Concerning Esperanto

When I first heard of Esperanto I thought it was a Spanish word that I had no clue as to what it meant. Later on I learned that this is in fact a language that has a serious weight in the world today. It is known as a man-made universal language. But, Isn’t English already the Lingua Franca? If this is true, then why is Esperanto called a universal language? There are so many people who don’t consider Esperanto an international language because English already is, but others say the contrary.

            Ludwik Lazarus Zamenhof was a Polish physician and the creator of Esperanto. His dream was the idea of a world without war and the way to achieve this would be by a universal language because of the lack of communication. Over many years he developed the basis of this language and finally in 1877 he presented it to the world. Esperanto, which means “The one who hopes”, comes mostly from European languages but its grammar and way of building words have many similarities with other languages. Today, it is spoken by thousands of people all over the world and its number of speakers is increasing due to their new fond love for this language.

            Many international meetings, books, magazines, websites, translations, films, and music are done in Esperanto and believe it or not, it has many demands. Esperanto is the only hybrid language that has successfully reached the point of becoming a universal language. Why is this? Because it is considered easy to learn due to its spelling, pronunciation which is close to Spanish and Italian, grammar and vocabulary. Another main reason is because it is neutral. This means it belongs to no country; it belongs to everyone.

Countless people have a negative point of view about Esperanto. Some say that it is not a natural language, but an artificial one. It is in fact an artificial one because it is based on different natural languages. Others say that its vocabulary is very poor, but its structure has carefully preserved necessary grammatical and syntactical elements. It doesn’t mean its poor, it’s actually quite flexible, stable, and its vocabulary has formed new words through time. Numerous people mention that Esperanto has no specific cultural heritage, but it’s a universal soul that facilitates communication.

A universal language is a global spoken language. Today, there is no actual universal language, even though English is considered to be one; not everyone speaks it. Then consequently, English is really not a universal language.  It is possible that one day there will be one, but for it to get a universal status, it needs to be a language that every single person in the world speaks with fluency. Honestly, this is quite impossible to reach at least maybe in the future. It’s amazing how many people today don’t know how to speak English and especially in neighboring countries of where native speakers inhabit. One example I’m very closely related is the State of Northern Baja California, Mexico, where we are just a few minutes away from California, USA, and the majority of people including children still don’t know English while having the advantage of living so close to native English speakers.

            As a conclusion, the Esperanto language has still a long way to go in order to become a universal language because not many people know it exists; even English due to previously criteria, technically it is not a universal language. Everything basically revolves around English and we need it as a country to develop economically, politically, culturally, and educationally and even personally, to establish relations, get a job, etc. English has a long head start and Esperanto is catching up, but still has much to grow and who knows, maybe it will overthrow English and become The International Language. We just have to wait and see.

Loves God Greatly,

Adriana Giletta 

References

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hsb4Jf8f4BI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjxLej9QHXo

http://www.egalite.hu/inf/arguen.htm

http://thelinknewspaper.ca/article/5322

http://www.esperanto-usa.org/node/107

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_universal_language?#slide=3

http://www.ikso.net/libera/pdf/chap1_en.pdf

Can Languages Die?

Languages constantly change and shape through time. They change for a variety of reasons such as social, economic and political pressures, by historical events like invasions, colonization and migration, and even new technologies, industries and products. All these factors influence the society and drive the speakers to create new set of words, phrases and even change pronunciation. But, how can languages survive after many years of facing troubles and difficulties? Can languages “die”?

There are many reasons as to why languages “die”. Besides the death of their speakers due to natural disasters which still happens today, we could consider colonization, migration, and invasion. Sadly, there are numerous languages that are vanishing. “About 3,000 languages are going to become extinct in 1,200 months”, says Černý Miroslav. That’s very alarming because since language represents and preserves the identity and integrity of a culture then we are losing a part of this world. The reason behind the death of these languages is because there are very few speakers that after their death it will eventually vanish.

There are approximately 5,000 to 6,000 languages in the world. In this global context, the first three languages are Chinese with 1,000,000,000, then English with 350,000,000, and at third place Spanish with 250,000,000 speakers. Economic, political, social and cultural power is also in the hands of the speakers of these languages so this helps them survive through time.

 One important factor as to how languages survive has to do with the history of the country where the language is spoken. A remarkable example is the historical development of the English language. The old English was born in the Britannia where the Indo-Europeans tribes, the Anglo-Saxons settled in for the first time. After years of living in that fruitful land, Christianity dropped by and gave the language a great boost by expanding their vocabulary with one of the most influential languages, Latin. Sometime later the Vikings, who spoke Danish came a long and invaded the island influencing and changing English. But that’s not all that happened.

When a language is threatened to disappear, it is then when the speakers must do everything in their power, if they care for their culture, to revive and strengthen their language. Just like in the continuing story of English who showed an astonishing adaptability in surviving another major language collision. The victory of the new French King in the island of Britain changed the face of English forever. Everything was spoken in French and the poor natives who spoke English had to learn it in order to survive. Many years passed by and eventually the French language took the English language’s place as the official one of Britain. It was such an enormous influence. Luckily, the English language was well established, many French lived in English countrysides surrounded by English speakers, and due to King John the French were starting to be pushed away.

             An endangered language can change and improve if its speakers show interest, just like in the history of English. Nothing is forever, but a language like I mentioned before represents us, our culture, we must fight to keep it alive in this ever changing world. We must continue to speak it, to write it in textbooks, articles, etc., and we must teach it. Yes, language changes through time, but it’s a good development. We need to enrich it by adding and expanding our vocabulary. English may be the Lingua Franca in the world but never forget your own language to the extent of making it disappear completely.

Loves God Greatly,
Adriana Giletta

Hello!

My dear readers!

I am new to this whole new world of Blogs, but that is no excuse to not upload something. Anyway, I started this blog a few months back planing on uploading a few things I have written and due to some situations with school and *cough* laziness *cough* I let myself down on that. But now I am back! 

Before uploading anything, I want to tell you a little bit about myself. I really love to hear and talk about anything related to linguistics, culture, and languages. I may have a BA in translation, but I have so much to learn about these topics too. Language constantly changes, so as lovers of this field we must engage everyday on this beautiful journey full of adventures. Not only do I love these topics, but I love puzzles, music, movies, books, TV shows, walking my dog, going to church, spending time with family, and believe it or not even cleaning. I am so lucky to have been living in the State of Baja California, Mexico for about 12 years; it's amazing. I get up every morning and experience nature in the most wonderful way, a breathtaking view of the Pacific Ocean. I'll upload a picture of our view later on.

Anyhow, I really hope you enjoy this blog. I will be uploading texts of my creation and also sharing texts from different authors, though I will obviously give credit; don't want copyright problems. I just want this blog to be informative and also fun where we could all share our ideas and new things we've learned, always showing respect towards each other. Please forgive me if I make any grammatical mistake, or of the sorts. Like I read somewhere, you do your best proofreading when you hit the Sent button. So, feel free to message me for any correction or comment. 

Loves God Greatly,
Adriana Giletta