Re: Academic/scientific journals in Esperanto?

From: Seán O'Leathlóbhair (jwlawler_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 02/09/05 

Date: 9 Feb 2005 06:45:19 -0800

KaGu:-} wrote:
> <jwlawler@yahoo.com> skrev i meddelandet
> news:1107939702.649397.159130@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
> Damir Malkoc wrote:
> ...
> >I don't watch soc.culture.esperanto. I am seeing this thread
because
> >it is crossposted to sci.lang.
>
> And I usually does not watch sci.lang but as it is crossposted to
> soc.culture.Esperanto I did observed your message.
> In order to avoid a tedious translation into Esperanto I decided to
send my
> comment just to sci.lang.

Thanks very much for your long and interesting response.

Please note that I am not anti-Esperanto. I don't enter Esperanto
groups and criticise it. I only comment on Esperanto when it gets
mentioned in other groups that I do frequent. Even then, I usually
only comment if I believe that excessive claims (of ease or utility)
are being made. Calling "Guglon" ugly was unusual. I don't think that
this is a very severe or offensive criticism.

> >It is subjective but "Guglon" sounds ugly to me. It suggests a
science
> >fiction monster.
>
> >A more objective criticism is that it is quite different from the
> >original proper name: Google. The original has been forced to fit
into
> >Esperanto. When the source language shares the Roman script,
English
> >is usually able to a borrowing alone. We may pronounce it so badly
> >that a native of the original language does not recognise it but
they
> >should still recognise it in writing. I know enough Esperanto to
> >understand "Ni havas" but I would have struggled with "Guglon"
without
> >the translation.
>
> And I know what "I have" means, but didn't understand the expression
"You
> are a joke of the first water" that some English people use to
characterise
> some persons without consulting experts on English. (I do of course
not
> think that YOU are that kind of joke ;-) )

I have never heard the expression: "A joke of the first water". I am
sorry but I am not sure what you are trying to say in this paragraph.

> >I don't like to use Google as a verb but many do. I have not
noticed
> >any significant confusion caused by the usage. Can you give an
example
> >of when using a word as noun, adjective and verb is a problem? They
> >exist but I did not think that they were common. One I know and
like
> >is: "Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana". The
> >parsing of one sentence encourages an amusing misinterpretation of
the
> >other. But I don't see this as a common problem in English.
>
> In Swedish one can "deleta", "eska" "gogla" and so on. I.e. making
English
> word sound as they are Swedish.
> In English they write "Goeranson" instead of "Göransson" "Sorenson"
instead
> of "Sörenson" and so on.

What were the English originals? Note that I only disliked the
Esperantification of Google because it was a proper name. I don't
object to naturalising other adopted words. If I respelt your name
without your consent, would you mind? I would not normally respell
someone's name without consulting them.

The convention of replacing ö with oe was adopted from German where I
believe that it is standard when ö is not available. However it is no
longer common. Today, either the ö is retained or the umlaut is just
ignored completely. What do the Swedes do with foreign names
containing characters that they do not use? For example, the French
name: François.

> The fact is: Nobody is forcing you to use Esperanto, but I am often
forced
> to use English as it is becoming more frequent that one does not
always
> supply a translation in Swedish of the manual when I by certain
objects that
> are manufactured in the US or in GB. In my point of veiw it would be
fair
> play, if I by law, had the right to demand that all electronic
apparatus
> should have a manual translated in flawless Swedish. (That kind of
gem does
> hardly exist.;-) as those that I have had the honour to read actually
is
> more of a "joke of the first water" than a serious translation to
Swedish.)

As explained above, I am not trying to force my opinions on
Esperantists. I only comment on Esperanto when it comes to me.

An alternative to reading English manuals is to boycott companies that
do not supply Swedish manuals. Nobody is forcing you to buy these
products. Sadly for you, it is a simple case of economics. How much
would it cost to provide the translation? How many more sales would it
generate? Imagine a Japanese company that is making a new product and
is considering the manuals. Unless the product is only likely to
appeal to the Japanese themselves, an English translation is probably
worthwhile. Even if the product is unlikely to appeal outside Asia,
the English translation is probably worthwhile. How about the Swedish
translation? It will probably cost more than the English one (I guess
that Japanese - Swedish translators are rarer than Japanese - English)
and the potential extra market is much smaller, how many Swedes would
buy the product if it had a Swedish manual but not if it had only an
English one?

If your desired law was passed, my guess is that many companies would
withdraw from the Swedish market. If the products were highly
desirable, they would then probably re-enter as grey imports (that is,
through unofficial channels).

My own company did once translate its software into Swedish. The extra
sales generated were very few. We still translate into French, Chinese
and various other languages. It is just economics. Translating into
French or Chinese does get us many sales that we would not otherwise
get. Translating into Swedish gets very few. Esperanto has never been
on the agenda.

We are quite used to flawed English manuals. English is not always the
original and the translation is often bad, sometimes it is
incomprehensible. Even if you get your Swedish manuals, it is likely
that they would translated from the English rather than the original
Japanese, Chinese, Korean etc. They are unlikely to get better and may
get worse.

> This means that I have had to spend some 1000 to 2000 hours studying

> English in order to be able to understand , in some extent, what is
said or
> written in English. As I see it is a waist of time because I do not
need
> (yet) English to get around in my daily life.

Surely you can find some other uses for your English. Do you ever
watch foreign films, listen to pop music, read foreign news, post to
newsgroups etc? Even if you want to listen to Abba, you need English.
Why did they choose to sing in English? I guess that it was economics
again.

> I always asked my self what English speaking people are doing while I
am
> trying to master this very primitive language where I have to
remember that
> " I am, You are, He / She is " and some other features in the
language. I
> would of course never state that English is ugly, strange or in any
other
> way imperfect. That would be offending to those who are using this
language.

Some of us try to learn other languages. We are all forced to learn
French in school though I admit that few of us get very far.

You have started from a language quite close to English. French and
Spanish speakers probably need even more time. How much effort does a
Chinese need to learn English? What do you do while they are mastering
concepts such as plurals, case, and tense? You may have had to learn
irregular English verbs but you did not need to learn the concept of
tense.

There are obvious advantages to being born in an English speaking
country but there are disadvantages as well. There is no strong motive
to learn another language. We don't have a convenient private language
when travelling.

I know a little of many other languages but only a lot of English.
This is because which other language may be useful to me has changed
many times in my life. To become fluent, I need to stop in a single
foreign country for a significant time rather than keep moving about as
I do.

One of the languages that I have tried is Esperanto. I made less
progress in it than any other. The extra ease did not make up for the
lack of use or ability to practise. I made much more progress in
Spanish which is easy by the standards of natural European languages.
The big advantage was that I have opportunities to practise Spanish and
it is useful. Even my Mandarin is not far behind my Esperanto. Even
here in the UK, there is more opportunity to practise Mandarin than
Esperanto. Just last weekend there was a Mandarin film on television.
My DVD of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon has a Mandarin sound track. I
have never seen a film in Esperanto. If I succeed in Mandarin, I will
be able to converse with almost an extra quarter of the planet.

> As I do understand this principle does not apply to people who are
convinced
> that Esperanto is useful. To mi Esperanto is the savoir from having
to learn
> a lot of other languages that I have very litle use of in my
everyday life.

I believe that the artificial nature of Esperanto does make it
different. It is illogical to criticise the design of English, Swedish
or Mandarin. They were not designed. It is valid to criticise the
design of Esperanto, it was designed.

> By using Esperanto I am able to communicate with people who are
speaking
> Chinese, French, German, Polish, Russian and a few other languages
that I
> would have had to learn as I find it rather impolite to force other
people
> to use English when they are not prepared to use English. The same
goes for
> Esperanto. If you are not prepared to use Esperanto, than it is up to
you
> refuse to use it, as I have the right so refuse to use English if I
do not
> find it convenient to spend a lot of time to try to translate al
strange
> sayings that I encounter in English.

I have yet to meet someone who speaks Esperanto but not English, or
speaks Esperanto better than English. I am not convinced that learning
it will give me many more people to speak to. Natural languages such
as Spanish and Mandarin will give me much more people to talk to.
Count the number of extra people that you can talk to and divide it by
the effort expended. I am sure that Spanish and Mandarin will come out
way ahead. Even Latin would probably give more return for the effort.
My father speaks Latin and has sometimes used it to talk to Catholic
priests who do not speak English. So in my personal experience, Latin
has scored above Esperanto for utility. And that is not considering
the wealth of literature that Latin would give access to. There have
even been movies with Latin soundtracks.

I agree that forcing someone to speak English is impolite. For that
reason, I always try to learn at least a few basic words and phrases
when travelling. I just don't think that learning Esperanto will help
prevent me being impolite.

The idea of talking to someone in a language that is native to neither
of us is attractive. I have this experience but it was French in
Portugal.

> If I do use English that is to be considered a courtesy to people who
are
> using this language as their first language but are not able to use
my first
> language or Esperanto.

Jag talar Svensk men jag talar bättre Dansk och Engelsk.
 
> KaGu:-}
>
> --
> Seán O'Leathlóbhair 

--
Seán O'Leathlóbhair

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