Bloggy favorites
Weenie-Elise over at Ode to Mrs. Beeton has honored me with an award. (Waves to Weenie.)
The "RULES" of this award are that I am to: 
- Tell you seven things that you don't already know about me.
- Name seven other blogs to receive this award.
- Leave a comment on each of the blogs I have nominated letting them know that I have given them an award.
- Thank the blog that you gave me the award.
Well, I've already done #4. I'll list those seven things mentioned in #1 shortly (if I can come up with them, that is!). I've named other favorite blogs in the past and have my super-duper favorites on the sidebar. There are, of course, others that I turn to for information and to enjoy.
(I probably won't leave a comment on their blogs, but I do hope you'll visit them and enjoy them as much as I do.)
Seven blogs I enjoy:
- Cake Wrecks Totally hilarious.
- Depression Era Cooking with Clara Clara is 93. She knows her stuff. This blog actually points to her You Tube videos. Sometimes there's more info.
- Vintage Sewing Info This isn't a blog, but it has FREE public domain vintage sewing books you can download.
- Tales of a Retro-Modern Housewife aka The Glamorous Housewife. Lots of lovely vintage clothes, makeup, hair, and decor to enjoy.
- Weight Loss Surgery Blog is by Trixie at Farm Home Life. In my opinion, anything that Trixie writes about is interesting, informative and entertaining!
- The Nourishing Gourmet This lady knows her stuff about nutrition.
- 97 Things to Do Before I Turn 97 Another fun blog. She also likes to dress retro, but her blog focuses on what's left of those 97 things she hasn't gotten to yet.
Seven things you don't already know about me:
- I play the piano and write songs.
- I type 95 wpm.
- I've touched foot in all 48 indigenous states.
- I played the flute all the way through college.
- I graduated with a BA degree in Theology.
- I took a year of Esperanto in grade school.
- I went to high school with Mike Scaglione--a musician with the Miami Sound Machine.
Speaking of Miami Sound Machine, it's 40 degrees right now (outside) and I'm cold. It's time to heat things up. I'm in the mood for a little....
CONGA!
13 comments:
Wow! I am so honored! Thank you so much for this award. I love the little facts you gave us about yourself. Now I have to think of some as well!
Thanks doll,
The Glamorous Housewife
Glamorous--Your blog inspires me. I even bought a set of hot rollers because of you!
Now, can you come to my house and explain them to me?
Awww, Roxane; thank you for mentioning me!
I loved reading the 7 things about you. I've been a longtime reader and had no idea. You can type 95 words per minute?! You are my hero.
Trixie
Trixie--I meant what I said about your writing!
Yep, 95wpm. It has come in VERY useful over the years!
I took a year of Esperanto in grade school.
Interese! En kiu lernejo vi lernis la internacian lingvon? Ĉu vi scias, kial via lernejo instruis ĝin al vi? Kiom vi ankoraŭ memoras el tio, kion vi tiam lernis?
Micjo--
I tried to figure out what you said and came up with only "Interesting! Something, something, learn, something, something, international language, something something....
Oh well. Grade school was a LONG time ago!
So, I went to a translation program and now I can answer your questions!
It was a separate program for the top readers in our elementary school in Tampa, FL. We got to choose different classes and Esperanto sounded interesting.
My attempt at translation shows you how MUCH I remember of that experience.
The school said that Esperanto was going to become the new international language that everyone worldwide could use to communicate.
So far I haven't seen that. But, then, I live in the US. Where do you live? Do you find Esperanto to have fulfilled it's original intent?
@Roxanne
I live in the U.S. (Pacific Northwest), although I'm Canadian and have spent many years in French-speaking Europe, which is where I discovered and learned Esperanto.
The most truthful one-word answer I can think of to your second question is "partly". However, an accurate answer requires a bit more nuance and detail. Most Esperantists today see the language's vocation as a voluntary low-cost second language for all to serve when native and/or regional languages do not suffice. Here's a current status of the language:
* About 2,000,000 competent speakers, almost all non-native speakers. Nobody knows for sure exactly how many there are, but about the best number we have comes from a (now late) University of Washington professor who provided number-of-speaker figures for an almanac. We don't have all the details, but we do know that he used an unambiguous definition of "Esperanto speaker" (FSI level 3), conducted in-field research, and gave figures that jive with estimates from other sources, lending some credence to his number.
* About 2,000 native speakers, people whose parents raised them speaking Esperanto, either by choice, or by necessity (e.g., a couple that have only Esperanto as a common language raise a family speaking Esperanto at home).
* A year-to-year % growth rate that seems to exceed that of the world. Again, if we don't know how many speakers there are, we can't be sure about the growth rate, but my guess from figures past and present is a growth rate of about 3%-4% per year; the world is currently growing at 1.8%, and slowing.
* Spoken in over 120 countries.
* Fully matured into a complete living, natural language, with the means to express every facet of human life.
* Very easy to learn and speak, without sacrificing expressiveness.
* Used every day in ordinary situations, not just at occasional get-togethers.
* Rich literature comprising thousands of works, both original and translated, including many world literary treasures.
* Used primarily as a bridging language between people of different native languages.
If you compare that to its primary vocation, it's clear that the "voluntary low-cost second language between people of different native languages" part of its vocation has been achieved. In that sense, it has succeeded: it is voluntary, it is low-cost, it is a functional, complete language, it is used mainly as a second language primarily between people of different languages. What remains is the "for all people" part, but even that is partly achieved: it is spoken in most countries, even if not that many speak it in each one, and the speaker base has grown from just one in 1887 to about 2,000,000 today by little more than word-of-mouth (no pun intended :-)). It just needs to keep growing. Current hotspots are east Asia (China, Japan, Korea), Brazil and parts of Africa. The Internet has given the language a boost in recent years, with a disproportionately strong presence on the Web (see Wikipedia, for example), and some excellent self-study resources have become available in recent years, the prime example being Lernu.net, with self-study courses, a dictionary and a grammar. One challenge it faces now is ignorance - too few people have accurate information about it, or even know it exists, due partly to insufficient publicity. In the U.S., Esperanto speakership is disproportionately low.
I knew nothing of Esperanto in the early ___'s when you were learning it, but I get the impression that non-Esperantists regarded it with a certain idealism that has faded somewhat. That hasn't stopped people from learning it seriously on their own, which has been its main driving force and probably will for the next while. What I expect to happen some years down the road is for it to reach a critical mass where non-Esperantists start to notice it for its size alone and decide to learn it simply because there are enough other speakers.
Sorry for the wordy answer, but I felt that it needed a bit of explanation.
Interesting 7 things!
Micjo--Thanks for the update on Esperanto. I looked it up a few years ago, but I didn't find anything that really gave the information that you did.
Joyful Chaos--I was hard pressed to come up with 7 things! I'm not a very interesting person LOL!
Oh my gosh, I am just catching up and saw this -- THANK YOU!!!! I am so honored!
And I have to tell you -- IT IS MY DREAM TO BE FLUENT IN ESPERANTO. I love love love that you did that, and esp. love that you deemed it fabulous enough that you listed it. ;)
Thank you so much, and right back atcha!!! I'm so happy to have found you and your lovely blog. :)
xoxo
Sparkleneely--Totally Cool! Is learning Esperanto one of your 97 things to do? It's really easy, but the 30+ years that have gone by since I "learned" it have rendered me the opposite of fluent.
Can I pass the torch to you?
Roxanne -- nah, learning Esperanto isn't one, but learning a foreign language is -- unfortunately, there's no Esperanto offered anywhere, and I curse myself that I didn't take it in college when it was offered. I'd like to take Swedish, the language of my people and IKEA.
Thanks for the torch! I'll pass it along!
xoxo
Sparkleneely,
If the only thing holding you back is availability, Lernu.net offers excellent self-study resources, including several self-taught courses (most Esperantists teach themselves Esperanto). IKurso.net offers a very good downloadable multimedia beginner's course. Once you've got a beginner's course (I recommend the one on IKurso.net) and possibly an intermediate course (try Gerda Malaperis on Lernu.net) under your belt, the local San Francisco Esperanto group offers weekly conversation classes.
Or, you may prefer to learn Swedish. Or you could learn both :-).
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