"Lando sen lingvo estas lando sen animo."

Translation: A country without a language is a country without a soul.

[rapn21]

This is an old Irish quote from an Irish rebel at the turn of the last century to encourage Irish people to speak Irish instead of English. Its almost always repeated during discussions of the Irish language. It basically says that we should speak Irish because its our culture and heritage and thats more important than the commercial and travel benefits of English.

I'm really surprised to see it hear.

[PatriciaJH]

I suspect the Esperanto version came from this Esperanto translation of a book on Scots Gaelic, where it is quoted as "an Irish proverb" with no other attribution or context: http://www.iol.ie/~carsfrn/Gaela%20Lingvo.htm

I bet the Duo developers put together this lesson by scraping the web for "Esperanto, proverb." It's interesting indeed to hear this one's history; thank you.

[deactivated user]

Mi samideas tutkore. Vivu la Franca Kebeka! Vivu la Kataluna! Vivu la Irlanda! Vivu malplejpartaj lingvoj!

[IXAUHTL]

divide et impera.

[PolMicheal]

Is teanga í is áile an Ghaeilge.

[Mandiras]

<cries in Belgian>
<sobs in Austrian>
<argues in Cypriot>

[benulo]

Esperanto is a soul without a body

[vytah]

So, a ghost?

[hellomidnight]

Language learner: What's that noise?

Esperanto: ŬooooooooOOOOOOOooooo mi estas bona lingvo, lernu min ooooOOOOOOoooooo

[JakeH1]

BU!

[Razoner]

Yes, but even more abstract.

[huguesdk]

What about countries with multiple languages? :)

[carbsrule]

They're full of life :)

[Vortarulo]

Split personality! ;)

[fractal_shadow]

I understood this to mean something about language preservation, as in saving and speaking indigenous/near-extinct languages.

[stephbutler19]

Native american tribal languages are disappearing.

[otsogutxi]

Deep.

[RandomCanadian12]

thankfully I don't think there are any countries that don't have any language

[Oceanotti]

Many use another country's language, but have lost theirs.

[Vanege]

That is quite pretentious.

[Red_Rat_Writer]

Especially when there was another sentence that went "A culture is not in the language, it's in the people".

[Eagleyweagley]

They're just sentences to learn from. They don't have to be consistent with each other.

[GeraldLund]

Maybe the idea is to display a variety of diverse ideas to make you think for yourself.

[GastonDorren]

What a horrible, 19th-century sentence.

[rapn21]

That's because it actually is from the 19th century and is from a major Irish nationalist.

[Oceanotti]

You can say that. You could even say it in your own country's language. You could, because you still have it.

[Vortarulo]

I don't really like it either. It seems to be an Irish proverb (I googled it).

[carbsrule]

That makes sense, given the poor status of the Irish language compared to English's dominance

[JakeH1]

Oh boy this comment section. My interpretation is that they're saying a country without people living there doesn't have a soul, or much going on. I know it's an Irish proverb with a different meaning originally intended, but if the course creators put any thought into adding this sentence, then my interpretation was their thought process. Then again, I might be wrong.

[Ben25127]

Well none of the Americas has much in the way of soul, its just European languages with a few mixed in tribal languages

[potestasity]

At first, "animo" made me think of "animosity", which really changes the meaning of the sentence.

[benulo]

You can think of it more like animus, animal, animate (living / having a soul)

[jc_eca03]

Good examples. Yes, "anima" is the Latin word for "soul". They are all correlatives.

[Ungewitig_Wiht]

Sneak insult on America's lack of a national language?

[Vortarulo]

No, just an Irish proverb.

[Ungewitig_Wiht]

OK

[tommylinsley]

Here in southwest USA, there seems to be two national languages: English and Spanish. I don't recall if it was ever passed, but there was talk of a law to make everything printed in both languages. Just about every workplace has federally mandated posters printed in both English and Spanish.