What is the position of Esperanto in Poland?

I did know this: I speak Esperanto.
What interests me is to know whether anyone does in Poland - and / or does anyone else on these boards?
Is it taught in schools and Universities in Poland?

It used to be popular few decades ago. Now not really anymore.

is there any point to learning esperanto rather than just as an academic venture?

like latin...

Actually, I consider learning Polish to be an academic venture: I am unlikely ever to actually have a call to use it!
With Esperanto I can travel all over the world and read literature from many different countries - not to mention the huge benefits of being able to communicate "on a level playing field" on the web with people who don't speak English as well as I do.

just out of interest...

...where can you travel in the world where speaking esperanto will enable you to communicate with the locals better than speaking english will... and how much literature from many different countries is available in esperanto but not english... and what is the likelyhood of walking into a pub in some far and distant land and bumping into a person who speaks esperanto better than english...?

and do you think its fair to say that those who choose esperanto over english are comparable to those who choose betamax over vhs...?

So do I.

My father published a book on esperanto. It was more popular 10 years ago than it is now.

Hundreds of places - China, Hungary, Brazil, The Congo... four continents good enough for you? Not everyone speaks fluent English you know: look here:

petitionspot.com/petitions/Esperantistoj/signatures/7


Quite a lot: People write in Esperanto, you know, it's not just translation!
William Auld was nominated for the Nobel Prize for literature in 1999 for his work in Esperanto: In a speech in 2001 at the National Library of Scotland, to which he donated his Esperanto collection, he said: "My love of the Esperanto language in no way diminishes my love of English; and that is why it sets my teeth on edge to hear foreigners massacring my mother tongue as they inevitably do when using it. None of this applies to Esperanto." (I definitely concur on that last point!)

And if I have to read a translation, which obviously I do as I can't read the originals in languages I don't understand, I'd rather read an Esperanto one than any other language: you know what they say: translator=traitor! I reckon an Esperanto translation has to be the closest to the original.


Actually some French Esperanto speaking friends bumped into (quite literally) some Esperanto speakers in a Czech department store, so maybe not as unlikely as you might think!


Interesting comparison that. But the whole point is it's not a choice: you don't have to choose one to the exclusion of the other. You can learn to communicate in Esperanto in a fraction of the time it would take you to be able to utter the simplest phrases in a more complex language (Polish , for example!). And depending on what your mother tongue is, you might actually gain a better insight into foreign languages in general which will make learning another one easier than if you hadn't learnt Esperanto. (This is not my imagination, but the result of scientifically conducted experiments.)

Why not look into it further, you might be pleasantly surprised!

I've picked up some off my father.
I know enough to correct his most obvious mistakes.

thank you for your informative post

i have read about Esperanto at various times in the past but have always wondered really what the point is - i struggle so much learning foreign languages that it has always struck me as just 'another' language to try and get to grips with... and one that seems to be competing with english...

despite still favouring my betamax/VHS analogy your post has encouraged me to look at it again - thanks

Any language that was opposed by both Hitler and Stalin must have something going for it! (See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto#Esperanto_and_20th-century_totalitarianism.) I taught myself a little some time ago, but I never became fluent.

Esperanto is very easy to learn, especially if you speak English or a Latin-derived language.
There are something like 16 rules to learn and nothing irregular.
I have met a few Esperantists - quite a strange, but likeable bunch.

I also once got on a Warsaw tram with Esperanto emblazoned across the front.
Dr. Zamenhof was from Bialystok, I believe. Luckily the tram stopped before there.

Right, esperanto is based on simplified latin and is very easy to learn that's why it's thought of as an international language, easy to learn by any nation.

...and Arabs and Asians, Africans, Oceanians ?... :P Don't know...

uea.org/info/angle/an_ghisdatigo.html

"the language also has much in common with isolating languages like Chinese, while its internal word structure has affinity with agglutinative languages like Turkish, Swahili and Japanese."

"There are Esperanto speakers all over the world, with notable concentrations in countries as diverse as China, Japan, Brazil, Iran, Madagascar, Bulgaria and Cuba."

"The first symposium of Esperanto speakers in Arab countries took place in Amman in 2000, the sixth All-Americas Congress was held in Cuba in 2004, and the fourth Asian Congress took place in Kathmandu in 2005."


You're very welcome: I think you'll find it's anything but "just another language". They say in 70 hours study you can reach the same or a better level of language than in 700 hours study of English!

I wanted to ask you to provide a sample text in esperanto - maybe something everybody knows like the Lord's Prayer, but decided to look it up myself:

Patro nia, kiu estas en la ĉielo,
sanktigata estu Via nomo.
Venu Via regno.
Fariĝu Via volo,
kiel en la ĉielo, tiel ankaŭ sur la tero.

Nian panon ĉiutagan donu al ni hodiaŭ.
Kaj pardonu al ni niajn ŝuldojn,
kiel ankaŭ ni pardonas al niaj ŝuldantoj.
Kaj ne konduku nin en tenton,
sed liberigu nin de la malbono.

Ĉar Via estas la regno
kaj la potenco
kaj la gloro eterne.

Amen.

Dunno why old Dr Zamenhof did it this way, but using 'via' for 'your' doesn't sound too reasonable since it is the Italian word for road (Fr. - vie). IMHO something like 'vo' (eg French votre, vos, Sp. vuestro) would have been a better choice for the possessive adj. 'your'.