Difference between revisions of "Esperanto"

Revision as of 00:02, 3 August 2006

Esperanto is a synthetic language created by a Russian Pole, Ludwig Lazarus Zamenhof alias Doktor Esperanto (one who hopes), in the 1870s to aid in international communication and peace.

Esperanto has been cited as the easyest language to learn, since it was made to be an international second language. It's spelling is invariable, it's grammar is simple and it's vocabulary is closely adapted from Indo-European roots (with several more germanic roots). E.g., "lakto" is the subject noun for "milk", "lakton" is the object noun, etc. This makes it a natural choice for the NationStates game.

Esperanto is not very easy to adopt in every county, however. Esperanto was once the chief lingua franca in Athens and Midlands until 1982, when Greek was gradually adopted between 1967-1981. Meanwhile English was becoming popular since 1971. Greek became an official language alongside English in November 1989. Today, the people of Athens and Midlands are strongly critical of Esperanto, because it is poorly constructed. There was once plans to ban the speaking of Esperanto in public, but it was turned down in Parliament in April 2005.

One of Northern Sushi's two languages, Sushiian Symbol is based on the Esperanto language.

See the full article for more real world details. There is also an entire Esperanto-language Wikipedia.

Esperanto and Floydism

Esperanto is an important language for Floydian nations, there are several nations with Esperanto as their National Language in the Democratic Union. In the Early days of Floydism, english was used as the primary language, but due to the freeform nature of Floydism, Esperanto was adopted as the way to communicate between floydians. The use as Esperanto as a National Language started in Tetris L-Shaped Block and quickly spread to Philanchez, Palixia and finally, Spooty. Now Esperanto is used as both a national language and a liturgical language of Floydian Nations. Because of Floydian use, The Glorious Empire banned Esperanto in order to crack down on followers of the Church of Floyd.

Palixian Esperanto

Palixian Esperanto varies from regular Esperanto much like Palixian varies from English, the main idea of the language is to flip the words around but still keep them in the same order, this is done because it is more easily prounouced then normal Esperanto, yet Regular Esperanto remains an official language also Examples:
English: Hi, How are you?
Regular Esperanto: Saluton, Kielas vin fartas?
Palixian Esperanto: Notulas, Saleik niv satraf?

Differences

Differences

• "Palixian Esperanto" unlike Esperanto, does use the latin æ symbol

• "Palixian Esperanto" imposes consistent rules on the use of endings to transform a word from one meaning or part of speech to another, thus simplifying the amount of vocabulary memorization that is necessary.

• If a word is spelled with two letters that cannot normall be put next to each other the second letter is prounounced or a different prounouciation is used

the "Palixian Esperanto Alphabet" is as follows: a b c ĉ æ d e ê f g ĝ h ĥ i j ĵ k l m n o p r s ŝ t u ŭ v z (x has been added as an X is not used in regular Esperanto)

Block Esperanto

After Floydism took hold in Tetris L-Shaped Block, the government began a transition from Russian to Esperanto as the official language. In an attempt to make the language simpler to learn, a specially modified version was authorized. While the government still referred to it as Esperanto, internationally it gained the name Block Esperanto.

The main idea behind the reform was to acclimate the Cyrillic-using population to the Latin alphabet. Therefore Cyrillic letters that looked similar to Latin ones were used in place of actual Latin symbols.

The official alphabet was as follows: Д Ъ C Ĉ D Є F G Ĝ H Ĥ I J Ĵ K L M П Ф P Q Я S T Ц V Ш Ж Ч ζ (Ŭ was phased out, but in most signs a Ц with the breve on it appeared. The Ж had no sound and was only used to mark acronyms).

In addition to the change of alphabets, Block Esperanto featured the removal of lowercase letters and the accusative case suffix, as well as the addition of upside down exclamation points (¡) and question marks (¿) at the beginning of sentences requiring them (similar to Spanish).

Example:

English: Hi, How are you?

Esperanto: Saluton, Kielas vin fartas?

"Block" Esperanto: ¿SДLЦTФП, KIЄLДS VIП FДЯTДS?

The reform ultimately proved to be short-lived and unsuccessful, as multiple studies showed that it actually hindered the learning of Esperanto rather than helped it. Many Russian speakers found it much easier to learn new symbols instead of new meaning for old ones. Eventually the Tetroid government outlawed all Block Esperanto, and it was condemned to history books as one of the greatest failures in modern linguistics.