Comment Re:Esperanto (Score 1) 417
It's always amazing to me that, when the topic is language, people tend to use their own ignorance as a primary source of evidence. “Gee, I've never personally met anyone who speaks language X (though I wouldn't have a clue what it sounds like) therefore it must be totally useless!"”
Grishnakh, please do your homework before making sweeping generalizations. Esperanto is indeed a real language, and it has quite a few native speakers. Not only native speakers, but second and third-generation native speakers.
As to usefulness in meeting people: in just a few years of speaking Esperanto I've conversed with new friends from Japan, Finland, Uzbekistan, Quebec, Australia, Iran, mainland China, England, Macedonia, Mexico, Switzerland, Poland, Brazil, Vietnam, the Netherlands... and yes, even Texas!
What's cool is that with Esperanto we're all able to interact with one another on a fair and reasonably equitable basis, and nobody has to feel awkward stumbling over the arcane and illogical details of someone else's national language. That's something neither Gaelic, Romansh, Icelandic, nor even English can do.
Oh, and then there's the wonderful Pasporta Servo , which lets me stay in more than 80 countries for free! Kick-ass!
Grishnakh, please do your homework before making sweeping generalizations. Esperanto is indeed a real language, and it has quite a few native speakers. Not only native speakers, but second and third-generation native speakers.
As to usefulness in meeting people: in just a few years of speaking Esperanto I've conversed with new friends from Japan, Finland, Uzbekistan, Quebec, Australia, Iran, mainland China, England, Macedonia, Mexico, Switzerland, Poland, Brazil, Vietnam, the Netherlands... and yes, even Texas!
What's cool is that with Esperanto we're all able to interact with one another on a fair and reasonably equitable basis, and nobody has to feel awkward stumbling over the arcane and illogical details of someone else's national language. That's something neither Gaelic, Romansh, Icelandic, nor even English can do.
Oh, and then there's the wonderful Pasporta Servo , which lets me stay in more than 80 countries for free! Kick-ass!
