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From: ah514@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Manuel M Campagna)
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!news.mathworks.com!zib-berlin.de!fu-berlin.de!golden-gate.owl.de!royal.owl.de!hsp.zer.de!access.owl.de!ah514
Subject: Re: THE WORLD'S...LANGUAGE*!!!
Date: Sat, 22 Apr 1995 23:00:00 +0000
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## Nachricht vom 15.04.95 weitergeleitet
## Ursprung : /SOC/CULTURE/ESPERANTO
## Ersteller: ah514@FreeNet.Carleton.CA

In Article 15674 parsavan@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Dara Parsavand) typed
recently :

<<
i found the poetry story amusing.  however, the only thing i've heard
in esperanto that rhymed was absolutely horrible.  it was a song on a
beginning language tape.  i'd love to hear a nice song, but at the
time, i wondered if this wasn't an inevitable product of having a
small number of word endings.  (the horrible song was rhyming noun
with noun, adjective with adjective, etc.).
>>

Those were not rhymes at all.

In any language that uses rhymes, the rhyme normally starts with the
accented vowel and ends with the last sound of the word.

So, in English, according to "Wood's Unabridged Rhyme Dictionary",

COziest rhymes with NOsiest, PROsiest, and ROsiest, but _not_ with
RArest or CUDdliest, or BEST.

In my native French, there are so-called masculine and feminine
rhymes. 

Masculine rhymes (nothing to do with sex or grammatical gender) are
those whose last syllable is stressed : "chariTE~", "MarCEL",
"cuiLLER".

Feminine rhymes are those whose stressed syllable is the penultimate :
"DoroTHE~e", "MarCELLe", "PIERRe".

The latter do not rhyme with the former.

In Italian, it is the same. So the words "me~ta" (goal/aim) and
"met~a" (half) do not rhyme.

In Esperanto endings cannot be stressed, so an ending cannot make up a
rhyme. As in English and other languages, beginners try using the last
syllable as the rhyme. The result is doggerel.

<<
i'm all for phonetic spelling, no verb conjugation, no gender, and
other logical choices, but i sometimes wonder if esperanto went to far
in requiring the type of word to have such uniform endings.
>>

As a user of Esperanto for 15 years I must say I love the simple
endings and will defend them to the death. Of course, a blase~
outsider would try to find fault with everything anyway. The history
of the international language tells us there were many projects that
proposed to do away with regularity and imitate national languages by
introducing similar complications. So few people bothered with those
projects, that they have all become fossils that interest only some
interlinguists -- and not to speak them, just to study them as
palaeontologists study old bones to postcast the past.

After all, if you enjoy irregularities and complications, why not
learn a national language, like English or Irish or Rumanian, and have
at least an existing community to speak them...

Esperanto is the _only_ regular language with a very active sizeable
worldwide community and a relatively large body of poetry -- original
and translated.

<<
maybe someone can post a short poem with some creative rhyming, to
dissuade me.
>>

Either you want or you don't want. Nobody can convince you but you.
Just give it a try. Learn as much as you want, and if after an
_HONEST_ try, you don't like it, give up. It's not like a divorce when
married with kids.

If you wish to look at a good sample of original Esperanto poetry,
take a look at the 800-some page "Esperanta Antologio", whose 2nd
Edition was published for the centenary of the language.

If you want to listen to a good sample of Esperanto songs on CD, get
the songs by the "Kajto" ("kite") group, original music by Kajto on
original Esperanto poems by the best poets in Esperanto (many of the
poems are found in the Antologio). They have already published 3-4
CD-s (also available on cassette).

Bel canto sounds marvelously well in Esperanto, and I strongly
recommend the recordings (audio as well as video) of the late Veselin
Damianov, who was until his premature death the first barytone of the
National Opera of Bulgaria in Sophia. Unfortunately it is available
most on LPs, but there are also 1 audio cassette, 1 video cassette of
his concert at the Lester B. Pearson College of the Pacific, and part
of another video cassette (4 songs and airs)

If you love the songs of the 60s and 70's -- Dylan, Seeger, Guthrie,
and others -- there's the cassette "Jen Nia Mondo" (This is our world)
by the Duo Espera (iramac/relax 7002).

And finally let me mention the multilingual cassette by
Franco-Columbian singer Joelle Rabu "Passport" released in 1987 by
Goldrush Records, of Vancouver, BC. The song "Esperanto" is sung in
ten languages including Esperanto by Joelle, accompanied by the
Vancouver Children's Choir and the Canada West Chamber Orchestra. Then
there are 3 songs in French, 3 in English, 3 in Esperanto, an 1 part
English part Spanish, sung by Joelle accompanied by her own band.

Joelle is Vancouver's darling. She was born of a Breton father and an
Anglo-Columbian mother. When she graduated from high school, she had
to earn a living, so she became a waitress. But she has a deep voice
that sounded like that of E~dith Piaf, whose songs she loves, and she
can accompany herself on the guitar. Her friends told her she should
give a concert. And that's how her fairy tale of rags to riches began,
and she has sung with the Vancouver Symphony... And in 1986 she went
to the Universal Congress of Esperanto in Peking and gave a concert
there. And now she is married and a proud mother. And her professional
singer's career is going on.

Manuel

PS -- I'm unable to crosspost, so feel free to do so for me. Thanks.

                                .
Manuel-M. CAMPAGNA           . . . .              1 613 789 21 11
survey interviewer             . .             Ottawa  ON  Canada
translator (En/It/Eo -> Fr)   .   .     ah514@freenet.carleton.ca
