Do you speak Esperanto, know anyone who does.

I heard about this International language awhile back and started teaching myself through online courses, dictionaries, etc. What I have heard is this langauge is very popular among travelers, but I can't seem to find one other person who speaks it. Most never even have heard of it. Do you, have you, would you find it useful other than just entertainment?

Years ago, the National Lampoon published a hilarious article about talking dirty in Esperanto. It was one of the funniest things I had ever read, but you'd have to dig deep into the 1970s pile to find it. It would be useful in the course of your travels to be able to say, "It is my express wish that your penis be struck by lightning." (That was one of the phrases.)

Jim Paris

I have heard of Esperanto and its history, but never met anyone who spoke it...under the impression that only a few tens of thousands do. A bit more academic than practical, me thinks.

quote:

Originally posted by Corvinus:
Years ago, the National Lampoon published a hilarious article about talking dirty in Esperanto. It was one of the funniest things I had ever read, but you'd have to dig deep into the 1970s pile to find it. It would be useful in the course of your travels to be able to say, "It is my express wish that your penis be struck by lightning." (That was one of the phrases.)

Jim Paris

http://www.marksverylarge.com/issues/7211.html

Now to find a print.

Isn't it true that more people speak klingon than esperanto? I think I'd go with klingon too, if I had to choose one.

i did a correspondant course in in for a short time when i was a teenager.

there is a movie in ESPERANTO. william shatner is in it. somebody look on imdb.com and you will find it.

esperanto, meaning "hope" was developed by folks who wanted to create a common language, a new lingua franca, if you will. in the late 1800s i think.

amiko means "friend"

zipa
(my name in esperanto)

quote:

Originally posted by Zopa:

there is a movie in ESPERANTO. william shatner is in it. somebody look on imdb.com and you will find it.

I looked on imdb...Incubus

There was a movement among Bolsheviks to study Esperanto. The idea I suppose was that after the withering away of the state, that we'd all start speaking the same language too. They were right, of course, within the USSR. Within a couple of decades you couldn't blow your nose unless you did it in Russian.

I really don't like the idea of Esperanto. Ambiguity and irregularity are what make wit and poetry possible in a language. With an artificially constructed language like Esperanto, you eliminate things like puns, etymologies, and wordplay, leaving one brutal layer to any possible expression. The things that make it difficult to learn a language are also what make it unique. I hope Esperanto never catches on.

I experience enough ambiguity and irregularity in my daily life.

Perhaps you need some of this...



And in an effort to not completely derail this thread, we may now continue with the scheduled programming....

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I recently found out that Esperanto is considered to have some native speakers, including George Soros. Hm.

I'm taking some classes in Romance Linguistics, and the students in my classes know how to communicate in Esperanto. They all specialize in or are native speakers of Occitan, which is closer to Latin, Spanish, and Italian than modern French is, plus they all studied Latin in grade school, so I assume they didn't need to study Esperanto in order to know it. The first time I saw one of them reading a newspaper in Esperanto, I assumed it was in Occitan. It looks incredibly similar. So I'm guessing if you speak Esperanto, you can get by with speakers of Occitan, Catalan, and maybe even Spanish.

Esperanto wasn't meant to replace native languages. The idea of Ludwik Zamenhof who created Esperanto was to give people around the world a second language, as a lingua franca, to enable them to communicate.
I don't know anyone who speaks esperanto. Once I followed a discussion on language forum, where there were a couple of Esperantists. They have their international communities, and seem to be pretty active. They organise their regular meetings, and visit each other as friends.

Some countries opposed teaching and learning Esperanto. The language was forbidden in tsarist Russia and later in Soviet Union. Dring certain period it was banned in France. Adolf Hitler referred to esperanto as "a language tool of the Jewish domination" (the author of Esperanto was a Polish Jew).