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69
20
Yes No
Debate Score:89
Arguments:30
Total Votes:117
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 Yes (18)
 
 No (12)

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Will Esperanto protect minority languages in the European Parliament?

As an international auxiliary or second language the international language, Esperanto, will place all languages on an equal footing and so combat the current linguistic imperialism of English in the European Union.  Undecided

Yes

Side Score: 69
VS.

No

Side Score: 20
7 points

Esperanto will definitely help in preserving other languages by having one easy to learn language with which they can speak to the world with, and then use their native language to communicate locally.

The problem with the 'English is already the de facto language' argument is that this ignores historical evolution and world events.

French was the international language for a really, really long time; before WWII when English became the International Language. Now that China and India are becoming world powers, and US influence abroad being suspect or reduced, things are a changing.

At some point it is going to be more important for business to learn Hindi or Mandarin in order to remain competitive and have access to those emerging markets, and so the language of business shall shift. It is distinctly in our national interests to work towards Esperanto as the IAL instead of being at the mercy of the next national language that takes the spotlight, putting us at a distinct disadvantage.

Already in Europe countries are moving away from teaching English and concentrating on other languages. Ireland, England, and Australia are already starting to teach Esperanto (as it should be =) ).

I have more info on my Blog http://www.ArionsHome.com/esperanto

Just my humble opinion.... =)

Side: yes
7 points

It's unfortunate that only a few people know that Esperanto has become a living language.

After a short period of 121 years Esperanto is now in the top 100 languages, out of 6,800 worldwide, according to the CIA factbook.

It is the 17th most used language in Wikipedia, and in use by Skype, Firefox and Facebook.

Native Esperanto speakers,(people who have used the language from birth), include George Soros, World Chess Champion Susan Polgar, Ulrich Brandenberg the new German Ambassador to NATO and Nobel Laureate Daniel Bovet.

A glimpse of the language can be seen at http://www.lernu.net

Side: yes
1 point

I no speak english, english is tro difficult, Esperanto is no difficult, I learn English en school, tro difficult .

Side: yes
5 points

Who reads the report written by professor Grin (Economy sciences, university of Geneva) knows that English-speaking countries have yearly huge profits trough the superiority of his national language in international use. Besides this immense monetary advantages the use of English is an advantage for native English speakers in international discussions and business. This obviously stimulates english speaking countries to promote their own national language, this way endangering the so named "small" languages. Esperanto belongs to none country. It is designed to become everyone's second language and to be used in international communication. There will not be such pressure from any country promoting Esperanto because this language is not their own. Esperanto can be learned by anyone without any need of linguistical submerge in it's owner's country, that even not exists.

One can read the french original report of prof. Grin at http://cisad.adc.education.fr/hcee/documents/rapport_Grin.pdf

http://lingvo.org/raporto_grin_nl.pdf (a translation into dutch) or

http://lingvo.org/raporto_grin_eo.pdf (a translation into Esperanto)

You can find a link to the study of Aron Lukacz at http://www.ekolingvo.com (in many languages).

Side: yes
4 points

Please look the Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe Parts I-II at our multilingual website:

http://www.egalite.fw.hu .

Supporting Evidence: Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe Parts I-II (www.egalite.fw.hu)
Side: yes
2 points

You speak onto the monetary advantages, but forget to recognize the focus of Esperanto. Look at how it's broken down. Look at what languages aren't included in Esperanto and then tell me if there aren't other agenda's included....

Side: No
5 points

Last year I was in Benin, West Africa, where I saw some of the sad effects of linguistic imperialism. For example, my friend Mechak is an educated man and a qualified teacher, he reads and writes three languages and can get by in several local languages. But he is ashamed that he cannot read and write the language of his young family, his parents and ancestors, Idaacha.

The reason he cannot is that schooling is conducted in French and there is no time for Idaacha. There was no time in the last few generations so it can't be taught at home. There is no dictionary and it may well soon be lost. English is a similiar burden in Ghana.

In contrast, 100 bright young people in the Togolese refugee camp have taught themselves Esperanto and speak it fluently. If that were the language used in schools, there would be plenty of time for Mechak's children to learn written Idaacha, Fon and Falani and even make a start on English if they choose.

Supporting Evidence: More information (www.mondeto.com)
Side: yes
1 point

What makes you think that learning Esperanto would open up the world to these African natives to speak their own dialects? You speak of linguistic imperialism, but fail to recognize Esperanto as a new form of linguistic imperialism... If not, than why is the focus of Esperanto in European languages?

Side: No
4 points

I think so, though why do they need protecting? A bit of background on the issue would be nice to read.

Part of me wonders how much Linguistic Relativity affects our worldviews. I think despite the degree of its effects, the use of different languages encourages different modes of thought, and thus a wider array of input.

THIS LINK IS NOT INVALID, CD.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir–Whorf_hypothesis

Side: yes
8 points

Since the number of hours invested in learning Esperanto will be one tenth of the number of hours spent learning English, people have more time to dedicate to their mother tongue. It may also open up the school timetable for the arts which might lead to more creative thinking. The book by Arika Okrent "In the Land of Invented Languages" reminded me that often benefits from a language are indirect and unexpected. www.inthelandofinventedlanguages.com

Student documentary video
Side: yes
0 points

Where is the proof that it takes one tenth the time to learn english? And in what countries where these studies conducted? What was the native language these people were engaged in prior to learning Esperanto? I have many more questions, but I'll keep it to these 3 for now.

Side: No
4 points

Esperanto may look like a European language when examining its vocabulary,but speakers of non-European languages often find similarities. Hungarian is not an Indo-European language and yet in Hungary Esperanto was used to introduce children to European languages. My Turkish speaking Esperanto students find the agglutinative features of Esperanto similar to their own language. Clause Piron wrote an essay about the similarities of Esperanto to Chinese, and Radio China International has a daily Esperanto program. Is Esperanto a European language? see:http://www.geocities.com/c_piron/westernlanguage.html

Side: yes
3 points

Only a neutral language can put all other languages (oficial national and minirity) under the same level and give them the equal posibilities. And Esperanto is one of such a languages.

Side: yes
3 points

If the European Parliament uses a far easier and neutral language for communication, and this way shows a viable and sustainable alternative for other actors in the European Union, the amount of human and financial resources now used for learning and using difficult and imperialistic languages can be spent to reserve minority languages.

Side: yes
2 points

I agree with this opinion, because Esperanto is a neutral language.

Side: yes
1 point

How is Esperanto a neutral language? Please answer me this. I would also like to know if you know the break down on the language sets included in this language?

Side: No
2 points

Here's an article on the Propaeutic effect of Esperanto: http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Propaedeutic_value_of_Esperanto_-_Language_teaching_introductory_effect/id/5396755

In one study half the class took 4 years of French and no Esperanto and the other half 1 year of Esperanto and 3 years of French. The last group spoke better French after only three years than the first group.

Supporting Evidence: Propaeutic effect of esperanto (www.experiencefestival.com)
Side: yes
1 point

The use of Esperanto will definitely protect minority languages in the European Parliament. They are at present being ignored in favour of English, leaving native English-speakers at a huge advantage in that they do not need to make any effort to learn any other language. Teachers of modern languages are at fault in not learning Esperanto and teaching it in schools, for they occupy the key position. Unfortunately, they want to make the best of all their training in teaching national languages, and they shut out Esperanto all over the world in order to do so. English is very difficult to learn, even for native English speakers, millions of whom make mistakes in spelling, grammar and pronunciation, all of which are irregular. English has become an international language only because Americans speak it and use it in politics and commerce. I hope that Obama's admission that Americans should learn foreign languages will result in millions of American teachers learning Esperanto and teaching it. Then Esperanto will be adopted by every country as its second language.

Side: yes

English is already the defacto standard. Why change it? Where's the value in changing it?

Side: No
2 points

Fossil fuels are the de facto standard. There are many circumstances that dwarf quality and efficiency that determine what becomes standard.

Side: No
-1 points

I don't think so. I've been engaged in Esperanto for a few months now and it is European influenced. Most of the "meat and bones" of Esperanto IS European languages. There is no Mandarin or Indian dialects in it's wording.

As an auxiliary language it will still have most of the focus, 70%, on the EU. It's just another newer form of imperialism.

I will also add that English shouldn't be the "world" language as it is very hard to learn. (and very contradicting in many fashions)

Esperanto is a step in the right direction, but still heavily influenced by the Europeans. If we went off of population then Esperanto would be changed to have a focus on India and Chinese and South American dialects.

Side: No
3 points

You're right for a worldwide language.

Let's institute Esperanto (which is available) as an auxiliary language for Europe (since it needs one, in my opinion).

We'll later consider coining a worldwide one, when the times are come.....

Side: No

Whoever felt the need to downvote, I would like an explanation of why you don't agree with my viewpoint. Otherwise you should have made the Debate a popularity contest because you are opposed to different views.

Side: No
Remush(1) Disputed
2 points

> "focus on India and Chinese and South American dialects."

We could leave to the speakers of those languages the pleasure of adding the words that are missing in our western languages to express what they can't do with the existing vocabulary.

In Esperanto, India is also named Barato. Several words from "Barato" are already international, and are transcribed in Esperanto. Here are a few of them:

Abidarmo, Badavadgito, Brahmao, Brahmo, Bramaputro, Kriŝno, Mahabarato, Mahatmo, Ramajano, Rig-Vedao, Sanskrito., Upaniŝadoj, atmo(atmano), brahmoo, bramano, jogo (Bhakti-Jogo Hatha-Jogo Jnana-Jogo Karma-Jogo Raja-Jogo), maharaĝo, mantro, mokŝao, samadio, samsarao.

You seem to ignore that a lot of words are similar in Sanskrit and in our Western languages, coming to us through Greek. Unfortunately, I did not handle Sanskrit (yet) in http://remush.be/etimo/etimo.html

So the Indian continent is well-represented.

Chinese is a different problem. What would the word "ma" mean? Do you mean má, mā, mà or mǎ? The Chinese system is incompatible not only with Esperanto but with our western languages. Somebody has tried to construct a language Esperanto-like for China, but is had no success as they have too many spoken variations of the same term in all their dialects.

The Chinese writing is more interesting. If you read an Esperanto magazine like http://www.espero.com.cn/ you'll notice that they create words in Esperanto the same way as they write them in Chinese. The way they write is a model of good writing. We, westerners, have a tendency to use complicated (and unnecessary) words. So there is a lot to learn from Chinese as their pictorial language is very compatible with Esperanto. In short, a Chinese would create a good Esperanto word quite easily, using the 2933 words from http://www.akademio-de-esperanto.org/fundamento/universala_vortaro.html (from which 1000 are more than enough for normal conversation).

About South American languages: there is Portuguese and Spanish. About the dialects, there are plenty of them all over the word, and picking one word from each would generate a huge vocabulary. This is not the principle upon which Esperanto is built. In Esperanto, we chose the most international word whenever possible.

If we can't, it is not prohibited to transcribe the term from the foreign language (as we have seen in the previous examples from India)

Please continue this argument at http://remush.be/sendi.html

--

Raymond GERARD

ЄЭ Remuŝ (Belgio)- perSkajpe: RemushBE

Side: yes

First, let me thank you for being the only person to actually get into detail on the subject. Second, I will review the information you have supplied and see if I should reconsider Esperanto.

Thank you Raymond.

Side: yes