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From: elna@netcom.com (Esperanto League N America)
Subject: Re: Single European Language
Message-ID: <elnaDACE4L.JG3@netcom.com>
Organization: Esperanto League for North America, Inc.
References: <690061730wnr@afin.demon.co.uk> <3rqkha$366@fido.asd.sgi.com> <donhDA9uDv.3pJ@netcom.com> <803320320snz@ducks.demon.co.uk>
Date: Sun, 18 Jun 1995 00:17:08 GMT
Lines: 42
Sender: elna@netcom19.netcom.com

Roger@ducks.demon.co.uk writes in a recent posting (reference <803320320snz@ducks.demon.co.uk>):
>> 
>I don't think anyone is against Esperanto. I learned it years ago, but it
>evaporated because, despite your statistical games, there's nobody to speak
>with. With Spanish you can travel Spain, Latin America and, with English,
>have two useful languages in the US. 
>
You haven't been reading these newsgroups (and others) very well. There are a 
few LOUDLY VOCAL individuals who are rabidly anti-Esperanto, even to the point
of repeating senseless "refutations" of the documented achievements of that
planned language.  
If you really believe that there is nobody to speak it with, this is your
fault for not looking! There are several avenues for finding Esperanto-speakers
anywhere in the world.
If you travel to France, Japan, Brazil, or wherever, you will certainly be
able to find hotel-workers and money-changers who speak English; but if you
write before you travel, in order to discover the local "Esperanto fans" (as
Jon Livesy likes to call us), you will have real encounters with the "locals"
who will treat you as a friend, rather than a client, victim or john.

>Th objection is to the notion that it is a sensible alternative to English 
>as a second language in Europe. 
>
But it *is* sensible. Neutrality is sensible, as is efficiency. We have read
(alltoo often) the various chauvinistic claims that Esperanto cannot possibly
do what it is already doing, and that the supremacy of English is already a
fait accompli. We cannot know the future, but we can become better acquainted
with the facts about the present...
 

>-- 
>______________________________________________________________________________
>               A dragon in shallows falls victim to shrimps.
>______________________________________________________________________________


I like this image-- what might it mean in the present discussion? What is
the dragon? What shrimps?

Miko.


