

Ask HN: Esperanto and Hacker News - LaPingvino

Saluton! Mi tre ŝatus scii ĉu estas aliaj Esperantistoj en HN, kaj kion ili pensas pri Esperanto por laboraj celoj.<p>For the non-Esperantists here (the most of the people here I guess): what do you think about Esperanto and about using it internally in a business (externally doesn't make sense, better use the native languages instead of the company vernicular).
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bhousel
Current researchers believe that language influences thought to some extent,
so speaking Esperanto in your business might be an interesting way to promote
lateral thinking.

If you try it, you should share your results. Do your employees become more
creative, do they treat customers differently? Or does it impede problem
solving and employee retention?

Lots of really interesting info here on how language influences thought (and
even a PG 'Blub' mention):
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity>

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LaPingvino
On the background I am doing already quite some preparational work (and I can
name you some organisations that work like this already) and it works out nice
:)

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terra_t
Interlingua gets less press than Esperanto, but I think Interlingua is a much
better interlanguage -- interlingua is a latin-derived language that has some
modern features and the corners squared off; people who know English or other
european languages with a lot of latin influence can read Interlingua with
remarkable comprehension without any training, take a look at...

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto_and_Interlingua_compa...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto_and_Interlingua_compared)

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coderdude
Esperanto: An artificial language based as far as possible on words common to
all the European languages.
<http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=esperanto>

I don't speak Esperanto. Why would you use it internally while using some
other language externally? Why not just speak one language and be done with
it? It doesn't make any sense.

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LaPingvino
I speak 9 languages by now, and it helps a lot to get to the customers to
speak their language. English-only communication fails to sell out of the safe
borders of the English speaking nations.

Esperanto is just used as a communication tool, just like we use better or
worse programming languages to get things done.

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fader
Mi laboras ĉe internacia kompanio, sed (triste) ni ne uzas Esperanton por
komuniki. La angla lingvo venkis. Mi ankoraŭ ŝatas paroli Esperanton por
amuziĝi.

(I work for an international company, but (sadly) we don't use Esperanto to
communicate. English won. I still like to speak Esperanto for fun.)

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LaPingvino
Is it a big company? I think you can move a lot more on this field in small
companies.

Mi tre ŝatus scii cetere ĉu vi aktivas en aliaj interretaj forumoj, kaj
kiunome... Mi ne trovis ajnan kontaktinformon en via profilo...

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fader
It's around 350 people at the moment, on every continent but Antarctica. I
suspect that the talent pool of English speakers is larger than that of
Esperanto speakers and that they didn't want to add an additional burden to
the hiring process by asking people to learn another language. In fact, we
have an internal list of who speaks what languages and there are only two of
us listing Esperanto, and neither of us is fluent. (Though I could probably be
there in 1-2 weeks of serious effort.)

Mi ne aktivas en multaj Esperantistaj forumoj... mi ne kredas ke mian
Esperanton estas sufiĉa bona. :) Sed oni kapablas kontakti min ĉe
launchpad.net. Mi estas 'fader' tie ankaŭ.

~~~
LaPingvino
Mi estas administranto de la tradukteamo de Ubuntu en Esperanton en Launchpad.

Mi provu kontakti vin persone.

