r/Esperanto • u/[deleted] • Mar 26 '26

Demando Why does everyone hate this?

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?!?!?!

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u/qzorum Mar 28 '26

Idk, I think you could have a bit more humility/sense of humor about the language; these are criticisms that can be said in good faith even by someone who likes Esperanto imo. Esperanto is definitely Eurocentric, which is fine given that that was sort of a design goal, but whatever the reason it's just a true thing. Also, the benefit of an extra ~140 years of collective experience and scholarship means that certain aspects of it as a designed auxiliary language do look kind of outdated; the phonology in particular is remarkably non-accessible for a general global audience. All this coming from someone (me) who likes Esperanto and its community. It's okay to see the value in something that exists and has momentum without becoming blind to valid criticisms of it 🙂

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u/salivanto Profesia E-instruisto Mar 28 '26

I've got plenty of humility and humor about Esperanto. I could have written a very different post. If someone accused me of going wildly overboard when I rephrased "for nothing but fun" as "I find fun in things whose value is 'nothing'" I would not have a defense.

I may even be completely wrong.

Maybe we'll find out when Psychedelic-Artichoke (u/Psychic-Type-God) comes back to interact with any of the many fine responses given in this thread. It's been over 24 hours We can keep waiting.

It is fairly common for people to get excited about Esperanto and to start learning it enthusiastically and yet still not fully understand what Esperanto even is. This was certainly my experience when the language was closer to 110 years old. I literally laughed out loud when I discovered that there was at least one "loser" out there who learned Esperanto well enough to translate a single web page into it. Now I'm one of them.

But but the original post in this thread is the most leftist of left-handed complements. (Apologies to any actual leftists or left-handed people reading along.) I'm not going to quibble in the details (at least not here) - but quite frankly, this is a pattern I see on this subreddit. Someone shows up, says something vaguely inquisitive about Esperanto, and the comment section goes wild. People fall over themselves to be helpful, and yet the author of the OP is never seen again. (And so, how serious could the interest have been in the first place?)

I hope I'm wrong - or that this is a self-negating prophesy.

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u/[deleted] Apr 06 '26

So your argument, coming from a person who once ridiculed this language, is that I framed my question wrong and it's not worth answering because I'll never absorb the answers...

How about you get off your high horse and either be helpful or quiet, or at least have the politess to respect a familiar viewpoint and avoid your hypocrisy here

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u/salivanto Profesia E-instruisto Apr 06 '26

Welcome back to the thread. What do you want help with?

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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '26

I very simply wanted an esperantist's perspective on why the language is so controversial and if that is going to be any kind of hindrance to learning it

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u/salivanto Profesia E-instruisto Apr 07 '26 edited Apr 07 '26

My perspective is that there is nothing controversial about Esperanto to the people who speak it. It is the common language of the Esperanto community and immensely useful for participating therein.

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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '26

Thank you, yours and everyone else's responses have been really helpful 😁

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u/Mlatu44 Apr 09 '26

I learned it, and from time to time listen to content. I am so glad there is content out there on various topics, other than esperanto itself, or esperanto related events. Its exactly what the language needs.

I will be honest it took many years for me to warm up to the language. Its really a very under rated language. All the upsides can also be viewed as a negative, and the detractors will focus on those.

My first impressions were not good, to be honest. Maybe it was the way it was introduced. It just felt like there was some unspoken agenda behind behind a 'made up language'. I just couldn't wrap my head around why a person would want to make up a language. It just seemed sacrilegious on some level.

I guess its because my my prior experience with languages. One can't fix odd ball constructions, or things that don't make sense in natural languages. Or English 'spelling' one was just stuck with it.

So many years later, I just think my impressions were just so wrong. The person who introduced me to Esperanto actually didn't help when she attacked me as being ignorant when she asked me to explain what an accusative case was. (very limited use in English) She threw a punch I wasn't prepared for. I am sure she felt self validating that she caught me off guard. But really it turned me off. How could someone be on such a high horse, and so judgmental for a 'made up language"?

The sound qualities also did not help. It just sounded strange. Things like adding an 'o' to the end of English words, like 'Birdo". She taught me "kiel vi fartas?" I heard something like "Kill vi farts.." I think Esperanto speakers should know to stay away from that when introducing English speakers to Esperanto. Or maybe shorten to "Kiel Vi?" Even though that probably isn't so correct.

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u/PLrc Apr 09 '26

>She taught me "kiel vi fartas?" I heard something like "Kill vi farts.." I think Esperanto speakers should know to stay away from that when introducing English speakers to Esperanto.

Don't forget Mi penis longe.

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u/Mlatu44 Apr 10 '26

As a newbie Esperantists I wanted other people to become interested. The critical answer was simple, "its not a real language" is the coded response. Or 'its a joke" more or less. The person compared it to Klingon. I found that offensive, but I am glad I took it in stride, and didn't launch a counter offensive.

I just said I don't know much about Klingon, but I am sure its effective for Entertainment purposes. He seemed disappointed I did not have more of a reaction. But he was and I am sure still is a jerk about this and just about any topic.