If you speak Esperanto, or would like to, you might be interested in the Esperanto wiki
JerryMuelver hosts at
http://unumondo.com.
Esperanto's potential as a meta-language for machine translation is being explored by the [Traduki Project]. Other useful links include http://www.esperanto.org and, for US-ians, http://www.esperanto-usa.org. The last can be contacted at ELNA, PO Box 1129, El Cerrito CA 94530; 1-510-653-0998 (real person), 1-800-ESPERANTO (automated info and information requests).
Esperanto isn't an agglutinative language since it inflects: it has different cases as numbers distinguished by different suffices. Agglutinative languages can have inflections too; these aren't absolute categories...
Esperanto is fully agglutinative. Two or more grammar suffixes for the same word don't modify each other, and that's usual agglutinativity test. For example: -o + -j + -n is -ojn, it wouldn't have to be in inflective language. --Taw
It certainly looks agglutinative to me. Moreover, John Wells says, on page 27 of his book Lingvistikaj Aspektoj de Esperanto, "Ekzemploj de aglutina lingvo estas la turka, la japana, la zulua, kaj - kiel konate - la Internacia Lingvo Esperanto." ("Examples of agglutinative languages are Turkish, Japanese, Zulu, and - as is well-known - the International Language Esperanto.") There are not many people better placed to judge this than John Wells, so I've changed the article accordingly. --Zundark
I don't know about the spirit being Hebrew; my impression has always been that the spirit has been that of the prestige language of the area Esperanto was first extensively used; namely, Poland -- and German. It should be also noted that canonical modern Esperanto style is not primarily Zamenhof's, but Kazimierz Bein's ("Kabe", who to my knowledge was Gentile).
- I took out the phrase about the spirit of the language being Hebrew because Enrique Ellemberg (a fluent Esperantist from Argentina) and I also agree. I also removed the part about the ease of use being luck because Zamenhof spent many years testing the language to see which parts worked and which didn't. Also, that would be more appropriate on the L. L. Zamenhof page. Enrique's comments are as follows: --ChuckSmith
- "its heart and spirit (its logic) is Hebrew."
- Cxu tio certas? En la pagxo la vorto "Hebrew" estas ligo, kaj pro tio havas enfazon. Mi pensas ke la ideo de "Hebrew"-a lingvo povas malallogi interesitojn. Ankaux mi scias ke iu foje Zamenhof pensis pri lingvo por judoj, sed finfine li faris lingvon por la mondo, ne nur por la judoj. La judoj ne akceptis liajn ideojn.
- "Zamenhof was not a professional linguist, but rather an ophthalmologist"
- Zamenhof studadis lingvistikon kaj lingvojn, de sia volo, dum multaj jaroj. Zamenhof studis medicinon nur cxar la patro trudis gxin. La lingvon Esperanton Zamenhof pretigis multaj jaroj antaux ol esti oftalmologo. La oftalmologo ne kreis Esperanton. La studento de lingvoj kreis Esperanton.
- "extremely regular and easy to learn (due in large part to luck..."
- LUCK ???!!! Zamenhof laboris multege da jaroj en sia lingvo, provante cxion per tradukoj, kaj refarante cxion kio ne funkciis. Nenio estis "luck", bonsxanco, en la vivo de Zamenhof.
The note on the Utah convict sounds like mere advocacy (learn Esperanto and get letters). What is the status of the 30,000 titles that the British Esperantists 'have' (yes, I know the verb is hopelessly vague in English, and that the Esperanto must be MUCH more exact)? 30,000 EVER published, or 30,000 currently in print? A side issue is that I'd like to know what Foreign Service level 1 is if level 3 is communication is that above the level of grunted greetings (which must be level 2?). Is level 1 WISHING you could grunt greetings, much like my ability at spoken German? --
MichaelTinkler
Points well taken. My comment about the Utah inmate was indeed advocacy and has been deleted (personally I could care less about having Esperanto pen pals, but some like them). There are 30,000 books in the library in the British Esperanto Association alone. For the record, havi is the word for "to have" in Esperanto and it actually has the same vagueness as English. :) The foreign service levels are somewhat defined in the government document at
http://oig.state.gov/pdf/7sp005.pdf. It appears that level 0 is wishing you could grunt greetings, and level 1 is actually being able to grunt greetings (as is also my ability at spoken German). Thank you for your comments. --
ChuckSmith
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