skribis en lastatempa afisxo <2997992971.0.p00124@psilink.com>:>I've recently decided to study Spanish. Before doing so, I'd like>to know still more about esperanto. Could you give a very minor>lesson in this forum, or perhaps in email? I want to know if you>conjugate verbs, and what order a sentence falls. Does the adjective>follow the noun etc.... Perhaps if you simply wrote "The boy bounced>the red ball to the girl." in esperanto, and then explain what>you did, that would be enough. Since several people *may* reply to>this post, perhaps you could make up a sentence simlilar to the one I>wrote, and use it instead mind. Thank you, and I look forward to>a reply.>>Sean>How about a quick overview?(0) The Esperanto alphabet has 28 letters, of which 22 are found
in English and six are special, indicated by circumflexes over
the letter (shown here by a '^' after the letter and, more commonly
on the net, by an 'x' after the letter). The five vowels A E I O U
are pronounced much as the vowels in "pa let me go too". About half
the consonants are pronounced as in English. Of those that aren't:
C = English ts at the end of a word, C^ = English ch, G = hard
English g, G^ = soft English g or j, H = aspirated English h as in
"horse", H^ = sound about halfway between H and K (German or Scottish
ch), J = English Y, J^ = English s in "pleasure", R = tip of the tongue
R, flapped once or twice, S = English voiceless S in "hiss", S^ =
English sh, U^ = English W. Accent is always on the next-to-last
VOWEL (don't worry about syllables; just remember that the supersigned
U^ is not a vowel, while A E I O and U are).(1) All nouns end in -O (kato = cat, hundo = dog)(2) Plurals are formed by adding -J, pronounced like the English -Y
(katoj = cats, hundoj = dogs)(3) Adjectives end in -A rather than -O (kata = feline, hunda = canine)
and agree with the nouns they modify (kataj hundoj = feline dogs,
katoj hundaj = canine cats)(4) All verbs end in -AS in the present tense (hundo mordas = a dog bites,
skrapas katoj = cats scratch)...(5) ... in -IS in the past tense (la hundo mordis = the dog bit, skrapis
la katoj = the cats scratched)...(6) ... and in -OS in the future tense (la hundoj mordos = the dogs will
bite, skrapos la katoj = the cats will scratch).(7) The objects of an action are shown by an -N (la hundoj mordos la
katojn = the dogs will bite the cats, la hundojn skrapis la katoj =
the cats scratched the dogs)(8) The conditional is shown by -US (Se la hundoj mordus la katojn,
la hundojn skrapus la katoj = If the dogs were to bite the cats, the
cats would scratch the dogs -- but I don't expect this to happen)(9) The volitive is shown by -U (La hundoj mordu la katojn = May the
dogs bite the (damned) cats). This includes the function of the imperative in most WE languages (Mordu la hundon = Bite the dog!)(10) The infinitive is shown by -I (La hundoj volas mordi la katojn =
The dogs want to bite the cats).(11) Any noun, adjective or verb can be converted to an adverb by
changing the ending to -E (La hundojn morde skrapas la katoj = The
cats by biting scratch the dogs).(12) Any noun, adjective or verb root can be converted to any other form
simply by changing the ending (La kata kato kate katas = The feline cat
cattishly behaves like a cat).(13) A noun without a -J or -N on the end may, if you wish, drop the -O
and replaced it with an apostrophe; the accent doesn't move. Similarly,
the 'a' on the end of "la" may be dropped and replaced with an
apostrophe. Preferably avoid doing this unless you are a poet.(14) Because of the grammar coding, subjects, objects and verbs may fall
in any order; also, adjectives may precede or follow the nouns they
modify, or (as a sop to the poets among us) even be separated from
them by other words, so long as the meaning is obvious. See examples
above. Adverbs, which can modify just about anything, should (though
don't always) immediately precede the words they modify.(15) There are no exceptions.
There are separate subsystems for correlatives (who, what, when, where, how,etc., and their answers), personal pronouns, and numerals; these must belearned separately. There are prepositions, all of which take -O nouns(prepositions showing place can show motion to that place by adding an -Nto their objects). There are also conjunctions, interjections, blessings,curses, and ever-filled purses.
There is also an agglutinative system of word-formation that depends, toa great extent, on a system of some 40 affixes. For instance, once you havelearned a word that can take an antonym (e.g. bona = good, ric^a = rich,alta = tall or high) you can create its antonym automatically (malbona =bad, malric^a = poor, malalta = short or low) as well as a whole raft ofother words (bonaj^o = something good, bonulo = a good person, bonulino =a good woman, bonega = excellent, boneta = sort of O.K., malbonega = awful,boneco = goodness, malboneco = badness, bonegulo = a most excellent dude,bonema = tending to be good, bonigi = to cause to be good, bonig^i = tobecome good, rebonigi = to cause to be good again...).
Here is an example of typical, everyday Esperanto, as spoken by the man(or woman) in the street. ;-)
"Niaj aktoroj, kiel mi diris,estis spiritoj kaj fandig^is en laaeron, jes, en la aeron flirtan.Kaj kiel la senbaza konstruaj^ode c^i vizio, la nubc^apaj turojpompaj palacoj kaj solenaj temploj,la granda globo mem, kaj kun g^i c^iuj,kiuj g^in log^as, foje disfandig^ossenspure, kiel c^i senmateriavantaj^o brila, kiu malaperis.El tia s^tof' ni estas, kiel niajsong^bildoj, kaj c^i nian vivon etanc^irkau^as dormo."
Info available from the Esperanto League for North America, which can bereached at the 800 number in my sig or at the E-mail address, ditto.
-Don HARLOW donh@netcom.comEsperanto League for N.A. elna@netcom.com (800) 828-5944ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/el/elna/elna.html Esperantoftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/do/donh/donh.html
Newsgroups: soc.culture.esperanto,news.answers,soc.answersPath: venere.inet.it!nic.tip.net!sunic!pipex!howland.reston.ans.net!news2.near.net!news.mathworks.com!newshost.marcam.com!charnel.ecst.csuchico.edu!csusac!csus.edu!netcom.com!urbanFrom: urban@netcom.com (Michael Urban)Subject: soc.culture.esperanto Frequently Asked Questions (Oftaj Demandoj)Message-ID: Followup-To: soc.culture.esperantoOrganization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)Date: Sun, 1 Jan 1995 03:53:50 GMTApproved: news-answers-request@MIT.EduExpires: Wed, 1 Feb 1995 00:00:00 GMTLines: 745Xref: venere.inet.it soc.culture.esperanto:2620 news.answers:7066 soc.answers:516Archive-name: esperanto-faq
Frequently Asked Questions forsoc.culture.esperanto, esperanto-l@netcom.com and esper-l@trearn.bitnet
(monthly posting)
This posting attempts to answer the most common questions from thosenew to the newsgroup (or mailing list), or to the language itself.Because the majority of readers are in the United States, it issomewhat biased towards those readers, but it may be usefulfor anglophone readers in other countries. The opinions expressedare those of the author. If there is some information you feel shouldbe added or changed, send mail to the author (urban@cobra.jpl.nasa.gov)
1. What is Esperanto?
2. How many people speak Esperanto?
3. Where do I find classes, textbooks, etc.?
4. How do you type Esperanto's circumflexed letters?
5. How can I display those circumflexed letters on a (Sun/Mac/PC)?
6. What about other `artificial' languages like Loglan, Ido, etc.?
7. How come Esperanto doesn't have ? 8. Is there any Esperanto material available online?
9. In what language should people post to this newsgroup/list?10. Are there other bulletin boards, online services, etc?11. What are PIV, PV, PAG, and UEA? What are IRKs?
----------------------------------------------------------------
1. What is Esperanto?
Esperanto is a language designed to facilitate communication amongpeople of different lands and cultures. It was first published in 1887by Dr. L. L. Zamenhof (1859-1917) under the pseudonym `Dr. Esperanto',meaning `one who hopes', and this is the name that stuck as the name ofthe language itself. Unlike national languages, Esperanto allowscommunication on an equal footing between people, with neither havingthe usual cultural advantage accruing to a native speaker. Esperantois also considerably easier to learn than national languages, since itsdesign is far simpler and more regular than such languages.
2. How many people speak Esperanto?
It is always difficult to measure the number of speakers of anylanguage; it is rather like estimating the number of people who playchess. Speakers of a second language vary widely in their competenceand fluency. The World Almanac, whose researchers actually conductinterviews with speakers, estimate about two million speakersworldwide. This puts it on a par with `minority' languages likeIcelandic and Estonian. Of course, unlike these other languages,Esperanto is not the primary language for its speakers, althoughthere _are_ native speakers (`denaskaj parolantoj') of Esperantowho learned to speak it (along with the local language) fromtheir parents.
3. Where do I find classes, textbooks, etc?
For U.S. residents, the Esperanto League for North America is thebest and most reliable source for Esperanto materials. Theyoffer a free basic correspondence course (about which we willsay more later), and may be offering a more detailed and advancedpaid correspondence course. They have an extensive catalogueof books, including texts, reference, fiction, poetry, andcassette tapes. Their address is
Esperanto League of North America
Box 1129
El Cerrito, CA 94530
A free information packet can be obtained from ELNA bycalling their toll-free information number: 1-800-828-5944or by sending electronic mail to:
elna@netcom.com(be sure to include your paper-mail address!)
A more immediate source of texts, especially for those withaccess to a university, is your local library. The qualityof the books, of course, will vary widely, but most of thetexts, even the older ones, will provide a reasonable generalintroduction to the language. One exception, mentioned hereonly because it was surplused to _many_ libraries around the US,is the US Army's `Esperanto: The Aggressor Language', whichis more of a curiosity than a useful textbook.
The problem with most old texts is that they are...well...old! Theirpresentations can seem very bland and old-fashioned, and their`cultural' information about the Esperanto community will often behopelessly out of date. The newest American textbook, and probably thebest, is Richardson's `Esperanto: Learning and Using the InternationalLanguage'. It is available from ELNA and perhaps some libraries.Another book, the Esperanto entry in the `Teach Yourself ...' series oflanguage primers, is a slightly stodgy but very useful introduction tothe language. The `Teach Yourself' book can sometimes be found inordinary bookstores. There is also a `Teach Yourself' English/Esperantotwo-way dictionary that is a very popular and handy reference.
Another good, if a bit old-fashioned, textbook, Step by Step inEsperanto, has recently been reprinted and is available from ELNA.Still another book recommended by more than one participant is`Saluton!' by Audry Childs-Mee. This is entirely in Esperanto, withmany pictures.
Macintosh owners with HyperCard and MacinTalk can take advantageof an introductory HyperCard course on Esperanto. This is availablefrom ELNA for a nominal media charge, or can be downloadedfrom the Sumex Info-Mac server. Swedish and Dutch versionsof this course have appeared in their respective countries.
***
*** If you know of other texts that should be mentioned here,
*** please let me know
***
Each summer, San Francisco State University and ELNA offer a three-weekcurriculum of Esperanto courses, in which one may participate atbeginning, intermediate, or advanced levels, and earn three semestercredits. It is widely considered to be one of the best opportunities tolearn to speak Esperanto `like a native', and draws students andfaculty from around the world.
In recent years, a one-week summer course has been offered at theUniversity of Hartford, with such excellent teachers as authorSpomenka Stimec, Normand Fleury of Montreal, Boris Kolker, William Orr(the introductory classes just rave about him), Duncan Charters, andJ. C. Wells (currently President of UEA and author of the famousdictionary). Also assisting are the President of the university andex-president of UEA, Humphrey Tonkin, and his wife, Dr. Jane Edwards.
The 1995 instructor will be Joseph F. Conroy, author of _Beginner'sEsperanto_, and the dates will be 10-15 July, 1995. Contact:
Ms. Hilda Grossman
Office of Summer Programs
University of Hartford
200 Bloomfield Avenue
West Hartford CT 06117
(800) 234-4412 aux (203) 768-4401
for details.
A one-week course in Detroit is planned for 7-11 August 1995.
Sherry A. Wells
P.O. Box 1338
Royal Oak MI 48068
(810) 543-5297
for details.
***
*** Further info, like details on Chaux-de-Fonds (sp?) activities
*** and similar international learning opportunities, are
*** requested
***
For those with relatively little time, a free Postal CorrespondenceCourse is available. You mail in each of ten lessons, anda grader corrects your exercises and sends you the next lesson.Send a self-addressed stamped envelope to
Esperanto Information Center
410 Darrell Road
Hillsborough, CA 94010
415 342-1796
In Australia:
Australia Esperanto-Asocio, GPO Box 313, Sunnybank, Queensland 4109.
Junulara Auxstralia Grupo Esperantista,
17 Renowden St., Cheltenham, Victoria 3192.
Book service: PO Box 230, Matraville, NSW 2036.
Correspondence Course: J. Moore, 7 Pelican St., Emu Park, Queensland 4702.
In Canada:
Kanada Esperanto-Asocio (English course)
P.O.Box 2159, Sidney, BC V8L 3S6
Esperanto-Societo Kebekia (French course)
6358-A, rue de Bordeaux, Montreal, QC H2G 2R8
Book Service
6358-A, rue de Bordeaux, Montreal, QC H2G 2R8
In New Zealand:
New Zealand Esperanto Association (also correspondence course)
PO Box 41-172, St Lukes, Auckland
In Britain:
British Esperanto Association, 140 Holland Park Avenue, Londonw W11
In France:
UFE (Union Francaise pour l'Esperanto)
and its youth section JEFO (Junulara Esperantista Franca Organizo)
4 bis, rue de la Cerisaie
75004 PARIS
In The Netherlands:
ECN (Esperanto Centrum Nederland)
Riouwstraat 172, NL-2585 HW Den Haag, tel. +31 70 3556677
******** If you think YOUR country should be listed here, let me know...****
The Free Correspondence Course is also available online as theFree Esperanto Course. Information is posted regularly to this group.The Correspondence Course is now conducted in English, French, and Germanversions.
4. How do you type Esperanto's circumflexed letters?
Esperanto has five circumflexed consonants (c, g, h, j, and s can allbe circumflexed) and an accented vowel (u with breve). The Fundamento,which forms the official basis for the language, suggests that printersthat lack a circumflex can use `h' (ch, gh, hh, etc.). This is,however, not a completely satisfactory solution for computers, andintroduces unnecessary lexical ambiguity. Two solutions are now incurrent use:
The European Computer Manufacturer's Association Standard ECMA-94contains four 8-bit Latin alphabets to cover a variety of Europeanlanguages. Latin alphabet 3 covers Esperanto (as well as nine otherEuropean languages). This alphabet also forms the basis for theinternational standard coding ISO 8859-3 (LATIN-3). This eight-bitcoding is probably the best `canonical' representation for the storageof Esperanto text, although it is inconvenient for sortingapplications (this is a common technical difficulty for almost alllanguages). A more immediate problem is that the unextended Internetmail protocol is currently only able to transmit 7-bit ASCII.Finally, it may be inconvenient to generate the eight-bit codes onparticular input devices.
Various `ASCIIzations' of the accented letters are popular. Somepeople type a circumflex before the accented letter; others type itafterwards. Some use a `<' sign instead. Some use the Fundamentanformula with following `h'. Others follow with a `~' (tilde) tofacilitate alphabetization.
The best ASCIIzation is probably to use following `x', which hasseveral advantages: the `x' is not part of the Esperanto alphabet andso the digraphs like `cx' can automatically be translated to Latin-3codes or other representations; `x' is alphabetic, so various editingand text-processing programs treat `accented' words as single units;since `x' is near the end of the alphabet, sorting algorithms are quitereliable when applied to words coded in this way. Finally, combinationslike `sx' are rare in English, so automatic conversion of mixedEsperanto/English text is highly reliable. While nobody candictate a standard, widespread adoption of this convention on thenetworks would facilitate the development of standard programs toconvert or display the accented characters, at least until 8-bitmail transmission becomes commonplace.
Esperanto's circumflexed characters are covered by the incipient `widecharacter' standards (Unicode and ISO 10646), so Esperantists will notbe left out if and when those standards are widely adopted andimplemented. Unicode is a widely endorsed 16-bit character encodingexpected to be supported by Microsoft's Windows NT and Apple'sQuickDraw GX system software.
The Latin-3 encodings (in hexadecimal) are as follows:
a6 ac b6 bc c6 d8 dd de e6 f8 fd fe
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ u ^ ^ ^ u ^
H J h j C G U S c g u s
5. How do I display those characters on a (Mac, PC, etc.)
`Dumb' terminals generally cannot overstrike accents with arbitrarycharacters, and so cannot display the Esperanto characters. Mostmodern equipment uses `softer' display technology and can display theEsperanto characters given proper software.
On the Macintosh, one can prepare and display text with an Esperanto`font'; such fonts usually match the accented characters to convenient(USA) keyboard equivalents, rather than to standard binary codes. Acouple of such fonts (Imagewriter resolution) are available on ELNA'sHyperCard disk, and Esperanto versions of Helvetica and Times (inType 3 PostScript) are also obtainable through ELNA and via anonymousFTP from ftp.stack.urc.tue.nl. The Macintosh actually has extensivesupport for setting up `internationalized' environments for virtuallyany language (including names of days and months, collating sequences,and dead-key input of accented characters), but there is nocomplete Esperanto setup freely available at present.
** INFORMATION SOLICITED ON OTHER MACINTOSH FONTS*
WordPerfect 5.1 allows the display of Esperanto characters when the512-character screen is selected from the Setup menu. To type anaccented character, type control-v, the charactrs.doc table number,comma, the character code, and RETURN. The Esperanto codes are all intable 1, with the following values:
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ - -
C:100 c:101 G:122 g:123 H:126 h:127 J:140 j:141 S:180 s:181 U:188 u:189
so that you type 1,100 to get circumflexed C.You can set up a `keyboard file' to assign these combinationsto keys. (Thanks to Cleve Lendon and Michael Johnson for this information)In Word Perfect 5.1, you can also type followed bythe character and the accent mark; thus C^ gives C-circumflex.Two problems are: the lowercase circumflexed j looks lousy in most fontsand there is no breve on the keyboard, so u-breve cannot be done this way.(thanks to D. Gary Grady for this information)Two programs, `vidi' and `montru', which can display some of the commonEsperanto ASCIIzations as accented characters on PCs with graphicsboards, are available via anonymous FTP (see below).
On Unix (and other) systems running X11, it is possible to create atext font using the ISO 8859-3 encoding. With such a font in yourserver's font repertoire, an `xterm' window (with terminal modes setfor 8-bit output) can display Esperanto text using standard Unixcommands such as `cat'. An ISO 8859-3 font is included inthe contributed software portion of Release 5 of X11. The Esperantoversions of Helvetica and Times for the Mac might be usable witha suitably equipped X11 server -- since they are Adobe Type 1fonts -- but this has yet to be verified.
GNU Emacs Version 19 is able to deal with arbitrary X11 keyboardinputs and output fonts. It can be obtained from the usual GNUsources (e.g. prep.ai.mit.edu). There is also a version of GNU Emacs,known as MULE, that is able to handle several non-ASCII encodings,including Latin alphabets 1 thru 9 (except 8) and several Asianlanguages. It comes with X11 fonts for all these alphabets, includingISO 8859-3. Sources are in several places; try sh.wide.ad.jp in/JAPAN/mule/
In any of these cases, a certain amount of data massaging may benecessary to convert some particular representation of Esperanto text(see Question 4) to an appropriate form.
Text processing languages like TeX and Troff permit the arbitraryplacement of diacriticals on characters and so make the preparation ofgood-looking Esperanto documents quite easy. TeX's Computer Modernfonts are particularly good for this, because they include an undotted`j' character. Note that the hyphenation algorithms used by TeX andTroff are not intended for Esperanto and may produce unpleasantresults. TeX is available, often as free software, for a variety ofcomputers.
6. What about other `artificial' languages like Loglan, Ido, etc.?
People create languages for a variety of purposes. J.R.R. Tolkien'slanguages of Sindarin and Quenya, for example, were created partly asa recreation, and partly to fulfill a literary purpose. Many languageshave been created as international languages; only Esperanto hascontinued to grow and prosper after the death of its originator. Manyof the people who have attempted to promulgate international languagesmore `perfect' (i.e., more `international', more `logical', orwhatever) than Esperanto have failed to understand that -- given acertain minimum standard of internationality, aesthetic quality, andease of learning -- further tinkering not only fails to substantiallyimprove the product, but interferes with the establishment of a largecommunity of speakers. A language like, say, Interlingua might be (bysome individual's criteria) `better' than Esperanto, but in order forit to be worth uprooting the established world of Esperanto andcreating an equivalently widespread world community of Interlinguaspeakers,
it would have to be visibly and profoundly an improvementover Esperanto of prodigious proportions. No international languageproject has yet produced such an obviously ideal language.
In the network community, one of the best known planned languageprojects is James Cooke Brown's Loglan (and its revised offshootLojban). While some enthusiasts do see Loglan and Lojban ascompetitors to Esperanto, the languages were conceived not as a tool tofacilitate better communication, but as a linguistic experiment, totest the Whorf hypothesis that a language shapes (or limits) thethoughts of its speakers. They are thus deliberately designed to bearlittle resemblance to existing human languages. While Loglan andLojban are unlikely (and, by design, perhaps unsuited) to succeed asinternational languages, both are interesting projects in their ownright. The address to write for Loglan information is
The Loglan Institute
3009 Peters Way
San Diego, CA, 92117
U.S.A.
[ (619) 270-1691 ]
70674.1434@compuserve.com
For Lojban, contact
Bob LeChevalier, President
The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane Fairfax VA 22031-1303
U.S.A
[ (703) 385-0273 (day/evenings) }
lojbab@access.digex.net
To subscribe to a LOJBAN mailing list, send a message to
listserv@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu
consisting of the body line (not subject):
subscribe lojban Your Real Name
Lojban information can be found via anonymous FTP at ftp.cs.yale.edu
in the /pub/lojban directory.
Those interested in the Mark Okrand's `Klingon' language canjoin a mailing list; contact
tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.usto be added or to get information.
There is a general `constructed language' mailing list; send a messageto
listserv@diku.dkconsisting of the body line (not subject):
subscribe conlang Your Real Nameto subscribe.
Finally, fans of Tolkien's language creationscan join a Tolkien-language mailing list. Contact
jcb@dcs.edinburgh.ac.ukfor information. (UK readers invert the address appropriately)
As for our own Esperanto newsgroup, many readers are interested in otherplanned languages, and discussion of these can often be informative andinteresting. But politeness dictates that `Esperanto-bashing' inan Esperanto forum is inappropriate and should be avoided.
7. How come Esperanto doesn't have ?Although Esperanto is a planned language, it has developed well beyondthe point at which some authoritative person or group can dictatelanguage practice, however great the temptation may be to `tinker' withthe language. For example, many people are critical of the presence ofa feminine suffix and absence of a corresponding masculine suffix, andhave suggested masculine suffixes (-icx, -un, -ucx, -ab), neutral pronouns(sxli, ri), and/or re-interpretations of familiar words such asredefining `frato' (brother) to mean `sibling'. But there is no singleindividual or committee that will simply decree changes such asthese before they achieve general use.
Just as with any other language, the only way for such novelties toattain acceptability is for them to be used in correspondence,literature, and conversation by a growing number of people. So, ifyou see a genuine lack in the language's existing stock of roots andaffixes, by all means use a new coinage (and ALWAYS with suitableexplanation, since you are not using standard Esperanto) and see if itcatches on. Be warned that such neologisms are often controversialand will meet with criticisms (in proportion to the extent to whichthey break with the `Fundamento' or to which they are redundant to theexisting language).
8. Is there any Esperanto material available online?
Note: This information is not exhaustive. Check Martin Weichert's`Yellow Pages' (Flavaj Pagxoj; see below) for more complete andup-to-date information.
There used to be a Planned Languages Server at columbia.edu , butit is, apparently, no longer available.
An Anonymous FTP archive has been set up at ftp.stack.urc.tue.nl(131.155.140.128) in /pub/esperanto ; non-Internet users can retrievematerial via email: send the following message to ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com:
connect ftp.stack.urc.tue.nl
reply YOUR_EMAIL_ADDRESS_HERE
dir pub/esperanto
get pub/esperanto/UPLOAD-INFO.ALSXUTO-INFO
get pub/esperanto/READ-ME.LEGU-MIN
quit(binary files require more work; send `help' to ftpmail for info)Another (older?) copy of this material can be found buried atsrc.doc.ic.ac.uk, in/media/literary/collections/Online-Book-Initiative/Esperanto
An FTP archive has been set up by ELNA at ftp.netcom.com in /pub/elna .
An experimental FTP archive with material from the Akademio Internaciade la Sciencoj and a rough version of a glossary of mathematicalterminology may be found at cfgauss.uni-math.gwdg.de (directory ILo).Contact: Hoso HOLDGR"UN The FTP archives, as well as some other materials, areavailable through Gopher via the gopher server at otax.tky.hut.fi(130.233.32.32) port 70 (Helsinki University of Technology).
WWW (xmosaic) users can find an Esperanto section in an _experimental_WWW server under URL
http://www_tios.cs.utwente.nl/esperanto/Xmosaic users can get there by typing the URL given above in the`Open' dialog box.
Some libraries have on-line listings of their Esperanto holdings. OnInternet, try:
University of California (450 titles): telnet melvyl.ucop.edu
(195.35.222.222)
Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen (234 titles): telnet kunlb1.ubn.kun.nl
(131.174.81.246)
Universitaet des Saarlandes (>1000 titles): telnet unisb.rz.uni-sb.de
(134.96.100.100)
.a logon ub,ub
(this site is also available via Gopher)
Derk Ederveen maintains a list ofnetwork addresses of Esperanto speakers and organizations. Pleasecontact him if you speak Esperanto but do not yet appear on the list.The list is available from most Esperanto archives and is updated monthly.Also, see the next section's information about the Esperanto Lingva Servo,and about the `Flavaj Pagxoj'.
9. In what language should people post to this newsgroup/list?
This is left up to the judgement of the sender, based on his or herlanguage expertise, the nature of the material, and the time availablefor composing the message. Several of our readers are not nativespeakers of English; for some, it is easier to read and write Esperantothan English. On the other hand, many of our readers have only themost basic exposure to Esperanto (and wish to learn more). The bestsolution would be to post bilingually in English and Esperanto (if youknow Esperanto), but of course that requires composing the posting twotimes. Messages involving details of Esperanto culture (such as arecent thread involving some of the personalities of the earlyEsperanto movement) can probably be entirely in Esperanto withoutlosing much of the intended audience. Similarly, messages likely to beof interest to people who are just learning about Esperanto should beposted in English (at least). Note, however, that as the Internetitself becomes more internationalized, the assumption that your readerwill u
nderstand English is becoming less reliable.
Beginners in the language should not be afraid to attempt to post inEsperanto; people are happy to correct language mistakes in a positiveand friendly way (not as `grammar flames') and a forum like this can bea good way to get language practice. No, this is not strong enough.Beginners are ESPECIALLY ENCOURAGED to post in Esperanto wheneverpossible.
Of course, if you are uncertain of your Esperanto ability, you shouldinclude an English version of your text so that, if you make a seriouslanguage blunder, people can determine what you were *trying* to say.
One service that might be of use is the Language Service (LaLingva Servo), a group of volunteers who will correct the grammarof short Esperanto postings. Information on the Lingva Servo,with the current list of volunteers, is posted monthly to thisgroup.
If you are cross-posting articles to other newsgroups, pleasedo NOT post in Esperanto, unless English (or the usual languageof that newsgroup) is also included, preferably as the primarylanguage. Aside from being rude, such postings have tended tocreate a lot of unwanted crossposted response traffic, usuallyof an anti-Esperantan inflammatory nature. Similarly, whileit may sometimes be appropriate to mention Esperanto in othernewsgroups, continued discussion of Esperanto in inappropriategroups like comp.lang.c will generate more heat than light, andshould be avoided.
10. Are there other bulletin boards, online services, etc?
The Internet mailing list mail.esperanto contains about70 individual entries. Whenever someone sends mail to`esperanto-l@netcom.COM', that mail is forwarded to everyone onthe list. People on other networks that can receiveInternet mail (e.g. on CompuServe or GENIE) can subscribeto the mailing list. Mailing list members may subscribeon a `digest' basis, receiving batches of ten or so messagesat a time, with shorter headers. All correspondence relatedto mailing list subscriptions (including UNsubscribe requests)should be sent to:
esperanto-l-request@netcom.COM
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NOTE! The administration of this mailing list has been recently transferred to netcom.com ; the old address (at rand.ORG) will continue to function indefinitely, but if you have the old address in any files, you should update the information. Note that the new name is esperanto-l, not esperanto, as the old one was. ================================================================
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The newsgroup soc.culture.esperanto is distributed on many Internetand USENET sites and has an estimated readership of several thousand.Every message sent to the mail.esperanto list is forwarded tosoc.culture.esperanto, and every article from soc.culture.esperanto isnormally forwarded to the mailing list. Thus, if you are reading thenewsgroup, you do not need to be on the mailing list. However, notethat the newsgroup is theoretically an `Internet-only' group, and thatmany messages, including all those forwarded from the mailing list,are tagged with a `Distribution: inet' header line, and may not bedistributed to every site.
Incidentally, the link between the newsgroup and mailinglist means that mailing list members will sometimes seestrange messages having nothing to do with Esperanto, causedwhen some lackwit cross-posts a message to all the soc.*newsgroups. These people do not read the newsgroup anyway,so replies sent to the mailing list (rather than the originalsender) will not reach them.
WARNING: The network community is very large, and is growing
rapidly. There are many foolish, rude, or inexperienced people
who will post articles to the network. Some of them
are, unfortunately, interested in Esperanto. Do not favor
them with your attention.
Duncan Thompson (duncan@spd.eee.strathclyde.ac.uk) coordinates anEsperanto penpal service. He posts a monthly announcement describingthe service to soc.culture.esperanto (or send him mail for details).
Martin Weichert maintains the Esperanto"Yellow Pages" ("Flavaj Pagxoj"), a list of Esperanto-related materialand services available on the net. Please contact him if you haveanything to offer to the net esperantists that does not yet appearon the list. The Yellow Pages (in Esperanto) is available from mostEsperanto archives and is updated regularly.ESPER-L@TREARN is a BITNET-based mailing list; every messagesent to soc.culture.esperanto is forwarded to ESPER-L, butnot the reverse.(So that ESPER-Lers should post, when possible, to esperanto-l@netcom.COM)ESPER-L is managed by an automated mailing list server; toget added, send a message like
SUBSCRIBE ESPERANTO your nameto listserv@trearn.bitnet; to unsubscribe, send
SIGNOFF ESPERANTOto the server (trearn.bitnet), NOT to the mailing list, newsgroup, norNetcom address.
CompuServe Information Service (CIS) has an Esperanto boardin its Foreign Languages Education Forum; CIS subscriberscan type /GO FLEFO for further information.
For those Internet sites providing the Internet Relay Chat (IRC)service, Esperanto conversation takes place regularly on Tuesdays at1500-1700 GMT (UT) on the channel `#Esperanto'. Contact AxelBelinfante or Wim Slootmans for further information.GEnie has some discussion of Esperanto in the Public AffairsRoundtable board, Category 15 -- International Affairs, Topic 29.GEnie users can receive Internet mail.
America Online seems to have about a dozen members whose list ofinterests include `Esperanto', but no Esperanto forum exists. AOL userscan receive Internet mail and so can subscribe to the mailing list.
Some Bulletin Board Systems (BBSes) provide Esperanto services.
Devoted to Esperanto:
ESPERANTO BBS (416)731-2667 Thornhill, Ontario (near Toronto)
Have Esperanto sections:
MICRODOT BBS (812)944-3907 New Albany, Indiana (near Evansville)
(part of the WWIV network of BBS systems. WWIV systems may
subscribe to the Esperanto group `La Samideanoj')
BULTENEJO SALUTON! +31-53-326886 Enschede, The Netherlands
Dutch/Esperanto. Sysop reachable via Fidonet 2:283/323
(Wim Koolhoven: Internet address wim@itc.nl)
Flandra Esperanto-Ligo +32 32 34 12 60 ((03) 234 12 16 in Belgium)
Available from 7:00pm - 7:00am; send to the F.E.L.
(100272.1601@compuserve.com) for a free brochure before connecting.
Users must be validated by the Sysop before they can upload/download
or leave multiple messages.
Satronics TBBS (215)464-3563 (8 bits, No parity, 1 Stop bit, 1200-2400 bps)
This line connects to 5 lines in a rotary hunt system.
215-698-1905 (8-N-1 9600+ V.32, v.42bis modems) single line.
Satronics TBBS is a non-commercial, community-supported BBS.
***
*** Surely there are more?
***
The Channel 1 BBS in Cambridge, MA (USA) (617-354-7077) apparently
allows selection of prompts in about twenty languages, including
Esperanto. For whatever it's worth.
An international FidoNet `echo' ESPERANTO exists in Germany, reachablefrom at least Spain, Italy, Slovenia, the Netherlands, and Portugal;ask your FidoNet sysop to subscribe to the this service. For moreinformation, you can contactMario Mueller (FidoNet 2:241/200.9)In France, the Minitel system has an Esperanto service: try36.15 ESPERANTO for information. 36.14 PING is an online chatand mailbox service in four languages (French, Esperanto, Italian,and English). 36.14 RIBOUREL is `300 pages about/in Esperanto'
In Slovenia, Boris HERMAN is sysop for the Center BBS (FidoNet2:380/125 (??)). His current address is unknown; last knownaddress was bherman@uni-mb.ac.mail.yu .
The Italian Radical political party has an Internet-accessible bulletinboard (agora.stm.it, currently 192.106.239.3) that appears to supportseven languages including Esperanto.
An Internet-accessible BBS has been set up in Russia:
DEMOS BBS: telnet 192.91.186.145 (fantom.demos.su)
Log in with username bbs
Contact: Ivan Popov (pin@demos.su)There is also an FTP directory /esperanto at surplus.demos.suNote that Internet connections to these sites are not always reliable.
11. What are PIV, PV, PAG, and UEA? What are IRC/IRKs?
As with other groups, there are some common acronyms that come up fromtime to time here:
PIV: Plena Ilustrita Vortaro, a very complete Esperanto dictionary
(i.e., it is entirely in Esperanto) containing not only the
officially recognized words, but many more that are in general
(and not so general) use. Some of its entries are dubious,
but it is a highly useful reference work. PIV is now quite
expensive and hard to obtain.
PV: Plena Vortaro. PIV's little brother, so to speak; it contains
fewer unofficial roots.
PAG: Plena Analiza Gramatiko, an analysis of Esperanto grammar.
It is not authoritative, and many people will disagree
with some of its conclusions, but it is the most detailed
reference work to date on Esperanto grammar.
UEA: Universala Esperanto Asocio, the international Esperanto organization.
They publish a monthly magazine cleverly titled `Esperanto',
produce a `Jarlibro' (yearbook) containing information on
national and special-interest Esperanto organizations and
contacts, and sponsor the Universala Kongreso (the annual
international Esperanto convention).
IRK International Reply Coupons (Internaciaj Respond-Kuponoj)
These are the international version of the `Self-Addressed
Stamped Envelope'. You buy them in your local post office
and send them to your correspondent, who takes them to
his or her local post office and can exchange them for
local first-class postage to send you a reply. They are
also occasionally used as a kind of informal international
currency for small purchases. The English abbreviation
IRC (International Reply Coupon) should not be confused
with the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) facility described earlier.
