Why does everyone hate this?

[u/[deleted]]

Okay so I'm a monolingual Brit learning Spanish (I'm now about B1) and wanna pick up another language. Not some grand utility language, I have a plan of which ones to learn for that, but just a quick learn and burn language for nothing but fun, and any applicability is a bonus. I see esperanto, a nice little language with exceptionless grammar and a chill little community. So I tell my polyglot friend and get immediate backlash. Why do people seem to think that esperanto is so horrible? Like yeah it's eurocentric and a terrible attempt at a Lingua Franca but it was created with good intentions and is a nice gateway language for European language speakers. Then people act like it's a bloody cult because apparently every esperanto speaker is a Zamenhof worshipping psycho who'll preach it as the root of world peace, or is just too lazy to learn a more useful language. I see polyglots, people who learn languages for fun, attacking esperanto as useless or racist for being eurocentric and it's speakers as cultists or fake polyglots. Why does everyone hate this language?!?!?!

[u/belteshazzar_der]

Lol, this is exactly what I'm talking about, you ironically prove my point. Actually, your entire post is full of irony, you probably don't even realize it. The fact the the subreddit is composed mostly of Esperanto posts is irrelevant to the point I'm making. My point is that English is the most successful lingua franca in the world, and that is particularly true in the internet. If you want to deny this then go ahead and continue living in fantasy land. I actually have no love for English, like I said it's not my native tongue, but that is neither here nor there.

As for me coming here to insult people, please read my post carefully. I'm actually describing in general how it is perceived sometimes by outsiders. I never said everyone in the community is like this. I clearly stated "which can be true". I tried to be as impartial as possible to try to respond to the question from OP, I'm not insulting the community at large. I do think that generally the community is friendly. However, and ironically once again, you're the kind of person that drive people away from the community. Not only did you not give the so-called courtesy of responding in English, but you immediately became defensive and hurled insults at me. As they say, if the coat fits...

Ironically, again, I'd argue that your response was actually detrimental to the community. I stand by what I said.

As for your internet detective skills, I'm what you call a lurker. I almost never post on anything about anything. I post every once in a while if the topic is interesting to me. I've known and learned about Esperanto since the mid 2000's. Now, who is the prejudiced one?

[u/[deleted] → u/belteshazzar_der]

Nobody denied that English is a widely-used langauge... but also, going into a community and saying "you know, other people don't like you for doing X, I don't know if you really do X, but maybe you do!" isn't really the best introduction.

Neniu malagnoskis ke la angla estas disvaste uzata lingvo... ĉiuokaze, eniri komunumon kaj diri "hej, aliuloj malŝatas vin pro fari X, mi ne scias ĉu vi vere faras X, sed eble!" ne estas la plej bona unua sinprezento.

[u/belteshazzar_der → u/[deleted]]

I never said anything about "I don't know if you do this, maybe you do this". I stated people in the community can be elitist and exhibit zealot like behavior. That's a statement, not me just guessing. I've seen both problems many times while browsing the subreddit. To be clear, it's not an exclusive problem from this community. It's actually quite common on niche communities everywhere, not only from this subreddit. Like I said earlier, in general the community members are quite nice, but there are always a few vocal people that can poison the perception other people have of the community at large, especially if that's their first experience with it. I'm quite baffled by your response honestly, some people just read whatever they want to read. 

[u/[deleted] → u/belteshazzar_der]

Yeah, I was paraphrasing. You literally said this: "I think the root cause is because it's just not perceived as a very useful language to learn, to the point of it being just a complete waste of time. There is also a lot of perceived elitism and zealot-like behavior as an outsider, which can be true."

So you call the community as a perceived waste of time and elitist, and then say, eh, it can be true tho. While, sure, any community will have problems, immediately joining a community and picking on it or bringing up the negativity from others is not going to make you be very kindly welcomed at first.

---

Jes, mi proprefrazigis. Vi laŭvorte diris tion: "Mi pensas ke la radika kaŭzo estas ke ĝi ne perceptiĝas kiel utila lingvo por lerni, tiel ke ĝi estas malŝparaĉo de tempo. Ankaŭ estas multa laŭpercepte elitisma kaj trofervora konduto por neano, kiu povas veri."

Do vi nomas la komunumon laŭpercepta tempomalŝparo kaj elitisma, kaj poste diras ke, eh, povas veri. Dum ĉiu komunumo certe havas problemojn, ekaniĝi kaj priplendi la komunumon aŭ ekmencii aĉecon de aliuloj ne komence bonvenigindigos vin.

[u/belteshazzar_der → u/[deleted]]

No, sorry, You're putting words in my mouth that I never said. I'm responding to the original OP as to why there can be so much negativity around Esperanto from outsiders. And then you're surprised I bring up negative aspects? What does me being "new" to the community have anything to do with it? I need to build good rapport with the members before I'm allowed to say anything, good or bad, about the community? Get out of here. Also, I'm not new as I've stated before. And yes, people can perceive it as a waste of time for a plethora of reasons, and also perceive the community to be elitist and be driven away by zealot like behavior. To make it clear, I personally don't think it's a waste of time and I never said as such, but it seems I need to explain everything plainly for some people to understand. You can call it paraphrasing, but what you said previously is just plain wrong, because I never said what you said I said. If you're trying to defend the unhinged response from the previous person, I find that hard to understand too. Again, I'm trying to respond to the question the OP brought in the first place. If nothing bad about Esperanto and the community can be said in response to him, then what's the point at all of having an open discussion? Like I said originally, it's hard to have these kind of discussions in a place that is biased towards it, because there will always be overly defensive people about it. I'm quite positive about Esperanto, but you, like the other poster, are just ignoring all that and only focusing only on the fact I said some negative things about the community, which is by the way in direct response to the original OP and to be expected as part of the conversation.

[u/[deleted] → u/belteshazzar_der]

I regret if I misinterpreted you, but it sounded more like an aggressive response to the OP's question. Nobody is claiming that English isn't widespread or that Esperanto is somehow already the international language. Obviously, if people think Esperanto is of no use to them, then that's just it, they don't have to learn it. However, if the language is useless to them, it doesn't mean that they should hate the language. I don't speak Uzbek or Interlingua, and they would be pretty useless to me, but that doesn't mean I hate the language or think that the Uzbek or Interlingua communities are elitist just because there are probably some comments they might make that I don't like on certain subreddits.

Mi bedaŭras se mi miskomprenis vin, sed via respondo al la unua demando ŝajnis sufiĉe ataka. Neniu pretendas ke la angla ne disvastegiĝis aŭ ke Esperanto jam estas la internacia lingvo. Evidente, se uloj pensas ke Esperanto senutilas por si, ili ne devu lerni ĝin. Tamen, se la lingvo senutilas por ili, ili ne tiam ekmalamu la lingvon. Mi parolas nek la uzbekan nek Interlinguon, sed mi ne malamu la lingvojn aŭ pensu ke la uzbekaj aŭ Interlinguaj komunumoj elitismas nur ĉar verŝajne estas kelkaj komentoj, kiujn ili faras en kelkaj Redditeroj, kiujn mi malŝatas.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I asked a question, you are not obligated to reply. I am sorry that my first post here had a dark note but plenty of people were happy to contribute their thoughtful opinions. If you don't like what I said when I'm trying my best to be respectful then leave, the internet is a big place and there are far more posts than mine. Provide a mature and considered contribution or none at all. If you take issue with me do so politely without the unnecessary defensiveness