36
votes
Accepted
Why are country names in Esperanto so "irregular"?
There is nothing especially irregular about country names. Let me explain.
In Esperanto, some names for tools end in "-ilo", e.g. "tranĉilo", "muzikilo" and "kombilo", while for other tools there is ...
- 8,349
29
votes
Accepted
How do you become "Esperantist of the Year" (Esperantisto de la Jaro)?
I feel qualified to answer this, because I was last awarded the prize of Esperantist of the Year!
There is a nominating committee that chooses candidates and then a jury who votes on these candidates....
- 2,314
24
votes
Why doesn't Esperanto use "neutral" days and months?
It has to be remembered that the months of the Gregorian calendar aren't universal.
In the West, the first month is January. In the Jewish calendar, the first month is Nisan; in Muslim countries, the ...
- 13.7k
22
votes
Accepted
Why is Esperanto popular in Iran?
Apparently it was promoted after the Iranian revolution in 1979:
Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran called on Muslims to learn Esperanto and praised its use as a medium for better understanding among ...
- 3,194
20
votes
Accepted
Why do so many prejudices and misinformation exist about Esperanto?
Claude Piron, a very famous Esperantist, wrote an essay about this very topic. He provides the following “underlying anxieties” under some people’s uneducated attacks against Esperanto:
Avoiding ...
- 3,191
19
votes
What are the most common misconceptions about Esperanto?
By far the most common misconception is that Esperanto is a failure (or dead). They are oversimplifying Esperanto as a goal to "Replace English", and since we still speak English (at least 1/7 of the ...
- 11.2k
16
votes
Why do so many prejudices and misinformation exist about Esperanto?
The explanation seems quite simple to me. The natural line of thought is: if Esperanto was a good idea, people would have adopted it; but people haven't adopted it, so it wasn't a good idea, and I won'...
- 13.7k
14
votes
Accepted
Why are so many Esperanto word roots derived from French?
French was the world language prior to the second world war. Latin had great influence in the national school systems. And in scientific nomenclature. Slavic languages were not in high regard. Germany ...
- 3,988
14
votes
Accepted
Why was "kaj" chosen?
Notice that -i, -a, -e, and -u are all grammatical endings in Esperanto - and -et- is a suffix. Kaj (from Greek και) was chosen because it is not a verb ending, and is clearly pronounced, making a ...
- 21.3k
12
votes
What are the most common misconceptions about Esperanto?
"Esperanto has no culture."
To this one, I say "yes and no". People often comment that one of their main reasons for learning a new language is to learn about a culture, to experience its literature, ...
- 1,515
12
votes
What is the link between billionaire investor George Soros and Esperanto?
The father of George Soros, Tivadar Soros (in Esperanto: Teodoro Ŝvarc), was an active Esperanto speaker and writer. George learned Esperanto in his home as a child, but not as a native language. ...
- 8,349
11
votes
Why are country names in Esperanto so "irregular"?
The co-existence of -uj- and -i- forms represents a reform; some considered the -uj- form problematic for country names derived from demonyms because the suffix -uj- is used for containers. Hence ...
- 1,782
11
votes
What are the most common misconceptions about Esperanto?
"Esperanto is a failure because I hadn't heard of it until you told me just now."
That there are no native speakers, that there is no culture, that there are no books written in Esperanto.
That you ...
- 8,217
10
votes
Why do so many prejudices and misinformation exist about Esperanto?
In some cases there is psychological resistance to the idea of Esperanto, as Claude Piron pointed out. But in other cases, people just have assumptions, and their assumptions seem so obvious to them ...
- 3,789
10
votes
Accepted
Kiel pluramemo iĝis populara en Esperantio?
Mi pensas ke ĉiuj kiuj spertis la eŭropan junularan Esperanto-movadon dum la lastaj dek jaroj povas atesti ke pluramemuloj abundas kaj sufiĉe malfermas. Kaj ke estas kreskanta tendenco.
Se nia ...
- 241
10
votes
What was the first Esperanto telegram ever sent?
Jen almenaŭ parta respondo al via informpeto: laŭ Enciklopedio de Esperanto en 1924 Ligo de Nacioj rekomendis al Universala Poŝta Unio akcepti Esperanton kiel „klaran lingvon” kaj en 1925 ĝi efektive ...
- 3,162
10
votes
Has Esperanto ever been successfully reformed?
A real reform in the sense of replacing language elements by new elements has taken place in 1888, when Zamenhof, after an idea by Edgar von Wahl, in his "Aldono al la Dua Libro" changed the temporal ...
- 5,550
9
votes
How has Linux geek culture reacted to Esperanto over the years?
Well the resistance is/was similar as resistance to Esperanto in any other segment of society. In this case, see for example https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=711#c2 or https://...
- 1,510
8
votes
Why do so many prejudices and misinformation exist about Esperanto?
At first a small comment: Please have a look on "The Debunking Handbook" on skepticalscience dot com. They think you should never quote a misinformation without mentioning the truth before and after ...
8
votes
What are the most common misconceptions about Esperanto?
Very common misconception:
Esperanto has no native speakers (usually in conjunction with ".. and therefore it's not a real/usable/working language"). Somewhat unique misconception in that while there ...
- 336
8
votes
Kiel Volapüko influis Esperanton?
Volapuko ne estis vidita detale de Zamenhof, ĝi ne tro multe influis la lingvon. Tamen multaj aferoj sufiĉe similas inter ili kaj diversaj kritikoj nuntempaj pri Esperanto fakte jam estis solvitaj en ...
- 1,456
8
votes
Why is Ŭ the only hat-letter [Ĉ, Ĝ, Ĥ, Ĵ, Ŝ, Ŭ] that doesn't use a circumflex?
As opposed to the ĉapelo, the luneto has an explicit historic inspiration. Wikipedia states that
It is thought that ŭ was created by analogy with the Belarusian letter ў (Cyrillic u with breve), ...
- 3,403
8
votes
Who is "Kola Adzaj" - an African Esperantist present at the 1937 World Congress in Warsaw, Poland?
https://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kola_Ajayi
Kola Ajayi
Kola AJAYI [aĝaji], kristana antaŭnomo: Nathaniel (naskiĝis la 23-an de aprilo 1906 en Warri, Niĝerio, mortodato nekonata) estis joruba ...
- 101
7
votes
Accepted
Kiel Volapüko influis Esperanton?
En la libro Menade Bal Püki Bal (volapuka titolo sed kun artikoloj en la germana kaj en Esperanto) estas interesa artikolo de Geraldo Mattos kun la titolo "La Polapüka Esperanto". La ĉefa temo estas ...
- 21.3k
7
votes
Accepted
What is the origin of the Esperanto green star ("Verda Stelo")?
The Verda Stelo was created by Zamenhof in 1892 as a symbol for Esperantists.
When asked about this, he said,
"It seems to me, that my attention was drawn to the color green by Mr. [R. H.] ...
- 1,869
7
votes
Accepted
When did Couturat say Esperanto lacks recursion?
I think someone who contributed to the Wikipedia entry simply doesn't understand what recursion is, and interpreted some other criticism to mean lack of recursion. Esperanto obviously has recursive ...
- 144
6
votes
What are the most common misconceptions about Esperanto?
Probably no one knows which of the many misconceptions about Esperanto are the most common ones. I don't know any research about this.
We also have to define what "most common" means, e. g.:
...
6
votes
Accepted
How did Ido influence Esperanto grammatically?
Well, maybe not exactly grammar...
Wikipedia says "Modern Esperanto has received some influence from Ido in areas such as a clarification of the rules for word derivation and suffixes like -oz- ("...
- 8,217
6
votes
Are there good reasons for the prefixes and suffixes in the table of correlatives?
I think this was clearly a case of Zamenhof using a system that was in common use among Romance languages.
For example the proximal pronouns in French are (ce, ici, ci) and in Italian it's (ci)
So, ...
- 444
6
votes
How did Ido influence Esperanto grammatically?
If we compare the Fundamental grammar paragraph after paragraph,
§1: Ido added a kind of plural article le - not in Esperanto.
§2: Ido has plural -i, the accusative is restricted to seldom cases. ...
- 5,550
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible