Esperanto! Forget About English And French In Canada

Esperanto has been around forever, with small groups of people pushing it from time to time, but never got off the ground and most likely never will.

Ed Deak.

Sounds good but why do these people need to meet and have further discussions, again without any consent of the public, as they are doing with the SPP? Who do they think they are?

It's simple: you dumb down the language to the point where you can't get an advanced idea across to someone else.

Besides, English is the defacto language of international trade and commerce, so Esperanto is as Ed stated, and I'm paraphrasing, another attempt at breathing life into a dead horse.

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If George W. Bush and Tony Blair are really Christians, then pork and shrimp are Kosher.

Perhaps if the original poster, and some of the others too, had taken 5 minutes to inform themselves first of some basic facts about Esperanto and its goals before reacting, then the comments might have been more intelligent.<br />
<br />
Non-ethnic, non-territorial Esperanto does not want, and never has, to be 'one language for the world' as is (wrongly!) supposed here, but to be the the common element in 'universal bilingualism', i.e. YOUR language + Esperanto for all. Does that now begin to make more sense? Nobody loses anything - don't learn it, if you don't want to - but by learning it you are at least signifying with a sort of linguistic handshake that you are willing to go halfway to meet others. Isn't that at least more democratic than shoving your own ethnic language down someone's throat?<br />
<br />
At a time when 54 languages in our Pacific Northwest alone are in imminent danger of disappearing for ever, what is so wrong about trying to stop this happening to others too? Not everyone is happy with the strides now being made by English towards world hegemony. It's not all good news, you know. It seems rather that proponents of world English are in fact the ones after 'one language for the world' (and to the detriment of everyone else too).<br />
<br />
At least take a few minutes to check the 7 points of the Prague Manifesto:<br />
<a href="http://lingvo.org/xx/2/3">http://lingvo.org/xx/2/3</a><br />
and then you'll have a clearer idea of what we're trying to do here. Or Google 'Vancouver + Esperanto'.<br />
<br />
<br />

Hi Chris.

With all respect, I think that you are confusing two completely unrelated topics : the SPP and Esperanto. Contrary to SPP-events, the T.A.K.E. congress is not a meeting behind closed doors where politicians secretely discuss about the future of our countries, but rather a public event set up by a group of citizens concerned by the loss of language, cultural and ecological diversity. As another person noted, the goal of Esperanto is not an hegemonic imposition of a unique language for all, but rather an attempt to democratize international communication by providing a tool (second language) that is neutral and fair.

T.A.K.E. is not affiliated with any government, religious or political group.

/boris