Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 2nd May 2008 20:52 UTC, submitted by irbis
One of the biggest problems facing the European Union today is the fact that within its borders, 23 languages are spoken. This means that all the important documents have to be translated by a whole army of translators, which costs the taxpayer more than 1 billion Euros a year - and companies trading within the EU spend millions more. The EU-funded TC-STAR project aims to tackle this issue with technology: a system that eats speech in one language, and outputs that same speech in another.
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RE[12]: What's the problem?
by irbis on Wed 7th May 2008 20:43
in reply to "RE[11]: What's the problem?"
Member since:2005-07-08
However if you are working abroad on a foreign keyboard, use ch gh hh jh sh u or any other method that pleases you. Isn't that nice?
Sure.
And maybe Esperanto is indeed the best thing since sliced salami...? 
But - sorry - I still cannot see why it wouldn't be even easier and simpler for most users today without its extra letters (or their alternative double consonant replacements)... So, I just doubt a bit whether Esperanto could be the ultimate best auxiliary language that has ever been or could ever be developed... However, undoubtly its major strength is that it has by far more users than any other international auxiliary language (Ido and Interlingua being the two other major candidates) has ever had.
Really, I would have nothing against learning and using Esperanto - if it was used more in the world. But I suspect that some problems like the extra letters may prevent Esperanto from gaining the position and popularity that it might otherwise deserve. Small issues like that may be enough to turn many people off who might otherwise find such an easy-to-learn auxiliary language very nice.
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Member since:
2008-05-05
quote: "That article, although long and comprehensive, doesn't tell why using the extra letters of Esperanto with breves and circumflexes is supposed to make the language easy to use?"
read http://remush.be/rebuttal/spelling.html ;
In 1897 the letters ĉ ĝ ĥ ĵ ŝ ŭ were quite easy to write by hand and with an azerty keyboard (French WAS then the preferred international language). It's later than unsophisticated computers could not manage. Nowadays it does not require exceptional skills to type them.
However if you are working abroad on a foreign keyboard, use
ch gh hh jh sh u or any other method that pleases you.
Isn't that nice? What's the problem?