: -- Komencante lerni Esperanton

Friday, Frebruary 9th 2024

I began the Esperanto Duolingo course months ago. At the moment, I did not feel too engaged by it, and it was set aside, until last month. That language has plenty of qualities that could entice me to it: origins in the "Fin de siècle" Europe, lofty utopian goals, links to anarchist and left-wing ideologies, strong nerd vibes, et cetera. So I gave another try, and this time it really clicked.

One of the traits I like the most is the simultaneous sensation of familiarity and oddity. As a polyglot with some degree of acquaintance with several other languages, I immediately recognize a lot of words, but nevertheless I am hit by some kind of uncanny valley effect that make them look exotic. Eventually, trying to guess from which language a given word comes has become an amusing pastime to me. And then, things get better when I discover the wonderful use of antonyms, compound words and affixes that make Esperanto such a colorful language. The extense use the prefix mal- to form the opposite of an adjective (e.g. "granda" for big results in "malgranda" for small) is a weird feature, but I find it a very cool one.

Discovering Esperanto has me delighted, and so much that it has boosted my attention onto other conlangs like Quenya and Klingon, on which I have some basic knowledge, but I have decided to get a deeper understanding of them.

Ĝis la revido.