Esperanto does change, in that new items of vocabulary are introduced from time to time. For example, 'mojosa', the word for 'cool' is only about thirty years old.
No practical uses! What! Over recent years I have had guided tours of Berlin, Douala (loo it up!), Yerevan and Milan in this planned language. I have discussed philosophy with a Slovene poet, humour on television with a Bulgarian TV producer. I’ve discussed what life was like in East Berlin before the wall came down and in Armenia when it was a Soviet republic, how to cook perfect spaghetti, the advantages and disadvantages of monarchy, and so on. I recommend it as a very useful and practical way to overcome language barriers.
Take an unguided wander around the net. You wil find political stuff, religious stuff, scientific stuff - all in Esperanto.
Your experience may serve as a rebuttal to the OP about lack of "practical use", but with your couple of posts here I feel you are being very disingenuous and leaving some key things out that would put Esperanto in a bad light. Yes, the Esperanto movement does have a network of proponents around the world that is close-knit and local Esperantists are often willing to show a foreigner around. However, among them are so many weirdos and eccentrics that a person might well be served better by learning either English or the local language and getting all his hospitality and local information through that instead.
When I was active in the Esperanto movement, it was common for my fellow Esperantists to joke or kvetch about how certain kinds of political movements or bizarre lifestyles would come out in force at congresses and make everyone else cringe, or how creepy or insufferable one's Pasporta Servo host turned out to be. Something as idealistic and unfashionable as Esperanto is bound to attract more odd people than when using a language like English that is more utilitarian and has less overt shared values.
There's some truth to that, but learning the local language for everywhere you want to travel is very difficult, and learning English can only get you so far.
The great thing about Esperanto is that the speakers are very enthusiastic to speak it with other people, so you'll get better than average hospitality. You're also right about the weirdos, so you need to be very careful when selecting a host.
I really like the idea of Amikumu, where you chat with people in Esperanto before meeting in person. Meeting more Esperantists is great because you can discuss experiences using Esperanto abroad.
I am marginally into the language (I lurk about on Esperanto subreddits, have done the Duolingo course, and visit Lernu.net periodically), but I wouldn't call myself fluent or anything. However, I might try to use it if I go somewhere with generally weak English skills, like Japan or parts of each Europe.
he is probably leaving these things out because he didn't make the experience. or didn't notice it because it didn't seem out of the ordinary for him.
those wierdos and eccentrics showing up is a sign of the openness and tolerance that is lived in the esperanto community. so yes, esperanto is bound to attract those people.
eccentrics by necessity favor communities where openness and tolerance for their lifestyle is practiced. so they will gravitate to communities where they are welcome.
to the chinese for example, all western foreigners look like wierdos and eccentrics. the sideeffect is that weird and eccentric westerners in china are treated with the same respect as everyone else because the chinese for the most part can't tell the difference, unlike at home where they don't fit in.
but those eccentrics are part of the early adopters in the innovation adoption lifecycle. they have less opportunities to find acceptance elsewhere. esperanto presents an opportunity for them.
the challenge of the esperanto community is to break out of the early adopter phase and find a way to let the language appeal to the majority.
The problem would be to get the thousand brains to agree.Now thousands and thousands of brains are applied every day to stretching anbd applying Esperanto to all aspects of life. I have found Esperanto of a lot of use when travelling on my own, to get my bearings within a country. Esperanto may not be perfect, but I've used it successfully in Africa, South America and Europe, and it does the job, serving as a unique common language on my travels in, for example, Armenia and Bulgaria.
Esperanto speakers are highly organised. There is a Jarlibro (Yearbook) published annually giving access to a network of local representatives. These people, scattered all over the world and act as 'consuls', providing help and information, and passing on the visitor from another country to his/her contacts. Esperanto does have an Academy, but it is the people who decide in practice.
Yesterday (21 October 2017) I chaired a gathering of Esperanto speakers in Conwy, north Wales, UK. Present were speakers of Welsh, Tagalog, Slovene, Estonian, Brazilian Portuguese and maybe a few others besides English. We had Esperantyo as our common language. I have spoken Esperanto for precisely fifty years, and throught that time I have seen Esperanto as an aŭiliary language (sorry, my keyboard has just gone into Esperanto mode!), i.e. a language which values our native tongues while enabling trouble-free communication. I speak Welsh, French and German, by the way, and have an ability to bluff my way in a few more languages. Life is too short to learn them all. Keep on fighting for your smaller languages. There is plenty of room in the world for them - and for Esperanto.
You suggest that the choice is between taking Esperanto seriously as a proposal for a world auxiliary language or take it as a hobby. My experience relates to neither of those. I see Esperanto as a remarkable success story, by far the most successful auxiliary language. It has survived wars and revolutions and economic crises and continues to attract people to learn and speak it. Over 400,000 people have signed up to the Duolingo Esperanto course in the last year. Esperanto works. I’ve used it in about seventeen countries over recent years. I recommend it to anyone, as a way of making friendly local contacts in other countries. English is not enough! I’ve made friends around the world through Esperanto that I would never have been able to communicate with otherwise. And then there’s the Pasporta Servo, which provides free lodging and local information to Esperanto-speaking travellers in over 90 countries. Over recent years I have had guided tours of Berlin, Douala and Milan in this planned language. I have discussed philosophy with a Slovene poet, humour on television with a Bulgarian TV producer. I’ve discussed what life was like in East Berlin before the wall came down and in Armenia when it was a Soviet republic, how to cook perfect spaghetti, the advantages and disadvantages of monarchy, and so on. I recommend it as a very practical way to overcome language barriers.
I will never learn more than the basics in Armenian or Slovene or Finnish, but I make use of Esperanto to get to know about the history, economy and the legal systems of countries I visit.
Unlike you, I see Esperanto as a remarkable success story. It has survived wars and revolutions and economic crises and continues to attract people to learn and speak it. Esperanto works. I’ve used it in about seventeen countries over recent years. I recommend it to anyone, as a way of making friendly local contacts in other countries.
It depends how you define success. It is indeed a remarkable achievement to have survived this long and have a (growing? I think so) speaker community, and I could agree it is worth learning. But the goal was not to just work, or have a small community of speakers. It aimed to become a world-wide known language for international communication. In this sense, it would need to have an importance of the order English has today to be considered a success, so I think that "not very successful" is even a bit too generous.
People learn Esperanto because it's useful - especially if you travel or have international interests. I have used Esperanto in Argentina, Cameroon and about fifteen European countries. We are seeing an upsurge in Esperanto at the moment because of the appearance of the Duolingo course. See:
Duolinghttp://www.liberafolio.org/9-000-homoj-eklernis-esperanton-e...
Two days after the launch of Esperanto course at the popular language learning site Duolingo, the course has already gained almost ten thousand participants. The course still is not even officially launched, but is in its test phase. The course opened in its testing phase on Thursday 28 May at eight o'clock in the evening (M.E.T.) In less than two days, the course already had 9,600 registered participants, although it has not yet been actively advertised.
I see things differently. I see Esperanto as a remarkable success story. It has survived wars and revolutions and economic crises and continues to attract people to learn and speak it. Esperanto works. I’ve used it in about seventeen countries over recent years. I recommend it to anyone, as a way of making friendly local contacts in other countries.
I think it's odd for people to argue that "it failed" when it's the only language to have started from scratch and taken off at all; there's no precedent to compare it with - how long "should" a language take to go from non-existent to popular?
