h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Very good article, it certainly got me interested.
But shouldn't there be a link or some other resources (to books or dictionaries or whatever)?

www.gobbledegook.com perhaps?

Hah. Well, there's http://www.esperanto.com for starters.

http://esperanto.org/espviva/angla/index.htm is a good one. I got interested in Esperanto because Red Dwarf (the ship from the comedy/sci-fi show of the same name) is apparently a dual language ship. The signs on board are all in English and Esperanto. Example: all the floors are labelled Level/Nivelo IIRC. However, my interest dwindled after a couple of days so I didn't get much further than "Saluton! Mia nomo estas John. Kaj via?"

A couple of years back I came across amagazine called Muse, which my little brother gets. It had an article about Esperanto, and it taught me how to call someone an ugly camel. I'm not sure if I remember correctly, but I think it's 'Vi estas malbela camelo' or something like that. anyway, I'd like to learn more.

Greetings all - I'm glad to see so much interest in the article I wrote. =) When I wrote this article several months ago (it seems to me I wrote it around October!), it was kind of a rush effort - one of those inspired moments I guess. =) I forgot at the time to include links, but here's a couple for your interest:

http://216.202.164.170/esperanto/course/

This is where I first began to learn Esperanto from - in my opinion, it's an excellent course. The course is taught by e-mail - you get 10 lessons, a vocabulary list (no need to rush out and buy a dictionary!), and a tutor to send the completed lessons to. The tutors are very experience in Esperanto, and will answer all your questions, big or small. =) As with learning any language, it helps to be knowledgeable about the parts of speech (verbs, nouns, etc.) Note that this course is intended for those whose primary language is English - other course are available, and if you look around www.esperanto.org I'm sure you can find something to please yourself. =)

http://www.webcom.com/~donh/esperanto.html

When I think of speakers of Esperanto, this man pops into mind - Don Harlow. On his site he has a very extensive collection of links to literature in Esperanto, and information about some other "International Languages" you're probably not familiar with, such as Volapuk and Interlingua. =)

At the time I write this, I'm in a rush, yet again. (For some reason, H2G2 always catches me off-guard. =) If this thread continues, then I'll post some more information in the upcoming day or two. =)

Cheers,
Numbernine

Please do. As an alternative to living with a fish in your ear, I think Esperanto has a lot to recommend it.

JTG

Alrighty then! Expect more info coming soon. =) BTW John, I noticed that you were the editor for my piece, so I have a question: can I make changes to it that will show up in the approved guide, or do I have to resubmit the piece with the changes and wait a few more months? =)

And to whoever said "Vi estas malbela camelo": You're on the right track, but it should be "Vi estas malbela kamelo" - the reason for this spelling is that in Esperanto, the letter "c" makes a "ts" sound, whereas "k" makes the "hard k" sound in kite or colour. =)

About this "ts" thing: Probably the hardest words in Esperanto for anglophones to speak are those that begin with "sc" - this ends up making a "ss-ts" sound, which is tricky to pronounce. Fortunately, my dictionary only lists 5 words beginning with sc: "sceno" (n. scene), "sceptro" (n. sceptre), "scii" (v. to know, to be aware of), "scienco" (n. science), and "sciuro" (n. Squirrel). The hardest of these is "sciuro", and sounds like: "ss-ts-ee-OO-row" - very tricky for anglophones (especially because the "r" is trilled!), but Russians take to it quickly. =)

Also note that some of the definitions were probably self-evident, namely "sceno", "sceptro", and "scienco." In Esperanto you'll find many words that are self-evident, such as "hundo" (dog) and "lakto" (milk - think lactose =). Of course some words are a little puzzling - "akvo" (water) and "knabo" (boy) come to mind - where did they come from? =)

I soooo wish I had the time to devote to learning Esperanto. I first heard of it from my internat'l relations prof. in Seoul a few years ago. Anyway, as for your last, Numbernine, for "akvo" think "aqua" from the Latin for water and for "knabo" think "knave" which I think used to simply mean boy. So does this mean the Adam Sandler movie would be titled "Knabo akvo" or "akvo Knabo"?

Do you know if there are similar sites for learning other languages?

Hello Numbernine.

Unfortunately, you cannot edit your work once it has been accepted as an Official Entry. The good people who bring us the Guide must have editorial control or there really would be no such thing as "Official".

Having said that, everything is subject to change; how speedily change is affected depends on what sort of changes you want to make. Normally, changes or additions come about through forum postings or from new submissions. The problem with the forum route is that only an oracle of some kind can tell you when anyone will read it. The alternative, as you mention, is to submit and wait.

However, if there is a fundamental flaw in the Official Entry, it is possible (and desirable) to make the alteration quickly. If this is the case, you can entrust the change to me, by posting the correction here or at my homepage, or by making a similar arrangement with Anna (U25).

Please note that emergency changes should only be considered if the Official Entry is *seriously* flawed (ie factually wrong), because Anna and her team are up to the proverbial eyebrows, and this causes a delay in the processing of other people's work.

JTG

Hmm, we're getting into difficult territory here - a direct translation for "Waterboy" would be "Akvknabo"or "Akvo-knabo", but this would seem to indicate that the boy was made of water - not the meaning you were hoping for. =) The trick is that "Waterboy" is kind a kind of English expression - a waterboy being a person who gives refreshments to players of a pro sports team. Now it's a question of translating that last definition into a word or collection of words. =)

Let's take a slightly more bizarre look at this - a waterboy, in fact, is getting the players to drink water, no? Perhaps we could arrive at a translation from this perspective. But first, an important note: Esperanto allows (and encourages!) the use of new words by putting together others words (technically termed "corellatives"). For example, if you did not know the word for "Galaxy", you could create your own word by thinking of a galaxy as a large collection of stars. So, a translation for "Galaxy" might be "Stelarego" (stel - arr - EH - goh). Let's take a look at the parts of this:
Stel - Star
Ar - A collection Of
Eg - Massive, Large
O - The noun Marker

So, using Esperanto's ability to generate new words, we just made a new word for "galaxy." =)

Back to the "waterboy" problem. Using the above approach, a translation might be "Akvtrinkigulo" (ackv - treenk - eeg - OOL - oh). Let's take a look at the parts of this:
Akv - Water
Trink - To Drink
Ig - To Cause (In this case, to cause drinking)
Ul - A Guy Who Does this action / Has this quality
O - The noun marker

So, in short, "The Waterboy" could be translated as "La Akvtrinkigulo" - in literal English, "The Water-drinking-causation-guy." =) Of course, this whole mess can be averted by using the rule that proper nouns don't need to be translated from one language to the next, but for all intents and purposes, I think the above would work, and be understood by most Esperantists.

By other languages, I'll assume you mean other "Planned Languages", such as Esperanto. To the best of my knowledge, sites for other languages are probably few and far between - as compared to Esperanto, which has practically been online since the birth of the internet for public use. The reason for this, though, is that Esperanto is the most successful planned language to date - it is now 113 years old, and the only Planned Language to be in use after the death of it's creator. Esperanto is designed for international use, and what better place for inernational use than the internet? To the best of my knowledge, no other Planned Language has this kind of backing behind it.

If you're interested in searching for yourself, however, other languages which might have an online presence include Interlang and Interlingua, but I can't confirm that a lot of material exists about them.

Actually, I was interested in any and all languages, not just planned ones.

Hmm, I'm not too sure about national languages (I.E. Spanish, French, etc.) - generally speaking, these languages are too difficult to be easily self-taught, and I'm not aware of any effective self teaching course available online. =/

Ahem.

Ah well. This is good for now....

Ahem what? =)

There is a pretty good site that gives you some starter phrases in a whole bunch of languages (including Esperanto and Ido) and further links to other sites related to those langages.
http://ww.travlang.com/languages

Have a look. Might be interesting.
Lost...

I'm not sure if you already know of this site, but if you're looking for languages it has everything.

It's the Human Languages Page, and as links to literature, net classes and other stuff on any language imaginable. I'm not sure if you could fully self teach yourself a language in this way, but it would probably be a good place to start

http://www.june29.com/HLP/

hope this is useful