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From: elna@netcom.com (Esperanto League N America)
Subject: Re: Learning Japanese vs. Esperanto
Message-ID: <elnaDwLtG5.MKo@netcom.com>
Organization: Esperanto League for North America, Inc.
References: <4v08hq$9ss@sunburst.ccs.yorku.ca> <4v1qiu$gle@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> <4vcevt$9l0@grootstal.nijmegen.inter.nl.net>
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 1996 18:45:41 GMT
Lines: 44
Sender: elna@netcom9.netcom.com

T.Gerritsen@inter.nl.net writes in a recent posting (reference <4vcevt$9l0@grootstal.nijmegen.inter.nl.net>):
>etg10@cl.cam.ac.uk (Edmund Grimley-Evans) wrote:
>
>>Usually there isn't a common ground between people from different
>>countries. 
>
>Well, I'd say that in this case there is. What you refer to as
>cyberhype is in fact an unprecedented opportunity for people to
>communicate globally. 

Of course, but as Grimley-Evans pointed out, the medium of Internet is
rapidly adapting to other languages; now you find many Japanese
language newsgroups, as well as *many* other languages used for regular
e-mail, etc.   The Internet is not as English-based as you think!
If you go to a local magzine store, you might conclude that the world's
main language for publishing periodicals is English. 


>         In the past few months I have communicated with
>more Japanese people (in English, that is, with a few words of
>Japanese) than I ever would over the phone or via international postal
>services. It seems rather silly to deny this global dimension, and
>equally silly to deny that the medium of communication is in most
>cases by far... the English language, whether you like it or not.

And in 1910, most of the world's telephone calls were in English. So what?

>Esperantist often seem to me more like religious zealots than users of
>a language.
>
This is a catch-phrase of the anti-Esperanto crowd. Could you explain
what Grimley-Evans wrote in a vein of religious zeal? What is the
problem with recognising the difficulties of using an irregular national
language in international discourse, while suggesting a rational, planned
alternative?   
Similarly, one might argue that DOS/Windows operating systems are nearly
universal, and therefore are to be continued: is it "religious zeal" to
suggest that OS/2 (for example) has some advantages?

-- 
Miko SLOPER                   elna@netcom.com         USA  (510) 653 0998
Direktoro de la          ftp.netcom.com:/pub/el/elna   fax (510) 653 1468 
Centra Oficejo de la     Learn Esperanto! Free lessons: e-mail/snail-mail
Esperanto-Ligo de N.A.      Write to above address or call 1-800-828 5944
