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Two questions about Esperanto

From:Doug Dee <amateurlinguist@...>
Date:Sunday, July 4, 2004, 20:37
Let me note for the record that there is no auxlang advocacy in this message.
 I'm just asking questions about Esperanto just as one could ask question
about Finnish.

1.  Years ago (1980-ish), I read a book about Esperanto that did not use the
letter h^ (h-with-circumflex).  It said that h^ was passing out of use in
Esperanto, largely being replaced by the letter (and sound) of "k".  (It was an
old book, perhaps 1950s-1960s vintage).  More recently, looking at "Teach
Yourself Esperanto" and the like, I see that h^ is still in use (though it seems to
be farily uncommon as letters go).  So, was h^ ever in any danger of dropping
out of use? Was there any argument on the subject?  Do any Esperantists use k
instead of h^ these days?

2.  Are there any reasonably common loanwords from Esperanto into English?
(I presume that Esperanto/English bilinguals might drop some Esperanto words
into their English speech, but that's not what I'm asking.  I was wonderng if
any Esperanto words had gotten into English & achieved general usage, so that
they'd be recorded in general dictionaries, just as Italian has contributed
"spaghetti" etc to English.  (I don't know any & assume there aren't any, but I
thought I'd ask.)

Doug

Replies

Isaac Penzev <isaacp@...>
Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>