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I tried to integrate the point-counterpoint nature of this page by putting all the related arguments together while maintaining NPOV. I think I have mostly succeeded, but I encourage those from both sides of the argument to point out parts that might be construed as biased. I personally don't really care, so I thought I would be a good person to do it.
However, I have to say that the pro-Esperanto responses to the sexism issue are kind of weak. The bit about being "gender-specific" is lame. I don't see why Esperantists can't just do what people have done to remove sexism from other languages, like English, by stigmatizing gender-specific words and using generic forms for all instances. "Steward" and "Stewardess" has been replaced by flight attendant. Within the acting community, "actress" has been mostly replaced by "actor", and you hardly ever run across references to things like "lady lawyer" or "woman doctor" anymore, and when you do, they are rightly labeled as sexist. I don't see any reason why you can't just say "doktoro" all the time and only use "doktorino" or "virdoktoro" when it is necessary to describe the gender of the doctor. I suppose this isn't done because the grammar of Esperanto is consisered "set" and unchageable, which seems pretty short-sighted to me. Maybe someone with more experience with Esperanto could explain why this argument isn't made. Anyhow, I've tried to keep the handling of it in the article neutral, but I think anyone who reads it will see that the Esperanto response is weak. -- Nohat 01:12, 2004 Feb 9 (UTC)
From your second paragraph it can be seen that you have a very Anglo-centric view. Getting rid of gender-specific meanings is just the way it was done in English, given the grammatical features of the English language. In German, for example, it is considered sexist to just use the male form when you mean both (i.e. a sign for neglecting the females). Hence in Germany, the feminist movement caused that more and more people use both forms, saying for example "Kollegen und Kolleginen" for "colleagues", which in written language is sometimes abbreviated as "KollegInnen". A similar use can be observed in Spanish, where the words ending in -o will certainly never get a gender-neutral meaning. There they sometimes use @ for a/o in written language. So the anti-sexism movement needs to consider the given circumstances, and decide what changes can be forced to increase awareness among speakers of that language. In Esperanto, this movement has already changed a few things, namely that more and more words are considered gender-neutral, and only next-of-kin words are still used completely gender-specifically. The word "doktoro" for example is mainly used in a gender-neutral way. The form "virdoktoro" never existed anyway, as this way of forming the male form is only used for animals. A few people still use "doktorino", mainly for anti-sexist reasons, because in their native language it is considered sexist not to mention the female form. When using the plural, one can always use the both-gender-prefix ge- (eg. gedoktoroj), which is however mainly used for next-of-kin words (i.e. words where the stem still clearly has a male meaning), e.g. gefiloj. Only speakers of languages like German would use forms like "gedoktoroj", again in order to be non-sexist. If you understand Esperanto, you can read http://www.bertilow.com/pmeg/gramatiko/o-vortoj/seksa_signifo.html for a more detailed explanation of gender in Esperanto.
Now, can someone explain to me how a language can be "sexist"? Just because there are words deprived from other words to make a femine doesn't mean it's sexist. If it is sexist, that means most of the European languages are naturally sexist, due to that most european languages have masculine and feminine forms of words. Is it even possible for a language to be sexist? Onerace ( talk) 08:10, 24 December 2008 (UTC)Onerace
Okay, first off, why I touched the discussion page is that someone has it saying that "he" of English can be gender-nuetral... Which is false. "He" is never gender nuetral. There might be male-specific words a woman won't be insulted by ... "He" is definitely not one of them. You will not get away with manizing a woman in discussion to that degree unless she literally wants to be a man. So, this brings me to my second point. It is sexist to deny the acknowledgment of the existence of the female gender. Not only is that sexist, it's as sexist as you can get. "They don't like that we slap their bum and call them toots? Well, let's just pretend they don't exist and call them men! Ladies, what ladies? Those are gentlemen! I see no difference! Differences don't exist! Why are you crying? Men don't publically cry! Man up, you snivelling baby!" Seriously, people who are themselves sexist, racist, etc. are the ones who come up with this ridiculous idea that not acknowledging a group of others erases the problem. They think, erase their existence altogether, and you erase the problem. Except they are not actually erasing their existence or the problem, they're just pretending it doesn't exist so they don't have to deal with it. Dragopolska ( talk) 06:06, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
15 years after it was published (so by 1902), Esperanto was already in use internationally, and 3 years later the first World Congress was held. I somehow don't think Klingon will have anything equivalent in the next 3 years - at Klingon conferences few people speak anything but English. Just because 250,000 Star Trek fans might have the Klingon dictionary on their bookshelves doesn't mean that more than a handful of the most dedicated can as much as hold the simplest conversation in Klingon. The reason is straighforward: it was never designed to be a spoken language, but to represent the way an extra-terrestrial race might speak - in someone's imagination!
Compare conlangs with what Esperanto achieved at the same period in its development - rather than speculate about what they might do should they still be around at the age Esperanto is now. Don't forget that Esperanto wasn't the first conlang - there were hundreds before it, as well as hundreds since. Also, don't imagine that the reason Esperanto hasn't been universally adopted is because of some inherent deficiency, and that all we need to do to get it accepted is to "fix" it in some way - the painful truth is that any such language will face the same political obstacles as Esperanto no matter how it might be constructed. -- Tiffer 23:22, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I'd like to weigh in here, because the Esperantist viewpoint always seems to be to view Esperanto as a perfect language, and that therefore everyone should speak it, and the people fighting against them like the Idists, which Esperantists pretend don't even exist say that the reason there isn't universal adoption is because of some flaw in Esperanto which must be 'fixed', then it will be a perfect language adopted by everyone. Neither viewpoint is correct. There is no such thing as a perfect language. Esperanto may be easy to learn for some Europeans (not me personally, but some), but it's not easy to learn for non-Europeans. Not only this, but easiness to learn does not make a language perfect. If everyone in Europe spoke Esperanto as their native language they would be severely disadvantaged in learning any other language, since they would have no equivalent in their own language for complex grammar ideas. Then there's the culture consideration. Esperanto may have lots of books and such, but it possesses hardly any music in any style. Natural languages have vast bodies of beautiful music, but these languages are dying to give life to a culturally barren language like Esperanto. Also, if we really want to go down the road of simplicity, the presence of the useless verb 'to be' in Esperanto. It doesn't exist in some languages. Nor do articles, yet there is never ambiguity. There's also the relative poverty of roots, and the insanity of not having a different word for good and bad. Bad is 'good-bad', impossible is 'possible-bad', down is probably 'up-bad'. This may mean fewer roots to learn but it also means I'm stuck if I forget one because there's nothing else to lean on, and it makes it harder to convey slight differences in meaning. Zamenhof has turned his language into a religion that cannot be changed, and declared it the most simple, the best, etc. The flaws are, to me, clear, just as they are with every language under the sun. If Esperanto wishes to be treated as a language it should accept its flaws like a language.
I'll make a stab at addressing some of these issues over the next few days, as well as bringing up some new ones. Of course, I have my own biases, so I'd appreciate any feedback. kwami 01:30, 2005 Jun 2 (UTC)
The first claim is somewhat exaggerated, and I'm sure the second claim is extremely exaggerated... what number of roots are we estimating one can learn in two hours, and what sense of "learn" are we talking about? The pronunciation and spelling claim is probably about right, in some sense (which is still compatible with a native speaker of English occasionally writing "y" for "j" even though he "knows" that the latter is correct). I'd like to revise this, but I"m not sure what revised figures to put in place of these... anybody? -- Jim Henry | Talk 19:05, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
I just took out the numbers entirely. 'A few hours' is probably as specific as it needs to be. Mithridates 02:21, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
The first article about neutrality or euro-centrism is surprisingly unneutral in nature itself. The vocabulary, spelling and phonology are indubitably European-derived, but it is difficult to argue the same with regards to the grammar and semantics, the grammar often being described as being closer to Chinese than to any European language (in terms of regularity of conjugation and so on), and the semantics, as in every living language, is determined by the population of speakers. But the most surprising claim is in regards to syntax, which in Esperanto is 99% free, with a few exceptions (e.g. the preposition immediately preceding the word it preposes, for obvious reasons).
The fact that these claims are mentioned isn't a problem in itself, but then the article would be more suited to a title such as "Criticisms of Esperanto" with a separate article entitled "Arguments for Esperanto". I don't however, think this is necessary, as any Wikipedia article is expected to be neutral and balanced.
The claims about the time needed to learn the language is exaggerated in most people's cases, although the specified time-frame is not impossible for some people (Tolstoi being a notable example). Sumthingweird 11:52, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
I still maintain my point - that the section on "neutrality" is not neutral in itself. I disagree with your interpretation on a few finer points, but I don't want to get bogged down in detail so I'll just point out an example: in Esperanto you can say please in the European so-called fascist way "bonvolu", or in a more introspective way "mi petas", or even the passive "se placxas al vi". Thankyou can be expressed "Dankon", "Mi dankas al vi", "Mi dankas vin", right down to "Vi estas gxentila" or "kia dankinda ago", most of which nuances are difficult to accurately translate into English. This last example was used by Claude Piron in his book "Le défi des langues". But more importantly, this article tends to talk about linguistic and non-PC elements of the language, which are useful enough to talk about later on. A section about neutrality should probably be about neutrality. The main point of Esperanto is that diplomatically, it is undeniably more neutral than English or any other national language. Whether or not you agree is a different point - a Wikipedia article should deal in facts, not opinion, and when discussing opinion, should express the range of opinions unless the article is entitled "Criticisms of..." which this article is not. This article is entitled "Esperanto as an international language" but only briefly discusses Esperanto as an international language. Sumthingweird 02:54, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
Yes, we seem to agree that it is near impossible to have a language which is neutral in all respects, especially linguistically. I suppose we are then discussing two different issues - the linguistic neutrality of an international language, and the diplomatic neutrality of an international language. Certainly English, Spanish, Russian, etc, are not neutral in the same respect as we would consider Esperanto to be neutral. Perhaps I have some kind of preconception as to what a section "Neutrality" in "Esperanto as an international language" should be about. Neutrality is, I'm sure most would agree, the point of an international conlang. As to its ease of use - that is a variable for people of different backgrounds. Sumthingweird 08:25, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
Lol. Well, you might think so, but apparently people in Asian countries don't necessarily agree with you. The bulk of the Esperanto-speaking population is in Eastern Asia. For many of them whom I've spoken to, they find Esperanto a lot easier to learn and a lot more immediately usable than, for example, English. Of course the only languages that are fully unbiased towards any group are the a priori languages, but none has so far become very popular because they do not base themselves on any other evolved language, and so rely on a lot of luck to be suitable for a speaking population. I suppose that the issue is then relative neutrality - Esperanto is easier to learn for some people than to others, but the discrepancy is to a much lesser extent than to any real alternative. So you see how we have different points of view. Both are valid, and we each make points that the other has not, but then of course a Wikipedia article should have facts about the subject, not merely opinions. Sumthingweird 04:20, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
about neutrality or euro-centrism
The word "neutral" means too many things. When Esperantists claim that Esperanto is neutral, they mean that the language is not supported by any government that has economical advantages in promoting it. Of course the vocabulary is mostly based on European languages (see http://remush.be/etimo/etimo.html), but if a non-European author feels it necessary, he can create a new word based on his language (see rule 15).
So I think that the title of the topic is wrong. It should be something like "Esperanto vocabulary was originally based on Hindo-European languages".
-- Remush ( talk) 18:55, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
As the argument is called "Esperanto as an international language", it shouldn't just be structured as a collection collection of criticisms to that role with some replies. Instead, there should first be a paragraph introducing why Esperanto is proposed as an international languages (i.e. the Esperantists' conception of the language problem and how Esperanto might solve it), and then the list of criticism can come after it (still with replies and possibly counter-reblies by critics). Unless someone disagrees with this, I will soon write a first version of the new introductary section. Marcoscramer 00:07, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
Maybe the "criticisms" might be moved to a new article, such as Criticism of Esperanto? [[User:JonMoore|— —Jo nMo ore 20:24, 29 May 2006 (UTC)]] 00:53, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
Good job. It's now a much better article. I copyedited about half of it, and took out some stuff I thought was fluff (much of which wasn't from you), but left the flow and the points you made intact - or at least I think I did! kwami 02:37, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Since the claim is often made that Eo morph is non-Indo-European, I was wondering if anyone could actually justify the claim. Otherwise I think it needs to be debunked. Stringing affixes together in Eo isn't much different than German; the primary differences are that the system is more regular in Eo (an artifact of its being constructed), and the invariability of its roots. But lots of roots in all Indo-European languages are invariable (Greek mous- "mouse" below is one example); the fact that Eo is nearly regular in this regard (except for words like 'panjo') is again an artifact of its being consciously designed.
The article states that "An agglutinative morphology means not just that complex concepts are expressed by adding multiple affixes to word roots, but that its grammatical inflections work the same way." But which grammatical inflections are we talking about? The verbs aren't agglutinative that way; we can't say that -s in indicative or -i is past, for example. The plural and accusative nouns and adjectives are very much like Classical Greek: mousa (Esperanto: muso), mousan (muson), mousai (mousoj), musās (musojn). That's it for the agglutinative inflections in Eo: the accusative plural is formed by plural+accusative rather than a separate suffix, as in Greek. Are we going to call Eo morphology "non-European" because of that one tidbit? Does it do anything to make Eo "neutral"?
kwami 10:43, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
German | Esperanto | Swahili |
groß | granda | kubwa |
Größe | grandeco | ukubwa |
lang | longa | -refu |
Länge | longeco | urefu |
reich | ricxa | tajiri |
Reichtum | ricxeco | utajiri |
Kind | infano | mtoto |
Kindheit | infaneco | utoto |
German | Esperanto | Swahili |
ich sage | mi diras | ninasema |
ich sagte | mi diris | nilisema |
ich werde sagen | mi diros | nitasema |
ich soll sagen | mi diru | niseme |
ich würde sagen | mi dirus | ningesema |
sagend | dirante | anayesema |
(der gesagt hat) | dirinta | aliyesema |
(der sagen wird) | dironta | atakayesema |
If you want to show how one language is different from another, then we could show how Eo parallels German but not Swahili in other aspects. What we're really talking about here is regularity. Swahili is a reasonably regular language; German is not. Perhaps that has something to do with agglutinativity, but I think it would be less misleading to say Eo is 'regular' than to say it's morphology isn't European, just because it's regular. Also, Esperanto syntax is closer to Romance than Germanic, so there's that. The German comparison isn't the best; but it shows that stringing morphemes together to form new words isn't alien to European languages. There is some regularity in the Eo verbal paradigm that is innovative. For instance, Eo has future participles, which don't exist in any Indo-European language that I've heard of, and which you could argue is paralleled in Swahili. But atakayesema is perhaps closer to li kiu diros than to dironta. Again, this is a product of regularity, and the Eo verbal system isn't agglutinative (the o doesn't just indicate future tense, but each participle is a separate morpheme; also, German sagte and gesagt have the same t which you migh claim marks past tense, so there is some parallel there). Most European languages are annoyingly irregular, and when we see nice regular Swahili or Turkish (actually rather irregular, but regular in many of the places where European languages are irregular, which tends to get noticed first), then they seem similar to mostly regular Esperanto. But nearly every element of Eo morphology and syntax can be found in the European languages Z was familiar with. kwami 01:16, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
Sure. (I think I mentioned that above as well.) But many if not all European languages have agglutinative alternates for such ablaut. And in English at least, slang words or extended meanings tend to use agglutinative morphology, indicating that it is the more productive. For example, in deriving a noun from hot (as in 'a hot babe'), you get hotness rather than heat; the past tense of hang (as from a gibbet) is hanged, not hung; the plural of mouse (the computer input device) is mouses, not mice. Regardless, the majority of nouns, adjectives, and verbs don't even have the option of ablaut: cold → cold, red → redness, elect → elected; cat → cats. German has all the same options. Now, Esperanto doesn't contain all the morphology of the European languages, but the morphology it does have is widespread in the European languages. Saying it's not European for this is like saying it's not European because it doesn't have gender, or because its cardinal numerals aren't inflected for number or case. A lot of the morphology has been dropped. Also, I believe most European creoles have invariable roots, though perhaps it's questionable to call them European. (What about Lingua franca?) kwami 22:33, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
Yes, you're right, it is non-European in that sense. When you put it that way it's more convincing: Eo lacks something common to Indo-European languages (excepting creoles). However, if you say "Eo has non-European morphology", people will read it in the positive sense that Eo has morphological forms found otherwise only outside Europe. That's how I read it, and why I objected. If we can word this so it's not misleading, I wouldn't have any objections. Maybe something like the way you just did, that "Eo completely lacks the ablaut common to Indo-European languages" or some such. kwami 21:48, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
Okay, how about starting a list of elements of Esperanto grammar not found in western IE languages?
Separate word endings for parts of speech is sometimes given as an example, but Russian has separate declensions for nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and verbs. The only essential difference is that Eo has a consistant ending for nominative singular nouns; in Russian this is the case for feminine and neuter nouns, but not for the masculine. kwami 02:03, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm not saying I agree/disagree but it seems like somthing like this needs a sorce. Cameron Nedland 19:51, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
I have no axe to grind either way on this, being a multi-lingual English speaker, completely unthreatened by the notion of Esperanto as an international language. This is simply from the point of view of a neutral observer.
From where I stand, the "Criticisms" section of the article appears to consist largely of defenses against such criticisms, rather than the criticisms themselves. This is not important in itself, but the article doesn't come across as totally neutral. This is understandable, since most people who would be moved to write on this page would be likely to be passionate esperantists, but it may be worth revising with that in mind.
Incidentally, I think Klingon has one thing going for it that Esperanto doesn't. Although many people may intellectually approve of the concept of an international language, in practice an international language doesn't have a great deal of utility (unless your employment or business causes you to deal with people from other countries frequently, which is a small segment of any population. So whilst we may like it in principle, in practice we have little or no reason to use it. By contrast, people use Klingon for a reason of itself - for entertainment value. Johno 14:50, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
The evlish language spoken by the Noldor, created by J.R.R. Tolkien for The Lord of the Rings and teh Silmarillion, has a fairly full dictionary, if you realise that many words are formed by combining otehr words, such as Mordor, meaning dark land. THi is somewhat similar to Eo. Sindarin also has a fairly full dictionary, if you read the books which use it, particulaary the appendecies. teh Silmarillion has a dictionary (using Latin script), and includes the rules of word formation, while Rings has a table showing the characters used. I would imagine that a large part of the reason that the language is not in greater use is because of the difficulty of writing eitehr Feanorian script or the Angethras Daeron, which are not to the best of my knowledge availabel in any standard charecter set. Unlike Klingon, all the elvish languages in Tolkien's works are based on Old English, and so it is not overly hard for a speaker of a Germanic language to learn, althogh it is hardeer to read than Eo. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.101.102.188 ( talk • contribs) 03:48, 3 April 2007
On the 31st of July Kwamikagami changed the title of this article from Esperanto as an international language to Criticism of Esperanto mentioning the following as reason: "that's what this is; title is remnant of overly positive treatment". However, this article doesn't only contain criticism; the section "Why Esperanto?" explains the Esperantist view. After the renaming, that section would be out of place; but I think that the renaming was ill-conceived. Almost any criticism against Esperanto is against Esperanto as an international language; hardly anyone criticises those, who just treat Esperanto as a curious hobby. So I think we should rename the page back to Esperanto as an international language. At any rate, I don't think it was good that the renaming was done without asking on the talk page first. Marcoscramer ( talk) 19:39, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
The article only treats criticisms of minor aspects of the language itself and otherwise mostly cultural secondary factors. I know that there is linguistic criticism out there, based on that correlatives have genitive and a diversity of cases, while nouns and adjectives illogically only have two, making the language unnecessarily babblative. Said: Rursus ☻ 15:31, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
The website 'Learn Not To Speak Esperanto: A detailed if not entirely accurate criticism' is clearly not neutral. The author of it says some real criticism, but his/her not neutral point of view it's not for a serious enciclopedia... should be removed. Just see that, to count the esperanto phonemes and to make them 34 s/he adds "ei ai oi ui eu au", but it's well known that the IPA considers j a phoneme, so aj is made by 2 phonemes. Vowels as the 'u' in english (and also french) word 'menu' cannot be written as menju, because the u is an unique vowel, non divisible; but s/he compares this 2 kind of phonemes. Every criticism is made from a non-neutral pov, that is not well hidden (for example, s/he sais that something sounds 'horribly' just because s/he doesn't like, and this is a real scientific point of view... ). I emailed him/her some years ago and s/he seemed to be really ignorant about many aspects of simply grammar of languages he mentioned (fortunately s/he didn't put my name in his list of faq, where he listed the part of the letters with esperantists he liked more, maybe because i am not famous and because s/he would be shamed for being so ignorant in some points of simple grammar, where s/he just replied: "this is not the correct name of it" instead to say, "you are right, i didn't know that, but i said to look very clever, hoping that you didn't know this topic"). I don't want to continue, Piron made a better list of errors of an old version of this site (and writing in a better english than mine, sorry for that), just I ask to people who know about, to check and see that this personal and POV website has no right to stay where it is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.29.161.153 ( talk) 22:34, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
Every time I read that I dislike it more and more. I don't think that is an accurate statement. It hasn't failed the hopes of it creator, that would suggest a time limit was set upon it being more widely spoken than English. No such time limit was set, therefore it has not failed, it has simply not yet reached the hopes of its creator. I'll change it soon if no one complains. Alan16 ( talk) 15:56, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
(outdent) I've proposed a change, addressing what seem to me to be three weaknesses of the section:
Pi zero ( talk) 13:11, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
This discussion is interesting to a non-native anglophone such as myself. Esperanto was born circa 1905, a time when English was not that widespread, so surely the goal of Esperanto was not to supplant English. Besides, this is such a typical anglophone statement "such and such has failed". Failed? Was there some kind of a competition? Such a capitalistic perception bias of things! What anglophones widely fail to understand is that there is fundamental difference between "usage" and "unicity". Esperanto was aiming at the former, not the latter. And when anglophones like to dream about their language being "international" and spoken everywhere, they forget that most humans do no speak English (or so little, like cabbies in China who know no more than "elo", "goobah", "tankyu", "pleez"), and most English speakers are NON native speakers. They know at least another language which they use in their daily life, English being used only when necessary. This is again usage, not unicity. The unicity of English only exists in a few countries, where no other language can seemingly coexist. That's why the anglophone vision of the world is doomed to disappear. This is a natural human phenomenon. The Romans dominated their world for nearly 3,000 years. They also liked to think of Latin as eternal. Yet, it vanished eventually. The French imposed their language onto the world (not the whole planet, of course, but the world of science, diplomacy, literature, etc...) for over 300 years. This eventually changed too. Hegemonic languages are doomed in the long run. Because people, although they may be in touch with the world around them, will continued to focus 90% of their activity locally, and thus will not need another language than that spoken in a 100 miles radius of their home. Moreover, 16% of humans are Chinese. They will not switch their millenary languages to English or to Esperanto. They may however eventually (although this is dubious) learn *some* English, but it will be no more than an object-language used only in very particular situations. They will continue to make love in their language, to nurse their children in their language, to read books and watch movies in their language, etc... The level of English has already severely depreciated over the past 50 years. Most international speakers speak a simple English with little vocabulary (just look at me). They do not view English as a literary language but rather as a necessary skill used only in very specific situations (mostly professional) and otherwise avoided to the benefit of another language. I'm a scientist. The science papers published in English all tend to some mediocre equilibrium with poor vocabulary, block sentences learned by heart and copied-pasted, etc... 75% of English speakers (aside from the native ones) learned English because they *had to* not because they *wanted to*. The same with Latin during its the predominance in Europe. Yet Latin disappeared, while Greek, which the Romans deemed as a moribund language doomed in the short term has survived Latin by nearly 2,000 years. Languages are not stock shares. Don't confuse "usage" and "unicity". The world is changing much faster than you imagine, and the anglophone world is already trailing behind. Colossuses with clay feet always end up in the bottom of the ocean. What will be left of English as we know it today in 100 years? Nobody can tell. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.58.147.83 ( talk) 11:03, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
78.49.229.237 ( talk) Wojciech Żełaniec —Preceding undated comment added 13:01, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
Are you serious? Well, if you are, get some decent reasons and put them in the article. Alan16 ( talk) 16:00, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
It's my understanding of English usage that "langauge X is sexist" is an equivalent way of saying "language X tends to promote sexist thinking in people who speak it". Now, if someone truly believes that Sapir-Whorf has no validity at all, then that person must truly believe that it's impossible for a language to be sexist — and some people disagree with that opinion. As far as I can see (am I missing a passage somewhere?), the article never says that Eo is sexist, it says that some people think it's sexist, and indeed some people do think so (or did think so — is this changing, as the language does?).
It also seems that the use of the word "gender" in the article, and in other, related articles, may be causing confusion. "Gender" is apparently being used here in its general sense of "sex", not in its technical grammatical sense, which is unfortunate since a language is being discussed. It's my understanding that Eo does not have grammatical gender. That has exactly nothing to do with whether Eo is sexist (i.e., promotes sexist thinking) — to quote a choice observation from the conlang Wikibook, "none of Swahili's seven genders correspond to sex." Pi zero ( talk) 13:03, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
You realise that you linked me to an article where the sentence "an opinion cannot be falsified" has been removed? It appears that your definition of an opinion is not the definitive version you think it is. "You apparently think it depends on whether you agree with it or not." No. I never said that. You can have an opinion, whether I agree with it or not. It doesn't make the opinion a truth though. You can be bothered educating me? I don't think it is me who needs the educating, at least I have the ability to read and understand, and not just read and hear what I want to hear. "He goes on to say that a language can't be sexist, only the speaker; that Eo is a product of its time, when men ruled society, and therefore retains and reflects the discrimination of that time, but does not create it; and that radical gender reforms would cause more problems than they would solve. But those are also opinions, not facts." They are opinions, but he has based his on facts, as opposed to just ranting. Most experts will tell you that technically Esperanto is not sexist, only the speaker can make it sexist. The idea that because a speaker of Esperanto is sexist, therefore the language is sexist is illogical. A may prove B, but B doesn't have to prove A. Basic logic. The changes you've made are good. Now all you need to do is stop being a jackass when discussing things and we will be best of friends. We disagree about what an opinion is, and you are wrong about that. But that isn't going to keep me up at night. Alan16 ( talk) 23:44, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Good that the problem is solved, but I want to open another little one about the same section. About Italian, Spanish ... people who make criticism for -a -o endings. That's not true. It can be weird for them when they know the rule the first time, but after the first day(s), they just "metabolize" that, and don't demand to change it; they know that in a different language you can have different rules, it's normal. (I discussed recently about that with some Italian friends, both experantist and not.) About proper names, i read somewhere that the use of Johano/Johanino is not compulsory, because everyone is owner of his/her name and can choose whether or not writing it in esperanto for (if this form exists, of course). -- Iosko ( talk) 09:27, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
I'm trying to understand this passage (either as it currently reads, or as it was before it was changed):
Don Harlow has noted that the difference in language background only becomes apparent when translating into an ethnic language: Novels written by English and Polish authors, for example, are equally easy to read for both English and Polish native speakers. However, an English author's work will translate easily into Polish[<<<this used to say "English"], while a Polish author's work will prove much more difficult to translate into English. That is, Esperanto can accommodate either language more easily than they can accommodate each other, and this is partially due to the lack of culturally fixed ways of speaking.
Now, as it used to read, I thought this was saying that the Eo work of an English author would translate easily into English, but the Eo work of a Polish author would not translate easily into English. That made sense to me. Presumably, the Eo work of an English author would not translate easily into Polish, and the Eo work of a Polish author would translate easily into Polish. But when someone changed it to "Polish", and I undid that change, my revert was reverted. And it makes spectacularly no sense to me that in a discussion of Eo one would say that English translates into Polish more easily than Polish translates into English. So now I'm just thinking that the passage is fundamentally confusing. I can't find any corroborating evidence of Don Harlow making this particular point, though (not that I'm all that familiar with what source material is available). What was this passage intended to convey? -- Pi zero ( talk) 12:24, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
Pi Zero had it. The old wording was correct. Harlow's point was that when an author writes in Esperanto, people from other language backgrounds have no trouble reading it, and won't notice a difference from an author of their own nationality. But they'll have difficulty translating it into their language. kwami ( talk) 21:09, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
"However, while the English author's Esperanto work will translate readily into English, translating the Polish author's Esperanto work into English will prove much more difficult, and vice versa when translating from Esperanto into Polish. That is, Esperanto can accommodate either language more easily than they can accommodate each other, and this is partially due to the lack of culturally fixed ways of speaking." This passage should be ommited. It makes no sense in my eyes and contradicts my own experience in writing and translating literary texts. In contrast Kvami is right and clear, when writing: "When an author writes in Esperanto, people from other language backgrounds have no trouble reading it, and won't notice a difference from an author of their own nationality. But they'll have difficulty translating it into their language."
kwami So why not use his text?
Adriano Di Caprio (
talk)
17:14, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
Why does the Criticism of Esperanto article start off with why one should learn Esperanto? Is that not counter-intuitive? 64.191.211.55 ( talk) 21:04, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
It's kind of funny (by which I mean sad and pathetic) that this article, which purports to discuss criticisms of Esperanto, reads more like a pamphlet written by an Esperantist to encourage more people to learn Esperanto. This article would be better titled "Rebuttals of criticisms of Esperanto", since the majority of it seems to be filled with apologetics and shining praise for the language. Neutrality means putting yourself in the shoes of those who disagree with you and really meaning it, not pretending to put yourself in their shoes and allowing yourself to be easily convinced by your own arguments. Also, as a side note, external links are not required to be NPOV (that's in response to the earlier discussion about Learn Not To Speak Espo) and never have been, although it might be a good idea to put certain links under a heading of "Anti-Esperanto views". We are required to be NPOV in the information we give, but we can certainly provide readers opportunities for further reading at sites that do not share our policies in that regard. Therefore, I have re-added the link. -- ಠ_ಠ node.ue ಠ_ಠ ( talk) 12:25, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
Much of this should be fairly easy to reference. — kwami ( talk) 21:30, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
The text at present says that
The WP article contradiction says
By extension, outside of classical logic, one can speak of contradictions between actions when one presumes that their motives contradict each other.
The word contradiction to me implies error and/or fallacy. It is wording that appears to have been chosen as an attempt to undermine the criticisms, and as such is not NPoV. If you look through the history of this article, you'll see that there is a strong history of the article being actively pro-Esperanto rather than neutral.
The criticisms presented in this article start from different viewpoints. That some people want a euro-centric language and others want is a geographically neutral language is not "contradictory", in the same way that the existence of both vegetarians and meat-eaters in human society is not contradictory. These are merely subjective viewpoints.
Prof Wrong ( talk) 22:46, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
This section violates WP:CRYSTAL by assuming that the status quo will continue unchanged. Its goal is to become an international auxiliary language; no specific deadline is specified anywhere. Therefore, while it certainly can't be said to have succeeded at this time, it can only be said to have failed if it never becomes widespread, an assumption which violates WP:CRYSTAL. -- 134.10.114.238 ( talk) 22:20, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
Other than the rebuttal, none of the material in that paragraph is sourced, so it must be removed. -- 134.10.113.198 ( talk) 16:10, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
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The paragraph "Esperanto has failed" is unsourced and should be removed. -- 134.10.113.198 ( talk) 16:17, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
The sourcing argument is invalid, because criticism doesn't work that way. When a criticism is that big, sourcing becomes useless. Common sense would tell you that, so as Kwami said, you're biased motives are clear. Further, it's rather questionable for someone to bother feigning being big on keeping wikipedia strict... While not logging into a registered account to sign the comments with. (As someone with a history of comment and runs, I would know that that is a questionable motivation to allege for it. We hit and runner types aren't about strictness and order, not even when truly about correctness.) Dragopolska ( talk) 07:48, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
1. It says on the page about the language in general that the creator invented this language to stop fighting. Anyone with common sense knows that the language barrier is not the cause of the fighting, and people continue to fight the same fights after you remove the language barrier. If anything, removing the language barrier causes more fights, because with the barrier they can't directly duke it out in more ways than a drunken fist fight, so more people will be fighting more often. EDIT: Further, opening up communications more would cause more and more disagreements to surface as they get to know each other more, causing more and more fighting. It would become fighting, because there will be people who try to convert the other once they have greater communicative pathways to try it. Dragopolska ( talk) 07:15, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
2. The only way thusfar proven to spread a language at great feats... Is Impirialism. Esperato is not the language of an empire (or anyone), so it can't achieve it's purpose. It is in the same boat as Klingon, which is the point the person who mentioned Klingon was not so subtly making. The Tolkien languages are also in this boat. No matter how many fans learn it, it will never be global. If any language is to become a voluntary second language in the near future... The one people themselves freely choose most between the ones at high commonality due to a history as a great empire... Is English. So, why learn an imaginary language no one needs when you can learn English? Dragopolska ( talk) 07:15, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
3. Does the world really need a universal language? The groups who most need one already have one, whether that's English, Mandarin, Spanish, or etc. Dragopolska ( talk) 07:15, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
4. Talk of a universal language does not seem to sit well with professional translators, because it would put thousands-to-hundreds-of-thousands of people out of a job. The only time you'd need a translator then is when intentionally seeking to know what the other person/people didn't want you to know. They'd no longer be translators, they'd be spies. Dragopolska ( talk) 07:20, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
I have just edited out the following from the section Esperanto has failed, refering to the idea that time spent on Esperanto is better spent on other languages.
This is not a logically sound counter-criticism. No-one claims that (eg) Spanish is quicker to learn than Esperanto, but rather they make the value judgement that a modest amount of Spanish is of more practical use than full fluency in Esperanto. This position, whether you personally take it or not, must be recognised as valid -- you can't travel anywhere using only Esperanto, and to many people that is understandably important. Prof Wrong ( talk) 17:50, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
This article has around 12 main sections, and around 1600 words, making many, many claims about criticisms of Esperanto. Yet, only 6 citations? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.46.57.248 ( talk) 02:15, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
This article is a complete joke. It has 6 references, only 2 of which even relate to criticism of the language, the other 4 are related to the composition/syntax of the language itself! The article desperately needs more references, or lots of it needs to be removed/rewritten. Ridiculous. -- 212.139.107.158 ( talk) 15:56, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
I wonder why Wikipedia has an article like this for Esperanto (and it should be divided in pro/cons sections by the way) and English does not. I wonder why even in the article "Esperanto" theres's a criticism part (and this one is linked to it) and in the English one there's not. I wonder if wikipedia is neutral enough here.
English is spoken by 30% of the world at some level, I think it would be more interesting for wikipedia users to write an article critizing English as a bridge language than an Esperanto one. English didn't originate in order to act as a interethnic language, it lacks lot of things many planned language as Esperanto do not. It's like criticizing a car for being artificial and watching all the world using british horses to travel to Paris and not critizing that. Here there's no mention that comparing with the criticism it could be done of the alternatives we had and still have (always "accepting" the strongest language of the time/half-century, Latin, French, English, Chinese later) the criticism of Esperanto is derisory/trivial for the same purpose acting as a "bridge language". I see a kind of hidden information... This mention should be in every single article "Criticism of X" created.
Here's another point: Is Esperanto sexist? I wouldn't say so so convinced, knowing "malina" is a common way to write "male" (derived from ina, feMALE, with the preffix for opposite mal-) in esperanto congress forms. Neither if kuzo and edzino has a female origin (kuzin' edzin') and is the opposite case. How could I add that point of view if there's no pro section? Is it fair for those who do want to defend their language and commonly know way more about it than those who criticize it?)
Is Esperanto opened to public criticism on Wikipedia because of it's planned origin (as Indonesian...) but English, Spanish, Indonesia (too nativized now) are not? (artificial too... words didn't grow form trees, you know?). I don't get why this http://speedydeletion.wikia.com/wiki/Grin_Report was speedydeleted for not being important enough and this one remains here... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alekso92 ( talk • contribs) 02:21, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
Since 2013 citations missed. No one added them. Now I delete every content with no citation. Of course I will try to find sources for all of it, but if I can't, I will delete it. -- Momo Monitor ( talk) 14:15, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
I've merged all content. How to delete this article? -- Momo Monitor ( talk) 14:39, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
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I tried to integrate the point-counterpoint nature of this page by putting all the related arguments together while maintaining NPOV. I think I have mostly succeeded, but I encourage those from both sides of the argument to point out parts that might be construed as biased. I personally don't really care, so I thought I would be a good person to do it.
However, I have to say that the pro-Esperanto responses to the sexism issue are kind of weak. The bit about being "gender-specific" is lame. I don't see why Esperantists can't just do what people have done to remove sexism from other languages, like English, by stigmatizing gender-specific words and using generic forms for all instances. "Steward" and "Stewardess" has been replaced by flight attendant. Within the acting community, "actress" has been mostly replaced by "actor", and you hardly ever run across references to things like "lady lawyer" or "woman doctor" anymore, and when you do, they are rightly labeled as sexist. I don't see any reason why you can't just say "doktoro" all the time and only use "doktorino" or "virdoktoro" when it is necessary to describe the gender of the doctor. I suppose this isn't done because the grammar of Esperanto is consisered "set" and unchageable, which seems pretty short-sighted to me. Maybe someone with more experience with Esperanto could explain why this argument isn't made. Anyhow, I've tried to keep the handling of it in the article neutral, but I think anyone who reads it will see that the Esperanto response is weak. -- Nohat 01:12, 2004 Feb 9 (UTC)
From your second paragraph it can be seen that you have a very Anglo-centric view. Getting rid of gender-specific meanings is just the way it was done in English, given the grammatical features of the English language. In German, for example, it is considered sexist to just use the male form when you mean both (i.e. a sign for neglecting the females). Hence in Germany, the feminist movement caused that more and more people use both forms, saying for example "Kollegen und Kolleginen" for "colleagues", which in written language is sometimes abbreviated as "KollegInnen". A similar use can be observed in Spanish, where the words ending in -o will certainly never get a gender-neutral meaning. There they sometimes use @ for a/o in written language. So the anti-sexism movement needs to consider the given circumstances, and decide what changes can be forced to increase awareness among speakers of that language. In Esperanto, this movement has already changed a few things, namely that more and more words are considered gender-neutral, and only next-of-kin words are still used completely gender-specifically. The word "doktoro" for example is mainly used in a gender-neutral way. The form "virdoktoro" never existed anyway, as this way of forming the male form is only used for animals. A few people still use "doktorino", mainly for anti-sexist reasons, because in their native language it is considered sexist not to mention the female form. When using the plural, one can always use the both-gender-prefix ge- (eg. gedoktoroj), which is however mainly used for next-of-kin words (i.e. words where the stem still clearly has a male meaning), e.g. gefiloj. Only speakers of languages like German would use forms like "gedoktoroj", again in order to be non-sexist. If you understand Esperanto, you can read http://www.bertilow.com/pmeg/gramatiko/o-vortoj/seksa_signifo.html for a more detailed explanation of gender in Esperanto.
Now, can someone explain to me how a language can be "sexist"? Just because there are words deprived from other words to make a femine doesn't mean it's sexist. If it is sexist, that means most of the European languages are naturally sexist, due to that most european languages have masculine and feminine forms of words. Is it even possible for a language to be sexist? Onerace ( talk) 08:10, 24 December 2008 (UTC)Onerace
Okay, first off, why I touched the discussion page is that someone has it saying that "he" of English can be gender-nuetral... Which is false. "He" is never gender nuetral. There might be male-specific words a woman won't be insulted by ... "He" is definitely not one of them. You will not get away with manizing a woman in discussion to that degree unless she literally wants to be a man. So, this brings me to my second point. It is sexist to deny the acknowledgment of the existence of the female gender. Not only is that sexist, it's as sexist as you can get. "They don't like that we slap their bum and call them toots? Well, let's just pretend they don't exist and call them men! Ladies, what ladies? Those are gentlemen! I see no difference! Differences don't exist! Why are you crying? Men don't publically cry! Man up, you snivelling baby!" Seriously, people who are themselves sexist, racist, etc. are the ones who come up with this ridiculous idea that not acknowledging a group of others erases the problem. They think, erase their existence altogether, and you erase the problem. Except they are not actually erasing their existence or the problem, they're just pretending it doesn't exist so they don't have to deal with it. Dragopolska ( talk) 06:06, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
15 years after it was published (so by 1902), Esperanto was already in use internationally, and 3 years later the first World Congress was held. I somehow don't think Klingon will have anything equivalent in the next 3 years - at Klingon conferences few people speak anything but English. Just because 250,000 Star Trek fans might have the Klingon dictionary on their bookshelves doesn't mean that more than a handful of the most dedicated can as much as hold the simplest conversation in Klingon. The reason is straighforward: it was never designed to be a spoken language, but to represent the way an extra-terrestrial race might speak - in someone's imagination!
Compare conlangs with what Esperanto achieved at the same period in its development - rather than speculate about what they might do should they still be around at the age Esperanto is now. Don't forget that Esperanto wasn't the first conlang - there were hundreds before it, as well as hundreds since. Also, don't imagine that the reason Esperanto hasn't been universally adopted is because of some inherent deficiency, and that all we need to do to get it accepted is to "fix" it in some way - the painful truth is that any such language will face the same political obstacles as Esperanto no matter how it might be constructed. -- Tiffer 23:22, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I'd like to weigh in here, because the Esperantist viewpoint always seems to be to view Esperanto as a perfect language, and that therefore everyone should speak it, and the people fighting against them like the Idists, which Esperantists pretend don't even exist say that the reason there isn't universal adoption is because of some flaw in Esperanto which must be 'fixed', then it will be a perfect language adopted by everyone. Neither viewpoint is correct. There is no such thing as a perfect language. Esperanto may be easy to learn for some Europeans (not me personally, but some), but it's not easy to learn for non-Europeans. Not only this, but easiness to learn does not make a language perfect. If everyone in Europe spoke Esperanto as their native language they would be severely disadvantaged in learning any other language, since they would have no equivalent in their own language for complex grammar ideas. Then there's the culture consideration. Esperanto may have lots of books and such, but it possesses hardly any music in any style. Natural languages have vast bodies of beautiful music, but these languages are dying to give life to a culturally barren language like Esperanto. Also, if we really want to go down the road of simplicity, the presence of the useless verb 'to be' in Esperanto. It doesn't exist in some languages. Nor do articles, yet there is never ambiguity. There's also the relative poverty of roots, and the insanity of not having a different word for good and bad. Bad is 'good-bad', impossible is 'possible-bad', down is probably 'up-bad'. This may mean fewer roots to learn but it also means I'm stuck if I forget one because there's nothing else to lean on, and it makes it harder to convey slight differences in meaning. Zamenhof has turned his language into a religion that cannot be changed, and declared it the most simple, the best, etc. The flaws are, to me, clear, just as they are with every language under the sun. If Esperanto wishes to be treated as a language it should accept its flaws like a language.
I'll make a stab at addressing some of these issues over the next few days, as well as bringing up some new ones. Of course, I have my own biases, so I'd appreciate any feedback. kwami 01:30, 2005 Jun 2 (UTC)
The first claim is somewhat exaggerated, and I'm sure the second claim is extremely exaggerated... what number of roots are we estimating one can learn in two hours, and what sense of "learn" are we talking about? The pronunciation and spelling claim is probably about right, in some sense (which is still compatible with a native speaker of English occasionally writing "y" for "j" even though he "knows" that the latter is correct). I'd like to revise this, but I"m not sure what revised figures to put in place of these... anybody? -- Jim Henry | Talk 19:05, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
I just took out the numbers entirely. 'A few hours' is probably as specific as it needs to be. Mithridates 02:21, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
The first article about neutrality or euro-centrism is surprisingly unneutral in nature itself. The vocabulary, spelling and phonology are indubitably European-derived, but it is difficult to argue the same with regards to the grammar and semantics, the grammar often being described as being closer to Chinese than to any European language (in terms of regularity of conjugation and so on), and the semantics, as in every living language, is determined by the population of speakers. But the most surprising claim is in regards to syntax, which in Esperanto is 99% free, with a few exceptions (e.g. the preposition immediately preceding the word it preposes, for obvious reasons).
The fact that these claims are mentioned isn't a problem in itself, but then the article would be more suited to a title such as "Criticisms of Esperanto" with a separate article entitled "Arguments for Esperanto". I don't however, think this is necessary, as any Wikipedia article is expected to be neutral and balanced.
The claims about the time needed to learn the language is exaggerated in most people's cases, although the specified time-frame is not impossible for some people (Tolstoi being a notable example). Sumthingweird 11:52, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
I still maintain my point - that the section on "neutrality" is not neutral in itself. I disagree with your interpretation on a few finer points, but I don't want to get bogged down in detail so I'll just point out an example: in Esperanto you can say please in the European so-called fascist way "bonvolu", or in a more introspective way "mi petas", or even the passive "se placxas al vi". Thankyou can be expressed "Dankon", "Mi dankas al vi", "Mi dankas vin", right down to "Vi estas gxentila" or "kia dankinda ago", most of which nuances are difficult to accurately translate into English. This last example was used by Claude Piron in his book "Le défi des langues". But more importantly, this article tends to talk about linguistic and non-PC elements of the language, which are useful enough to talk about later on. A section about neutrality should probably be about neutrality. The main point of Esperanto is that diplomatically, it is undeniably more neutral than English or any other national language. Whether or not you agree is a different point - a Wikipedia article should deal in facts, not opinion, and when discussing opinion, should express the range of opinions unless the article is entitled "Criticisms of..." which this article is not. This article is entitled "Esperanto as an international language" but only briefly discusses Esperanto as an international language. Sumthingweird 02:54, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
Yes, we seem to agree that it is near impossible to have a language which is neutral in all respects, especially linguistically. I suppose we are then discussing two different issues - the linguistic neutrality of an international language, and the diplomatic neutrality of an international language. Certainly English, Spanish, Russian, etc, are not neutral in the same respect as we would consider Esperanto to be neutral. Perhaps I have some kind of preconception as to what a section "Neutrality" in "Esperanto as an international language" should be about. Neutrality is, I'm sure most would agree, the point of an international conlang. As to its ease of use - that is a variable for people of different backgrounds. Sumthingweird 08:25, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
Lol. Well, you might think so, but apparently people in Asian countries don't necessarily agree with you. The bulk of the Esperanto-speaking population is in Eastern Asia. For many of them whom I've spoken to, they find Esperanto a lot easier to learn and a lot more immediately usable than, for example, English. Of course the only languages that are fully unbiased towards any group are the a priori languages, but none has so far become very popular because they do not base themselves on any other evolved language, and so rely on a lot of luck to be suitable for a speaking population. I suppose that the issue is then relative neutrality - Esperanto is easier to learn for some people than to others, but the discrepancy is to a much lesser extent than to any real alternative. So you see how we have different points of view. Both are valid, and we each make points that the other has not, but then of course a Wikipedia article should have facts about the subject, not merely opinions. Sumthingweird 04:20, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
about neutrality or euro-centrism
The word "neutral" means too many things. When Esperantists claim that Esperanto is neutral, they mean that the language is not supported by any government that has economical advantages in promoting it. Of course the vocabulary is mostly based on European languages (see http://remush.be/etimo/etimo.html), but if a non-European author feels it necessary, he can create a new word based on his language (see rule 15).
So I think that the title of the topic is wrong. It should be something like "Esperanto vocabulary was originally based on Hindo-European languages".
-- Remush ( talk) 18:55, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
As the argument is called "Esperanto as an international language", it shouldn't just be structured as a collection collection of criticisms to that role with some replies. Instead, there should first be a paragraph introducing why Esperanto is proposed as an international languages (i.e. the Esperantists' conception of the language problem and how Esperanto might solve it), and then the list of criticism can come after it (still with replies and possibly counter-reblies by critics). Unless someone disagrees with this, I will soon write a first version of the new introductary section. Marcoscramer 00:07, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
Maybe the "criticisms" might be moved to a new article, such as Criticism of Esperanto? [[User:JonMoore|— —Jo nMo ore 20:24, 29 May 2006 (UTC)]] 00:53, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
Good job. It's now a much better article. I copyedited about half of it, and took out some stuff I thought was fluff (much of which wasn't from you), but left the flow and the points you made intact - or at least I think I did! kwami 02:37, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Since the claim is often made that Eo morph is non-Indo-European, I was wondering if anyone could actually justify the claim. Otherwise I think it needs to be debunked. Stringing affixes together in Eo isn't much different than German; the primary differences are that the system is more regular in Eo (an artifact of its being constructed), and the invariability of its roots. But lots of roots in all Indo-European languages are invariable (Greek mous- "mouse" below is one example); the fact that Eo is nearly regular in this regard (except for words like 'panjo') is again an artifact of its being consciously designed.
The article states that "An agglutinative morphology means not just that complex concepts are expressed by adding multiple affixes to word roots, but that its grammatical inflections work the same way." But which grammatical inflections are we talking about? The verbs aren't agglutinative that way; we can't say that -s in indicative or -i is past, for example. The plural and accusative nouns and adjectives are very much like Classical Greek: mousa (Esperanto: muso), mousan (muson), mousai (mousoj), musās (musojn). That's it for the agglutinative inflections in Eo: the accusative plural is formed by plural+accusative rather than a separate suffix, as in Greek. Are we going to call Eo morphology "non-European" because of that one tidbit? Does it do anything to make Eo "neutral"?
kwami 10:43, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
German | Esperanto | Swahili |
groß | granda | kubwa |
Größe | grandeco | ukubwa |
lang | longa | -refu |
Länge | longeco | urefu |
reich | ricxa | tajiri |
Reichtum | ricxeco | utajiri |
Kind | infano | mtoto |
Kindheit | infaneco | utoto |
German | Esperanto | Swahili |
ich sage | mi diras | ninasema |
ich sagte | mi diris | nilisema |
ich werde sagen | mi diros | nitasema |
ich soll sagen | mi diru | niseme |
ich würde sagen | mi dirus | ningesema |
sagend | dirante | anayesema |
(der gesagt hat) | dirinta | aliyesema |
(der sagen wird) | dironta | atakayesema |
If you want to show how one language is different from another, then we could show how Eo parallels German but not Swahili in other aspects. What we're really talking about here is regularity. Swahili is a reasonably regular language; German is not. Perhaps that has something to do with agglutinativity, but I think it would be less misleading to say Eo is 'regular' than to say it's morphology isn't European, just because it's regular. Also, Esperanto syntax is closer to Romance than Germanic, so there's that. The German comparison isn't the best; but it shows that stringing morphemes together to form new words isn't alien to European languages. There is some regularity in the Eo verbal paradigm that is innovative. For instance, Eo has future participles, which don't exist in any Indo-European language that I've heard of, and which you could argue is paralleled in Swahili. But atakayesema is perhaps closer to li kiu diros than to dironta. Again, this is a product of regularity, and the Eo verbal system isn't agglutinative (the o doesn't just indicate future tense, but each participle is a separate morpheme; also, German sagte and gesagt have the same t which you migh claim marks past tense, so there is some parallel there). Most European languages are annoyingly irregular, and when we see nice regular Swahili or Turkish (actually rather irregular, but regular in many of the places where European languages are irregular, which tends to get noticed first), then they seem similar to mostly regular Esperanto. But nearly every element of Eo morphology and syntax can be found in the European languages Z was familiar with. kwami 01:16, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
Sure. (I think I mentioned that above as well.) But many if not all European languages have agglutinative alternates for such ablaut. And in English at least, slang words or extended meanings tend to use agglutinative morphology, indicating that it is the more productive. For example, in deriving a noun from hot (as in 'a hot babe'), you get hotness rather than heat; the past tense of hang (as from a gibbet) is hanged, not hung; the plural of mouse (the computer input device) is mouses, not mice. Regardless, the majority of nouns, adjectives, and verbs don't even have the option of ablaut: cold → cold, red → redness, elect → elected; cat → cats. German has all the same options. Now, Esperanto doesn't contain all the morphology of the European languages, but the morphology it does have is widespread in the European languages. Saying it's not European for this is like saying it's not European because it doesn't have gender, or because its cardinal numerals aren't inflected for number or case. A lot of the morphology has been dropped. Also, I believe most European creoles have invariable roots, though perhaps it's questionable to call them European. (What about Lingua franca?) kwami 22:33, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
Yes, you're right, it is non-European in that sense. When you put it that way it's more convincing: Eo lacks something common to Indo-European languages (excepting creoles). However, if you say "Eo has non-European morphology", people will read it in the positive sense that Eo has morphological forms found otherwise only outside Europe. That's how I read it, and why I objected. If we can word this so it's not misleading, I wouldn't have any objections. Maybe something like the way you just did, that "Eo completely lacks the ablaut common to Indo-European languages" or some such. kwami 21:48, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
Okay, how about starting a list of elements of Esperanto grammar not found in western IE languages?
Separate word endings for parts of speech is sometimes given as an example, but Russian has separate declensions for nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and verbs. The only essential difference is that Eo has a consistant ending for nominative singular nouns; in Russian this is the case for feminine and neuter nouns, but not for the masculine. kwami 02:03, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm not saying I agree/disagree but it seems like somthing like this needs a sorce. Cameron Nedland 19:51, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
I have no axe to grind either way on this, being a multi-lingual English speaker, completely unthreatened by the notion of Esperanto as an international language. This is simply from the point of view of a neutral observer.
From where I stand, the "Criticisms" section of the article appears to consist largely of defenses against such criticisms, rather than the criticisms themselves. This is not important in itself, but the article doesn't come across as totally neutral. This is understandable, since most people who would be moved to write on this page would be likely to be passionate esperantists, but it may be worth revising with that in mind.
Incidentally, I think Klingon has one thing going for it that Esperanto doesn't. Although many people may intellectually approve of the concept of an international language, in practice an international language doesn't have a great deal of utility (unless your employment or business causes you to deal with people from other countries frequently, which is a small segment of any population. So whilst we may like it in principle, in practice we have little or no reason to use it. By contrast, people use Klingon for a reason of itself - for entertainment value. Johno 14:50, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
The evlish language spoken by the Noldor, created by J.R.R. Tolkien for The Lord of the Rings and teh Silmarillion, has a fairly full dictionary, if you realise that many words are formed by combining otehr words, such as Mordor, meaning dark land. THi is somewhat similar to Eo. Sindarin also has a fairly full dictionary, if you read the books which use it, particulaary the appendecies. teh Silmarillion has a dictionary (using Latin script), and includes the rules of word formation, while Rings has a table showing the characters used. I would imagine that a large part of the reason that the language is not in greater use is because of the difficulty of writing eitehr Feanorian script or the Angethras Daeron, which are not to the best of my knowledge availabel in any standard charecter set. Unlike Klingon, all the elvish languages in Tolkien's works are based on Old English, and so it is not overly hard for a speaker of a Germanic language to learn, althogh it is hardeer to read than Eo. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.101.102.188 ( talk • contribs) 03:48, 3 April 2007
On the 31st of July Kwamikagami changed the title of this article from Esperanto as an international language to Criticism of Esperanto mentioning the following as reason: "that's what this is; title is remnant of overly positive treatment". However, this article doesn't only contain criticism; the section "Why Esperanto?" explains the Esperantist view. After the renaming, that section would be out of place; but I think that the renaming was ill-conceived. Almost any criticism against Esperanto is against Esperanto as an international language; hardly anyone criticises those, who just treat Esperanto as a curious hobby. So I think we should rename the page back to Esperanto as an international language. At any rate, I don't think it was good that the renaming was done without asking on the talk page first. Marcoscramer ( talk) 19:39, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
The article only treats criticisms of minor aspects of the language itself and otherwise mostly cultural secondary factors. I know that there is linguistic criticism out there, based on that correlatives have genitive and a diversity of cases, while nouns and adjectives illogically only have two, making the language unnecessarily babblative. Said: Rursus ☻ 15:31, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
The website 'Learn Not To Speak Esperanto: A detailed if not entirely accurate criticism' is clearly not neutral. The author of it says some real criticism, but his/her not neutral point of view it's not for a serious enciclopedia... should be removed. Just see that, to count the esperanto phonemes and to make them 34 s/he adds "ei ai oi ui eu au", but it's well known that the IPA considers j a phoneme, so aj is made by 2 phonemes. Vowels as the 'u' in english (and also french) word 'menu' cannot be written as menju, because the u is an unique vowel, non divisible; but s/he compares this 2 kind of phonemes. Every criticism is made from a non-neutral pov, that is not well hidden (for example, s/he sais that something sounds 'horribly' just because s/he doesn't like, and this is a real scientific point of view... ). I emailed him/her some years ago and s/he seemed to be really ignorant about many aspects of simply grammar of languages he mentioned (fortunately s/he didn't put my name in his list of faq, where he listed the part of the letters with esperantists he liked more, maybe because i am not famous and because s/he would be shamed for being so ignorant in some points of simple grammar, where s/he just replied: "this is not the correct name of it" instead to say, "you are right, i didn't know that, but i said to look very clever, hoping that you didn't know this topic"). I don't want to continue, Piron made a better list of errors of an old version of this site (and writing in a better english than mine, sorry for that), just I ask to people who know about, to check and see that this personal and POV website has no right to stay where it is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.29.161.153 ( talk) 22:34, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
Every time I read that I dislike it more and more. I don't think that is an accurate statement. It hasn't failed the hopes of it creator, that would suggest a time limit was set upon it being more widely spoken than English. No such time limit was set, therefore it has not failed, it has simply not yet reached the hopes of its creator. I'll change it soon if no one complains. Alan16 ( talk) 15:56, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
(outdent) I've proposed a change, addressing what seem to me to be three weaknesses of the section:
Pi zero ( talk) 13:11, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
This discussion is interesting to a non-native anglophone such as myself. Esperanto was born circa 1905, a time when English was not that widespread, so surely the goal of Esperanto was not to supplant English. Besides, this is such a typical anglophone statement "such and such has failed". Failed? Was there some kind of a competition? Such a capitalistic perception bias of things! What anglophones widely fail to understand is that there is fundamental difference between "usage" and "unicity". Esperanto was aiming at the former, not the latter. And when anglophones like to dream about their language being "international" and spoken everywhere, they forget that most humans do no speak English (or so little, like cabbies in China who know no more than "elo", "goobah", "tankyu", "pleez"), and most English speakers are NON native speakers. They know at least another language which they use in their daily life, English being used only when necessary. This is again usage, not unicity. The unicity of English only exists in a few countries, where no other language can seemingly coexist. That's why the anglophone vision of the world is doomed to disappear. This is a natural human phenomenon. The Romans dominated their world for nearly 3,000 years. They also liked to think of Latin as eternal. Yet, it vanished eventually. The French imposed their language onto the world (not the whole planet, of course, but the world of science, diplomacy, literature, etc...) for over 300 years. This eventually changed too. Hegemonic languages are doomed in the long run. Because people, although they may be in touch with the world around them, will continued to focus 90% of their activity locally, and thus will not need another language than that spoken in a 100 miles radius of their home. Moreover, 16% of humans are Chinese. They will not switch their millenary languages to English or to Esperanto. They may however eventually (although this is dubious) learn *some* English, but it will be no more than an object-language used only in very particular situations. They will continue to make love in their language, to nurse their children in their language, to read books and watch movies in their language, etc... The level of English has already severely depreciated over the past 50 years. Most international speakers speak a simple English with little vocabulary (just look at me). They do not view English as a literary language but rather as a necessary skill used only in very specific situations (mostly professional) and otherwise avoided to the benefit of another language. I'm a scientist. The science papers published in English all tend to some mediocre equilibrium with poor vocabulary, block sentences learned by heart and copied-pasted, etc... 75% of English speakers (aside from the native ones) learned English because they *had to* not because they *wanted to*. The same with Latin during its the predominance in Europe. Yet Latin disappeared, while Greek, which the Romans deemed as a moribund language doomed in the short term has survived Latin by nearly 2,000 years. Languages are not stock shares. Don't confuse "usage" and "unicity". The world is changing much faster than you imagine, and the anglophone world is already trailing behind. Colossuses with clay feet always end up in the bottom of the ocean. What will be left of English as we know it today in 100 years? Nobody can tell. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.58.147.83 ( talk) 11:03, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
78.49.229.237 ( talk) Wojciech Żełaniec —Preceding undated comment added 13:01, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
Are you serious? Well, if you are, get some decent reasons and put them in the article. Alan16 ( talk) 16:00, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
It's my understanding of English usage that "langauge X is sexist" is an equivalent way of saying "language X tends to promote sexist thinking in people who speak it". Now, if someone truly believes that Sapir-Whorf has no validity at all, then that person must truly believe that it's impossible for a language to be sexist — and some people disagree with that opinion. As far as I can see (am I missing a passage somewhere?), the article never says that Eo is sexist, it says that some people think it's sexist, and indeed some people do think so (or did think so — is this changing, as the language does?).
It also seems that the use of the word "gender" in the article, and in other, related articles, may be causing confusion. "Gender" is apparently being used here in its general sense of "sex", not in its technical grammatical sense, which is unfortunate since a language is being discussed. It's my understanding that Eo does not have grammatical gender. That has exactly nothing to do with whether Eo is sexist (i.e., promotes sexist thinking) — to quote a choice observation from the conlang Wikibook, "none of Swahili's seven genders correspond to sex." Pi zero ( talk) 13:03, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
You realise that you linked me to an article where the sentence "an opinion cannot be falsified" has been removed? It appears that your definition of an opinion is not the definitive version you think it is. "You apparently think it depends on whether you agree with it or not." No. I never said that. You can have an opinion, whether I agree with it or not. It doesn't make the opinion a truth though. You can be bothered educating me? I don't think it is me who needs the educating, at least I have the ability to read and understand, and not just read and hear what I want to hear. "He goes on to say that a language can't be sexist, only the speaker; that Eo is a product of its time, when men ruled society, and therefore retains and reflects the discrimination of that time, but does not create it; and that radical gender reforms would cause more problems than they would solve. But those are also opinions, not facts." They are opinions, but he has based his on facts, as opposed to just ranting. Most experts will tell you that technically Esperanto is not sexist, only the speaker can make it sexist. The idea that because a speaker of Esperanto is sexist, therefore the language is sexist is illogical. A may prove B, but B doesn't have to prove A. Basic logic. The changes you've made are good. Now all you need to do is stop being a jackass when discussing things and we will be best of friends. We disagree about what an opinion is, and you are wrong about that. But that isn't going to keep me up at night. Alan16 ( talk) 23:44, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Good that the problem is solved, but I want to open another little one about the same section. About Italian, Spanish ... people who make criticism for -a -o endings. That's not true. It can be weird for them when they know the rule the first time, but after the first day(s), they just "metabolize" that, and don't demand to change it; they know that in a different language you can have different rules, it's normal. (I discussed recently about that with some Italian friends, both experantist and not.) About proper names, i read somewhere that the use of Johano/Johanino is not compulsory, because everyone is owner of his/her name and can choose whether or not writing it in esperanto for (if this form exists, of course). -- Iosko ( talk) 09:27, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
I'm trying to understand this passage (either as it currently reads, or as it was before it was changed):
Don Harlow has noted that the difference in language background only becomes apparent when translating into an ethnic language: Novels written by English and Polish authors, for example, are equally easy to read for both English and Polish native speakers. However, an English author's work will translate easily into Polish[<<<this used to say "English"], while a Polish author's work will prove much more difficult to translate into English. That is, Esperanto can accommodate either language more easily than they can accommodate each other, and this is partially due to the lack of culturally fixed ways of speaking.
Now, as it used to read, I thought this was saying that the Eo work of an English author would translate easily into English, but the Eo work of a Polish author would not translate easily into English. That made sense to me. Presumably, the Eo work of an English author would not translate easily into Polish, and the Eo work of a Polish author would translate easily into Polish. But when someone changed it to "Polish", and I undid that change, my revert was reverted. And it makes spectacularly no sense to me that in a discussion of Eo one would say that English translates into Polish more easily than Polish translates into English. So now I'm just thinking that the passage is fundamentally confusing. I can't find any corroborating evidence of Don Harlow making this particular point, though (not that I'm all that familiar with what source material is available). What was this passage intended to convey? -- Pi zero ( talk) 12:24, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
Pi Zero had it. The old wording was correct. Harlow's point was that when an author writes in Esperanto, people from other language backgrounds have no trouble reading it, and won't notice a difference from an author of their own nationality. But they'll have difficulty translating it into their language. kwami ( talk) 21:09, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
"However, while the English author's Esperanto work will translate readily into English, translating the Polish author's Esperanto work into English will prove much more difficult, and vice versa when translating from Esperanto into Polish. That is, Esperanto can accommodate either language more easily than they can accommodate each other, and this is partially due to the lack of culturally fixed ways of speaking." This passage should be ommited. It makes no sense in my eyes and contradicts my own experience in writing and translating literary texts. In contrast Kvami is right and clear, when writing: "When an author writes in Esperanto, people from other language backgrounds have no trouble reading it, and won't notice a difference from an author of their own nationality. But they'll have difficulty translating it into their language."
kwami So why not use his text?
Adriano Di Caprio (
talk)
17:14, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
Why does the Criticism of Esperanto article start off with why one should learn Esperanto? Is that not counter-intuitive? 64.191.211.55 ( talk) 21:04, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
It's kind of funny (by which I mean sad and pathetic) that this article, which purports to discuss criticisms of Esperanto, reads more like a pamphlet written by an Esperantist to encourage more people to learn Esperanto. This article would be better titled "Rebuttals of criticisms of Esperanto", since the majority of it seems to be filled with apologetics and shining praise for the language. Neutrality means putting yourself in the shoes of those who disagree with you and really meaning it, not pretending to put yourself in their shoes and allowing yourself to be easily convinced by your own arguments. Also, as a side note, external links are not required to be NPOV (that's in response to the earlier discussion about Learn Not To Speak Espo) and never have been, although it might be a good idea to put certain links under a heading of "Anti-Esperanto views". We are required to be NPOV in the information we give, but we can certainly provide readers opportunities for further reading at sites that do not share our policies in that regard. Therefore, I have re-added the link. -- ಠ_ಠ node.ue ಠ_ಠ ( talk) 12:25, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
Much of this should be fairly easy to reference. — kwami ( talk) 21:30, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
The text at present says that
The WP article contradiction says
By extension, outside of classical logic, one can speak of contradictions between actions when one presumes that their motives contradict each other.
The word contradiction to me implies error and/or fallacy. It is wording that appears to have been chosen as an attempt to undermine the criticisms, and as such is not NPoV. If you look through the history of this article, you'll see that there is a strong history of the article being actively pro-Esperanto rather than neutral.
The criticisms presented in this article start from different viewpoints. That some people want a euro-centric language and others want is a geographically neutral language is not "contradictory", in the same way that the existence of both vegetarians and meat-eaters in human society is not contradictory. These are merely subjective viewpoints.
Prof Wrong ( talk) 22:46, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
This section violates WP:CRYSTAL by assuming that the status quo will continue unchanged. Its goal is to become an international auxiliary language; no specific deadline is specified anywhere. Therefore, while it certainly can't be said to have succeeded at this time, it can only be said to have failed if it never becomes widespread, an assumption which violates WP:CRYSTAL. -- 134.10.114.238 ( talk) 22:20, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
Other than the rebuttal, none of the material in that paragraph is sourced, so it must be removed. -- 134.10.113.198 ( talk) 16:10, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
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The paragraph "Esperanto has failed" is unsourced and should be removed. -- 134.10.113.198 ( talk) 16:17, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
The sourcing argument is invalid, because criticism doesn't work that way. When a criticism is that big, sourcing becomes useless. Common sense would tell you that, so as Kwami said, you're biased motives are clear. Further, it's rather questionable for someone to bother feigning being big on keeping wikipedia strict... While not logging into a registered account to sign the comments with. (As someone with a history of comment and runs, I would know that that is a questionable motivation to allege for it. We hit and runner types aren't about strictness and order, not even when truly about correctness.) Dragopolska ( talk) 07:48, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
1. It says on the page about the language in general that the creator invented this language to stop fighting. Anyone with common sense knows that the language barrier is not the cause of the fighting, and people continue to fight the same fights after you remove the language barrier. If anything, removing the language barrier causes more fights, because with the barrier they can't directly duke it out in more ways than a drunken fist fight, so more people will be fighting more often. EDIT: Further, opening up communications more would cause more and more disagreements to surface as they get to know each other more, causing more and more fighting. It would become fighting, because there will be people who try to convert the other once they have greater communicative pathways to try it. Dragopolska ( talk) 07:15, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
2. The only way thusfar proven to spread a language at great feats... Is Impirialism. Esperato is not the language of an empire (or anyone), so it can't achieve it's purpose. It is in the same boat as Klingon, which is the point the person who mentioned Klingon was not so subtly making. The Tolkien languages are also in this boat. No matter how many fans learn it, it will never be global. If any language is to become a voluntary second language in the near future... The one people themselves freely choose most between the ones at high commonality due to a history as a great empire... Is English. So, why learn an imaginary language no one needs when you can learn English? Dragopolska ( talk) 07:15, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
3. Does the world really need a universal language? The groups who most need one already have one, whether that's English, Mandarin, Spanish, or etc. Dragopolska ( talk) 07:15, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
4. Talk of a universal language does not seem to sit well with professional translators, because it would put thousands-to-hundreds-of-thousands of people out of a job. The only time you'd need a translator then is when intentionally seeking to know what the other person/people didn't want you to know. They'd no longer be translators, they'd be spies. Dragopolska ( talk) 07:20, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
I have just edited out the following from the section Esperanto has failed, refering to the idea that time spent on Esperanto is better spent on other languages.
This is not a logically sound counter-criticism. No-one claims that (eg) Spanish is quicker to learn than Esperanto, but rather they make the value judgement that a modest amount of Spanish is of more practical use than full fluency in Esperanto. This position, whether you personally take it or not, must be recognised as valid -- you can't travel anywhere using only Esperanto, and to many people that is understandably important. Prof Wrong ( talk) 17:50, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
This article has around 12 main sections, and around 1600 words, making many, many claims about criticisms of Esperanto. Yet, only 6 citations? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.46.57.248 ( talk) 02:15, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
This article is a complete joke. It has 6 references, only 2 of which even relate to criticism of the language, the other 4 are related to the composition/syntax of the language itself! The article desperately needs more references, or lots of it needs to be removed/rewritten. Ridiculous. -- 212.139.107.158 ( talk) 15:56, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
I wonder why Wikipedia has an article like this for Esperanto (and it should be divided in pro/cons sections by the way) and English does not. I wonder why even in the article "Esperanto" theres's a criticism part (and this one is linked to it) and in the English one there's not. I wonder if wikipedia is neutral enough here.
English is spoken by 30% of the world at some level, I think it would be more interesting for wikipedia users to write an article critizing English as a bridge language than an Esperanto one. English didn't originate in order to act as a interethnic language, it lacks lot of things many planned language as Esperanto do not. It's like criticizing a car for being artificial and watching all the world using british horses to travel to Paris and not critizing that. Here there's no mention that comparing with the criticism it could be done of the alternatives we had and still have (always "accepting" the strongest language of the time/half-century, Latin, French, English, Chinese later) the criticism of Esperanto is derisory/trivial for the same purpose acting as a "bridge language". I see a kind of hidden information... This mention should be in every single article "Criticism of X" created.
Here's another point: Is Esperanto sexist? I wouldn't say so so convinced, knowing "malina" is a common way to write "male" (derived from ina, feMALE, with the preffix for opposite mal-) in esperanto congress forms. Neither if kuzo and edzino has a female origin (kuzin' edzin') and is the opposite case. How could I add that point of view if there's no pro section? Is it fair for those who do want to defend their language and commonly know way more about it than those who criticize it?)
Is Esperanto opened to public criticism on Wikipedia because of it's planned origin (as Indonesian...) but English, Spanish, Indonesia (too nativized now) are not? (artificial too... words didn't grow form trees, you know?). I don't get why this http://speedydeletion.wikia.com/wiki/Grin_Report was speedydeleted for not being important enough and this one remains here... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alekso92 ( talk • contribs) 02:21, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
Since 2013 citations missed. No one added them. Now I delete every content with no citation. Of course I will try to find sources for all of it, but if I can't, I will delete it. -- Momo Monitor ( talk) 14:15, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
I've merged all content. How to delete this article? -- Momo Monitor ( talk) 14:39, 12 April 2016 (UTC)