Hi

[SunPath]

Wow, that's really neat! I didn't expect to read all that, but you made it so concise and interesting I did anyway! So, where is Esperanto used? (I didn't watch the links.)

[Goodrum]

Oh, a male cat is a "tom" a female cat is a "queen" and offspring are "kittens".

[Goodrum]

I don't know that much about it Angela, I do know translators/interpretators use it, so am thinking world wide, it is something I would like to learn more about. I think it was created for us all for...unifying a common language, and the way it is, is meant for easier use..now there is a person to study, the person that initiated this.
DaDane is actually explaining how it is used. I like it. What is it about language that we love so...what is that fascination.

[DaDane]

Wow, that's really neat! I didn't expect to read all that, but you made it so concise and interesting I did anyway! So, where is Esperanto used? (I didn't watch the links.)

There's no Esperanto-land. So in that way, it's not.
But a lot of people are using it to communicate with foreigners, i.e. as a second language. There are very different estimates, but probably the number is between 1 and 10 million, i.e. much much less than the number who speak English, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, German etc.
There are a few native speakers, i.e. children who have "strange" parents who taught them Esperanto instead of (or probably together with) the language of the nation.
George Soros is probably the most famous native Esperanto-speaker.

I was at two different conferences held in Esperanto last year. And that is such a cool way to spend the holiday for a person like me. There was people from many many different countries who gathered mostly to learn about each other and share their culture. Now isn't that cool? And as pointed out below, having such intercultural meetings in Esperanto makes in more neutral than e.g. in English.

Oh, a male cat is a "tom" a female cat is a "queen" and offspring are "kittens".

offsprings in Esperanto is denoted with the suffix -id-
dog = hundo, bitch = hundino, puppy = hundido
cat = kato, queen = katino, kitten = katido. If you want to make an explicit male, you have the prefix vir, so tom = virkato
kuniklo = rabbit, kuniklino = female rabbit (I don't know the English word for that), kuniklido = rabbitkitten (or whatever they are called).

I don't know that much about it Angela, I do know translators/interpretators use it, so am thinking world wide, it is something I would like to learn more about. I think it was created for us all for...unifying a common language, and the way it is, is meant for easier use..now there is a person to study, the person that initiated this.
DaDane is actually explaining how it is used. I like it. What is it about language that we love so...what is that fascination.

The language was constructed by Ludwig Zamenhof. It was announced in 1887.
Zamenhof had the idea that people are only in war because they don't understand each other (he was probably right, but even a common language wouldn't have helped. People need to know about the personalitytypes to understand each other and hence be able to avoid the conflicts )
He had a few things that he believed was important. The language should be common, i.e. all people should share it (I think he only wanted it to be a common 2. language, but I am not sure.) and the language should be neutral. Picking Polish (he as from Poland) would be unfair because it would give Polish people a benefit). His first idea was to use Latin. It was a fully developed language that nobody used anymore, hence neutral. But when he started to learn it, he realised that it wasn't a language for everyone to learn. Then he had hopes for ancient greek, but he found out it was just as complicated.
Then he realised it was very important that the language had to be very simple to learn. So he made up a new language. Unfortunately his father didn't like the idea, so he burned all his books and papers
Zamenhof believed in his idea and just redid it all again And actually it's said that Zamenhof was grateful to his father for doing this, - 'cause the first version of the language had to many flaws.

[Olga]

I thought DaDane's info said Sweden last night...my mistake.

Not necessarily yours.

Olga, I've only been into Sweden, (Stokholm) for a couple of days brief visit, got some beautiful photos, (boats and ships). I don't speak Swedish, apart from the little phrase book I carried with me. Where possible I attempt a hello and thankyou in native language wherever I am, sometimes a bit more...

Which means you missed the better city! Oh no!

I actually spent (little) more time in Denmark, (couple of weeks), looking at art and countryside..all beautiful countries.

Actually, when I went to Helsinki (Finland), I used Swedish for communication. The older population usually knows it "ok", and the youngsters probably do not, but they get to choose it in school. Not forced though. And another thing about Helsinki, the street-names are written in both Finish and Swedish