderately religious. For what it's worth.--CJGB (Chris) 17:12, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
That's encyclopaedic. Thanks Chris. -- Szvest 17:14, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Spiritists aren't a huge percentage of Esperanto speakers, but they are relatively more numerous in the Esperanto movement than in the general population. In Brazil, I seem to recall hearing that roughly half of the Esperanto speakers are Spiritists; worldwide it's a much smaller proportion. The same seems to be true of Baha'i: they're not a huge percentage of Esperanto speakers, but more numerous than their numbers in the general population would predict. Quakers and Unitarians may also be represented in larger than expected numbers, at least in the U.S. No census figures available as far as I know, though. --Jim Henry 14:44, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

We need a good formulation for that so it can have a context. Do you have any suggestion? -- Szvest 16:04, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
Maybe we can move the existing text about Baha'i and Oomoto to a new section, restore the deleted text about Spiritsm in Brazil with maybe a little editing, plus a quote from the Forster book Chris cited above. My source for the figure of about half the Esperanto speakers in Brazil being Spiritists is a lecture at a recent Esperanto convention, which I don't think has been published. I don't have a source for the preponderance of Quakers and Unitarians; as far as I know there is no official church support of E-o there, as with Oomoto. There are also large numbers of Catholics and evangelical Christians among Esperanto speakers, but I would guess they may be a smaller percentage than in the world population as a whole. --Jim Henry 22:07, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
Sounds perfect Jim. I'll try to do it and wait for your comments guys. Please complete it w/ the info about the Quakers and Unitarians. -- Szvest 17:50, 26 August 2006 (UTC) User:FayssalF/Sign

Your edit looks good. I would need to find some references on the numbers of Quakers and Unitarians; it might be enough to mention the various religious associations listed in the Jarlibro. Unsigned comment by Jim Henry

Bible translation

The section that starts

The first translation of the Bible into Esperanto was done by L. L. Zamenhof. ....

needs some more work. Zamenhof translated the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament (the former is the preferred term on Wikipedia, right?); the London scholars made some linguistic revision (not much if any doctrinal revision), since the language had evolved rapidly since Zamenhof completed some of his earliest translations; and they translated the New Testament from Greek. I will try to find a list of the London translators. The most detailed discussion I know of is in Esperanto, the New Latin for the Church by Ulrich Matthias, but I no longer own a copy. We could also mention Gerrit Berveling's new translation in progress, which includes the Deuterocanonicals/Apocrypha. --Jim Henry 22:36, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I just thought of something...

Are there foreign exchanges conducted in Esperanto? Cameron Nedland 00:56, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

What do you mean? -- Szvest 13:32, 25 August 2006 (UTC) User:FayssalF/Sign
Like an Esperanto-speaking family hosts an Esperanto-speaking person to live with them for a short while.Cameron Nedland 21:02, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
There is the Pasporta Servo, but typically the guests stay with the hosts for a shorter time than one normally associates with exchange student programs (days rather than weeks or months). It varies a lot from one situation to another. --Jim Henry 21:57, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
Ok, thanks.Cameron Nedland 00:46, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
You can contact this email: ________. You can also contact Monda Turismo in Poland (+48 (52) 415 744). Szvest 17:45, 26 August 2006 (UTC) User:FayssalF/Sign
Cool.Cameron Nedland 15:19, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
This link may also be helpful. -- Szvest 12:43, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I deleted Lusi Harmon's email address above; I don't think it suits to post a non-Wikipedian's email address here without her permission. Lusi Harmon runs "Esperanto Vojagx-Servo" (Esperanto Travel Agency), which is useful though not exactly what Cameron Nedland was asking for. She is also the director of the Pasporto al la Tuta Mondo project, which might be confused with Pasporta Servo but is completely unrelated. --Jim Henry 22:42, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Number of speakers again

From the article as it stands now (emphasis mine):

Marcus Sikosek has challenged this figure of 1.6 million as exaggerated.

I assume this figure of 1.6 million refers to the Culbert estimation, but this more precise figure wasn't mentioned before. I think that's odd and that the text should be changed to avoid this "surprise". While we're at it, a reference to the 1.6 million would also be nice. -- Dissident (Talk) 23:01, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Background of Esperanto banner

According to the eo Wikipedia, the banner was used in essentially its current format at the 1905 Conference in Boulogne-sur-Mer. Majorarcanum 21:52, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup

I was going to just remove two dead links when I noticed a few other doubled links that were already on the template on the right, then noticed that they were pretty much all the same as the template links (see other section), and then while looking at that I noticed the wikified headers, even more of the same links in each paragraph as the ones in the template and in see other, followed by two links to the wikibooks book on Esperanto, etc. etc. and I decided the whole thing needs a cleanup. Some parts say see also for the main article while others say for more information, see (article name); others come at the end of the paragraph etc. I did what I could today but it's 3:30 am here in Korea and time to sleep. Hopefully others can take a good look at the links and try to get them standardized and maybe fix up anything else I might have missed. Mithridates 18:32, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

By see other do you mean See also? I don't think it hurts to have links to other more detailed Wp articles at the beginning of each section and also in the {{Esperanto}} template, but I agree the form of the cross-references to more detailed articles could be better standardized. --Jim Henry 21:09, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

A reply to a criticism

In the criticism section, there is the following link:

I found on the Web a forum where a guy contradicts the arguments of the author of the previous article:

In the interest of NPOV, maybe it would be nice to put a link to the replies of the criticism in the section of external links. However, I could not find a good way to put it there without compromissing the organization of that section. Suggestions are appreciated. By the way, I am neither an Esperanto speaker nor an activist of the Esperanto movement (so my observation of NPOV does not mean I am biased in favour of the Esperanto movement). --Antonielly 15:16, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Replies to criticism are allowed of course. However, the criticism and replies to criticisms (as every info in wikipedia) should come from notable sources as per WP:Notability. The problem here is that both the criticism you are pointing out at exists as an external link. According to Restrictions on linking in wikipedia, A website that you own, maintain or are acting as an agent for; even if the guidelines otherwise imply that it should be linked to are restricted; which is the case here (a website belonging to a student, dividing his time between Helsinki, Finland and Cluj-Napoca/Kolozsvár, Romania). I'll be removing that link in a while.
As for your suggestion to include a riposte, i believe it would not be allowed as well as per Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought (it is a forum).
In cnclusion, Wikipedia would only allow criticism from notable, verifiable sources from notable experts, researchers, academics, journalists, etc... The same applies when responding to criticism. -- Szvest Ω Wiki Me Up ® 15:37, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
While I knew my website was linked here because WP shows up in my referrer logs, I have never linked to it here. Originally the link was placed by someone on the German WP and then copied from there to other Wikipedias, then deleted from here, and then restored. I'm not pushing my own work, and the fact that the piece was linked to from here surprised me as much as anyone else. CRCulver 18:21, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
It doesn't matter who inserted the links CRCulver. I know you are not pushing your work and my comment was not subjective at all. -- Szvest Ω Wiki Me Up ® 14:30, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Then why in the world did you quote the guideline "...a website that you own, maintain or are acting as an agent for; even if the guidelines otherwise imply that it should be linked to..."? CRCulver 17:41, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Thinking better about this issue, maybe both links I have mentioned should be moved to Esperanto as an international language and removed from this article, because they relate directly to the Esperanto movement, and only indirectly to the Esperanto language. What do you (plural) think about it? --Antonielly 16:42, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
Personally speaking, there would be no difference in terms of guidelines and policies of Wikipedia. It is not about moving them but it is rather a guideline and policy issue. I'd suggest you move some of the remaining link of criticism onto Esperanto as an international language. By the way, have you had a look searching the internet for criticism of Esperanto apart from the ones that were removed? -- Szvest Ω Wiki Me Up ® 17:01, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I have found on the Web some pages of criticisms which have not been listed in the "External links" section of the article. Interlinguistics is a field that pleases me a lot, so I have been studying it intensively, with respect to both the political and the linguistical issues. I intend to publish a (hopefully objective) book about it some day, but first I have to gather more knowledge on the subject; I am currently only a journeyman. I am almost fluent in Interlingua and a novice in Esperanto and Ido (just enough knowledge to understand the valid criticisms), but my current political position in the case of "a common lingua franca for the world" is the pragmatism: I accept any solution that improves the status quo (one of <English, Esperanto, Ido, Interlingua, Chinese, Spanish, ...>, or even 3-4 regional linguae francae). I will follow your advice. I will gradually put some links of criticism in the article Esperanto as an international language. Cheers for you! :) --Antonielly 23:02, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

And good luck for your project. Cheers. -- Szvest Ω Wiki Me Up ® 11:53, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Userboxes related to this article

I've added some Esperanto related userboxes on the New Userboxes page. Enjoy. Parsa 18:43, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I've put these on one of my sub-pages so you don't have to wait for the huge list of userboxes to load. I also corrected the typo errors on two of the template pages.
Here are a couple examples:
Mi venas el Esperantio.
Ĉi tiu uzanto parolas la internacian lingvon Esperanto.

- Parsa 05:05, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Pop-culture section is unclear/contradicts self

The "Esperanto in popular culture" section, in the first paragraph, says Charlie Chaplin used Esperanto in 1940. The second paragraph says "The earliest film to incorporate Esperanto was the thriller "State Secret" 1950". I put up the "contradictory" tag because it's (technically) true. But I'm guessing that whoever wrote the "State Secret" sentence probably meant "incorporated into the dialogue", or something similar. I am not familiar with either film, so I'm not going to change anything. Bowmanjj 00:36, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, Chaplin's film The Great Dictator used Esperanto as a metaphor of Yiddish on signs etc. in the Jewish ghetto, insofar as I remember, but I don't remember it being spoken. I think State Secret used Esperanto in spoken form, while Chaplin's film printed it in the background. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 19:57, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Official Language

The article Republic of Rose Island lists that the micronation declared Esperanto as its main language during its short existence. It was never officially recognized as a country, but it might still be worth mentioning in the article. --Yono 06:03, 16 January 2007 (UTC)


im gunna say that its the first time it is spoken ...i have no proof just saying it could have been poorly written

Geek Reference

I find "More rarely, it is used jokingly, referred to as a "geek language"" to be charitable, considering the only references to Esperanto as a "real" language that I have heard of has been as a "joke" tied to "geeks" It really sucks because when I explain to one of my friends who isnt a "Geek", I have to tell them what Esperanto is, and it spoils the funny. (I must explain, I am an American, so if you are a more cultured European, I apologize.) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jfnord (talk • contribs) 20:15, 28 January 2007 (UTC).


Does being an uncultured American automatically make all Europeans cultured? hmm...

Google summary

The summary of this page on Google is:

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

Doesn't that seem a bit POV? Couldn't we change this to something like

Description of Esperanto with some common criticisms, and common replies to them.

--Islomaniac 973 21:11, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

There is nothing we can do about the summary that Google chooses to present for this article. The text also does not appear anywhere within the scope of Wikipedia's control. Certainly feel free to contact Google to get an adjustment of the description. --Puellanivis 21:18, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
I am pretty sure that Google generates teh text used for the summary, so there is probably a way to change teh summary. doesn'yt the description META tag provide details for the ssearch engine to show? If so, ther must be some way to change it, possibly usingg a separate field on the edit page. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 150.101.102.188 (talk) 04:00, 3 April 2007 (UTC).

Indo-European constructed language!?

Dear linguist friends, since Esperanto was constructed from the Romance, Germanic and Slavic languages, I would like to suggest Esperanto to be called an "Indo-European constructed language", since those three are of the Indo-European family. --Edmundkh 18:32, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Corrections to sample text

I've made some corrections to the sample text in the article[7] —this is based on the assumption that the source did not contain the mistakes I found. Does anyone have a copy of the book so that they can check? Thanks. garik 16:11, 26 April 2007 (UTC)