Talk:Esperanto/Archive 3

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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)

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)

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)

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)

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:

• Why Esperanto Suppresses Language Diversity A former Esperantist explains why he left the movement

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

• [1]

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:
{{User:Parsa/Userboxes/Esperantio}}	{{User:Parsa/Userboxes/eo2_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[2] —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)

Most Widely Spoken?

I am an intermediate Esperanto speaker, and as such I was interested in the popularity of Interlingua versus Esperanto. I did notice, however, that at the beginning of both articles, they claim to be the most widely spoken "international auxilary language" in the world. Maybe there are some nuances in the specific wording that I'm missing, but it sounds to me like a contradiction, folks. Any help? -ExNoctem 04:36, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

The Interlingua article asserts specifically that Interlingua is the most widely spoken "naturalistic" IAL, not just the most widely spoken IAL. Esperanto seems to be classed as an "a posteriori" IAL according to International auxiliary language. Goulo 16:30, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Accessibility

This article, in some places, seems too targetted towards linguists and not enough towards a lay person who casually wants to learn more about the language. For example, under phronology, I have no idea what this means: "Esperanto has 5 vowels and 23 consonants, of which two are semivowels. Tone is not used to distinguish meaning of words. Stress is always on the penultimate vowel, unless a final vowel o is elided (which in practice occurs mostly in poetry). For example, familio (family) is [fa.mi.ˈli.o], but famili’ is [fa.mi.ˈli]." Rm999 06:01, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

This article is glowingly positive!

It sure is refreshing to read such a positive article on the hobby-language that is Esperanto. None of that NPOV nonsense for the Esperanto article , no sir! Sure, it avoids NPOV by letter, but not in spirit-- the impressive article breadth and serious treatment of the language implies that Esperanto enjoys formidable international respect and is actually notable as something other than a historical curio and/or cult favorite. I especially like how "criticism" gets allocated to a tiny text ghetto near the end of the article. You can find more in the "Esperanto as an International Language" article, but that's safely isolated from any kid actually searching for/reading an article on Esperanto. They'll have to dig deeper to learn that Esperanto has been anything other than a roaring success.

Thanks to the de facto Esperanto advocacy via article breadth, any significant editing or revision of this text is next to impossible without provoking a ghastly flamestorm. Congratulations to the authors! This article is simply brilliant, albeit disingenuous, and nearly impossible to revise.

Also: editing the talk page = classy. Narrow minded simpletons generally try to assume good faith on the Wikipedia, so it's up to idealists LIKE YOU to make sure that this mistaken attitude dies out. Remember: the talk page is a delicate flower that cannot survive radical literary devices such as sarcasm or satire. Criticism of the parent article has to be *serious*, otherwise someone could anonymously point out that an article needs major rethinking *without* hurting any author's feelings. And that would just be wrong. 69.129.196.12 04:03, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Still, more references and citations are needed. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 08:16, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

That is how it works in Wikipedia, though. Articles are written by people who are interested in a subject. All you can do is check for notability, verifiability and NPOV. Wikipedia is supposed to be a secondary reference, not a guide to the relative importance of what "matters" in the world. One oughtn't cut down existing big articles on "hobby" topics; instead one should work at writing bigger articles on everything. --Cam 13:14, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps the anonymous "glowingly positive" assessment was made in regards to an earlier draft, but the current article seems like an attempt to achieve NPOV by introducing unsupported claims as statements of fact. I'm referring to the Criticism of Esperanto section, where sweeping claims like "The vocabulary and grammar are European, not universal" are presented without necessary qualification. Only the careful reader will realize that this statement is an unsupported claim, rather than a statement of fact. The wording could be improved, e.g. "Some critics claim the vocabulary and grammar are not universal."

Another improvement would be the addition of links to further analysis of some of the criticisms, so that they are not simply presented in a vacuum. For example, former UN translator Claude Piron has addressed this particular criticism extensively; it might be helpful to include a reference to http://claudepiron.free.fr/articlesenanglais/europeanorasiatic.htm Does anyone object? Hoss Firooznia (talk) 23:06, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

How is "the vocabulary and grammar of Esperanto are European, not universal" an unsupported claim? I'm looking at the "Etimologia Vortaro de Esperanto", and it identifies almost every root as coming most directly from English, French, Latin, Italian or Greek, with frequent references to cognates in Polish or Russian--usually when the word is also found in the Western European languages. There is no question that the vocabulary is as European as any European language. Grammar is harder, as Esperanto is more artificial here, but it's not ergative, it's not agglutinative, it's not isolating, etc. Claude Piron has a counterargument, but that makes the question of the European nature of the grammar debatable, not an unsupported claim.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:13, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I added in these criticisms to address this issue of the article being too positive, which I agree it was. However, they are presented as criticisms - whether they are reasonable is irrelevant, as is obvious from the fact that several of them contradict each other. Anyway, support can be found in the specialized articles, which cover claims and counter-claims, as well as things such as the European etymologies which Prosfilaes mentioned. The only non-European morphemes in Z's original vocabulary are two roots he made up, ĝi (it, s/he) and -ujo (suffix for containers), plus, possibly, the jussive mood in -u from Hebrew. (-u could also be from Latin, or from earlier European-derived conlang proposals - it's hard to know with such a short form.) The only non-European aspect of the grammar is the use of plural plus accusative rather than a separate suffix, and this isn't actually taken from a non-European language. kwami (talk) 00:21, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually, Prosfilaes, Esperanto is almost perfectly agglutinative, the only exception being pet names, but this is just a regularization of European grammar, not, say, a Turkish influence. kwami (talk) 00:39, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Putting aside the problem of defining just what constitutes an ambiguous trait like "European-ness", it's correct to say that most of Esperanto's lexemes have been derived, directly or indirectly, from Latin. So yes, in that sense the claim about vocabulary being "European" is correct, albeit vague. (Note that if we define "Latinate" to mean "European", many languages of Europe cease to be "European".)

The claim about grammar, however, is simply false. Esperanto's system of freely combining invariant morphemes is rather alien to speakers of the Latinate or Germanic languages of Europe. You're correct that Esperanto does not have an ergative-absolutive distinction, like say, the European language Basque has. And the morphology is in fact quite agglutinative, a trait that is relatively rare among languages of Europe. The typology also skews towards isolating languages, like Mandarin. My point is that claims about grammatical features being "European" or "non-European" are largely meaningless: for one thing, the grammatical features of Europe's languages vary quite a lot, and typological classifications like "fusional", "agglutinative", "isolating" and so forth are by no means confined to Europe. By such a ridiculous standard, even languages outside the Indo-European family could be criticized for being too "European". Hoss Firooznia (talk) 03:20, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Huh? How we define Latinate has zero effect on the meaning of the word European. --Prosfilaes (talk) 04:59, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, that should have read "if we define 'European' to mean 'Latinate'". To criticize Esperanto's word stock for having Latinate roots is fine, but to criticize it as being "European" is considerably less meaningful, since there are European languages whose word stocks are not based on Latin. Hoss Firooznia (talk) 22:42, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

And why would we be defining European to mean Latinate? Prosfilaes (talk) 23:48, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Because if the assertion is "Esperanto's word stock is primarily European", then we may need to redefine "European" as "Latinate" for the assertion to be truly meaningful. Hoss Firooznia (talk) 05:22, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I have no clue what you're trying to say. Latin words are European words. Saying that the vocabulary is European is just as meaningful as saying it is Latinate. More over, a significant number of words in Esperanto are Germanic in origin; to turn to more or less random page in the Etimologia Vortaro, I find 9 headwords on the 2 page spread that are Germanic in origin, and just 2 that are Latinate. I'll admit that it wasn't entirely random, and that Ŝ seems very heavy in such words, but birdo, vintro, and slipo are all fine examples of common Germanic words.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:56, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

It's entirely meaningful to point out that a speaker of Spanish, English, Portuguese, Russian or German is likely to find many cognates in Esperanto --Prosfilaes (talk) 23:48, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but that wasn't the criticism. And we should note that the English, Spanish, and Portuguese speakers are likely to find cognates because these languages all contain large numbers of Latinate words. Additionally, the German and quite possibly the Russian will likely find many cognates due to their exposure to Latin-derived roots absorbed into their own native languages. Hoss Firooznia (talk) 05:22, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

whereas a speaker of Chinese, Arabic, Hindi, Bengali or Japanese is likely to find the vocabulary as alien as Klingon and and phonology difficult.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:48, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I suspect speakers of Chinese, Arabic, Hindi, Bengali and Japanese find the vocabulary and phonology of Esperanto far more familiar than that of Klingon, due to the presence of roots (again, largely Latinate) that enjoy widespread familiarity. That existing international recognition was in fact Zamenhof's motivation for choosing the roots; not the fact that they were present in any particular European language. Hoss Firooznia (talk) 05:22, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Chinese doesn't borrow international vocabulary; it recoins the words. Even with that, the international roots are a small chunk of the language; they all have words for wall and ship, and most of their speakers are wiser than English speakers, and don't need to borrow for adjective forms. Mono-lingual speakers of all of these languages would find Esperanto's phonology alien; for example, just because English has borrowed words starting with ps, like pseudo, but we still would find words starting with ps (pronounced as spelled) alien.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:56, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't know the exact percentages of words of English and German origin and the percentages of words ultimately of Greek origin, but they're enough that I would prefer to say European rather than Latinate.--Prosfilaes (talk) 04:59, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps a better term would be "of European origin". Hoss Firooznia (talk) 22:42, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

The claim about grammar is not simply anything. If the system were alien to the speakers of the Latinate or Germanic languages of Europe, the language would not have taken off. --Prosfilaes (talk) 04:59, 6 December 2007

True. Yet the grammar and morphology are relatively alien to Europeans. However, the flexibility of the language allows Esperanto to conform to patterns familiar to European audiences when necessary. In fact, Zamenhof made use of this flexibility to introduce the language in a European-friendly guise. As he wrote in La Unua Libro:

The various grammatical inflexions, the reciprocal relations of the members of a sentence, are expressed by the junction of immutable syllables. But the structure of such a synthetic language being altogether strange to the chief European nations, and consequently difficult for them to become accustomed to, I have adapted this principle of dismemberment to the spirit of the European languages, in such a manner that anyone learning my tongue from grammar alone, without having previously read this introduction—which is quite unnecessary for the learner—will never perceive that the structure of the language differs in any respect from that of his mother-tongue. Hoss Firooznia (talk) 22:42, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

On one hand, it is true that many of the grammatical features of Esperanto are more artificial rather than European.--Prosfilaes (talk) 04:59, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

The point isn't that the grammatical features of Esperanto are "artificial" -- in fact, they're quite natural in that "natural" languages use them. The point is that there is no such thing as a "European" grammar. Hoss Firooznia (talk) 22:42, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

On the other hand, it's not ergative, and its genders are typical of European languages. (And yes, when I say European languages, I don't mean Basque, which isn't related to anything else, and has no political power.)--Prosfilaes (talk) 04:59, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

The political power of Basque is irrelevant. If lacking an ergative-absolutive distinction makes a language "European", then most languages found outside Europe are also "European". Which demonstrates, I think, how pointless this criticism is. Hoss Firooznia (talk) 22:42, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

The strongest defense to the "too European" complaint would be to show evidence that the origins were not in fact European, or to show some clearly non-European features.--Prosfilaes (talk) 04:59, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I think the strongest defense is to point out that grammatical typology is not bound to geography. Ergative-absolutive languages are found both inside Europe and outside Europe. Nominate-accusative languages are found both inside Europe and outside Europe. Agglutinative, isolating, etc... both inside and outside Europe. Hoss Firooznia (talk) 22:42, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Again, my complaint is not that the criticisms are mentioned in the article; they definitely do have a place there. My complaint is that they are not adequately presented: they are just dumped in a list of claims without context or response. It is not enough to print what in some cases amounts to ignorant prejudices and then expect a reader to have to burrow through other articles to find the beginnings of a response. That's just misleading. Hoss Firooznia (talk) 03:20, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

All of the criticisms on the page have context and response. I find your response frustrating, because as far as I can tell, you want to downplay the criticisms to Esperanto. That's not the way to get an NPOV article for Esperanto. You can dismiss them as ignorant prejudices on the talk page, but they have to be taken seriously in the article itself.--Prosfilaes (talk) 04:59, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't want to downplay anything. I merely sought to (a) respond to the complaint that the article is "glowingly positive", and (b) ask for a bit more balance in the "Criticisms" section. That's all. :-) Hoss Firooznia (talk) 22:42, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

The "glowingly positive" comment was made when nearly all critical material had been removed to the subarticle. I wrote the current contents in response. Esperanto isn't just a language, it's a language project, so a section on criticism is warranted. However, we can't start detailed analysis of every point without getting back to the bloat we once had - the section is already a substantial fraction of the length of the subarticle. There are several defenses already in the section - that Esperanto wasn't supposed to be equally representative, for practical reasons; wasn't supposed to convey a particular culture, for reasons of equality; as well as pointing out that several criticisms contradict each other.

"Of European origin" would be okay [added it], but the grammar is clearly based on European languages (Romance, Germanic, Slavic) and biased toward speakers of European languages. That's not a problem in America, Africa, or the Pacific, where education is in European languages, but it is definitely a problem in East Asia. Once you look from a vantage point outside 'Standard European' languages, it becomes glaringly obvious just how European Espo is. kwami (talk) 23:20, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

What are you talking about? As a strongly agglutinative language, Esperanto has very few grammatical similarities to any European languages, particularly Romance, Germanic, or Slavic languages! Yes, the word roots are derived from these languages. No, the grammar is absolutely, positively, not. Of the languages that I have some working familiarity with (English, Spanish, Russian, Hindi, Japanese), Esperanto is by far the most grammatically akin to Japanese - about as far from Romance/Germanic/Slavic grammar as one can get. Skybum (talk) 11:32, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Learn Japanese, and you'll no longer think Esperanto is similar. The Japanese certainly don't. Agglutinativity is a minor aspect of grammar, and derives from Slavic: Zamenhof noticed productive Russian derivational suffixes, and merely extended them to their logical conclusion. Look at the parts of speech: prepositions, personal pronouns, adjectives, etc, none of which occur in Japanese, but which are universal in the source languages of Esperanto (except for adverbs in German). Subordinator kiu is the same word as the interrogative kiu - Japanese doesn't have the former, and many languages which do find the identity puzzling. Esperanto grammar is so similar to 'standard' European that it can be picked up without much conscious effort by most Europeans, but it can be quite a struggle for the Japanese unless they're already familiar with a European language. kwami (talk) 19:52, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, when I said I had "working familiarity" with those languages, what I meant was that I have some experience with what I'm talking about. I took two years of undergraduate Japanese, and while that only leaves me speaking at a crudely conversational level (far from fluent), it does give me a reasonably good baseline for comparison. As far as Slavic agglutinativity goes, are you quite sure of that? I also studied Russian for six months -- nothing agglutinative there -- and looking through the literature I can't find any evidence for this, beyond some somewhat tentative suggestions of agglutinative structures in the Balkan languages. So, I still maintain that Esperanto grammar is a good deal more akin to Japanese than any European language I know. (Maybe Basque or Finno-Ugric languages would be closer, but that doesn't really get us any closer to Romance / Germanic / Slavic). Agreed about the subordinator vs. interrogative kiu -- I can see how a native Japanese speaker would struggle with that. But the rest of it... no, not really. Can't see your point. And, er, Japanese doesn't have personal pronouns or adjectives? Admittedly I'm not a linguist, so perhaps what I thought were personal pronouns and adjectives were actually somehow indistinguishably different. Anyhow, I can't see that there is anything particular reason why there should be much grammatical difficulty mapping anato onto vi or midori onto verda. Where the grammatical structures are particularly concordant is in the construction of correlative words (subordinators notwithstanding), and of course the use of particles. When learning Esperanto, I found it easier to grasp concepts by mapping them back to Japanese rather than English. So, ka becomes ĉu, ga (when used as an object marker) becomes -n, -masu/-mashita/-mashoo becomes -as/-is/-us, no becomes -a, et cetra. It doesn't always work (ie volas and --ai are used in very different constructions), but there's enough to make the two languages at least as comparable as between Esperanto and any given European language.

In any case, it doesn't matter which one of us is right; the standard for Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. So the question is, are there reputable sources who make the claim that Esperanto grammar is too much based on European languages? If so, then the article should state that so-and-so claims such-and-such, and then provide a source for the claim. I would be very happy to support this; I am just uncomfortable with leaving the "based on European grammar" bit without attribution or source, as that is a statement which can be hotly contested by people acting in good faith. Skybum (talk) 21:33, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually, Esperanto helped me with my Japanese, but more because of the flexibility of its grammar, which allowed me to break out of the confines of English, than any particular similarity. (Now Turkish - there's a similar grammar to Japanese. I found I could speak basic Turkish if I thought in Japanese, but not if I thought in English.) I didn't mean to claim that Russian is agglutinative - it clearly is not - only that the agglutinativity of Esperanto was developed through the regularization of European languages, initially Russian. kwami (talk) 23:31, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

This illustrates a distinction that seems to be missing from the discussion: the fact that Zamenhof may have been inspired by something he encountered in a European language (in this case, a slavic one) does not make the inspired grammatical feature (in this case, agglutination) uniquely European. Hoss Firooznia (talk) 05:05, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you can translate 'anata' to 'vi', but if you do, it will be bad Esperanto. You can translate English, Polish, or French more or less literally into Esperanto, and the result can be well formed. You can't do that with Japanese. (Japanese words like 'anata' are nouns, not really pronouns. So is 'midori', whereas 'aoi' is a verb. The only adjective in Japanese is 'onaji'.) As for tense, '-ta' isn't past, it's perfective: When you spot a bus that hasn't yet arrived, you say basu-ga kita "the bus is here"; translating it as "the bus came" would be misleading. (You can even use '-ta' in the future, whereas Espo. '-is' can never be future.) True, IE languages are for the most part inflecting, not agglutinative, but that isn't much of a conceptual hurdle, and there's a whole lot more to grammar than that one feature.

As for sources, yes, I've seen several, though I couldn't point out which they are. We don't need to say that so-and-so claims such-and-such, because the entire section is a list of opinions, not facts. kwami (talk) 23:31, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Good Article?

I just counted up. This article contains:

• 4 sections tagged as requiring references
• 17 fact-tags, including two in the lead.
• 3 attribution tags.

So, there are significant attribution/WP:V/WP:NOR issues. Plus, the article is just not written from a NPOV. Very little criticism of Esperanto is present - buried in a short section at the end of the article. The tone is frequently based on the expectation that Esperanto should be the international language, and we should not be using that as a starting point on Wikipedia.

In short, in my opinion, this article doesn't come close to making point 2 of the good article criteria, and also fails point 4 - and as such I am delisting it. Pfainuk talk 19:51, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Where do you think the article has the tone that Esperanto should be the international language, as opposed to is designed for?--Prosfilaes 20:43, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

As part of a recent quality sweep of GA's for Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles, I would concur with that assessment. I will be bringing this up at GAR for further discussion.--Jayron32|talk|contribs 03:54, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I have to admit the tone of the article is rather glowing. Not surprising, since the only people likely to put any time into it are Espists. I'm as guilty as anyone on that count. kwami 04:50, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually the problem is more that when people who aren't militant espists have questions or edits, it seems like espists find some way to sneak their POV into shooting down those questions or edits. Granted that is a POV statement, but just putting that out there. There are lots of non-espist linguists interested in this article I'm sure, but because they're not advertising for the great global esperanto takeover, they're not to be trusted to provide NPOV information.

Dsmccohen 21:32, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I haven't seen any decent critiques. Most of it is quite juvenile and shows a basic misunderstanding of language: It sounds funny, looks funny, etc., as if that's not true of any language one's not familiar with. No one would accept such comments about Russian, German, Arabic, Swahili, or Chinese, all of which look and sound "funny" to many English speakers. My personal criticisms are so specific and POV that they don't belong in an encyclopedic article. There were at times links to external critiques, but they were more rants than rational. About the only general criticisms I can think of offhand is that Eo doesn't have a culture of its own (or that it has a narrowly European culture, take your pick); that it isn't universal (or that it isn't sufficiently European); that it doesn't have a significant speaking population and therefore isn't practical; that, despite the opportunity, it hasn't eliminated some of the biases of Western languages, such as sexism; and ... I forgot the 5th. Do you have links to any rational criticism we could incorporate? kwami 20:57, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

This material had been split off, but given the apparent bias of much of the rest of the article, I agree more of it should remain here. I expanded that section; see what you think. As for it being at the end of the article, isn't that where criticism usually goes? You need to understand the basics before you can understand the critiques. kwami 21:57, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Russian, German, Arabic, Swahili, and Chinese do sound funny, but Russian less so, now that I'm learning some.--24.59.157.62 (talk) 01:05, 14 January 2009 (UTC)Mr. Kitty

Good Article Reassessment initiated

This article does not seem to meet the good article criteria as spelled out in WP:WIAGA. If you have something to add to the discussion, please come to the good article reassessment page. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 03:54, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Looks like someone already delisted it half way, that is this TALK page was changed, but the article was not removed from the list. I will be doing so presently. Please consider fixing this article to be compliant with the good article criteria. It is an important article, and it would be nice to see it improve. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 02:19, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I think I've pretty much taken care of the citation problem except in the section on culture. I've expanded the section on criticism. The section on religion needs to be cleaned up. kwami 09:25, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

totalitarianism

It's a subtle detail of grammar and meaning, but "Esperanto and 20th-century totalitarianism" is definitely superior to "Esperanto and 20th-century totalitarianisms" to my native English-speaking ear. Totalitarianisms is rare in English; books.google.com shows only 689 books that use the word, compared to 14000 that use the world totalitarianism. I, and other native English speakers, wouldn't usually speak of a totalitarianism as they would a democracy; they would instead say a totalitarian state (which gets 2400 hits on books.google.com). It's perfectly correct to speak of all the practice of totalitarianism in the 20th century as "20th-century totalitarianism", just like you would say "20th-century art" or "20th-century bigotry".--Prosfilaes 01:06, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia in Esperanto

Is it worth noting that wikipedia, and indeed this article, is available in Esperanto? If so under which category? Prince.timotheus 22:39, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

It's already mentioned and linked in a) "in other languages" (in the bar on the left), b) as a link under "See also" and c) as a Wikipedia language icon with text under the "External links" section. A detailed description can be found at Esperanto Wikipedia. — N-true 00:06, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Artificial Sound

Article says (in the criticism section) that people say Esperanto sounds artificial. That's BS, of course it mentions that this is an impression created by the fact that there aren't many fluent speakers, but hey, there still are some, and even if you're not you can memorize some text well and then say it fluently enough. Look at some videos on the Youtube, sounds fine to me, pretty close to how Spanish sounds.

BY THE WAY. ARE THERE CURSE WORDS IN ESPERANTO?!! OMG, what if there aren't? That's just very interesting, imagine what people with Tourettes Syndrome are going to do? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.225.240.84 (talk) 04:52, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

"Artificiality" is a common criticism of Espo, and so requires mention. Of course, you don't have to take it seriously. As for curse words, yes, there are quite a few. Nothing like what English has, but then a lot of ethnic languages don't have the numbers that English has. kwami 10:01, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

In reply to the "are there any curse words" comment, yes there are. Go ahead and sign up on lernu.net, take a few free courses, and eventually you will stumble on a whole lesson on that, pretty much anyway. 209.234.206.43 (talk) 06:24, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Here you go: Curse course on Lernu! - Parsa (talk) 05:33, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

/x/ falling out of use?

According to the article, the phoneme /x/ 'is falling out of use'. But are there really Esperanto speakers who don't attempt to use it in ĥoro and eĥo? If not, it is not 'falling out of use', it is just uncommon, which is something else entirely. Timeineurope (talk) 05:06, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Hey, discussion! Yes, there are common replacements for all ĥ words: these are koruso and ekoo. There's a continuing progression here: an official alternate form of ark- for arĥ-type words, I think in the 1920s, then a general change of ĥ to k except for a couple words which were internationally ĉ, such as ĉino, and finally ĥoro and eĥo, which were resistant because of homophony. I typically don't see ĥ used for much besides place names in recent texts. You are right, because of that ĥ is not obsolete, and some people do continue to use it, but there is a progressive lessening of use. Did a quick Google search, and there were hits on 137,000 Esperanto pages for koruso vs. 61 pages for ĥoruso, and hits on 453 pages for ekoo vs. 0 hits for eĥoo, presumably nearly all from the past 18 years. kwami (talk) 09:27, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

There are 35,000 Google hits for +eĥo (you need the plus sign or Google will strip out the circumflex). To me ĥ still seems to be used fairly often in developing techical terms. It can be useful in making Esperanto forms out of Greco-Latin international words that have "ch". --Cam (talk) 16:30, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually, it makes no difference in hit count whether or not I use the +. Regardless, I'm now getting different numbers: the same 137,000 for koruso, but only 15 ĥoruso; 460 ekoo vs. 55,000 eĥo. So, yes, ĥ still appears to be the dominant pronunciation of at least one common noun — but I think it's still safe to say that ĥ is falling out of use. kwami (talk) 22:26, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

No, because if something is 'falling out of use', it is disappearing. However, as your numbers for eĥo vs. ekoo show (more than 99% eĥo), ĥ is not going anywhere. (By the way, shouldn't you be comparing koruso to ĥoro rather than to ĥoruso?)

You're right. Braino. Ĥoro has a slight majority of use. kwami (talk) 19:47, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I also don't agree with your new wording, 'has largely fallen out of use', since the vast majority of Esperanto speakers still use it. Timeineurope (talk) 14:06, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I'll take it out. It's too small a detail to be included in such a short summary anyway, and is discussed in the subarticles. kwami (talk) 19:55, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Stalin & Hitler

There are a number of serious contradictions between this article, another article, and outside sources. For comparison, I present (1) the relevant section of this article, (2) its highly questionable source, (3) an excerpt from the WP article History of Esperanto, (4) the only reference to Esperanto in Mein Kampf, and (5) the statement in a 1943 journal article that first piqued my uncertainty.

Esperanto and 20th-century totalitarianism

Source: Wikipedia - Esperanto

In his work, Mein Kampf, Hitler mentioned Esperanto as an example of a language that could be used to achieve world dominance by an international Jewish Conspiracy.ler.org/writings/Mein_Kampf/mkv1ch11.html 5 As a result, this led to the persecution of Esperantists during the Holocaust.6

Soviet leader Joseph Stalin denounced Esperanto as "the language of spies", while United States Senator Joseph McCarthy, known for his rabidly Anti-Communist speeches and instigating the House Un-American Activities Committee, considered knowledge of Esperanto to be "nearly synonymous" with sympathy towards Communism.7

Esperanto - Questions, Answers, Fun Facts, Information

Source: M.T. Arkey (a.k.a. OofahLandian), funtrivia.com

Tyrants thrive on creating enemies. Esperanto helps unite people of many various nationalities; common language brings common understanding. Under Nazi Germany, Esperantists were singled out and sentenced to death or worse in concentration camps for their interest in the language (in "Mein Kampf", Hitler calls it "the language of spies"). Stalin had Esperantists killed, and US Senator Joseph McCarthy considered knowledge of Esperanto to be nearly synonymous with sympathy for the "Communist cause".

History of Esperanto

Source: Wikipedia - History of Esperanto

Starting in the 1930s, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin murdered many Esperanto speakers because of their anti-nationalistic tendencies. Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf that it was created as a universal language to unite the Jewish diaspora. Stalin called it "the language of spies". While Esperanto itself was not enough cause for execution, its use was extended among Jews or trade unionists and encouraged contacts with foreigners. The teaching of Esperanto was not allowed in German prisoner-of-war camps during World War II. Esperantists sometimes were able to get around the ban by convincing guards that they were teaching Italian, the language of Germany's closest ally.

Mein Kampf

Source: Adolf Hitler, ler.org/writings/Mein_Kampf/ Mein Kampf

As long as the Jew has not become the master of the other peoples, he must speak their languages whether he likes it or not, but as soon as they became his slaves, they would all have to learn a universal language (Esperanto, for instance!), so that by this additional means the Jews could more easily dominate them!

A Language versus the Axis

Source: Hugo R. Pruter, A Language versus the Axis, The Modern Language Journal, Vol. 27, No. 2. (Feb., 1943), pp. 140-141.

Esperanto's most ardent supporter among the national leaders of the world strangely enough is autocratic, Joseph Stalin.

questions

• Did Stalin support or oppose Esperanto?
• Who called Esperanto "the language of spies", Hitler, Stalin, or neither?*
• Was Esperantism grounds for execution or confinement in Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia?**

* This quotation does not appear in Mein Kampf.

** Less than 24 hours ago, this article stated that there were such executions under Stalin.

It is clear that there are errors; I believe it is important to locate them and, if they are in Wikipedia, to correct them. MagnesianPhoenix (talk) 12:32, 12 December 2007 (UTC) [signed retroactively]

Thank you for this. Here's the relevant extract from Harlow's site.[3] Harlow seems to be careful in his research, has spent a lifetime on these things, and hasn't made the obvious mistakes you pointed out in Wikipedia. kwami (talk) 18:47, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Don Harlow

The growth of ideological rigidity in the nations of Europe was also to put a strain -- eventually, more than a strain -- on the Esperanto movement. Hitler's election to the Chancellory of Germany in 1931, and to the Presidency in 1933, was an unmitigated catastrophe for the language. Hitler had long known of Esperanto, and despised it; he had attacked the language as early as 1922, in a speech in Munich, and later, in Mein Kampf, he spoke of Esperanto as part of the Jewish conspiracy to enslave the Aryan races of the world. Now he had a chance to do something about it. It took some time for him to consolidate his power, but when he had done so, he took steps. In 1936 the Ministry of Education banned the teaching of Esperanto. The German Esperanto Association, in the face of competition from another national Esperanto organization established by the Gestapo, expelled its Jewish members, a step which led to a corresponding significant reduction among its outraged Aryan members, who remembered that the creator of Esperanto had been a Jew. In any case, the expulsion did the organization no good in the long run; by the end of the year all Esperanto activity in Germany was banned.

Germany was not alone in its suppression of Esperanto. After the relatively moderate and liberal Leninist period in the Soviet Union came the repressive Stalinist period. The Soviet Union, which had provided some of the major Esperantist literary figures of the twenties, went strangely quiet, after breaking relations with SAT. By the early thirties, Esperantists were already among the legions unwillingly building the White Sea Canal; and "by the end of the twenties and at the beginning of the thirties the leadership of the [Soviet Esperantist Union] were occupying ever more dogmatic, sectarian positions and in fact helping Stalin build and strengthen the machine of violence and mass terror whose victims they were later to become."

One night, in March, 1937, as many SEU members as possible were rounded up by the police, taken to local prisons, and forced to confess participation in "an international espionage organization of Esperantists." Several -- figures as high as 2000 have been quoted -- were executed, while the rest were remanded to the Gulag.

The president of the Soviet Esperanto organization at that time was the Latvian Ernst Drezen, a noted Esperantologist and a loyal, committed Communist. My late friend Nikolai Rytjkov, at that time a minor official of the organization, once mentioned to me having seen one or two books bearing Drezen's ex libris in the library of the prison where he himself was confined -- a sure sign that Drezen himself had been liquidated and his property confiscated by the state. Since Drezen was never seen again, this seems to be a reasonable interpretation. Lins devotes two thirds of his book on persecutions of Esperantists to the situation in the Soviet Union, then and more recently.

For the next nineteen years, any sort of Esperanto activity was outlawed in the USSR. No Esperantist worth his salt, of course, would permit such regulatory nonsense to prevent him (or her) from continuing to use Esperanto, as SEJM has been showing in the USSR for the past two decades or more. One young poet continued to write his poems in Esperanto; they were never found by the secret police because he hid them inside his father's beehive, a location relatively immune to investigation.

The attempted extermination of the Soviet Esperanto movement had several causes. One of the most interesting possibilities, for which Lins makes a good case, is that the Soviet government saw in Esperanto a viable alternative -- and therefore, competitor -- to Russian as a national language for the USSR. Even today, according to Soviet emigrés with whom I have spoken, Soviet Esperantists invariably speak to each other in Esperanto rather than in Russian.

Most Esperantist historians assign the near-extermination of the Esperanto movement to the Second World War. Within the Soviet Union, at least, most of the damage had been done before the war began. Nevertheless, the war allowed the dictatorships to spread their suppression across all of Europe; and at least in the West the human damage to the Esperanto movement after September, 1939, was considerably greater than it had been before. Great numbers of Esperantists died in the Nazi death camps. Others, including almost the entire Zamenhof family, were singled out by the Nazis for total extermination; Zamenhof's son Adam was shot dead in Palmiry Prison courtyard not long after the occupation of Warsaw, and daughters Sofia and Lidia were shipped off to the concentration camp at Treblinka, from which they never returned. The Esperanto movement throughout Europe was effectively decimated.

The most comprehensive scientific work about the history of the Esperanto movement with regards to persecutions etc. is "Die gefährliche Sprache" (the dangerous language) by Ulrich Lins. Unfortunately I don't have my copy here to look up what he wrote on these questions or what sources he gives, but maybe somebody else can. Junesun (talk) 22:22, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Universal grammar

Does Esperanto violate the rules of any particular theories of universal grammar? -- Beland (talk) 17:57, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Not that I'd know of. Do you have a special theory or violation in mind? — N-true (talk) 18:18, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Might there be a rule against antonymics, which is rare but would also be violated by Piraha? But since UG is not based on language universals, I don't see what difference it would make. kwami (talk) 19:24, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

There was a discussion named prodrop and meteorologic verbs in soc.culture.esperanto. The topic discussed was that Esperanto has both obligatory personal pronouns (i.e. is not a pro-drop language) and subject-less weather verbs (pluvas instead of ĝi pluvas) at the same time, which is supposed to contradict some language universal. --Schuetzm (talk) 23:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, such universals – even though sometimes misleadingly called "absolute" – often don't apply to 100% of the world's languages. One guy mentioned Cape Verdian Creole, others mentioned Finnish. Language universals, especially the one discussed, should be regarded strong tendencies, rather than inviolable rules. There are often exceptions and quirks around the world, but no language that has naturally arisen would be claimed "non-real" — this is an attribute merely given to constructed languages. — N-true (talk) 05:21, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

These are all language universals, which are derived from observation. They have nothing to do with Universal Grammar. kwami (talk) 06:23, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

It might also be useful to distinguish between universals of language evolution (is it possible for a language with such-and-such properties to evolve naturally?) and universals of the human language faculty (is it possible for humans to learn a language with such-and-such properties fluently and think/speak in it in real time?). Study of Esperanto and other constructed languages that have fluent speakers is probably the only way to determine which are which. --Jim Henry (talk) 02:29, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Pop culture

Esperanto was also mentioned in an episode of Frasier... ah, but I don't remember which episode right now. It had something to do with a cruise ship. Well, it was only a brief reference. :/ -TheCrimsonANTHROPOLOGIST 07:06, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Vi ne parolas Esperanto, cxu ne?

"Ti-" ne signifas "this" aux "that", sole "that". La vorto "cxi" estas tial. Do... Kio estas tio? = What is that? Kio estas cxi tio? = What is that?

"Cxi" sola okazas unue. Do... "Mi ŝatas ĉi tiun," ne "Mi ŝatas tiun ĉi.

Fine:

En multaj lokoj de Ĉinio estis temploj de la drakreĝo [la hifeno ne devas uzati]. Dum trosektempoj [“trosecko” signifas “too-dryness”, ne “times of drought”] uloj [“oni” signifas “one” (ekzemple, “Oni pensus ke…” signifas “One would think that…”); “Uloj” signifas “people”] preĝis en la temploj, ke la drakreĝo donu pluvon al la homa mondo. Tiam la drako estis simbolo de la supernaturaĵo [. Kaj pli poste, ĝi fariĝis prapatro de la plej altaj regantoj kaj simbolis la absolutan aŭtoritaton de la feŭda imperiestro. La imperiestro pretendis, ke li estis filo de la drako. Ĉiuj liaj vivbezonaĵoj portis la nomon drako kaj estis ornamitaj per diversaj drakfiguroj [la ‘o’ sole restas se ĝi facilas la prononco.]. Nun ĉie en Ĉinio videblas drakornamaĵoj [Mi ne pensas, ke “ornamento” estas vorto.] kaj cirkulas legendoj pri drakoj.

Novjunulo (talk) 18:21, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Vi ne parolas Esperanton, ĉu? Inter "tiun ĉi" kaj "ĉi tiun" ekzistas nur stila diferenco. Vi miskomprenas la vorton "oni" - ĝia senco estas pli vasta ol la senco de la angla pronomo "one". (Tamen, la ekzempla teksto ne estas bona. Eble iu volas proponi alian.) --Zundark (talk) 19:41, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Tiu encompases both 'this' and 'that', like French ce. Adding cxi (to either side) specifies that it is proximal. A distal reading is usually only implied, though I have occasionally seen tiu for. kwami (talk) 01:59, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Objectivesea's changes

There were several things unquestionably wrong about this change. The info box always goes at the top of the article, and stuff like Wiktionary and the Featured Article marks always go at the bottom. (I'm not sure it technically matters where the Feature Article marks go, but that makes it almost imperative that we put them where editors expect to find them.) The deleted paragraph under Classification needs to stay; links to subarticles expand, not replace parts of the original article. There are many other things done here, and it's hard to evaluate it because there were so many changes and so many moves. Future changes should be done in pieces small enough to be evaluated.--Prosfilaes (talk) 16:09, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

My apologies if the changes seemed disconcerting. I moved about some of the boxed elements purely from a design viewpoint (i.e., into areas where the main article text had a short column width anyway), to try to avoid great gaps of white space. I had no idea that their relative placement was anything but arbitrary. Since such changes appear to be troublesome at least to Prosfilaes (and likely to others also) I will not restore those. Instead, I will confine myself to adding in the references that will justify the removal of the "weasel words" notation. Thanks to Prosfilaes for pointing out the problem with some of my edits. Objectivesea (talk) 19:17, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

"language of internet websites"

"Esperanto is also a language of internet websites, which can be explored from the Esperanto interface of Google Search." using this logic, i could point out that Elmer Fudd is also a language of internet websites, which can be explored from the Elmer Fudd interface of Google Search.

just saying Iamsodeman (talk) 03:31, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

You're right, that's ridiculous. Deleted. kwami (talk) 18:33, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

If you can search for pages in Elmer Fudd language then that is indeed a language. French websites can be explored from the French interface of Google search.... Is French not a language either? I think the point is that it's recognised and used on the internet. I'd suggest adding this again - it's not factually wrong Frognsausage (talk) 22:10, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

merge criticism

Stifle added a merge criticism tag ("be merged into other sections to achieve a more neutral presentation"). I object; a language article shouldn't be sprinkled with criticism. That will make it less neutral, since opinions will be mixed in with the factual information. Since this is also a language project, criticism is warranted, but it should be set apart, as it is now. kwami (talk) 21:25, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Criticism section problems

The Criticism section has many problems. I removed some of the 'counter criticisms' because such a style is appropriate for UseNet discussions, but not an encyclopedia. I also agree that the Criticism section is in dire need of sources to avoid total removal, but individual problems with the article should be solved independantly. We can't leave one problem unsolved, just because another remains. Some of the 'criticisms' do seem a bit non-notable or editors opinion and should probably be removed. While others are long standing criticisms which have been written about many times and can probably be cited without too much trouble. Ashmoo (talk) 12:37, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I wrote it as a compromise between editors who made the article read as propaganda, and others who wanted a running critique throughout the article. The points were pretty much whatever popped into my head at the time. At first I thought we needed the responses, but after reading what Ashmoo left, I agree that we don't. (Except to point out that Z intended that Eo carry no particular culture—that is notable.) It's pretty obvious that many of the criticisms contradict one another, so we don't need to come out and say it.

Which criticisms are non-notable, though? They're all pretty standard. kwami (talk) 16:45, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks kwami. I think cites here would solve almost all the issues. I even think responses would be acceptable if they were sourced to Z defending the language himself, or something similar. Also it would be good to attribute each criticism to a source so the reader knows what sort of standing the crticism has. ie. is it a criticism by linguists, 1920s internationalists, artificial language enthusiasts or conspiracy nuts? If you get my meaning... Ashmoo (talk) 08:12, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I still don't quite understand, why you removed the 'counter critisisms'. In what way is there a style issue? They show that not all of the claims are completely unquestionable. I'm not against the critisism section at all, I really opt for a more neutral critisism section that sheds light on both sides. Currently uses get to read only one side (the negative one), apart from the intented-to-be neutral one of the article itself. I do agree that they might need slight rewording, though. — N-true (talk) 09:27, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I purposefully picked four of the criticisms so that they would negate each other: no culture / European culture; vocab. too European / not European enough. I'm not sure that we need counter-criticism. What's generally done with articles like this? Say, with astrology: do we defend astrology against its critics, or do we simply present its case, and then present its critics? Too much defense comes off as sounding biased: We present everything that's good, and then down at the bottom we give token attention to critics, but then show how they're all wrong. I'm not sure where to draw the line. kwami (talk) 16:03, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Citations by reliable sources is the WP test for inclusion. I know you didn't mean it that way, by selecting the criticisms to keep by ensuring thay they are contradictory seems a bit like stealth POV and should probably be avoided. But you are right about counter-criticisms. An encyc. article on Esperanto shouldn't be written so as to help a reader decide whether Esp. is a good language or not, but just to desribe the language objectively and report what 3rd parties have said about it. We really need to dig up some sourced criticisms. Ashmoo (talk) 08:14, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

As for it being stealth POV, we need to cover a range of opinions. These are, after all, opinions, not factual disputes. Noting that people with different language backgrounds have conflicting criticisms of Eo is important for a broad coverage. kwami (talk) 08:58, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

television

"Today, Esperanto is employed in world travel, correspondence, cultural exchange, conventions, literature, language instruction, television"

But the source cited is wikipedia, where it says the (internet) television station in question no longer broadcasts!

so its inaccurate to say that "today" esperanto is used in television! 75.7.33.233 (talk) 08:03, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

http://www.experiencefestival.com/

I appreciate the references that TCForever has added to the article, but I'm questionable of the value of the http://www.experiencefestival.com/ links. Not only does it have a huge number of intrusive ads, it doesn't seem to have actual content; it's not even a useful link farm.--Prosfilaes (talk) 04:06, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Criticism

Criticism should also have a reply (for each criticism a reply). For example it's absolutely not true that the phonemes come from Bielorussian (and, even if it was true, Bielorussian is not an inferior language), the web site that sais this is not truly. The wowels are tipical of almost all european languages (languages like English have really many vowels, esperanto 5 of them). Almost all phonemes are in languages like Italian (just h and ĥ are missing, because in standard italian there is no aspiration). All phonemes are in Polish (so not only Bielorussian), ĵ is in French, ĥ is in German, h, ŭ are in English etc. A sentence should reply to every criticism, for neutrality of the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.97.9.85 ()talk 22:43, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Neutrality is not the artificial balancing of criticism with reply; it's showing the response to Esperanto as an international language. I might even argue for for the replacement of this whole section with a section entitled response, with criticisms integrated into flowing text. Perhaps one of the Esperanto books has a good section on which criticisms are real reasons for rejection and which ones are mere idle criticism.

As for the phonemes, I disagree strongly. I think there's decent evidence that the phonemes are basically Belorussian. It's not really about Belorussian being an inferior language; it's that it's naturalistic and has various rough bits that are hard for those who don't speak a Western Slavic language. I'm not sure there's another major auxlang that has such a large set of phonemes (and no, you may not put the period after the first auxlang in this sentence).--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:15, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

If you would have heard any slavic language, you wouldn't say that esperanto sounds slavic. I read the source for that criticism, the referenced article sais other stuff. And it is not an official linguistic source. So this is a not-so-enciclopedic criticism. And all slavic languages have more sounds than esperanto (Russian, Polish, Slovakian, Bielorussian...). English has also more sounds than esperanto, Italian, Arabian, Hindi too. Maybe only Bielorussian and Polish (maybe) have all the sounds, but saing that esperanto is nationalistic i think it's too much (if it was Basic English, i would agree)... I want also to say that I write just for the thruth, and not because I just want to complain. About this: (and no, you may not put the period after the first auxlang in this sentence); <- Sorry i don't understand meaning of this sentence. 160.97.9.85

I thought about what you told me, my proposal is that every criticism has 3 parts: 1 Criticism; 2 Reply; 3 Objective Observation. Examples:

1. C: esperanto lexicon comes only from european language. R: recently words come also from other languages; non european people cannot try to guess a word, so they don't do some mistakes (italian can guess that the word "vedi"=to see, while the right word is "vidi", similar but not the same). OO: even the latest words come also from non european languages, it's true that the most important and used words are from English-German, Latin-Italian-French-Spanish, Russian-Polish, and few others; the disadvantage of german-latin-slavic speakers to try to guess words is not so disadvantaging as much the advantage of other to remember words
2. C:an artificial language cannot express human thinking, or be used in poetry and literature, it's ambiguos. R:that's not true, esperantist dimonstrated that; OO: Yes, that was empirically demonstrated (see translations of the following books, or the original creations in esperanto of the poet P).

I used different styles (italic,bold and normal) for the 3 different parts, but you choose how to format, you can also put everything in a discussion-paragraph. Also you can put a more formal language, this was only an example. I think to also criticism in this way is necessary, because also the worse criminal has a lawyer as defence. Since this is your wikipedia (i am native speaker of 2 languages, i am already quite busy in those wiki), you discuss and do what you want, i wanted just to do a constructive criticism. Good work! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.97.9.85 ()talk 16:04, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

There is no such thing as objective observation, at least that Wikipedia recognizes; verifiability, not truth. It's one thing to wade through the physical properties of the language, but things like criticism need to be done with a careful eye to WP:V and WP:NPOV, and that doesn't include "objective observation"s or too much "writing for the truth".--Prosfilaes (talk) 14:03, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

just a suggestion, please don't take literally, truth or verifiability, you choose one of them (maybe verifiability). about Belarussian, you can chech the source of that, and you won't find any real support about so much closeness of esperanto and Belarussian, i would delete that (compare belarussian texts, hear songs, verify it). Please chech all sources and see what's really verified. Do zobaczenia! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.97.9.85 ()talk 16:04, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I have checked it. Except for palatalization, they're nearly identical. kwami (talk) 20:18, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Esperanto phonology is unimaginatively provincial, being essentially Belorussian with regularized stress. <- Maybe this is too exagerated. Maybe single phonemes are similar, but when they put letters togheter to make a word, they sound very very very different. And there is not a reference supporting that (actually ref. 55 says something else, and doesnt' refer anything else). I heard Bielorussian, I would never think it's esperanto. When i heard esperanto first times, i thought it was similar to spanish or latin (vidis). But this discussion was about the whole criticism section, not just about this single critic.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.97.9.85 ()talk 16:04, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Phonology is not the same thing as pronunciation. The pronunciation takes Italian as the model, and so would sound quite different than Belorusian. Also, the primary feature of Slavic languages to English ears, palatalization, is retained in only vestigial form in Esperanto (in pet names), and so that would also make it sound very different. kwami (talk) 19:59, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

In my understanding "phonology" includes both "phoneme inventory" and "phonotactics" (and some other stuff like suprasegmental phonology). E-o's phoneme inventory is very similar to Belorusian and some other Slavic languages, but its phonotactics (and maybe suprasegmental phonology?) are very different. Is that a better way to phrase it? Where can we fit that into the article? --Jim Henry (talk) 16:31, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that's pretty much it. Plus Italian is given as the model for the pronunciation, so it's Belorusian sounds but in novel combinations and pronounced with an Italian accent. But not Italian phonotactics either: What other language has initial sc?

I'd be curious as to what divergences from Belorusian phonotactics you found. kwami (talk) 17:31, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

New proposal: I notice that the criticism section (and the associated page devoted to it at Criticism of Esperanto) conflate two different kinds of criticism: general criticisms of all invented auxiliary languages (goals, feasibility, wisdom, etc)--which would apply equally well to Ido, Volapük, etc.--with specific criticism of Esperanto itself (that is, gender, vocab, etc). These strike me as very separate issues, and ones that should be tackled separately. That is, someone could disagree with all the general criticism but agree with specific. What do others think?Mundart (talk) 08:15, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it would be worth separating them like that. But probly best to keep them in the same article, since Eo is what people generally think of when speaking of artificial languages. kwami (talk) 08:44, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Contradictory Criticisms?

Esperanto is too based on the vocabulary of the Western European languages, but the vocabulary isn't familiar by speakers of Western European languages? Which is it? Esperanto has no culture but it has the culture of Western Europe? Which is it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zooplah (talk • contribs) 01:39, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Exactly the point. kwami (talk) 05:31, 8 September 2009 (UTC)