Talk:Native Esperanto speakers

message: I am highly suspicious of this concept. I highly suspect that people who teach this language to their children at a young age do so as a second language and retain their mother tongue and pass that on to their child - using it as thier primary way to convey the majority of their culture, intelligence, experience and personality. If I am simply ignorant of the extent to which Esperanto has loosed its tethers to its constructed language origin, excuse me. I would think that the individuals and movement that created the language would resist it becoming a Creole and then a natural language because then they would lose almost all control over it. From what I have seen there is a strict control exercised over this language and as such it is and always will be a constructed language. Pushing the age at which it is acquired down will not make it into a natural language with native speakers. Qaz
:Yes, sorry but you're ignorant of the extent to which Esperanto has loosed its tethers to its constructed language origin. These children do actually learn Esperanto as one of their mother tongues. It's not that they have been taught the language as a second language, it's that they have acquired it through exposure since early childhood because their parents were Esperanto speakers who spoke the language at home (in many instances, the parents met thanks to Esperanto and Esperanto was the only common language among them, so it functioned as the "bridge" language internally uniting the family). For a language to acquire native speakers, the only required thing is that it is already fully functional and that a child is exposed to it during its early childhood; the history of how the language came into existence is irrelevant. Esperanto doesn't possess any inherently artificial feature; I mean, if suddenly all knowledge about the origin of Esperanto disappeared, we would have no means to differentiate it from a natural language merely by looking at its structure. Aymara, the mother tongue of more than a million Bolivians, has been said to look like an "artificial" language () because of its amazing degree of regularity and its unexpected trivalent logic grammar; but just try to tell native Aymara speakers that they speak an "artificial" language because it looks too regular to be true. Besides, it's true that there is a conscious effort by Esperanto second-language speakers to prevent it from breaking up into a myriad dialects that would hamper communication between speakers from far away areas. But, on the one hand, this kind of control over the language is not exclusive nor definitory of artificial languages, and can be likened to that exercised by language academies and prescriptivist grammarians. And, on the other, this has not actually prevented the language from evolving: Esperanto is not the monolithical thing that you depict. There has been a continous evolution for over a century, affecting primarily the lexicon (some terms used in the early days have fallen out of use, and neologisms are constantly being introduced), and also some aspects of the grammar (such as the development of additional correlatives, like aliel, aliam..., "another way", "another time"..., and of additional verbal forms, like amantas and amatas, "is loving" and "is loved", for estas amanta and estas amata). Also, it is not unusual for the Esperanto spoken by its native speakers to be frowned on by its second-language speakers, precisely because the latter feel the former take "too much liberty" in using the language. This is because the native speakers feel "at home" with the language and use it "instinctively", unconsciously altering and developing it (just like native English speakers use and develop it instinctively without caring that much about what grammarians have enshrined as its "proper usage"), while second-language speakers are much more strict about using the language according to the rules they've consciously learned from books. Uaxuctum 21:43, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I also question the concept, but I don't know enough about it to update the article. If both your parents are, say, Icelandic, and you live in, say France, you can easily acquire a fluency in Icelandic from your parents. However, the language you use with most of your friends, class mates and foreigners, will be French, and that is also the language you will learn to speak and write correctly in school. Thus your primary language would be French, even though Icelandic is native. I'm not here talking about big immigration groups, like Chinese in San Francisco or Turks in Berlin. Icelandic is a small language, and it would likely be limited to communication with your parents. My guess is that Esperanto falls into the case of the expatriate Icelander above. There may be people who use Esperanto at home, but to no one it will be their primary language. Could that be right? Mlewan 15:16, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think you've got it, except for the fact that there are Esperanto speakers all over the world, and Icelandic speakers are concentrated into a relatively small area. I know of native Esperanto speakers whose Esperanto is very strong, as they have become an active Esperantists, and  Esperanto becomes the dominant language in the brain when they are around it for extended periods of time. However I think you're correct, it would very rarely be used as a primary language. -- Andrew 12:24, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Andrew, I don't understand your last phrase. "A useful tool"? Useful for doing what? If I'm perfectly bilingual in Xhosa and Tibetan, how would that be more useful than speaking an acceptable English and Chinese? Ok, next time I wander around Lhasa and see some lost South Africans trying to read the restaurant menu I might be able to help them, but I would be able to help them even with acceptable English and Chinese. Mlewan 08:51, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Bilingualism will all the more expand your sphere of influence and opportunity, even if miniscully. Especially if you are natively bilingual, it can help you more easily accomplish goals later in life; I'm thinking of the learning of other languages. I think you're under the impression that I said no language is more useful than another, which I did not. I believe a knowledge of practically any language is useful, but to say that to be bilingual in English and Hawaiian is just as useful as speaking both English an Chinese would be silly. If one thinks some language isn't useful in and of itself, I think it can be seen as a capital good. -- Andrew 12:24, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Native speakers of Esperanto

message: I believe Timwi is mistaken in referring to "all-Esperanto neighbourhoods and Esperanto schools". To the best of my knowledge, no such places exist, so I removed the reference. Can anyone give evidence to the contrary? --tgeller 16:18, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Esperanto schools and neighborhoods

message: I know that the article hypothetically suggested that these might be the first word of a native Esperanto speaker, but from a development standpoint, it almost definitely wouldn't be - an affricate like "ch" or a palatal like "j" is difficult for a young child to say, and those sounds are usually mastered later than labial sounds (which is why "mama" and "papa" usually are first words, not because of their meaning).
:Exactly my thoughts when I read it. I put a 'fact' tag there, but I think it should be removed. Jalwikip (talk) 13:26, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Well certainly they may not be first words; there are plenty of children whose first words are not mommy or daddy, but I do know of children who have addressed the parents panjo and paĉjo as early as age 2, which seems fairly normal. Isn't the Japanese familial term for father chichi? I'm sure there are many examples from other languages. Andrew 03:45, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Chi-chi is only what you refer to your father when you are referring to him to people outside your family.  It is a term that chidren do not start using until they have developed a substantial social network outside their family, and long after they have have developed full ability in fricatives, et al. Malnova 22:52, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "panjo" and "paĉjo" 

message: The wrong template was added to this article.  Citecheck is for articles that have citations, but whose citations are misrepresented or otherwise inappropriate.  Please discuss cleanup templates on the talk page when adding them. Durova 01:50, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citecheck template removed 

message: This article should have more than two sources for this amount of information, such as how native esperanto speakers are created. This also seems to be written from a somewhat biased and clearly first person perspective.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.69.217.144 (talk) 00:58, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sources and Style 

message: *Support. Both the article and the list are short; no reason to keep them separately. Simpler reading in one page. - Altenmann >t 18:08, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Merge suggestion from "List of..."

message: This article should be deleted as WP:OR, due to the lack of authoritative sources concerning existance of this phenomenon or truth in inclusion of the listed persons.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.49.18.203 (talk) 08:09, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I've completed this nomination on your behalf; it is now listed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Native Esperanto speakers. UltraExactZZ  Said ~ Did  17:11, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deletion request 

message: I've deleted the stats, since Ethnologue abandoned them years ago, and never cited their source.  — kwami (talk) 18:40, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Update:  Found sources citing 350 attested and 2,000 estimated total, so restored the stats.  — kwami (talk) 02:50, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statistics 

message: One of the sources I used says that there are 4th-generation Eo speakers, but they didn't seem particularly credible (it sounded like the authors repeated s.t. they had heard somewhere, not s.t. they had confirmed), so I didn't use it.  And in the interview with the supposedly 3rd-gen Eo speaker, his father later wrote in to say that he was actually 2nd-gen (the grandfather had learned the language).  It would be nice if we could confirm cases of 3rd- or 4th-gen speakers, though. — kwami (talk) 02:48, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  4th generation? 

message: Is George Soros (and by extension probably also his brother Paul) actually a native Esperanto speaker? According to , while his parents did teach him Esperanto at a young age, his only native language was Hungarian. Gephyra (talk) 22:50, 20 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: What do you see as the difference between "native language" and "learned at a young age"? These are generally synonyms, so long as the learning is to a fluent degree.24.84.80.28 (talk) 22:11, 4 June 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: A native language is one learned in the transition from being preverbal to being verbal. For most children, this would mean within the first couple years of life. To learn a language "at a young age" may mean age five or even ten. The concepts are quite distinct, though there may be a grey area between. Most sources agree that Esperanto was not Soros's native language, though he learned it in childhood from his parents. --Haruo (talk) 10:48, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

text: Is there any documentation for the claim that Paul Soros was a native Esperanto speaker? Frenezulo (talk) 21:55, 4 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  George Soros 

message: https://denaskuloj.home.blog/2019/03/15/kiom-da-denaskuloj-estas-en-la-tuta-mondo/
Tuxayo (talk) 18:52, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of sources about the number of native speakers 

message: I can see malmiksi in the infinitive form, but malscias in the present one. Should this be changed? RubenVerg (talk) 10:09, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Verbs not following a standard? 

message: Is there any documentation for the claim that Paul Soros was a native Esperanto speaker? Frenezulo (talk) 21:58, 4 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Paul Soros 

message: :
"Tiaj familioj ja multas," quoth eo.wp.
* eo:Patrick Lagrange / eo:Bernard Lagrange / eo:Arno Lagrange (French, German)
* eo:N. Klünder (German, Polish)
* eo:Lilia Ledon da Silva (French, Brazilian)
* eo:Leo Sakaguchi (Polish, Japanese)
* eo:Klára Ertl (Hungarian, French)
* eo:Peter Weide and eo:Eliza Kehlet (German, Danish) – they had at least one trilingual child
* the children of eo:Sen Rodin (Italian) and eo:Júlia Sigmond (Hungarian)
—Tamfang (talk) 06:49, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  composite families