Language – Latin

5 Responses to “Is Esperanto understandable for people who speak neo-latin languages?”

1. Erik Van Thienen Says:
   November 19th, 2009 at 9:04 pm

   Although some of the prefixes and suffixes will sound strange, more than half of the root words will be familiar, as they come mainly from French, English, German, Latin and Greek.

   Have a look at the Esperanto Wikipedia : http://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%88efpa%C4%9Do

2. Mamie Says:
   November 19th, 2009 at 9:04 pm

   Esperanto and Interlingua were both intended to be learned fairly easily by anyone who speaks any of the world’s major languages. Thus, certain elements are understandable to speakers of each language group, including speakers of the Romance languages. But one can assume that speakers of other language groups would have an equally easy time with other aspects of the these invented languages.

   By the way, English, German and Greek (mentioned above) are not neo-Latin languages.

3. I like friends everywhere,esp.+D Says:
   November 19th, 2009 at 9:04 pm

   No it is not.I have studied Esperanto and I have written many letters in it.I also use Spanish every day.Frankly Esperanto is a useless language,IDO is an offshoot of Esperanto and much easier but also useless.Compared to Spanish the grammar is very simple .

4. rich Says:
   November 19th, 2009 at 9:04 pm

   No it is not understandable for Latin language speakers.
   When I first learnt Esperanto in a summer school there was a French lady in the beginners class and she couldn’t understand conversation in the first week. She certainly had an advantage over me but there were too many unknown words for her to understand entire sentences.

   Here are some of the common Esperanto words that don’t look French to me:
   and=kaj
   also=ankaw
   four=kvar
   five=kvin
   however=tamen
   besides=krom

5. Kunar Says:
   November 21st, 2009 at 11:33 am

   @rich:

   The basic problem is that Latinide languages do not have ONE big common vocabulary but tend to differ like all other similar languages do. Furthermore, Latinide language have a variety of different prononciation that makes it sometimes hard to recognize words. That’s why the idea that “if you understand Latinide language A, you will understand Latinide language B” does not always work.

   Regarding your examples:
   “kaj” – Ancient Greek
   “tamen” – Latin (!)
   “krom” – Slavic

   ankaŭ – Latinide (“anche” in Italian)
   kvar – Latinide (“quattro” in Italien, French’s “quarante” for fourty)
   kvin – Latinide (“quinto” being 5th in Italian, French’s “quinze” for fifteen)

   This shows another thing: Esperanto uses the same root for different words (4, 4th, 14, 40 etc.). More irregular languages have different roots here. Therefore, you won’t find all of them in Esperanto, even if the Esperanto word is taken from the language or a similar one.