On the language of Esperanto

Zeldar155

Banned
Is there a possiblity for the invented language of esperanto to really succed and even countries having it as their primary languages?
 
nope.....

English is the way ahead-its the language of the Internet, also compare how many people are learning English to Esperanto.
Esperanto is just like learning klingon, elvish etc-a mild gentle pastime.
 

Zeldar155

Banned
Actully, Esperanto, is one of the easiest languages to learn, heres a study of how long it would actully take to learn some languages compared to Esperanto.

2000
hours studying German
1500
hours studying English
1000
hours studying Italian
150
hours studying Esperanto.

Esperanto might actully be very good for nations in say, Africa, as a way to learn how to read/write?
 
A long time ago, I suggested that it could be the language for space and the colonisation of other worlds. However since them, English has emerged as the major global language albeit the American variety particularly with the collapse of the Soviet Union eliminating its major rival.

English is now the main language of the internet, international finance and air traffic control. Manadrin Chinese may be gaining ground but if the large number of people on the Indian sub continent who speak English and learn it in preference to other Indian languages than the one they speak then English is winning hands down. Spanish is its third rival that is growing in the USA but the univerasily of English has probably removed any chance Esperanto had.
 
Is there a possiblity for the invented language of esperanto to really succed and even countries having it as their primary languages?

IIRC there was a proposal that came close to fruition IOTL of Esperanto becoming the primary language of Moresnet.
I'm not sure you would consider Moresnet as a country, though. ;)
 
Is there a possiblity for the invented language of esperanto to really succed and even countries having it as their primary languages?


Esperanto wasn't supposed to replace someone's primary language.

Instead, it was meant to become everyone's secondary language.
 
Esperanto might actully be very good for nations in say, Africa, as a way to learn how to read/write?

Esperanto has nothing to do with learning to read or write.

Learning a language and learning to read and write are two totally different things.

You make no sense with that sentence.
 

Cook

Banned
Esperanto, is one of the easiest languages to learn...
2000 hours studying German
1500 hours studying English
1000 hours studying Italian
150 hours studying Esperanto.

That’s because it’s not a real language.

English has more words added to it each year than Esperanto has in total.
 
Also, Esperanto is rather biased towards Indo-European speakers, and even then most of them would rather prefer to speak English.

For a language to flourish a critical mass of people need to speak it.
 
Also, Esperanto is rather biased towards Indo-European speakers...


It was originally designed by a speaker of several Indo-European tongues for people who already spoke or were being taught Indo-European tongues. The claims of universality came somewhat later.

... and even then most of them would rather prefer to speak English.
Which wasn't yet the case when it was developed.

For a language to flourish a critical mass of people need to speak it.
And there lies our problem.

Zamenhof grew up in Czarist Poland where academics, tradespeople, townspeople, and anyone expecting to move about socially needed to speak or be familiar with multiple languages. He himself grew up in a household which spoke, IIRC, Polish, Yiddish, and Russian as the situation required. His idea seemed like a no-brainer at first; instead of having to learn multiple secondary languages why not have a universal secondary language everyone would know along with their native tongue?

The trouble that Zamenhof never quite realized was that, for it's first adopters, Esperanto wasn't going to be their sole secondary language. Instead, it was going to be yet another secondary language they'd have to lean and, because relatively few people would be using it and little media would be published in it, learning yet another secondary language would provide no immediate benefits.

While the language was relatively simple, the effort to learn it was still more than the immediate benefits learning it produced.

If you have no speakers, you have no language and are left with nothing but a thread on AH.com
 
As per the OP - I doubt it, particularly with all the backroom in-fighting going on behind the scenes. The whole "universal language" thing, by that point, was just becoming a minor hobby, nothing more.

Actully, Esperanto, is one of the easiest languages to learn, heres a study of how long it would actully take to learn some languages compared to Esperanto.

If you're European or descended from Europeans. If you're Asian, it's harder because Asian languages - Thai or Vietnamese, for example - do away with a lot of things that are part of European languages (as well as Esperanto) and thus find some things in Esperanto unnecessarily complicated. Heck, even Tagalog or Cebuano or Bahasa Melayu are probably easier to learn than Esperanto, and that's despite a very unique system of assigning subjects and objects that all three share.
 
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‘Ur Ha'DIbaH ‘urwI’
:mad:

Well, considering that amongst artificial languages Klingon and Esperanto are amongst the most widely spoken (followed by Ido and Interlingua), it should be taken as a compliment. ;)

counterblitzkrieg said:
Where did you get that anyways?

From the Genocide, probably. That is a prominent statistic they have on the article on Esperanto there.
 
Well, isn't George Soros a major speaker of Esperanto? As many pet causes as he funds, why not widespread education of Esperanto?

If I had my say my droogs, I would like Nadsat as the main auxillery language, oh my brothers.
 
It was almost adopted as the official language of the League of Nations, including provision for it to be taught in the schools of all member states, but it was never adopted. That could be a good PoD. There were also several prominent Chinese linguists who advocated the teaching of Esperanto in China, some going as far as to suggest it should replace Chinese! Obviously that would never happen, but get a different regime in China and it could at least try teching it in some places. Also avoiding Fascism and Stalinism becoming as big as they did would help, they saw it as a threat to their power.
 
If you're European or descended from Europeans. If you're Asian, it's harder because Asian languages - Thai or Vietnamese, for example - do away with a lot of things that are part of European languages (as well as Esperanto) and thus find some things in Esperanto unnecessarily complicated. Heck, even Tagalog or Cebuano or Bahasa Melayu are probably easier to learn than Esperanto, and that's despite a very unique system of assigning subjects and objects that all three share.

That's a very very major problem, actually.
The most spoken language in the world is Mandarin Chinese, IIRC even now (though a little displaced by English nowadays).
That would mean every real universal language must draw heavily on Chinese.
But Chinese has a lot of sounds that are hard to pronounce for just about everyone else, and more importantly is tonal (and let's not get started about the hieroglyphs or whatever the Chinese ones are called - I suppose the writing system would either be the Latin alphabet or something completely invented).
Thus, either we anger the Chinese and most of East Asia, or we anger basically everyone else... :eek:
 
Thus, either we anger the Chinese and most of East Asia, or we anger basically everyone else... :eek:

Or we borrow from Sanskrit. In much of Asia, China included, Sanskrit is to them what Latin or Greek is to Europeans (and even more so Pali, if you're Buddhist). Virtually every language has some Sanskrit loanwords of some form or another - Mandarin Chinese included - and Sanskrit words have recognizable cognates in other European languages, so it would make sense.
 

gridlocked

Banned
I wonder rather than recreate Hebrew, the Jewish organizations that pre-dated Israel could choose Esperanto instead?
 
Ultimately all you need to do is have it established in the educational curricula of more nations in the Interbellum period. If you can get that much done then its success is pretty much guaranteed.
 
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