In the Land of Invented Languages - Arika Okrent [37]
No, no, I reassured him. No need to fear a lifetime of vacations spent in foreign auditoriums listening to an endless parade of speeches and comments on those speeches. The consciously egalitarian nature of Esperantoland means that everyone gets a chance to take the floor, as many times as desired. The two most commonly spoken phrases in Esperanto must be “Mi opinias…” (In my opinion …) and “Mi proponas…” (I propose …). Sitting through this can be funny, but it's not much fun. I've always hated meetings, and the Esperanto ones kind of perfectly embody many of the reasons why.
Of course there's more to it than the meetings. There are the sing-alongs and the camping trips and the green-themed Esperanto fashion shows. All of these also not really my thing. However, the youth congresses, which are often sex-booze-and-rock-and-roll debauches (of the friendly, international variety, of course), might have been my thing once upon a postcollege time.
And, if I were still entranced by the backpacking-through-Europe idea (many Esperantists never leave this phase), not being an Esperantist would be almost stupid. The international youth organization maintains a list of Esperantists all over the world who are willing to put up other Esperantists in their homes, feed them, and show them around. You can stay with a painter in Tajikistan, a nudist in Serbia, or a “gay, vegetarian ornithologist” in Belgium. You might like to stay with an “anarchist who likes to go out to bars” in Brazil or a father of five and founder of the “club of light and peace” in Mozambique. On the west coast of Japan you will find “physicists and railroad lovers especially welcome.” A “sports journalist” in Budapest requests, “No hippies, please,” but if that excludes you, you can move on to a small town in Sicily where “rawfoodists and hippies are especially welcome.” Or, if that sounds a little too tame, head to Ukraine, where hosting is provided “only for hippies, punks, freaks, and cannabis smokers.”
Esperantists like to point to this international hosting service as a challenge to those who say Esperanto confers no practical advantages. “See? Here's a solid, utilitarian reason to learn Esperanto. English is not the only language that pays off in concrete benefits.” But when it comes to concrete benefits, Esperantists do not help their cause by mentioning English.
Claude Piron, a Swiss psychologist and prominent “prestige” Esperantist, emphasizes a different kind of benefit that Esperanto has over English:
A Swede who speaks English with a Korean and a Brazilian feels that he is a Swede who is using English; he does not assume a special identity as “a speaker of English.” On the other hand, a Swede who speaks Esperanto with a Korean and a Brazilian feels that he is an Esperantist and that the other two are also Esperantists, and that the three of them belong to a special cultural group. Even if non-native-speakers speak English very well, they do not feel that this ability bestows an Anglo-Saxon identity on them. But with Esperanto something quite different occurs.
Can the thing that Esperantists share with each other really be called a culture? Professional anthropologists might be insulted by the question. All I know is that if you told me you just saw a nudist, a gay ornithologist, a railroad enthusiast, and a punk can-nabis smoker walking down the street together, I would be waiting for the punch line. But if you then told me they were speaking Esperanto, no punch line would be necessary. It would all make complete and utter sense.
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