World Congress of Esperanto
Sun Jul 24, 2005 12:41 EST (UTC -5)Yesterday the 90th Universala Kongreso de Esperanto (usually translated as World Congress of Esperanto) began in Vilnius, Lithuania. 2005 is the 100th anniversary of the first World Congress, and it has been held every year since then, except during the World Wars.
The World Congresses typically attract several thousand Esperantists from around the world. This year 2,228 people are participating. Because Esperanto has never been very popular in North America, the few Congresses that have taken place here have attracted relatively few people (923 in Portland, Oregon, in 1972; 802 in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1984). Some recent Congresses have been held in Beijing (2004), Tel Aviv (2000), Berlin (1999), and Adelaide (1997). Most, however, are in Europe, which has the most Esperantists.
I hope to attend a Congress someday, when my Esperanto is better and I'm free to travel. Maybe I could stay with another Esperanto speaker using the Pasporta Servo (Passport Service). There are all sorts of things to do at one. You get to meet a lot of people from around the world, and "crocodiling" is discouraged. ("Crocodiling" refers to speaking your native tongue when using Esperanto would be more appropriate. A crocodile, of course, has a big mouth and a small brain. You can't make this stuff up!)
I can feel myself getting better at Esperanto every day. Now that I've studied it a bit, some phrases are slowly coming into my mind naturally, and when I see, hear, or say something, an equivalent Esperanto phrase may pop into my head. I guess that's what you'd call fluency! (Or the beginning of it, anyway.)
In the interest of those who don't care about what's happening in my head, let's move on...
What are the odds of dying? The odds of you being killed are 1 in 23. The odds of you being killed this year are 1 in 1,755.
Did your mom ever tell you not to play with fireworks? Tell her to relax; your odds of dying of a firework-related accident this year are 1 in 57,588,244. Contact with venomous snakes and lizards this year? 1 in 95,980,407. Hey, and don't worry about getting into that streetcar. The odds of you being killed by one this year are 1 in 71,985,305.
How about lightning? The odds of being killed by lightning are 1 in 56,439. The odds of being killed by lightning this year are 1 in 4,362,746.
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1 comment
#1 by Christopher Culver: Sun Sep 18, 2005 02:42 EST (UTC -5)
"There are all sorts of things to do at one. You get to meet a lot of people from around the world, and "crocodiling" is discouraged."
And why in the world would you want to visit a foreign country just to be told to ignore its own local language and whatever language you have to contribute, instead speaking a made-up language that belongs to no one? I was very active in the Esperanto movement for ten years, and I was even into it enough to volunteer for a year in the central office of World Esperanto Association. But what really drove me away in the end is that, instead of reserving Esperanto as a useful last resort and seeking true culture exchange by letting people learn each others' languages, there is a cult-like attachment to Esperanto. If two people who happen to be Esperantists meet each other, they are expected to speak only Esperanto even if they speak each other's languages fluently. I speak good Spanish (lived in Madrid for two years) and great Romanian (spend about half of the year there now), and I got sick of Spaniards and Romanians telling me "Ne krokodilu". They were so brainwashed by Esperanto that they had no appreciation of their own languages anymore. It really is dangerous, and people would do best to stay away from it. I have an essay on the subject which may interest you at http://www.christopherculver.com/en/writings/esperanto.php