Esperanto

[AmericanIdiot]

Have any of you heard of the recently ( Well, 60's, I think) proposed language called Esperanto? It is a great, reasonable language that was çreated in 1887, I think. Here are some basic words, notice how closely related they are to some other languages.
Hello= Saluton
Good-bye= Adeu
Beautiful- bela
ugly- malbena
 good- bona
bad-malbona
I/me- mi
friend- amiko
boy- knabo
girl- knabojina
Father= patro
mother-patrino
son- filo

Wanna learn more? You can take a free online course at http://pacujo.net/esperanto/course.

[AstralBorn]

çreated in 1887, I think

Indeed it was 1887...
I think Ludwig Lazarus Zamenhof did a wonderfull job on it, Sounds very natural... Not as good as any of J. R. R. Tolkien's languages:P But still good...

Estimates vary from 100,000 to 15 million speakers world wide...
But only a few native speakers...

I myself used to be fluent in it, However The other few million languages I know has left it very poor...

It became most popular in 1940's

May I ask when and how you got into it?

[AmericanIdiot]

My friend found it somehow, and showed me the course...
 I think it sounds a lot lik Spanish/ some of Italian, and if you could speak those you wouldn't have a hard time figuring it out.

[Adun]

I noticed a lot of esperanto words are also similar do portuguese, for example:

adeu - adeus
bona - bom
amiko - amigo
filo - filho

[Gandalf]

Stick with Elvish, Noldorin if possible but Sindarin will do



Doug

[andonitxo]

My friend found it somehow, and showed me the course...
 I think it sounds a lot like Spanish/ some of Italian, and if you could speak those you wouldn't have a hard time figuring it out.

Not really. It is closer to Italian, I think. Compare with the Spanish translations (anyway Spanish and Italian come from the same language root, Latin, so they're called Romance Languages). For the sake of your general culture's wealth I put also Basque translations:

Hello= Saluton = Hola = Kaixo
Good-bye= Adeu = Adios = Agur
Beautiful- bela = maravilloso/bella/guapa = Zoragarria/ederra/polita
ugly- malbena = feo = Itsusia
good- bona = bueno = Ona
bad-malbona = malo = Txarra
I/me- mi = Yo/mí/me = Ni/Nik/Neu/Neuk
friend- amiko = amigo = Laguna
boy- knabo = chico/niño = Mutila
girl- knabojina = chica/niña = Neska
Father= patro = Padre = Aita
mother-patrino = Madre = Ama
son- filo = Hijo = Semea

By the way I'd say I believe it is better for a language to be created in a natural way rather than to be prefabricated. If we must invent some new language it would be better to make it easy to learn and use, I mean, to avoid verb conjugations and noun declinations which make them more difficult.

Latin had those two characteristics, as Basque has. Spanish is just conjugated, not declinated. English is far easier in that sense, but it lacks ease in what it's related to speaking.

Look at this example:

E-That thing you know must be kept hidden for her.
S-Eso que sabes ha de mantenerse oculto para ella.
B-Dakizun hori ezkutaturik egon behar du berarentzat.

English spreads out its particles clearly. Verbs are broken down and also prepositions. On the other side, look at basque:

Dakizun: verb to know. Da (it)- ki (particle)- zu (you)- n (that): that thing you know. Easy, isn't it, ha, ha.

Behar du: verb "must be". Behar: main verb "must", Du: auxiliar (it, third person).

Berarentzat: Bera (him/her) - rentzat (for (people)): for her. Imagine to take every preposition and to have a particular declination for it.

So, boiling down, a language expresses a certain people's culture, evolution, historical context, and so... That's why each language has its own difficulties. And that, indeed, makes it unique.