
Esperanto as an Asian language - diodorus
http://blogs.bl.uk/european/2017/07/esperanto-as-an-asian-language.html
======
jcranmer
The problem with invented languages is that it is almost always possible to
find some easy criticism of it (e.g., inherent sexism in vocabulary), and
since it's invented, you can't shrug it off with "historical baggage" like you
can with natural languages. When trying to design it for an international
audience, and trying to avoid tying it to a specific language or language
family, it's basically impossible to find sufficiently universal constructs.

Phonetics is the easiest thing to find a universal subset for--there's
basically only so many ways you can physically structure your mouth to make
sounds (although it does operate rather on a continuum basis). We can also
objectively say that some sounds are easier to produce than others. Even then,
the intersection of all languages' phonemic inventories is probably empty. The
basic structure of a dozen or so consonants (m, n, b, p, j, s, z, k, g, d, t,
w, h, say) with 5 basic vowels structured in a strict CV syllable format, with
no diphthongs and vowel length, aspiration, and tone all being non-phonemic is
the basic outline for how to design the phonotactics of a universal language.

Moving beyond phonemes is virtually impossible, however. Trying to design a
basic lexeme for the language obviously runs into problem of where you source
the lexemes (particularly since borrowing from several different languages
tends to make it completely incomprehensible to everybody, although you may
find that more tasteful than prejudicing one language's speakers as having an
easier time mastering the lexeme). But even choosing which words to make root
lexemes and which ones to make compounds is difficult. Should blue and green
be separate lexemes? What about blue and azure? Should right be "not-left" but
south not be "not-north"? Languages often attach multiple meanings to the same
word, and these meanings don't always match up across languages.

Grammar is even worse. It's hard to find any grammatical structure that's
truly universal across languages; maybe the separation of function between
nouns and verbs, but the proclivity to verb nouns is so common in languages
that it's questionable how fundamental the distinction actually is. Even the
basic meaning of things like mood, aspect, and tense can be hard to settle,
since the forms that exist in languages can partially overlap certain
combinations (past/present+future versus past+present/future forms being the
most well-known). Having to mark cases that don't exist in your native
language can be difficult; English users' trouble with the subjunctive is
well-known.

~~~
Tomte
> (although it does operate rather on a continuum basis)

Actually, consonants are pretty discrete. You can move your tongue further and
further back and it is still perceived as the same fricative (for example),
but move it just a bit further back and the quality of the sound changes
completely to another fricative.

Vocals, on the other hand, are continuous, so that miniscule changes in your
jaw-tongue configuration makes it sound differently.

That's why you usually recognize non-native speakers by their vowels. It takes
many years to get vowels right.

~~~
urethrafranklin
They aren't wholly discrete, or you wouldn't have groups like m/n or b/p/f/v
trading places.

------
chillacy
Interesting to see this on HN. I'm actually at the congress right now in
Seoul, I can answer any questions people might have (though this is only my
second congress).

In general I find that the speakers from Asia have to try harder to be
understood because of the reduced shared vocabulary and different phonetics.
It seems much easier for a speaker of Spanish or Italian.

~~~
kikimaru
What is the general feel on "Esperanto vs English as a world language" there?

~~~
etatoby
This. In particular: what's the purpose of Esperanto now that anybody either
speaks English or wishes they did and will make sure their children do?

~~~
robotoloco
English does not fulfill the neutrality ideal of Esperanto, which many people
that speak Esperanto think it's very important. Currently, if you are born in
an English speak country, you have such a great advantage over everybody else
(starting with you don't have to spend lots of money to learn English, and few
people attain native speaking levels later in life).

But it is true that the current purpose of Esperanto is more ideal than
practical. I study Esperanto because I really like its internal ideals. I
study English because I want to eat.

~~~
msla
Esperanto fails at being neutral because it's inherently oriented towards the
subset of European languages Zamenhof based it off of. Someone who speaks
German or Czech would have an easier time learning it than someone who speaks
Mongolian or Korean or Mandarin Chinese.

~~~
chillacy
I find that spanish/italian speakers pick up esperanto the easiest, followed
by I suppose french speakers and english speakers. Harder for any speakers who
don't already speak a latin-derived language.

------
xiaq
One interesting influence of Chinese on Esperanto is that you now have two
ways to use adjectives as predicates. To say "Anna is beautiful" you can use
the copular verb est:

    
    
      Anna est bela.
    

Which is like English and most European languages. But you can also say

    
    
      Anna belas.
    

That is, you turn the adjective to a verb and use it as a predicate directly.
This mirrors the syntax of Chinese.

~~~
thriftwy
I think it's mostly an influence of Russian/Belorussian:

verb form:

    
    
        Анна красива.
    

adjective form:

    
    
        Анна красивая.

~~~
jwilk
Wait, where's the verb in the first form?

~~~
thriftwy
красива is predicate (or сказуемое)

------
ivanbakel
>Although the proposal for the League to accept Esperanto as their working
language was accepted by ten delegates, mainly from Asian countries, the
French delegate used his power of veto to block the issue.

What an odd thing to veto. Was there a good reason for it, or was it just to
preserve the "lingua franca" over a new contender?

~~~
Iv
French here. French politicians, and a big part of the population also, are
weirdly defensive about using any international language other than French.

French is actually used in some international organization: international post
(and aviation I think?) as well as diplomacy. That latter one may make some
politicians blind to the fact that the game is set: English won as the de
facto international language.

France could dispute the status of superpower to UK in the time of colonial
empires but this time is definitely over, but some are deluded into thinking
that we could still dispute the status of English as the predominant language.

It is a combination of pride and laziness that makes so many people consider
that we should not accept English as an international language. I find it
stupid, but it is not a thing that is specific to the far-right nationalists.

~~~
simias
I mostly agree but I think it's a bit simplistic. Languages aren't just a
neutral tool, they come with a culture. English is the modern lingua franca
not because of some inherent quality of the language but because it's the
language of the USA, by far the greatest economic, military and cultural
superpower of our times.

Do you realize how much power and influence this gives the USA? We have
Captain America in theaters, but Captain China and Peru are nowhere to be
seen. When's the last time you've seen a company motto in Spanish or Italian?
English, I'm Loving It, Just Do It, Think Different.

Does it make sense to make English the de-facto standard language for the EU
when Ireland is the only country left in it which uses it natively?

I'm all for people learning English to facilitate the dialogue between
countries and cultures but I think it's very noble and important to strive to
preserve diversity, linguistically and culturally.

D'un français à un autre, en anglais, sur un forum anglophone.

~~~
lucozade
I entirely agree with you about the value of maintaining diversity but Iv was
pretty much pointing out that Esperanto was vetoed in order to prevent an
increase in diversity. French was the diplomatic lingua franca and the French
delegates were working very hard to maintain that.

English is now the lingua franca in many fields due to US hegemony as you say.
Even though it's not due to any inherent virtue it's not, of itself, a bad
thing. I'm not a big fan of Americanization (sic) but that's a slightly
different thing from a common means of communication. The latter may well mean
we have to suffer some of the former but I personally think it's worth it
(don't tell my daughter I, like, said that OK?).

Obviously this will never happen but now would be great time for the EU to
adopt English as a common tongue, precisely because of Brexit. It'd clearly
not be because of a cultural dominance within the EU and it would save a ton
of money and a lot of wasted effort. I await the response of the Académie
française with bated breath.

~~~
simias
Yeah I agree with you. There's a difference between preserving diversity and
trying to push your language down other people's throat. Clearly some of our
laws and official posturing has more to do with the latter than the former.

And obviously I won't oppose English becoming the language of the EU since the
other obvious contender would be German and I can barely speak a lick of
Deutsch!

~~~
tormeh
Also English is easier to learn than German. As a geographically spread-out
language without central control all the bits that are hard to learn has gone
away. The only problem is that it has accumulated a lot of crufty spelling and
prononciation, but that's easier to fix than grammar.

------
luxpir
A symbolic language, such as Bliss[0][1][2], avoids cringe-worthy issues with
accents and comprehension, at the cost of being written only. Sign languages
do the same.

International Sign Language[3] + Bliss are in theory the perfect combination
for intergalactic communication. Blind people, unfortunately, would have to
continue to suffer English until such time that direct brain stimulation
becomes feasible.

EDIT: Key point in all seriousness: the Bliss language has enabled thousands
of cerebral palsy sufferers to communicate with a full range of expression.
Sadly curbed in recent years by the much more limited pre-phrased, Hawking-
like computer voices. Alternatives exist. Listen to the radio shows in [1] to
find out more. The BBC one I found particularly moving. The Radiolab one
starts at 5min, goes on for some 30mins.

[0] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blissymbols](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blissymbols)

[1] -
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08y26qf](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08y26qf),
[http://www.radiolab.org/story/257194-man-became-
bliss/](http://www.radiolab.org/story/257194-man-became-bliss/)

[2] -
[https://archive.org/details/mrsymbolman](https://archive.org/details/mrsymbolman)

[3] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Sign](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Sign)

~~~
mcguire
Another fascinating chapter in the history of perfect languages.

" _... McNaughton’s team might often interpret a certain symbol in a way that
Bliss would later criticize as a “misinterpretation”. For example, they might
interpret a tomato as a vegetable —according to the English definition of
tomato— even though the ideal Blissymbol of vegetable was restricted by Bliss
to just vegetables growing underground. Eventually the OCCC staff modified and
adapted Bliss’s system in order to make it serve as a bridge to English.
(2009, p. 189) Bliss complaints about his symbols “being abused” by the OCCC
became so intense that the director of the OCCC told Bliss, on his 1974 visit,
never to come back. In spite of this, in 1975 Bliss granted an exclusive world
license, for use with disabled children, to the new Blissymbolics
Communication Foundation directed by Shirley McNaughton (later called
Blissymbolics Communication International, BCI). Nevertheless, in 1977 Bliss
claimed that this agreement was violated so that he was deprived of effective
control of his symbol system._ "

------
OriginalPenguin
Thanks for posting this. I'm hoping now that Esperanto is on Duolingo, we will
see an uptick in Esperanto speakers.

~~~
biotech
Genuinely curious - why are you hoping to see an uptick in Esperanto speakers?
I'm not sure I see the advantage of Esperanto, although I do find constructed
languages fascinating.

~~~
caryhartline
It is a much easier and possibly the easiest language to learn especially for
those who already speak a latin-based language. In some cases, people can be
thought of as fluent with a couple months of learning the language.

It's also not tied to any particular nation which makes it easier for people
to adopt without feeling like they are just being taken over by another
culture.

This is all to say that Esperanto is genuinely better as a second language for
Europe and the Americas if not the world.

~~~
learc83
The fact that it's much easier for those who already speak a Romance language
means that it's still is tied to particular nations.

>This is all to say that Esperanto is genuinely better as a second language
for Europe and the Americas if not the world.

English is as close to a global lingua franca as we've ever had. There's just
so much momentum behind it, that it would take something world shaking to
change that. I think we'd be better off trying for an artificial language that
is mostly mutually intelligible with English if the goal is really widespread
adoption.

~~~
schoen
Zamenhof had a famous ethical argument about this (it begins "Ofte kunvenas
personoj de malsamaj nacioj kaj komprenas unu la alian", 'People of different
nations frequently encounter and understand one another', and you can find a
lot of copies of it online, although I didn't immediately find an English
translation). He felt that it was unfair that native speakers of a language
that's used in international communication will have an advantage in fluency
(and learning effort) compared to non-native speakers, and argued that these
were reasons that the eventual international language should not be any
community's native language.

However, he was also fighting (and is still fighting) very significant
economic or incentive issues. Even before the era of English as an
international language, there was always an obvious incentive to learn the
most widely spoken or prestigious language or languages in one's region --
such as the language of a nearby large, rich country. People still feel that
incentive today and the benefits of learning specific languages of wider
communication or languages of prestige can be very tangible. And there are
definitely people who feel that it's unfair that they have to learn English
rather than English-speakers having to learn their language (and it is!), but
many of them learn English anyway because they can clearly see the benefits.

Having a really apparent worldwide Schelling point of "everyone in the world
in going to learn this" or "enough people already know this that it's clearly
useful for international communication" would help Esperanto tremendously, and
Esperanto did have momentum of that kind at one point, but according to the
Esperanto Museum in Vienna it seemed to lose it in the course of the World
Wars.

~~~
learc83
If Esperanto ever became the dominant international language people would
start making blockbuster movies in it, kids would start learning it, and
younger people in smaller countries would use it more than their native
tongue.

Then it would start to displace a few native languages until it became some
community's native language.

After that it would start to fragment and evolve and lose all the simplicity
that comes from it being an artificial language.

~~~
bluGill
I don't think it would fragment that quickly. In times past travel was slow,
there was no telephone, or news papers. The few books were mostly reserved for
the elite.

600 years ago (before the printing press) most people lived either on or near
their farm. You went to the nearby village for things you couldn't make on the
farm. Traveling to the next village was as far as most people could go: they
needed to get back to the farm to milk the cow again, or otherwise care for
the farm. As such there was no way to know your language was fragmenting, much
less any reason to care.

Today we have printing presses, telephone, TVs, movies. All give us ways to
find out about fragmentation and reasons to care. While languages will still
change and fragment over time, the above pressures will help to keep the
changes in check.

~~~
learc83
Language in a literate society changes more slowly. But it still changes,
given enough time it will fragment.

There's also no reason to think Esperanto would evolve or fragment any slower
than English once it's actually in use. Which negates many of the arguments
that we need Esperanto as a global lingua franca because English will fragment
once America declines.

~~~
schoen
English speakers traditionally hate the idea of language planning, at least if
it's an overt governmental program, but it's had some powerful effects
elsewhere.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_planning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_planning)

Some world language scenarios might include an idea of a language regulator
for the world language

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_language_regulators](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_language_regulators)

and some kind of mechanism to enhance the language regulator's influence
(although I don't know exactly what that would be).

I don't think that Zamenhof thought this aspect through in much detail,
because he thought that people would continue to use Esperanto exactly as
described by the _Fundamento de Esperanto_. See paragraph 4 of the Boulougne
Declaration:

> [...] The only single, perpetually obligatory foundation of the language
> Esperanto for all Esperantists is the work, _Fundamento de Esperanto_ , to
> which no one has the right to make changes. If someone deviates from the
> rules and models from the above-mentioned work, he or she cannot ever excuse
> himself/herself with the words: "so desires or advised the author of
> Esperanto". Every idea that cannot be conveniently expressed by the contents
> of the _Fundamento de Esperanto_ , all Esperantists can express in a manner
> which they deem the most correct, as is done in any other language. But for
> reasons of unity all Esperantists are recommended to imitate, as much as
> possible, that style which is found in the works of the creator of
> Esperanto, who has worked more that any other for and in Esperanto and who
> knows its spirit better that any other.

[https://web.archive.org/web/20140506075349/http://aktuale.in...](https://web.archive.org/web/20140506075349/http://aktuale.info/en/biblioteko/dokumentoj/1905)

[https://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deklaracio_pri_Esperanto](https://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deklaracio_pri_Esperanto)

However, I don't think this has worked out exactly as Zamenhof intended,
because I think there have indeed been unofficial changes and divergences, as
well as slang (maybe smaller than those you'd expect to see in a non-
constructed language, but still some). Also, I think there are ultimately
grammatical and usage questions that the _Fundamento de Esperanto_ didn't
address, because Zamenhof wasn't quite a linguist in the modern sense, didn't
know about certain grammatical issues, and didn't conduct user testing with
speakers from different linguistic backgrounds.

~~~
schoen
I didn't realize it, but there's already an Esperanto language regulator
endorsed by the UEA:

[http://www.akademio-de-esperanto.org/](http://www.akademio-de-esperanto.org/)

I don't know how readily and consistently Esperanto speakers follow its
rulings.

------
amelius
I don't get the philosophy behind the Esperanto language. Why didn't the
inventors pick a popular language like English or Spanish, and fixed their
inconsistencies, rather than invent a whole new language? Were there political
reasons?

~~~
fusiongyro
This is kind of a let-me-google-that-for-you situation, but the nickel
explanation is that Zamenhof saw a culturally-neutral international language
as being important for building peace, furthering humanism and combating
nationalism. If you look at the historical context, it makes more sense.

Most of the criticism aimed at Esperanto today is about how badly executed the
language itself is, but it unquestionably got further towards the larger goals
than any other constructed language.

------
GuiA
It's fascinating to read about how Esperanto got adopted so much by people in
the "counter-culture", for lack of a better term. What enabled that? It is
hard to imagine an artificial language being met with so much enthusiasm
today.

~~~
caryhartline
In my own experience, people who speak Esperanto are more likely to be against
the status quo of nationalism and tend to be against the imperialist nature of
their own or other large governments. They tend to be for the free travel of
people and against strict immigration laws. Those ideologies square well with
political movements of communism, anarchism, libertarianism, etcetera which
are usually on the fringes of society.

~~~
ue_
This is true, in the left circles I'm in, Esperanto is a popular suggestion
for language learning.

------
Typhon
" _Linguists are undecided about Esperanto_ "

Indifferent would be a better word.

In any case, Esperanto has no feature which set it apart from other European
languages, whether in lexicon (obviously) or in grammar, it is thoroughly
european (as demonstrated in great detail here :
[http://jbr.me.uk/ranto/](http://jbr.me.uk/ranto/) )

~~~
fizixer
> Esperanto has no feature which set it apart from other European languages.

Do you know why it was created? To have one language for communication for the
whole world unencumbered by historical baggage of politico-cultural
domineering (e.g., prevalence of english due to British imperialism). (among
other reasons).

That right there is a feature that sets it apart from all natural languages
(other than the created ones like Klingon, Lojban, etc) not just European.

~~~
jcranmer
> Do you know why it was created? To have one language for communication for
> the whole world unencumbered by historical baggage of politico-cultural
> domineering (e.g., prevalence of english due to British imperialism). (among
> other reasons).

Which is actually quite a farce. Esperanto is largely a language that's
vaguely Slavic in grammar and strongly Polish in phonology, with vocabulary
largely derived from Slavic, Romance, and Germanic languages. In other words,
Esperanto is a "world language" that comes from a time where "world" meant
"Europe", and it largely assumes that Indo-European language peculiarities are
fairly universal in languages (they're not).

~~~
madcaptenor
From John Cowan's list of "Essentialist Explanations", credited to Kapitano
Eglefino
([http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan/essential.html#Esperanto](http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan/essential.html#Esperanto)):
"Esperanto is essentially English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian,
Latin, and Greek, invented by someone who speaks English, French, German,
Spanish, Italian, Russian, Latin, Greek...and Polish." \--

------
akvadrako
Here is a good article about the language family of Esperanto:

 _Esperanto: european or asiatic language?_ (1981)

[http://claudepiron.free.fr/articlesenanglais/europeanorasiat...](http://claudepiron.free.fr/articlesenanglais/europeanorasiatic.htm)

------
etatoby
Television standardized the language of nation-states. Now even the most
backward of countrymen speaks or at least understands the common language used
on TV, and the local inflections get less and less prominent with each passing
generation. (Granted, this was more of a problem in older countries.)

The Internet will do the same on a global scale, in the long run, with English
being that language, obviously.

So what's the purpose of Esperanto, again?

~~~
briandear
There isn’t a purpose. It’s a contrived language with the historical and
cultural relevance of pig latin.

The purpose is likely to provide its enthusiasts with a quirky hobby. It’s not
any more serious a language as Klingon.

Why Duolingo/etc wastes resources supporting such a useless language when they
could perhaps support any of the number of dying languages that actually have
cultural and historical significance (such as Yiddish, Navajo or any number of
African or Asian languages) seems to be a waste.

~~~
freehunter
You could almost say the same thing about those cultural languages though. If
me, as a white American, wanted to learn Navajo... what's the point? I'm not
Native American, I'm very unlikely to adopt their culture, and my knowing the
language isn't really going to further the spread of their culture. So I'd
just be learning it as an enthusiast with a quirky hobby and have no one to
talk to.

The problem with trying to save dying languages is that you need to save their
dying culture, too. Otherwise the language is useless, just as useless as
Esperanto. If there's no point in Esperanto because it's a language without a
culture, there's no point in learning a language without learning their
culture. And culture is often a very tricky, very closely guarded thing.

What we have with Esperanto is a brand new culture that's been created, one
that's a lot more relatable to a wider audience than Kasanga or Iñapari.

------
narrator
One thing that makes Esperanto popular in Asia is that the Asian languages are
much more dissimilar than European languages. For example, the effort for a
Japanese person to learn Korean is much more than to learn Esperanto.

~~~
wodenokoto
The Japanese -> Korean example is quite unfortunate as it is one of the big
exceptions to the rule you put forth.

~~~
nandemo
How is it unfortunate? Korean might have some features that sound familiar to
a Japanese speaker -- e.g. word order and morphology of Sinitic vocabulary --
but phonology is quite challenging and non-Sinitic vocabulary is completely
different. Overall it's far, far harder than Esperanto for Japanese speakers.

------
microcolonel
I think there are two counterproductive forces around Esperanto: a) Attachment
to bizarre communist political ideology (I've seen this a lot in online and
offline Esperanto groups) and b) slightly deficient phonotactics for an IAL
(some sounds used are incredibly difficult to teach to e.g. Japanese
speakers).

Third to those is maybe the accusative, the grammar of which is the subject of
an entire pamphlet.

It's otherwise super easy to learn if you can manage to pronounce the sounds.
I encourage you to give it a shot either through Duolingo or through Kurso de
Esperanto

~~~
jhbadger
I think you are confusing anti-nationalism/world republic idealism with
communism. Certainly the former is part of the traditional Esperanto culture
-- Zamenhof's "interna ideo" and all that. The relationship of Esperanto to
communism is more antagonistic given that the Soviet Union jailed and executed
many Esperantists (see Ulrich Lins' "La Danĝera Lingvo").

------
erezsh
Can anyone recommend any books or essays written in Esperanto by Asian
authors? I'm very interested in experiencing these cultures with a non-English
skew.

Please, only recommend things you have read and liked!

------
amelius
Here is a youtube video of a man teaching his child to speak Esperanto: [1]

I'm not sure what to think of it. On the one hand, it is a nice experiment
that probably wouldn't hurt. On the other hand, what is the real benefit?

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aN94LWe9ro](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aN94LWe9ro)

~~~
dbrgn
There are already around ~2000 native Esperanto speakers:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Esperanto_speakers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Esperanto_speakers)
Actually, there even exist third generation native Esperantistas already:
[http://blogs.transparent.com/esperanto/3rd-gen-native-
espera...](http://blogs.transparent.com/esperanto/3rd-gen-native-esperanto-
speaker-nicole/)

------
drdaffey
I just want to say I wish there were more interest in Idiom Neutral.

------
contingencies
It is not Asian in the slightest. If it were Asian, it would be Chinese or
Malay-Indonesian.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
Have you read the article? It's rather interesting.

~~~
contingencies
Lu Xun also advocated for romanized Chinese instead of characters, citing time
wasted for students in achieving literacy, however this part of his character
(as well as no doubt his support for Esperanto and the apparent anarchist
affiliations alleged here) have been airbrushed from history by the Chinese
government, who praise him and have a government audited version of his life
taught in schools while removing these politically unfortunate aspects of his
character.

In short, a collection of superfluous historic tidbits does not make a
regional affiliation for a language fundamentally grounded in the etymology of
another.

------
awkwarddaturtle
Esperanto isn't an asian language. It has nothing to do with asia or asian
languages ( however you define "asia" ). Just because a meeting about
esperanto is being held in asia or that there were some fans of esperanto in
asia doesn't make it "asian".

