Esperanto and the libertarian movement

by d'other Thu May 10, 2007 01:04

I gather from reading elsewhere that one of the chief reasons for the popularity of Esperanto was how the language allowed prescribed left - wing groups to communicate across borders, leaving their national governments oblivious to the fact that so called Esperanto societies were political agitators and not just linguistic enthusiasts. Seems this allowed some far left groups to chip away under the Hitler regime. So in this way it was a cryptic email scheme prior to the net, that is its role was explainable and it had a reason.

I just question it's value today - would English speaking left wing activists not be better off learning Spanish which is spoken by the majority of the world? I mean why learn a language that only allows you to speak to a tiny minority of organizations, in an international context I'd rather speak to grassroots organizations in Bolivia etc than the few language heads who take up Esperanto.

by Esperantisto Thu May 10, 2007 11:13

Saluton- finfine estas esperantistoj sur Indymedia......../hi -finally Esperantists on Indymedia Ireland.

Spanish is not a neutral language- it was the language of the conquestadores (sorry about bad spelling). Witness the language squabbles that go on in the EU- in fact Esperanto was at one stage going to be adopted in the EU as the lingua franca (perhaps good that it didn't because it would be associated with bureaucracy) when the French put paid to that - they wanted French to be the lingua franca.

Vivu la revolucio!

by chomsky's little helpers - ¿("gurgle ribbid")? Thu May 10, 2007 19:18

(1) If people are interested in seeing how esperanto can work in an indymedia environment - Barcelona indymedia has had an esperanto language option for a few years now.
http://barcelona.indymedia.org/?lang=eo_EO
There was indeed quite a story behind it. The translations are excellent and are sent by the esperanto group over here (mostly be a guy by the name of Hector - esperanto is a small circle in Europe - not so rt. hon.dr. L.C.?) they suggested the contribution and their translations lag behind the other feature articles which appear on the site but- the quality of their translations were so much higher than the english which often appeared - for complex ideological reasons. It was felt that very good English would encourage those who came to the city and made no effort to learn either of the two official languages). Which oddly enough was one reason for the Bcn people being so keen to accept the Esperanto group's offer of help. It was back during serious arguments on the lists on whether or not Bcn indymedia ought be called "paisos catalanas" and thus be more a "nation without state on the way to independence" than.......bla bla. Those at the relevent assemblies back then thought not only sticking to the city name rather than any "national" name (either Katalalaland or Kastilian Empire) would help make an internationalist and anarchist point. All that said, the bods and dudettes (more dudettes as it happened) in that assembly all rotated and BCN IMC passed on to another generation - who dare I say it - though they kept the esperanto got much more Katalalalalalander and improved (to my dismay) the quality of the English. Still that's evolution. & I have to admit I've no complaints at what that new bunch (or the ones who followed them) did.
well happy in fact.
here's wikipedia in esperanto - http://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%88efpa%C4%9Do

(2)
In Linguistic circles on the web and in academia there has been quite a stir in the last months as a very little known language in the Amazon basin which was first recorded and studied over 10 years ago by a US linguist Everett [Pirahã (also Pirahá, Pirahán) is a language spoken by the Pirahã — an indigenous people of Amazonas, Brazil, who live along the Maici river, a tributary of the Amazon] finally attracted attention of both serious academic kind and general media.

The main mysteries being the languages lack of :-
Colour words.
Numbers.
Time.
and most weirdly of all - subordinate clauses. Which for the linguists amongst us means a challenge to Chomsky's "universal grammar" theories. It's a very very strange language. It can be codified in music (they can whistle it) and common to many other African or Amazonian languages it has different sounds and practises for men and women. Honestly I've been waiting for ages to get an opportunity to tell you about this. Many of us over here on the linguist circuit have (shame on us for doubting Everett) scoffed that it might all be a big fake. Some of the sounds are so weird and of the roughly 6,000 human "natural" languages remaining are as rare as babies without heads.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirah%C3%A3_language honestly it's a "hot subject" & as usual with academic stuff the ego's are getting really worked up. A fact which the discussion pages and edit records of the wikipedia entry attest. I tend to think it is not "invented" but I doubt some of the weird characteristics which have been attributed to it. If you're not a linguist or into that - just read a general article on this very very strange language here :-
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/...0.ece

On a personal note - I favour interlingua [ wikipedia in interlingua with links to lots of books http://ia.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontispicio or ratzinger's canine latin to Esperanto, I suppose because I live in a romance or latin language zone & prefer seeing what appears to be cross-language gibberish to remembering bits of the four corners of European dominant languages without having real Swedish or Polish people to talk to properly.
I suppose people recognise the cultural political ramifactions of Tolkien's welsh meets saxon pretty rocker's daughter language Sindarin - but honestly Terry Pratchet's "troll" is more apt http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_%28Discworld%29#Language

I'm more keen to see a sino-linguistic construct develop in the next 40 years which helps them get around using US english for our future libertarian globalisation and of course helps us avoid the throat exercises we need to pronounce their tones. But I promise people I get into arguments with over this sticky question that in the future the planet Earth will only speak Katalanish.

Here is a list of all constructed languages :-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_constructed_langua...uages
just don't go using them here ;-)

by Alcxjo Fri May 11, 2007 16:44

In my opinion, and in the opinion of a lot of Esperantists, the objective of Esperanto is not to offer to, say, English speakers a choice between Spanish and Esperanto as mentioned above. If someone wishes to learn Spanish, that's fine. The basics of Esperanto, however, can be learned in a matter of weeks, so why not give it a try? A lot of Spanish and Anglophonic Esperantists have, after all. As a second, third or fourth language it can be more than useful. Take SAT, for example. It has around 1000 members representing all various parts of the left spectrum. Most of these Esperantists are in organisations we all know of. There are instant contacts just waiting for you...
More importantly, though, it is the level of communication you can reach in a relatively short space of time. So, you're at a political meeting in Warsaw, or at a rally in Beijing. You can speak seriously about political matters on a equal footing and not lose arguments because of your low levels of Polish or Chinese.

Just some thoughts.

Multaj dankoj al la samideano kiu respondis al mia retmesagxo. Espere, oni povas baldaux renkonti.

Solidarece

Alcxjo

by Alcxjo Fri May 11, 2007 18:01

Just remembered some guy called James Connolly might have also been into Esperanto???

http://www.irishdemocrat.co.uk/features/connolly-and-es...anto/

by Garbhan MacAoidh - Tullamore Esperanto Group Sun May 27, 2007 15:18

To learn Esperanto in the Irish Midlands, contact Garbhan MacAoidh (McKay) at "Carsphairn", Clonminch Rd., Tullamore, Co. Offaly. Tel. 0507 93 22865.
To join the Esperanto-Asocio de Irlando, contact Joy Davies at 9, Templeogue Wood, Dublin 6W,
Tel 01 490 2919.

by starkadder Sun May 27, 2007 17:33

According to Wikipedia, Christopher Fettes, who founded this country's Green Party, is a keen speaker of Esperanto.

by zamenhof Mon May 28, 2007 12:01

See www.lernu.net

A highly recommended way of learning Esperanto on the net. In the top right hand corner you can change the language setting. You have a choice of about 30 languages (Gaeilge san áireamh/ incl. Irish).

Yes, Christopher Fettes, the founder of the Green Party is an Esperanto speaker as are a number of other Green Party councillors and members curiously enough. (not that Esperanto is political although internationally you will find speakers of all parties, anarchists, the non-political and any other group you care to mention). Googling 'Esperanto' produced 38,700,000 results!!!!

Just because Ireland is behind in this regard doesn't mean the movement hasn't been extraordinarily successful.