Neutral Language
Esperanto is a neutral language in that it does not have any specific ties to a religion, culture, or nation. All other languages such as Japanese, English, Swahili, French, Russian, Hebrew, etc all have national, religious, cultural, political, and/or historical connotations, and baggage associated with them.
Americans want English to remain the lingua franca, the Japanese want Japanese, the Russians, want Russian, and many will oppose a language other than their native language simply because it is not their language or because there is national (French), historical (German), or political (English) problem from some countries which would keep it from being accepted.
French was the international language prior to World War II for a long time and then English took over after showing its economic and political dominance throughout that war. This change is imminent especailly as world’s political and economic landscape changes. What will be the next International Language? Whose will it be?
For native English speakers who do not speak Indian or any dialect of Chinese learning these languages can can be quite the daunting thought. The way to protect US interests and to level the playing field for all is to adopt Esperanto which has no cultural or national ties. It is orders-of-magnitudes easier to learn and gain a conversational understanding – somewhere in the realm of a little over 1 year of active study.
Constructed Language
Some would say that the fact that Esperanto is a constructed language is a disadvantage, but I will agrue that this is a distinct advantage when applied to an international audience. The native languages that most people speak have naturally and organically evolved much to the chagrin and frustration to a person who is trying to pick them up as second languages.
If you try to pick up a second language you have to deal with many gramattical inconsistencies and exceptions inherent in most organically grown “natural” languages, slang, as well as colloquial usage and pronuncuation. Esperanto spares you pretty much all of this, because it is a non-organic constructed language built with the intent to be easy to learn and consistent.
In English we have a few ways that have oprganically grown for us to make the ‘o’ sound as in the following situations: to, too, beautiful, few, and sue. How does anyone learn English? Esperanto is phonetic. The letters make one sound and one sound only each and every time. There are no tricky letter combinations that make differing sounds such as th, ch, qu and so on.
Esperanto has been constructed to be consistent, phonetic, and easy to learn avoiding the pitfalls and difficulties of other native languages.
Gateway Language
Esperanto will serve as a gateway language which will make it easier for people to more quickly learn other languages. Learning Esperanto prior to learning another can help reduce the amount of time to achieve converstional fluency by one or two years. It has also been proven to increase understanding and proficiency of your native tongue.
Preface – Esperanto Primer
First thing I want you to do is to overload yourself on  the Esperanto primer to get an overdose intro into Esperanto. I do not expect you to remember most of this. I just want you to get exposure to the overarching concepts found in Esperanto so you will have some perspective in how things fit together in the big picture of the language. If you really,
really need to concentrate on something while taking a look at this then concentrate on the alphabet, since that will be the first lesson.Â
You may want to print out the Primer so you have it as a reference document as you go through these exercises. It may come in handy to refresh your memory to give you an idea where the lesson is going or how it fits into the rest of the language.Â
Chapter 1 – Esperanto BasicsÂ
In Chapter 1 we will cover the Alphabet, as well as basic Noun, Verb, Article and Conjunction formation, as well as basic sentence structure and formation.
Chapter 2 – Expand Your Basics
In Chapter 2 we will cover Pronouns, Adjectives, more word modifiers, as well as expand your vocabulary a bit.
Basic Updates
I have the Links section copied over from my Blogger account. I also have the Archive basically functioning.
I may have a contact form up and running over this holiday weekend. We will see. Now that I am looking at it I will have to add a new comment and spam module too.
I am also considering moving this site from the WordPress CMS over to Drupal now that Dreamhost has an auto-install for Drupal… Yea!
Esperanto Pages
I have added a link in the header for Esperanto. I am in the process of trying to learn the language. This is more for my benefit while I muddle my way through it. If anyone has any questions,
comments, suggestion, improvements, corrections, or links for source validation, please feel free to comment. I will be expanding this as I go.
