Christian Velásquez Pañganiban ([info]tisoi) wrote in [info]linguaphiles,
@ 2003-09-05 23:37:00
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Link of the day: Native Esperantists / Denaskaj Esperantistoj
"Nativization Processes in Esperanto" by Dr. Benjamin K. Bergen

http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~bbergen/NEJCL.pdf


Here's an abstract of the paper which appeared in the Journal of Child Language:
The artificial language Esperanto is spoken not only as a second language, by its proponents, but also as a native language by children of some of those proponents. The present study is a preliminary description of some characteristics of the Native Esperanto (NE) of eight speakers, ranging in age from six to fourteen years. As such, it is the first of its kind - previous works on NE are either theoretical treatises or individual case studies. We find, at least for the eight subjects studied, both bilingualism and nativization effects, differentiating native from non-native Esperanto speech. Among these effects are loss or modification of the accusative case, phonological reduction, attrition of the tense/aspect system, and pronominal cliticization. The theoretical ramifications are discussed, particularly with regard to universals of language acquisition and the effects of expressive requirements of language.

I've only skimmed the article for now and can already tell it's an interesting read. Funny, though. I've lost interest in Esperanto long ago, but I consider topics like this fascinating.

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[info]alcarilinque
2003-09-06 01:02 am UTC (link)
I think its way cool when people teach kids artificial or previously dead languages-- however, its interesting to see what the results of it are. Good they pick a language that people actually do use from time to time too, I guess ;) Were I to have kids and teach them Sindarin, I think that would be rather debilitating...

Anyone successfully make their child a native speaker of Klingon? :P

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[info]litui
2003-09-06 01:12 am UTC (link)
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.08/mustread.html?pg=8

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[info]embryomystic
2003-09-06 01:48 am UTC (link)
Ah, a shame. But it's good that the parent listened to the child, and stopped using the language when it was clear that the child was not enjoying it.

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[info]litui
2003-09-06 11:06 am UTC (link)
Indeed.

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[info]alcarilinque
2003-09-06 10:45 am UTC (link)
Aha. :)

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[info]embryomystic
2003-09-06 01:46 am UTC (link)
I'd be interesting in observing/reading about the results of an attempt to raise a child speaking Sindarin. Especially because it's far more limited than even Quenya. You could use a lot of 'questionable' vocab, from the Etymologies, but somehow I think you'd still come up short, especially when talking about things such as the lovely machines we're using to communicate right now. So what would be fascinating (along with the sort of things the Esperanto study looks at, the shedding of aspects and endings and such) is the neologisms that would form. I mean, a lot of kids and families have their own words for things. With a language like Sindarin, there would be no greater world to replace such personal words with standardised ones. I always find that interesting. Sort of like how phrases in English turn into single words in English creoles (bagarap, bainbai).

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[info]alcarilinque
2003-09-06 10:50 am UTC (link)
I guess that's the difficulty of teaching artificial languages that arent intended for our world, or arent even intended to be spoken outside of the books they inhabit.

I guess if you had your kid speaking Quenya, you could always use some finnish words. :P

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native speaker of Klingon?
(Anonymous)
2004-07-01 02:00 pm UTC (link)
There actually was one guy who tried to teach his son Klingon.
The kid rejected it at age three.

I actually considered teaching my son a Tolkien language,
but discarded the idea, as it would create a weird bond
between us, me being the only one he could speak it to.

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[info]embryomystic
2003-09-06 01:05 am UTC (link)
Quite fascinating. Thank you for posting it.

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[info]litui
2003-09-06 01:37 am UTC (link)
The findings regarding the accusative (-n) are interesting... though I think at the very least the -n needs to stay part of the language for optional wordplay and non-SVO sentences.

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[info]embryomystic
2003-09-06 01:48 am UTC (link)
I agree. What's discardable in the eyes of a child does not automatically reflect what's ultimately useless in a language. Free word order is one of the most interesting things about Esperanto, I think.

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[info]litui
2003-09-06 10:57 am UTC (link)
Sure. There are two things I see so far that this study doesn't take into much account.

1) Modes of speech - The study touches only briefly on the idea that the parents may use a different mode of speech when dealing with children. This itself could include dropping of aspects and possibly endings. I know in English there is a tendancy to simplify the language, alter the pitch and stress, and talk down to children, causing many of them to speak improperly by the time they reach school (I've witnessed this a number of times...drives me nuts). How many of the parents correct the speech of their children as opposed to interpreting the meanings. My English language speech was corrected to some basic standard in the home when misused.

2) Immersion/Literacy - They say that Esperanto is spoken at home, but Esperanto is not purely a spoken language. How many of these children read/are read to in Esperanto? Obviously they're not getting Esperanto in the mainstream media. Childrens' television/radio programming is certainly in the local languages. I know for me in English, the fact that I could read and was read to improved my speech vastly. Television was great for me. This was my introduction to new words and grammar my family didn't use in the home.

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[info]litui
2003-09-06 11:00 am UTC (link)
I linked to this post on [info]esperanto. Hope you don't mind.

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A native speaker responds
[info]kunar
2003-09-06 03:05 pm UTC (link)
Hi!

I am a native speaker of Esperanto. If you believe Ethnologue's figures, then I am one out of 200-2000.

I must admit that when I first read the abstract I was a bit upset and after reading the whole "Nativization processes in L1 Esperanto", I was even angry about the typical mistakes that occur every time you study a language without speaking it and use a sample that isn't representative. But then I took the time to relax a bit and reread parts of it. Without any doubt, it has a certain value. The real messages seem to be between the lines.

Bergen took eight native speakers that were between 6 and 14 years old. He made interviews with them and then noted the differences between their Esperanto (called NE in his work) and standard Esperanto (SE).

In other words: He pointed out detally the difference between children's language compared to official norm.

If you look at it like that, everything's fine for me.

One might think that, in order to make assumptions about the language use of native speakers in general, it is not enough to look at the children, not to speak about the further development of the language as a whole.

Some of you have already argued that the absence of composite tenses, the rare use of the accusative ending and the nearly exclusively SVO word order may be child age's phenomena. I'd agree to that.

I know native Esperanto speakers from Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Hungary, Poland and Russia.

Basic notes:
Some of them still make grammar errors, have a bad pronounciation (biased by their other mother language) etc. Others master the language, but without any obvious differences from people who learnt it well as a second language and trained it long enough. At adult age, it is merely impossible to distinguish between native and non-native speakers.

I could mention a dozen of details of Bergen's study that are wrong or can be doubted,
at least confronted with my own experience, but this comment is already long enugh.

Don't forget:
A wrong thesis is better than no thesis, because given the wrong thesis and the knowledge that it is wrong, you can develop another, right thesis. It's seldom enough that linguists take the time to study Esperanto - and even then, they often don't even contact any Esperanto speakers but use what they find written in an old book!

Some valuable resources about native Esperanto speakers in the net:

DENASK-L, a community of Esperanto families and native speakers (see links under "Informoj kaj konsiloj"; in Esperanto)
Esperanto Wikipedia (an article about native Esperanto speakers; in Esperanto)
about Esperanto's neutrality (section "Anmerkung"; in German)

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Re: A native speaker responds
[info]litui
2003-09-06 09:30 pm UTC (link)
Thanks for your input. It's cool to hear comments from a native Esperantist on such a study.

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Re: A native speaker responds
[info]amuzulo
2003-09-07 12:47 pm UTC (link)
I could mention a dozen of details of Bergen's study that are wrong or can be doubted,
at least confronted with my own experience, but this comment is already long enough.

Well, I personally would be happy to hear them. Perhaps they would be more useful in another post. People in this list might be interested to know that one of the 200-2000 native speakers is on this list. ;-)

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An own article about native Esperanto speakers
[info]kunar
2003-09-08 05:39 am UTC (link)
I contacted Dr. Bergen. Let's see what he answers first. An own article with every detail could reveal the results of a discussion which are more interesting to read than a monologue (even if it's a monologue from an "exoting" being).

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Re: A native speaker responds
[info]tisoi
2003-09-07 02:51 pm UTC (link)
Dankon pro via komento.

Wow, so I think you're the first denaskulo I came across. I notice that your other mother tongue in German. Is there a language which you consider dominant? My mother tongues are Tagalog & English, but English is my dominant one.

And do you dream or think in Esperanto?

As for Dr. Bergen's article, perhaps you should contact him about your concerns. I'm sure he'd be thrilled. And I don't mind long comments, really.

Again, thanks.

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dominant languages
[info]kunar
2003-09-08 04:27 am UTC (link)
Normally, the every day language is the dominant one. This is, in my case, German. But if I spend several weeks in complete Esperanto surrounding (e.g. several meetings), then Esperanto takes over the dominant role.

I remember my brother saying, "After a one-week event during which I spoke only Esperanto, I even began to dream in it." I already dreamt in Esperanto (I dreamt about Esperanto friends...), but I don't remember anything special.

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Re: A native speaker responds
(Anonymous)
2004-05-25 12:59 pm UTC (link)
I don't find it particularly unusual to dream or think in Esperanto... I often dream and think in my second language (English) (my first is Spanish), and sometimes in my third one (Esperanto).

Regards
Alejandro

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Re: A native speaker responds
[info]tisoi
2003-09-07 02:51 pm UTC (link)
Dankon pro via komento.

Wow, so I think you're the first denaskulo I came across. I notice that your other mother tongue in German. Is there a language which you consider dominant? My mother tongues are Tagalog & English, but English is my dominant one.

And do you dream or think in Esperanto?

As for Dr. Bergen's article, perhaps you should contact him about your concerns. I'm sure he'd be thrilled. And I don't mind long comments, really.

Again, thanks.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

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