Socialism and Esperanto

[Dr Mindbender]

Just wondering, since the esperanto movement and its language is the only one that disregards national borders and identity, should leftism be more pro-active in helping its objectives?
Here is their website: http://esperanto.net/info/index_en.html

[RedAnarchist]

I think we should. This is a language that has no links to one nation, or one ethnic group, or one religion. It is an international language that leftists should support.

[Luís Henrique]

It is "international" as Europe goes: a mix of Romance, Germanic, and Slavic languages. There are traces of Chinese, Hindi, or Arabic in it - just to mention the languages with a bigger number of speakers.

But the real problem is that it has created its own brand of chauvinism, as other "perfect languages" emerged (Volapuk, Ido, Latino sine Flexione, etc, etc). Sectarian quarrels among the proponents of those languages are as bitter as national conflicts.

It has been said that "a language is a dialect with an Army and a Navy"; the best thing about Esperanto and other auxlangs is that they haven't any, otherwise we would have to read about Esperanto atrocities against the Ido in the newspapers...

Luís Henrique

[Dr Mindbender]

Problem is though, its only got about 1m speakers so far. Theyre still waiting for the snowball to roll.

[black magick hustla]

English is the real international language folks.

Before someone gets on me and starts calling me chauvinist or something ridicolous, English is not by any means my first language.

Regardless of the atrocities commited by "those who speak English", it is the language most spoken throughout the world.

[Philosophical Materialist]

Perhaps in a socialist society where the world is moving towards eventual Communism, a democratic auxiliary language can be constructed as a "universal second language" which preserves native tongues but does not encourage the replacement of them, but rather as a means between two different language-speakers to communicate.

A lot of modern language has been built from chauvinistic culture, so a democratic socialist language would be a meaningful progression.

[Raúl Duke]

Originally posted by Luís [email protected] 26, 2007 10:09 am
It is "international" as Europe goes: a mix of Romance, Germanic, and Slavic languages. There are traces of Chinese, Hindi, or Arabic in it - just to mention the languages with a bigger number of speakers.

But the real problem is that it has created its own brand of chauvinism, as other "perfect languages" emerged (Volapuk, Ido, Latino sine Flexione, etc, etc). Sectarian quarrels among the proponents of those languages are as bitter as national conflicts.

It has been said that "a language is a dialect with an Army and a Navy"; the best thing about Esperanto and other auxlangs is that they haven't any, otherwise we would have to read about Esperanto atrocities against the Ido in the newspapers...

Luís Henrique
Yeah, I heard about that too...Which makes me confuse on which int. aux. language is "better..."

Although, for all I know there is only one International Sign Language (Use to be called Gestuno.), thats what radicals use in the age of electronic audio surveillance! ;)

[midnight marauder]

I don't know how communism would automatically make a constructed language possible. There's already every reason in the world to have a "unviversal second language" for communication and cooperation, and yet were seeing English take the form of such a language, for better or for worse.

I studied Esperanto for several months a while back. It's a great language to learn because it helps you understand etymology and identify patterns in language, but as far as "international" goes, it's very eurocentric.

[awayish]

thisis silly.

[RedAnarchist]

Originally posted by [email protected] 26, 2007 08:58 pm
thisis silly.
Care to elaborate?

[awayish]

not at length, but this seems like a project from the positivist years. that site looks like a collection of dubious claims.

retooling teh language wont get rid of nationalisms, and without nationalisms etc there is no point in doing a new language.

[Dr Mindbender]

Originally posted by midnight [email protected] 26, 2007 07:57 pm
... but as far as "international" goes, it's very eurocentric.
Are you saying that because it uses the western alphabet? All things considered, this is probably the most appropriate since its the only one commonly used on all continents. An international language using cyrillic or chinese characters wouldnt be practical.

[MarxSchmarx]

First, I echo others who note Esperanto's distinctly Indo-European flavor.

Second, I don't see what this adds to the leftist movement. For better or for worse, Esperanto never took on, and if anything making leftists learn it is a chore.

Moreover, it makes us come across as aloof at best and cooky at worst. What's wrong with our own languages? We have to communicate to non-leftists who have little, err... NO use for Esperanto.

Don't get me wrong, a few Esperantists will probably be amenable to proselytizing and we can tap them as that resource.

But with all due respect, I must confess I think we have higher priorities than Esperanto right now.

[A Suvorov]

Bonvenon!

I strongly advocate for using Esperanto as a dedicated 'auxiliary language' within the scope of the 'leftist' movement.

Esperanto is easily learned, has been translated in to nearly every language and dialect in the world, and is completely unbeholden to any particular agenda; the only thing it DOES is facilitate communication between peoples who do not share a common language.

I am rusty at my own Esperanto skills, but I'm certainly not opposed to going to it when faced with the alternative of just not being able to talk to someone for lack of words.

As an auxiliary language, it is not meant to 'replace' any language; quite the contrary, it is there to supplement all languages. In my own experience in learning Esperanto, within days of picking up the basics I was able to have a reasonably intelligent e-mail exchange with correspondents from the Congo, Siberia, and another from Indonesia.

In this light, I believe it would benefit the more international portions of the Left if publications were published in both their native language AND translated into Esperanto for the benefit of those who can't read the original. Likewise, if it were agreed that certain international meetigns were to be held in Esperanto there would be no misunderstanding the meaning of the speaker(s) as Esperanto is without nuance or subterfuge in it's word meanings.

I have no illusion that getting people to take a few minutes each day to learn and practice Esperanto skills is going to be easy; I do, however, believe that once people give it a chance they will find it very enjoyable to use in conversation and writing.

Gxis la revido--

A Suvorov

[Intelligitimate]

Ido is superior.

http://members.aol.com/idolinguo/

[Pawn Power]

Its just unrealistic. An insignificant number of people speak it and people are not leaning it. It is just becoming more unpopular.

A lanugage that would be useful to international communication must be widely spoken. Since there is no economic reasons to learn Esperanto and practically no native speakers (there are a few, but is it trival) it will not become common.

[GX.]

It's an ugly language, and it's about as usefull as Klingon.

[Dr Mindbender]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29, 2007 04:48 pm
It's an ugly language, and it's about as usefull as Klingon.
I knew a guy who met his long term girlfriend through esperanto social events.

[Janus]

should leftism be more pro-active in helping its objectives?
Promoting a better means of international communication would certainly help our goals but Esperanto never really caught on (for the reasons that people have highlighted above) so there's no guarantee that it will now. Rather than try to create one broad language, an alternative would be to encourage people to start learning different languages earlier in order to gain a mastery of several widely used languages.