Talk:Esperanto/Archive 7

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Suggestion for rewording sentence in intro

I wrote what I think is a better sentence; you decide:

"Some state education systems offer elective courses in Esperanto; there is a large body of evidence that suggests learning Esperanto is useful preparation for learning other languages (see Propaedeutic value of Esperanto)."

The current wording says "there is evidence that..." which makes it appear, on some underlying level, as if the evidence is not concrete- yet, reading the article on Propaedeutic value of Esperanto leave little room for doubt. There is little to none when it comes to legitimate arguments against this claim, so I think making that a little more clear in this language would be a right ambition.

Also, I am not intimately familiar with stylistic guidelines, but I would prefer to redirect straight to the "propaedeutic value" page, but failing that, at least to the section on propaedeutic value on this page. As of now, it is pointing to "Esperanto and education" (or something) section on this page.

Opine, please. Lackinglatin 12:52, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Hitler reference

Under the criticism section is a quote by Hitler about how Jews want everyone to learn a single language, like Esperanto, so that Jews can more easily take over the world. As thrilling as that logic might be to someone, that is indeed not a valid criticism of the language. You could use this logic for any single language, and instead I read here that this one set out to not replace other ethnic languages. So I removed the quote from Mein Kampf someone had inserted into this article. I noticed it did not appear in the criticisms article so it must not really carry favor. Right?! Abisai 02:16, 13 June 2006

This is a tough one. On the one hand, I find it repugnant to include the Hitler quote. On the other hand, it is an historically interesting fact that Hitler was aware of Esperanto to the point of including a reference to it in Mein Kampf. Waitak 07:01, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Abisai that that quote had no place in this article. We might include it in History of the Esperanto language, where it is already being alluded to. Marcoscramer 00:32, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Ok HOLD ON. Iv'e read Mien Kampf (I'm not racist, it's just a good look into hitlers mind) I don't remember him saying much about the Jews and esperanto and what he did say wasn't exactly what I would call Vailid Criticism, it's also kind of rare when he talks about jews and esperanto... to tell you, the book isn't about the Jews... it's about him, his life, and scociety's shortcomings. he mentions the jews alot less than people give him credit for. but yeah, In the book, I wouldn't have put that there...

Dejuismaster 18:08, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Esperanto is sexist?

Under the critismes section is a statement that it is sexist? Anyone care to explain why it's not vandalism? Frenchman113 18:23, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Are you asking about sexism or racism? Esperanto is considered sexist because words are by default considered male and must be modified to be female. The partial neutering of the base word doesn't help; a convention of dentists would have dentistoj present, but may have dentistinoj as speakers.--Prosfilaes 21:07, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Check the article Gender-neutral language. And by the way, is it me, or was the criticism section bigger before? (I guess some biased Esperanto fanatics reduced it to make their conlang look more shiny) - 81.15.146.91 23:26, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

No, actually, it was expanded as a separate article. Currently under Esperanto as an international language, but there's been talk of splitting it yet again to be able to devote more space to criticism of the language per se. kwami 00:26, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I personally rarely use the -in- suffix, I do not see it as necessary. I would use "dentisto" for both male and female dentists and this is the normal rules of Esperanto. The -in- suffix is only there if you want to be specific. Only in words where gender distinction is necessary (patro, patrino) will you see the -o ending used to indicate someone male. --Revolución (talk) 02:31, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

That's a big "only". Some of the most basic words in Esperanto - patro, viro, frato, knabo - are male unless the -in suffix is added, and this is a real problem if you have a goal of expanding the acceptance of Esperanto.--RLent 15:33, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

If you use the -in- suffix to be specific, how do you talk about male foo?

With the prefixoid "vir-", e.g. "virdentisto". --Jim Henry 16:19, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

It's the same ambigious mess in Esperanto as it is in English, if not worse. And there is such a criticism, and it's fairly common, whether you agree with it or not.--Prosfilaes 06:29, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I see two problems with the inclusion of this criticism in its current phrasing in the article...

• • 1.) Many natural languages, such as Spanish, follow the same or a similar pattern; English as well as Spanish tends historically to default to male form with the pronouns, when gender is unknown or meant to be non-specific - in English especially, this is sometimes labeled "sexist", although since "they" in the singular is supposedly ungrammatical (even though it's increasingly frequent in coloquial English), and "it" (the only "grammatically correct" neuter pronoun in English) would be considered insulting as "it" is generally used only with non-human creatures or inanimate objects... I don't know how you'd get around that while still working within the rules of English, unless you went to using "he or she", which can get cumbersome (I write, which is why it concerns me at all. I do use a "they" as a singular, though, to get around it. Stuff the official grammar rules, it makes sense). In any case, therefore, since that pattern follows or closely paralells those found in several natural languages, how the language itself can be considered sexist, I'm not entirely sure. Would it not be the people who use it, or particular usages, as opposed to the language itself?

The language itself can indeed be considered sexist. Since men and women (viroj kaj virinoj) constitute people (viroj), the idea that vir- and -in- constitute sex-equality is severely chauvanist. A bovo is cow, but a virbovo (person-cow) is somehow more masculine? Being female is not a subclass of being male, despite thousands of years of oppression based on this idea. Languages can be, and in most cases are sexist. --Oren 20:51, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

This post is full of factual mistakes: "Viroj" doesn't mean "people" but just "men". "Bovo" doesn't mean "cow" as in female cow, but is sexually neutral (like "cattle"). "Virbovo" is hence not literally "person-cow", but rather "man-cattle". Marcoscramer 10:11, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Furthermore, the addition of the particle -in- is referred to as making the feminine to be a subclass. The term subclass is quite simply interpretive. One might just as unreasonably say that being female is some extra quality that is superior, and that male is the ambiguous case, rendering Esperanto a sexist language in favor of women. Indeed, a linguistic critique of sexism needs to do more than assume sexism and search for evidence. It has to demostrate that the language carries a natural bias that deprecates women. In most cases, there are cultural biases applied to language, but it's hard to nail down an actual linguistic bias.

Having said this, I wouldn't mind a system whereby vir was the root, but not male, virinoj was feminie, and vironoj was explicitly male. I think such a thing, as well as adding a epicene third-person pronoun in addition to male, female, and neuter would be quite helpful, but the main issues are not linguistic, but cultural. Language is a facet of culture, and it evolves with culture. Critique of a language is a valid means of cultural change, but if it's overly fanatic, it'll alienate the very community whose views need changing. --Christian Edward Gruber 13:25, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually singular they is quite old and well-established in English. --Jim Henry 23:58, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

• • 2.)At current, I see absolutely no citation for this view within that section. If it is "fairly common", why is there no link to such a criticism in that section? Such a potentially inflammatory remark about a language certainly could use one to keep it truly NPOV, in my opinion.

Runa27 07:53, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

So what if many languages do the same thing? Many languages have a complex set of cases and grammatical genders, but I wouldn't let that absolve Esperanto if it had the same complexities. As it is, Esperanto is horribly worse than English, with every occupation having both male and female forms.

Every person-word having optional male and female forms, the unmarked form of most words being unmarked for gender... see Revolución's comments of 4 December, above. --Jim Henry 23:58, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

From "Teach Yourself Esperanto", "Sxi estas mia plej bela amikino. She is my most beautiful friend. Li estas mia plej bona amiko. He is my best friend." There's absolutely no discussion of it being optional, and those sentences are examples of plej, not -in. I don't know whether those translations are correct, or if it should be "She is my most beautiful female friend." -in is listed in the table of suffixes and prefixes in the back, but not vir-. That was updated in 1987, so if it's a new thing, it's a very new thing. It's simply not true that this is the way the language is presented or probably even used in many cases.--Prosfilaes 00:14, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

amiko is a special case, perhaps. It's not inherently masculine like patro, filo, edzo and a handful of other words. But for whatever reason, speakers seem to use -in to mark it explicitly feminine more often than with other potentially gender-neutral words like the profession terms form with -ist. See the table I've added at the end of this section. --Jim Henry 16:11, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

There's absolutely no citation for this view because it's one word in a completely uncited section. Try looking at the links below the article with criticism, such as [1]. --Prosfilaes 19:03, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

But, yes; Esperanto has been criticized as sexist, however weak the grounds of this criticism, & mentioning such criticism is not out of place in the article. --Jim Henry 23:58, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Statistics for use of in with various person-words

Google hits for each word plus kaj: --Jim Henry 16:11, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

amiko 132,000
amikino 18,300

verkisto 78,300 [2]
verkistino 886 [3]

instruisto 63,000
instruistino 15,100

kuracisto 32,200
kuracistino 318

dentisto 703
dentistino 24
 (many of these 24 hits are in discussions of gender-neutral language!)

fripono ("scoundrel")  690
friponino  33

"Instruistino" for some reason is marked more often than the other profession terms I checked, or than amikino. I only checked one non-ist person word.

Not to mention:

malĉastulino ("slut")   298
malĉastulo ("male slut") 97

How's that for sexist? :-) --CJGB (Chris) 20:49, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Critics to Criticism

It seems an edit war has begun. Anonymous user, what is your justification for the placement of a link to a two-paragraph weblog post to this Wikipedia article? I do not think it is appropriate. -- Cam 02:43, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I've deleted both the link and the link it's a response to. The original screed has little more reason to be here than the weblog post that responds to it.--Prosfilaes 03:58, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

OK by me. -- Cam 04:42, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not crazy about letting Anonymous User veto the link to first article, which struck me as fairly substantial (well, OK, a screed, but a thousand times more substantial than Mike Fox's rejoinder). --Chris 06:17, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't see why we need to link to a non-notable screed. It's not of a factual nature, it's heavily controversial, and it's not notable in and of itself at all.--Prosfilaes 07:10, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

population estimates

Okay, I think I've found the ref to the 8M figure that keeps cropping up as the number of speakers of Esperanto: Grolier International 1980: "Approximately 8,000,000 people throughout the world speak Esperanto". Mario Pei in 1969 (Wanted: a World Language) said 10M. Of course, this hinges on what we mean by able to speak; I'm not recommending these figures, just documenting where they come from. kwami 06:38, 18 December 2005 (UTC) [4] says: Population 200 to 2,000 (1996).
Region Speakers in about 115 countries, used most widely in central and eastern Europe, China and other countries in eastern Asia, certain areas of South America, and southwest Asia.
Alternate names La Lingvo Internacia
Classification Artificial language
Language use 2,000,000 second-language speakers (1999 WA). All ages.
Language development Bible: 1900–1910.
This is most trustworthy information source I could find about the no. of E-o speakers. I am really curious where the "100 000" estimate comes from.

Estimating the amount of Esperanto speakers is about as reliable as estimating the amount of people who can play chess. Of course you can count those who play in the big leagues. You might also be able to count those organised in clubs, though there you'd already have the problem of finding all the clubs (including those not part of head organisations) and getting them to collaborate. But actually there are a lot of people who learned chess from a book, a website or an acquaintance and these are just impossible to count or even estimate, particularly if you're talking internationally.

Vocabulary

"Vocabulary from Romance and Germanic sources". Hmm, anybody care to guess where the word kaj comes from? --Revolución (talk) 02:53, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Put it in the article. The infobox doesn't need a complete rundown of where every word in the language came from. It's a tool designed to give a quick run down of the major points, not exacting detail. --Prosfilaes 03:15, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

It's Greek, as are one or two other basic words like pri, and the nominal declension. That info is in the Eo vocab article, where there's a list of all languages directly contributing to the original vocab. kwami 20:55, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

It comes from greek "Και" [anon.]

Population ... again

[5] says: Population 200 to 2,000 (1996). Region Speakers in about 115 countries, used most widely in central and eastern Europe, China and other countries in eastern Asia, certain areas of South America, and southwest Asia. Alternate names La Lingvo Internacia Classification Artificial language Language use 2,000,000 second-language speakers (1999 WA). All ages. Language development Bible: 1900–1910. This is most trustworthy information source I could find about the no. of E-o speakers. I am really curious where the "100 000" estimate comes from. Gebeleizis.

I took it from Jukko Lindstedt, a Finnish linguist and expert on denaska Esperantists. He's probably also the original source of the figure of 1000 native speakers.--Chris 20:55, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Check the earlier discussion on this. Ethnologue has never estimated the Esperanto population. They merely repeat the WA figure. WA has never estimated the Eo pop either; they use the 1.6M estimate, and round off to the nearest million. However, others who have tried to replicate the 1.6M figure have only been able to find a fraction of the expected number of speakers. The UEA itself estimates that there are at least tens of thousands and "may be" several hundred thousand speakers. Because of this, it is irresponsible to report 2M figure as if it we had any confidence in it. I'm reverting to the range of figures, which is more honest. If you have any primary sources that support a specific figure, please share it with us. Ethnologue isn't particularly "trustworthy", it's just more complete than anything else. kwami 22:12, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

In Rochester, NY, USA, I know 20 people fluent in Esperanto ina 1 million people area. With a round approximation of 300 million in USA, it gives us 6000 people. For 6.5 billion Earth population we'd have about 130 000 people. But we should not forget that in USA only 9% of the population can speak a foreign language while in Europe over 50% can. Esperanto is notably little spoken in the USA, so I'd consider the number at least 20 times higher myself. If I'd go for the data in my native village where 3 people out of 500 speak the lannguage, we get about 40 million speakers (which is, of course, an exageration the other way). Another way to check it out is the Orkut community: from 12 million people using it there are at least 2000 who speak Esperanto (based on the forums). By this statistics we get 1.1 million people speaking Esperanto. So, how can I accept an estimate as low as 100 000 based on NO PROOFS? So, unless you can find me a more detailed study and more credible source than Ethnonogue, I'll have no choice but to keep correcting the no. of speakers to the 2 million value. Gebeleizis

Please read the Demography section of the Esperanto article. The fact is, estimates of 1.6 or 2 million are controversial. The sidebar should not suggest a consensus on the issue. --Chris 02:16, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, I have calculations showing well over 3 million speakers. So, we either put 150 000 - 3 million or we leave it at 2 million. UEA does not represent everything connected with Esperanto. Also, the authors cited in the demographic section are from 1986 and 1989. In 16 years with a lot of internet acces is feasible that the no. of speakers is signifficantly higher in 2006. As I said, I'd estimate it at about 3 million but for the moment have only approximate studies. So, as I've shown you two exampls of estimates from particular to general, please show me a simillar one that contradicts the values I've displayed. Gebeleizis

We're still waiting for your evidence for the 3M figure. kwami 03:14, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not deprecating your calculations; but the point is not to do original research, but to cite the work of qualified authorities. Culbert's and the Ethnologue's 1.6m/2m figure counts; so does Lindstedt's 100K (which I will try to reference in the next few days). In terms of which figure is the most credible, my personal belief is that fluent Eo speakers number no more than few hundred thousand. Why? I'll give you my top 3 reasons, though I could come up with more.

• The best-ever census of Eo speakers was Dieterle's 1927 survey which estimated 127,000 club members. If we guesstimate that this meant 100K fluent speakers, then Culbert & Co. are projecting a 16-fold increase by the early 1990s, or an average growth rate of about 4 percent per year. Trouble is, none of the hard evidence we have points to those kinds of growth rates. Attendence for the last 10 UKs (1996-2005) was only about 40 percent higher than for the first 10 UKs (1905-1914). Rates of book publication and anecdotal evidence about press runs show a similar pattern (lots of growth in the last 10 years, of course, but that's because of on-demand publishing, most likely).

• Documented Esperanto activities appear to involve only about 100K persons a year. Now, while it's certainly possible to be a fluent Eo speaker and never go to Eo clubs or conventions etc., it can't be terribly common for people to become fluent speakers and remain fluent for years without taking part in some organized activity. We;re not talking about people who go through the Teach Yourself Esperanto course and then read a bit of Eo on the internet. The Foreign Service Level 3 standard of fluency used by Culbert is fairly exacting.

• Calculations like yours make the error of projecting limited samples onto the world population. While it's undoubtedly true that Eo is stronger in Europe than in the US, you can't make the same assumption about Latin America, Africa, India, and much of Asia. (The question of Eo usage in China deserves a detailed discussion on its own.) A large portion of the world's population is shut out of intellectual activities like Esperanto by poverty and lack of education. Affinity groups like Orkut don't have the same characteristics as the global community. Their members are self-selected to have more interests, more leisure, and be more engaged in community-building than some poor guy carting around a load of bricks in Dakha. Sikosek's surveys in Cologne and elsewhere are relevant here.

I'm not saying this proves a low pop. figure, but I do think it gives enough credibility to figures like Lindstedt's that they are worth including. Just providing a 1.6m or 2m figure gives a false sense of consensus on this issue.--Chris 12:44, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

The truth is that in South America, Korea and some parts of China Esperanto is on the rise. Also in Africa. About a language: I don't know how many languages do you speak. I am fluent in seven (including Esperanto). What I can say is that, once you speak a language well enough, you will not forget it for the rest of your life. One does not have to practice all the time a language in order to stay fluent in it. I haven't spoken Esperanto for a no. of years and when I found other people speaking it I didn't have to relearn the language. US is almost for sure one of the countries with a low no. of Esperanto speakers. And I think there are more than the 6000. I guess the only way to "convince" you is to get data from every single country, as the 100 000 no. is obviously a grose underestimation (I also do not see any proofs of it, so why should I believe it?). From 1927 the Earth population increased about 4 times. And even if we take only 40% increase, as the congress attendance, we obtain 177,800 people, almost twice as much as the 100,000 estimate. And all the data points the Esperanto speaking population did not decrease. The 3 million no. came from a calculation where I counted on alexa.com the no. of pages conencted with keyword "Esperanto" and compared them with the keyword for other national languages (French, Romanian, German, etc). As the official no. of speakers for those languages was known, I could get a correlation factor. The tendency was for that factor to be lower for languages with many speakers. The best approximation gave me around 3 million speakers. And if someone would have tried to find me in Rochester NY as an Esperanto speaker one year ago (also my cousin, who speaks it, too), would have failed as nothing showed it publicly. So, in your opinion I guess I simply don't exist because someone can't "find" me. Very scientific way to draw conclusions, indeed...

Gebeleizis

I do not mean to be rude, Gebeleizis, but I would expect a little more academic rigor from a student of physics. How can you ask for "proofs" for an estimated number of speakers, when we don't even have proofs for physics? It's very possible, for example, even likely, that pages about conlangs are heavily represented on the internet compared to pages about national languages. There may be many pages in Romanian, but the number of pages about Romanian would presumably correlate with the number of students of Romanian (probably a rather small figure) rather than with the number of native speakers. If the student effect is tenfold, just a guess, then your 3M guestimate becomes 300k. By your approach for Eo, we might think that Klingon has a substantial base of speakers, when there are probably no more than a few dozen who have any proficiency at all. And hypotheticals about whether someone would have found you in an imaginary study you set up as a strawman aren't convincing either. 100k as a low-end figure may be a bit low, but it's one of the few estimates we have.

I have no other choice than start writting emails to every organisation of every country and try to get official numbers. You complain of my approach, but the other "proofs" are even weaker than mine, with the low estimates. It will take me some time to get a comprehensive list of Esperanto speakers, though. I think my studies were decently good for the sparse data available. Now I'm beginning to be curious: how is the no. of English speakers estimated? Or of other languages? So, if you don't like my proofs, why should I accept your "proofs". What's better about them, honestly? General peoples' opinion? Why don't we do the same for the laws of physics? Just let's vote for the law of gravity or for the Relativity Theory. It's really a shame to read the lines above: "How can you ask for "proofs" for an estimated number of speakers, when we don't even have proofs for physics?", this really shows me you also have no proofs for the other numbers of Esperanto speakers and just want to put there the general people opinion (and missconception). So, maybe at least we should add: "It is generally believed, with no solid proofs, that ****** people speak Esperanto".

What in the world are you talking about? Of course there is no proof. You are not going to find any proof. There is no proof of GR either, as you would know if you were really a physicist. (Forgive my doubts, but if you don't understand that proof has no place in science, let alone in statistics, I have to wonder.)

It is not "generally believed" that there are 2×10^5~6 speakers; those are just the estimates we have. And no, we're not going to add "with no solid proofs" to the article, any more than we would to every other estimate in the encyclopedia. It's completely obvious that it's an estimate.

Write to all the Eo organizations you like; if they had the data you want, someone would have already compiled it. People have been trying to compile it for a century! kwami 23:11, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

About physics you are 100% wrong. GRT HAS BEEN prooved experimentally. If you don't know that, then I'm really dissapointed by the people supervising Wikipedia. Or now you're going to start teaching me even my own profession? I'm building right now a neutron detector for the most powerful laser experiment in the USA. And I am open for a discussion on any field of physics. I think you should be a bit more modest thinking about what you know in fields where specialists work. And I suggest you should learn to respect the people who know more about you on certain fields. So, don't try to give me physics lessons, you'll only look ridiculous. About Esperanto, I'll come back when I have more data (or if I can get more data). Is this encyclopedia really a place for people with no manners? Anyway, I have more important things to do than to prove that the Earth is not flat. Or to show to some kind of "smart butt" the limits of his knowledge. Don't expect me to go and check back in a few hours your "smart" reply. I'll come back when I have more data about the no. of Esperanto speakers. Gebeleizis

Maybe it's a language problem. Nothing is proven in physics, or any science, only demonstrated with varying degrees of certainty. That's why GRT is called a theory. Only mathematics involves proof. The cognates or translations in other languages of the English word 'prove' might not be subject to such a limited definition. kwami 00:34, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Estimates run from 10,000 all the way up to 40,000,000.Cameron Nedland 21:46, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

If you're citing Don Harlow's page, he points those numbers out as completely unreasonable. An encyclopedia is not the place to point out what probably amount to uninformed guesses, unless those uniformed guesses are important (used by a president, or something.)--Prosfilaes 03:44, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, alright. I just thot those #s were intresting.Cameron Nedland 15:15, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Learning Esperanto

The article claims:

There is evidence that learning Esperanto before another foreign language improves one's ability to learn that language — so much so that it takes less time to learn both than it would to learn just the second.

Do you have a citation? I would contend that this might be true for a lot of the european languages but not for chinese, hindi, urdu, bantu languages......etc, etc,...

Yes, there's a ref. just after your quote. And if you follow the link where it says, for more details see..., you'll find a bunch more. (In fact there have been criticisms that there were too many.) You're right, most of the studies involve European languages, but one Australian study involved an Asian language. My own experience leads me to believe that that study is credible and that the benefit works for "exotic" languages as well as "average European" ones. kwami 05:26, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I remember looking at that Australian study a couple of years ago. I got the impression that the propedeutic effect was stronger for Romance and/or Western languages, but it did exist for Asian ones (Japanese and Indonesian if I remember correctly). There was another study that showed a stronger effect for Italian than Hungarian. No surprise.--Chris 12:09, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I looked at that Australian study again (called EKPAROLI), and frankly it set off my bullshit alarm. Students who had studied Esperanto in primary school were better at learning languages in high school than those who'd studied other foreign languages. However, the language they had most frequently studied in primary school was Japanese - a language that (according to other data in the report) was generally loathed by the children and taught by extremely underqualified staff. So the positive effect shown for Esperanto may be better explained as a negative effect of low-quality instruction in Japanese. The fact the author didn't bother to break out the figures by language background (just classing students as having Esperanto or non-Esperanto) suggests sloppiness or deliberate fudging.--Chris 23:20, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

How can I learn Esperanto?Cameron Nedland 21:46, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

There's a list of online resources part way down the external links section of the article, or you can try the ELNA learner's site here. Looks like there's a club in Kansas City, MO. If you prefer books, I personally like Butler's Step By Step in Esperanto (US$16), but there's other stuff around. kwami 01:43, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. Kansas City is only a couple hours from hours from where I live. I gotta check that out sometime. Once again thanx alot!Cameron Nedland 15:40, 2 April 2006 (UTC)