esperanto congresses, nifty etymology online dictionary, simple English in Wiki entries, comparison of chinese and english newspaper vocabulary, IALs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Congress_of_Esperanto

Year City Country Number of
participants
2010 Havana Cuba
2009 Białystok Poland

These congresses take place every year and gather on average about 2000 participants (since World War II it has varied from 800 to 6000 depending on the venue). The average number of countries represented is about 60.

D: the speakers seem to clump in certain countries.
Or maybe just speakers from that region will attend.
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USA:
http://www.esperanto-usa.org/en/node/76


May 2009

22-a ĝis 25-a de majo
Landa Kongreso de Esperanto-USA
The 57th National Congress of Esperanto-USA
Sankta-Luiso, MO, Usono



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Canada:
The Canadian Esperanto Association (Kanada Esperanto-Asocio in Esperanto or KEA) is a registered educational charity whose objective is to advance the education of the Canadian public in the international language Esperanto.

KEA administers a large Esperanto-language book service, located in Montreal, Quebec, and publishes a semi-annual magazine edited in Esperanto, Lumo. It also occasionally publishes books in Esperanto. The organization's leadership consists of a president, vice-president, secretary, treasurer, and up to seven (currently, five) directors. Membership is about 120.

D: wow, 120. That sure is a thriving membership in a nation of about, what, over 25 million?
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Toronto:

Dum la longa 'Viktoria Tago' feria semajnfino, 16-18 Majo 2009, la 6a MezKanada Renkontiĝo (MeKaRo) okazos en Toronto. Ekde 2ptm sabate la 16a, Esperantistoj estos bonvenaj ĉe 77 Carlton Street , kiu estos nia centra kunvenloko dum ĉi tiu Esperanto-turisma evento.

D: Babelfish won't translate Esperanto.

During the Victoria Day long weekend, 16-18 May 2009, the 6th Central Canada Esperanto Meeting (MeKaRo) will be hosted by the Toronto Esperanto Circle. At or after 2pm Saturday 16th, Esperantists are welcome at 77 Carlton Street , which will be home base during this tourism oriented event.
Contact mekaro6[at]sympatico.ca to get further information, as it becomes available, if you may take part.
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Nifty site.
http://www.myetymology.com/english/father.html

Etymology of the English word father
the English word father
using the English suffix -er
derived from the Proto-Germanic root *-arjaz
using the Latin suffix -arius (-ar)
derived from the English word fade
derived from the Old French word fader
derived from the Old French word fade
derived from the Vulgar Latin word fatidus
derived from the Latin word fatuus (fool; foolish, silly; idiotic)
using the Proto-Indo-European prefix pəter- (father)
derived from the Proto-Germanic root *fader
Derivations in English
fatherland, unfathered, grandfather, fatherless, fatherly, forefather, stepfather, fathered, fathering
Cognates
Catalan pare, Dutch vader, French père, German Vater, Icelandic fadir, Italian padre, Spanish padre, Swedish fader

D: Darth Vader -Dark Father. I suspect Germans were not nearly as surprised by that as English speakers, LOL!
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http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_English_Wikipedia
D: The encyclopedia is supposed to be used by children, who might not understand the complicated articles in the English Wikipedia, and other people who are still learning English. Many articles are shorter than the same articles in the English Wikipedia...

http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_English#Simple_English
Simple English

Simple English is similar to English, but it only uses basic words.

We suggest that articles should use only the 1000 most common and basic words in English. They should also use only simple grammar, and shorter sentences. Writers can also use a special system, for example Basic English. Of course, people can write original articles; these could be put in both this and the main Wikipedia (with a normal level of English). Usually, only about 2,000 words are enough to write a normal article.

Since some articles need more than 2000 different words, some complex articles use more words. But even very basic concepts (zero, one, two) are too difficult to explain with a small number of words.

For detailed writing about science, politics, or religion, articles sometimes need more words, but the English must be simple. Sometimes, an article uses more than 2000 words, or, at the most, 3000, but it explains all the hard words. Articles need some complex words because of the article names in the ordinary English Wikipedia, and to use normal words would make the article too simple. Articles on scientific topics (Earth, etc.) usually need this.

There are no rules about vocabulary, tense or suffixes. Some articles use only Basic English (850 words), but this wiki has no strong rules about which words can be used, as E Prime does.

If a word is not simple or not used often here, explain it on a new page.
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D: So it seems safe to say
1) 1000 words to write a basic English article
2) 2000 for typical English
3) possibly 3000 for highly technical subject matter.

Compare to Chinese.

http://www.mcfc.myzensoft.com/writing/memorizingTips.php

There are roughly 50 000 existing chinese characters in use today. A native chinese speaker only knows 5 000 to 10 000 characters.
...only the 1,500 most usual characters, are provided. These characters are normally enough to be able to read a Chinese newspaper and understand most of its contents.

D: which pretty much coincides the English words required to make the same claim.

IAL: the only way to reduce the learning required would be to go to fewer root/stems and apply derivation rules broadly to them.

http://www.esperanto-panorama.net/angla/vortaro.htm

This glossary contains the 552 most frequent Esperanto words and morphemes (Groups 1 to 4 of the Baza Radikaro Oficiala, Aktoj de la Akademio II, 1968-1974). It also contains all words used in the Free Esperanto Course. It is estimated from word frequency studies that this corresponds to approximately 2000 words in other languages and covers 80 % of the words encountered.

D: impressive! 500 word components to duplicate about 2000 words of English.
As a second language, this is very helpful. Again I mention my Lang 13 versus Lang 26 or 39 caveat. Phoneme choice (number), syllable construction rules and amount of infixing limits how accessible this is to significant portions of the world.
At least it falls shy of Loglan's "a language designed by linguists for linguists".
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auxiliary_language

D: a detailed list of IALs in chronlogical order. Most of these are now defunct.

Language name ISO Year of first
publication Creator Comments
Solresol 1827 François Sudre The famous "musical language"
Communicationssprache 1839 Joseph Schipfer Based on French vocabulary
Universalglot 1868 Jean Pirro Arguably the first fully developed IAL
Volapük vo, vol 1879–1880 Johann Martin Schleyer First to acquire a sizable international speaker community
Esperanto eo, epo 1887 L. L. Zamenhof By far the most popular constructed language.
Spokil 1887 or 1890 Adolph Nicolas An a priori language by a former Volapük advocate
Mundolinco 1888 J. Braakman The first esperantido
Idiom Neutral 1902 Waldemar Rosenberger A naturalistic IAL by a former advocate of Volapük
Latino sine Flexione 1903 Giuseppe Peano "Latin without inflections," it replaced Idiom Neutral in 1908
Ido io, ido 1907 Delegation for the Adoption of an International Auxiliary Language The most successful offspring of Esperanto
Adjuvilo 1908 Claudius Colas An esperantido created to cause dissent among Idoists