That other international language
About the language problem in English
A new age for Esperanto, again
Esperanto has been declared dead over and over again. There are some good reasons for this:The perceived nonsense of the idea of Esperanto ¶ The perceived failure of the execution of the idea ¶ The perceived takeover by English in its function ¶ The perceived difficulty of an artificial language ¶ The fact that most people know someone who speaks it, and they are old ¶ The rumors of the death of Esperanto have been greatly exaggerated though. ¶ You don’t have to search long to find communication problems wherever you are ¶ You only have to try Esperanto or look into the…
Joop KiefteAug 12, 2015
Launching Auxlang.xyz
Hello dear followers of That other international language!I just linked the domain http://auxlang.xyz to this publication, a publication that I turn out to write relatively often in. It seems to be a niche that could use more input. Maybe from you? Try writing an article, doesn’t matter how long or short, on Medium (yes, one line is okay too!) and ask for it to be published here (for example sending me an email)! We need more input about the language problem, from any kind of angle! ¶ Best regards! ¶ Amike salutas, ¶ Joop KiefteJoop KiefteNov 5, 2015
Solving the important things first
Actually this is about dependency chains (a computer science related term) in social issues (where computers aren’t usually taken into…account…) so I settle for the next best thing. ¶ Last weekend I was in the south of the Netherlands partying with friends, and I got to talk with a native Esperanto speaker about social issues. She is very active on social issues in general, and we mostly talked about the many things a Basic Income Guarantee could solve. ¶ At some point we went over the events we participated that are involved with the important changes that should happen, and where we were subjected to the Holy Cow of…Joop KiefteNov 5, 2015
Growing up in a purpose-made language
Why? And what should we take away from that?In honour of the International Mother Language Day this video was posted about native speakers of Esperanto. I am very happy to see this video, not only because I think this is something that should get wider attention, but because I know several of them personally and I am always happy to see good friends and acquaintances back, be it in real life or in a context of publicity. ¶ Now the point of this video is of course not that Esperanto should be everybody's mother tongue, or even that it…Joop KiefteFeb 27, 2015
Check out these 5 clickbait titles about Esperanto!
What is worse? They are all true!1) “10 insanely productive affixes in Esperanto. #4 blew my mind!” ¶ Yes, Esperanto is an insanely productive language, for a big part because of these insanely productive prefixes and suffixes. I bet #4 would be the prefix mal-, one of the most common ideas in languages but rarely used so productively as in Esperanto. ¶ 2) “Travel Agencies Hate It: Discover the Newest Way of Travelling the World without Spending on your Place to Stay” ¶ And that is exactly what not only the Esperanto…Joop Kiefte4 days ago
101 reasons to learn Esperanto
For a more serious look, read on here: https://auxlang.xyz/a-new-age-for-esperanto-again-7ee9522bfc3cEsperanto can be learned in about a week up to a month ¶ Language learning is hard! ¶ Tolkien spoke well about it ¶ Umberto Eco spoke well about it ¶ William Shatner made a movie using the language ¶ Charlie Chaplin used it in The Great Dictator ¶ Your country has organizations using it for quite some time already ¶ UNESCO supports Esperanto ¶ Esperanto events are fucking awesome ¶ Esperanto swear words are fucking awesome ¶ Muzaiko is actually a cool online radio station ¶ Evildea…Joop KiefteMar 17
Os vários lados da língua internacional
Durante um tempo eu vivi no Brasil. O que mais vi no Brasil é escola de língua, principalmente focado no ensino de Inglês. Pra mim que…nasceu e cresceu na Holanda isso é uma coisa muito estranha. A gente tem Inglês na escola, e mais que isso aprende Inglês usando-lo no dia a dia, ouvindo muito em filmes, e também porque a Holanda está no meio de Europa, com muita gente vindo pra Holanda, as vezes nunca aprendendo a nossa bonita mas pequena língua. ¶ Eu visitei uma aula de Inglês. Nunca tive uma dor de cabeça tão grande. ¶ O material nem posso dizer que era ruim.Joop KiefteOct 17, 2015
Uma nova era para o esperanto, de novo
tradução de A new age for Esperanto, again por Emerson WerneckO esperanto foi declarado como morto repetidas vezes. Há boas razões para isso: ¶ A percepção de que a ideia do esperanto não faz sentido; ¶ A percepção de que a execução da ideia fracassou; ¶ A percepção de que o inglês assumiu o seu papel; ¶ A percepção da dificuldade de uma língua artificial; ¶ O fato de que a maioria das pessoas conhece alguém que o fala, e eles são idosos. ¶ Os rumores sobre a morte do esperanto, no entanto, têm sido exagerados fortemente.Joop KiefteSep 21, 2015
Habemus Linguam Francam
Rejoice! We have an international language!It’s called English ¶ We really shouldn’t have fights about this. English is the clear winner, and there even hasn’t been a fight! Air Travel uses English, and it wouldn’t be safe without this international language. The international post is officially in French, but you got a better chance to get your letter on its destination if you just pen down the country name in English. Diplomacy French is gone for long.Joop KiefteAug 22, 2015
Esperanto for Gophers
The similarities are striking…… ¶ I was about 8 years old when I made a casual observation about how cool it would be to create my own computer stuff, when my father decided to show me the built-in QBasic on a little IBM laptop we had at home, and I got hooked on programming. A lot happened between, but really you can say that the wish of a child is a very strong thing. And most things effectively get around because of the strong desire and weird ideas of just one person.Joop KiefteSep 19, 2015