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Are there any rules about the language used here? Is it ok to ask in Esperanto or is it supposed to be English only?
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Are there any rules about the language used here? Is it ok to ask in Esperanto or is it supposed to be English only?
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I'd suggest allowing the use of both Esperanto and English on this site. We hope this site will be used by many people who don't speak English fluently. After all, isn't that sort of the point of Esperanto? So allowing questions and answers in Esperanto will help this site grow.
Specifically, asking a question in either language is fine. If you can, consider including a translation into the other language.
If a question is asked in English, when you answer it, try to include an English version of your answer (if you want to include Esperanto as well, that's fine).
If a question is asked in Esperanto, try to include an Esperanto version of your answer (if you want to include English as well, that's fine).
6Yes, a full-immersion experience is the best way to learn a language. Translations are great; add them (to and from Esperanto ↔ English) wherever you can.–None–2016-08-23T19:23:25.453
I agree with that, but I think it should also be recommended to ask in English (or Esperanto and English translations), so new speakers will be able to understand the questions. For answers, exactly what you said - Esperanto questions are recommended to be answered in Esperanto and same goes for English–None–2016-08-23T19:31:23.200
it's good to ask question in Esperanto, and other users could edit the question and add a translation to English to make it accessible to Engish speaking beginners–None–2016-09-06T12:07:48.553
6We can edit questions and answers made by others. So if someone asked only in Esperanto or English, someone else can edit the question and insert the translation.–None–2016-08-23T20:42:42.090
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I think we should fully accept questions in English and/or Esperanto and have a friendly, tolerant and constructive attitude towards those who can't speak either.
Considerations:
Based on these considerations, I would suggest something like this:
2ockquote> English: This is the de facto lingua franca of the internet. This is plain wrong. The internet is language agnostic, and there is no de facto lingua france on it.
@jknappen: Warum diskutieren wir dann hier auf English? Et non pas en français? ¿O en español? 中文? Esperanto? Polski? ...–None–2016-09-13T10:20:37.980
1Weil die Haussprache von stackoverflow/stackexchange Englisch ist. stackexchange ist nicht das ganze Internet.–None–2016-09-13T10:21:31.943
1If SE didn't have the de facto lingua franca as its working language, it would be relatively insignificant. Nigerian scammers pay Russian hackers for distributing their spam to German email users. Some of them then complain to the system administrators of the Chinese, Indonesian or Peruvian servers that were abused for this. All of the communications in this example of course take place in English, which is not the native language of anyone involved. Just as was the case when the original Lingua Franca was of course used in trade negotiations between Hanse traders and Berber traders.–None–2016-09-13T10:31:49.287
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My addition to the many fine answers to this question is that we should also relax a little about whether answers are in Esperanto or English. I'll post something like the following and get a comment that I've written my answer in the wrong language:
Inteligenta persono lernas Esperanton facile kaj rapide.
In a bilingual site where the same people are asking and answering questions in both Esperanto and English, there is no value to translating an answer like that. Sometimes, I just don't notice what language a question is in. I read it and answer it. In a bilingual site, there needs to be some tolerance of the "wrong" language and on mixed language answers.
Furthermore, rather than commenting that the answer is in the wrong language, it would be more constructive to edit the answer, draw a line at the bottom, then provide a translation underneath if you really feel one is necessary.
Yes, you're making a very important point. We're all (or want to be) bilingual. I really enjoy this. :-D–None–2016-10-06T19:00:47.057
I think we can expect that most people here have at least a basic grasp of either Esperanto or English, and more probably are familiar with a little of both. If someone has trouble understanding a post or bit of text in either language, they would be free to ask for the meaning of something in a comment, and most of us would be happy to help them, ĉu ne?–None–2016-10-10T04:28:54.647
@Kat Ño - Absolutely! My concern is when a bunch of people who all clearly understand both languages well leave comments about what language a reply should be in.–None–2016-10-12T02:39:50.857
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I would say it should be allowed to ask and answer a question in any language, assuming that all answers are in the language of the question. Esperanto is an international language and people of all kinds of backgrounds are learning it and have questions that can be asked here. Why limit this site to only English learners of Esperanto? It's not like we can have sub-sub-stackexchange site, like for example russian.esperanto.stackexchange.com
. If only English is allowed, then this would be unfair, at least in my opinion.
3StackExchange questions are meant to help not only the asker, but anyone that goes back to that question to seek for the information they need. Not limiting the language to Esperanto and English only would make the site become one big mess of languages, and that won't allow others to get the information they need in a fluent way. Also, StackExchange is a de facto English network (except for sites that are tagged "X in
I think it could be useful to have in place a system where, if someone does come along who doesn't know English or Esperanto well, they can still attempt to submit a question and with our pooled resources here we can help convert their question to English or Esperanto. That leaves them with the problem of receiving answers only in English or Esperanto, but perhaps someone who knows their language can assist by voluntarily translating certain answers by request. It's not perfectly fair, but it at least provides some method for non-EN, non-EO speaking users to participate.–None–2016-10-10T04:37:02.533
And in addition, I think it would be a way to involve the vast part of the Internet that isn't English or Esperanto speaking into this Esperanto Language SE resource, without it becoming incredibly chaotic. It would be more of a volunteer type service by our polyglot/bilingual users, not an obligation, and not a linguistic free for all, either.–None–2016-10-10T04:40:10.257
2We should certainly be patient with non-English speakers who still aren't particularly skilled in Esperanto. It wouldn't hurt to post a question in both Spanish and in low-quality Esperanto – that would allow someone here to improve the Esperanto translation based on the Spanish. But allowing the same question to be asked in many different languages would be very difficult to maintain.–None–2016-08-24T12:06:52.587
1To add to the question : Can I answer to a question only in English with an answer only in Esperanto?
I am much more confident and efficient when I am writing in Esperanto than in English. However, the asker of the question in English might not understand Esperanto sufficiently to be able to understand my answer fully. I still prefer to have the ability/confidence to respond, and hope that someone will translate my answer some time after.–None–2016-08-27T21:36:08.407
1@Vanege Indeed, the ideal would be for there to be a culture of translating other peoples monolingual posts as edits - I amn't confident enough yet to post in Esperanto, but one of my posts was translated for me and I found it very helpful to see and study the translation.–None–2016-08-27T22:14:26.270