Is Esperanto really the solution ?

2008-12-21T06:36:00.000-08:00

From the beginnings the real goal of a planned IAL is to introduce a fair and neutral way of communications. In addition, the IAL must protect small languages and the cultures associated to them. Clearly many auxlangers in the past saw these goals, but concentrated on building languages with easy vocabularies for European tongue speakers ,either because the civilized world at the beginning of the century included only countries where a european tongue is spoken, or they believed that an easy european vocabulary will attract more people. Actually they may succeeded in attracting more speakers in the past, but now relatively it's different. People in the east now can see no difference between using English and using these planned languages. All of them with foreign and difficult vocabulary for the eastern people. A vocabulary with a resemblance to western languages has no advantage in the east ,but a fair language for all has the advantage everywhere.

European auxlangers in the past are excused. Now in the era of globalization, western auxlangers have a totally different point of view . Now auxlangs became worldlangs. Many western auxlangers like Dmitri Ivanov, Jens Wilkenson, Olivier Simon , Risto Kupsala and Dana Nutter are including the beggist western and eastern languages to create their projects.

Today younger people are heavily exposed to foreign media and foreign languages. Auxlangers and worldlangers try hard to help in their way ,because they don't want anyone to suffer the loss of purity of his\her mother tongue.The beginning is losing a language's purity which will end up by losing the language itself. Losing the language could happen very easily if it was a small language which are the majority in number.

Yes, we need a communicating language that facilitate many economic and cultural exchanges ,but we do not want it to be a destructive language that invades smaller languages ,starting by ignoring them. We are talking about losing our own natural diversity.

The weakest point in Esperanto is its Eurocentric vocabulary. I encourage the use of Esperanto in the European Union. Esperanto can be Europe's official language, but not the world's. And the question is which conlang should be used?

In fact, there is a whole new type of constructed languages called Worldlangs which take words from all around the world. I am a worldlanger and one of the first esperantists in Libya. I have asked Esperantists to contact me with any Esperantist in my country ,but their wasn't. I started working on my own project in 2005 to create a language that has words from all living languages in the world. The language is called Ardano (The earth language) . I published a book about Ardano in 2008. And the message is to spread a sensation of equity and equality all arounf the world.

Ardano includs words from the mother tongues of all people. And I think this will provide a very important basis if we want to convince the whole world to use peacefully a language for international communications. Ardano recognizes the importance and the presence of every culture as a part of our world. Our ideals tells us that there is enough place for all nations on this planet to live ,and there is enough place for every language in the world language. All languages must participate in the creation of the world language. This is very important if we want to live in the fairest world.

In general Esperanto movement has a very good will ,but I cannot stop a tribe man or people of major cities in the third world to feel uncomfortable about Esperanto because of its biased lexicon. We do not want live with weak nations that will continue to talk and argue about being marginalized or even to talk about racism or imperialism which I don't think it's deliberate . Such arguements should not be taken to the high-tech future lying ahead. The problem does not lie in the biased dictionary, but a European tongue speaker learns faster and speaks better Esperanto than the one from the rest of the world. This is not the problem , but the real thing is that the easiness for europeans caused Esperanto culture which was intended to be universal became also Eurocentric.

In Worldlangs we see equity and equality. We are talking about planned languages. And getting away from the real neutrality will be counted twice. Simply because the language is not a natural one. Some people might think that the exclusion of their mother tongue is intentional.

I think there is enough space for few other helpful active conlang communities to emerge. And in the end the presence of different proposals will give the world the chance to choose the best language or the best languages from the best proposals. I think the presence of three or four different powerful competing conlangs will cause more public attention which will make the common IAL goal to become closer. Look at the most popular game in the world. Soccer clubs will not get those huge numbers of fans if they weren't competing with other clubs. Of course besides the beauty of the game, it needed competition. I mean, If there was only friendly games ,nobody would love soccer that much. In auxlangs movement we need a fair and open competition, and Esperantists should not worry because even in the worst cases for them , I mean if another conlang was chosen to be the world language. Esperanto is powerful enough to survive besides continuing to be the mother tongue of many people.

Here we are not talking about Zamenhof who tried to bring the world closer. We are talking about the language ,and not about the vast majority of its speakers who are very nice educated people. Esperanto was designed along time before the appearance of the global village.

I know Esperantists. And I hope that we all can join together to fight a very dangerous phenomenon in the IAL movement which is the presence of some people who deride smaller languages ,artificial and natural or those who think that no other invention can be better than their language. But my important message to this very small portion of people is that we will never succeed in building and using a neutral and fair international language or in stopping the heartbreaking extinction of many human languages if there is somebody who insists to suppress ambitious new inventions. We must give the global benefits an advantage over our own interests.In contrast I think more people in the IAL movement including Esperantists became supportive to the new requirements of the optimal neutral and fair lingua franca.

In my opinion the optimal IAL should be similar to Esperanto. I think Esperanto is a pioneering piece of work that only lacks a neutral lexicon, and that is why I have adopted many basic grammar rules from Esperanto. In addition adding some Ido improvements, and in addition an important universal touch to make the grammar easy, neutral and fair for everybody.

Why a worldlang ?Because a worldlang is a friendly language to the whole world since it is not biased to a cultural group. And this will encourage all of us to use it. Learning a worldlang will help to expand our world view more than what we expect. It starts by accepting the presence of all other languages in the world. Using a worldlang with words from all around the world will give a chance for many people to build personal contacts with those natural languages involved specially the endangered ones. Many people would love more languages if they used words from them in everyday language. Many people if they loved other languages will help protecting them.

We need to create a conlang community that not just loves that conlang and ignores other languages, but we need a community that really loves all natural languages in the world, because it uses a language with words from everywhere. And this will make that community very helpful in protecting small languages. At least this will be the right beginning. Ardano can provide a community that is in real contact with the global linguistic problems, both the solution for the international language and endangered languages problem.

Ardano is not alone. Worldlangs are so diverse. You can choose and support your favorite language. Just open this link (Risto Kupsala's page) and you will see the world through a new window.

Yes, Worldlangs are still an atom weight in front of a giant Esperanto, but this will never stop me to show my total support in a long fight to gain all people's linguistic rights. Ardano is based on two sentences. The first is "All human languages deserve to be the world language" and "All human languages deserve to be learn and spoken" Ardano is one way to achieve the two sentences. When I think about Ardano the first thing I remember is its goal which is to be the greatest living symbol of social and linguistic justic in every day life. A world language that includes all nations. Africa's languages , Asia's languages , european languages and the languages of aboriginal people of the new worlds , all are side by side in one tongue.

Worldlangs were created to compete for a palce in the international communications ,whoever was the other competitor. Not to beat the other languages, because they are not an enemy, but the goal is a better fair world.

I've talked with an Indian professore teaching in Libya about the differences between using Esperanto and using Ardano.His mother tongue was Kannada which is spoken by 35 millions in India. When I have said to him that Ardano contains words from Kannada, he smiled. And I will never forget his beautiful smile. Nobody can imagine how happy these people would be when they know that the world language containes words from their mother tongue. I don't know what to say.But it was really a very emotional moment that I will never forget.

People of the world say we want our beloved languages to participate in the fair and neutral lingua franca. We want a language that is closer to all people. We do not want a language that will end up by turning all smaller languages into smaller versions of the strongest language. We have to protect our diversity ,because we are not like those aliens from the far space in the movies who have the same shape, thinking and behavior!

We will be united by mutual respect. Humanity is full of life, because people have different points of view. And building the everlasting peace for our earth will never be achieved unless the strong people help and protect the weak people. and this is the basic idea of Ardano. and you can know more about Ardano by following these links. You can find many things starting from lessons to how could Ardano community save endangered languages

A fair and neutral worldlang that really deserves to be called everyone's second language

You can find lessons to learn Ardano here

Ardano course (Ten lessons)

If you are interested in Ardano ,but you speak another language ,you do not have to quit your language in order to join Ardano ,because we say for example that a true Ardanist can be an esperantitst in the same time and vice versa. Ardano is a broad language and its supporters are broad-minded

Visit these useful links.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ardano

http://sites.google.com/site/theworldlanguageardano/

http://ardano.weebly.com

http://ardano.tripod.com

Thank you for your patience

Is Esperanto really the solution?

Is Esperanto really the solution ?