Should I learn Esperanto?

Question

Is esperanto at all important in today's world?

How many people currently use Esperanto? (Just estimations)

What are the chances that it'll become important in the future?

Also, what languages do you think I should learn? I'm wanting to learn a language, and I'm leaning towards spanish. I live in the southern U.S. Any sites that will help me learn spanish or any other useful languages? I've had no experience in learning a foreign language.

Answer 1

"Should I learn Esperanto?"

Why not?
"Several research studies demonstrate that studying Esperanto before another foreign language speeds and improves learning the other language."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaedeutic_value_of_Esperanto

"Is esperanto at all important in today's world?"

Yes.
Is a proof that an international language can be useful to the humanity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_auxiliary_language

An example:
"due to the current dominant position of the English
language, the United Kingdom gains 17- 18 thousand million each year, which is more than three times the famous British rebate, or 1% of its GNP.
In other words, each of the 394 million non-English-speaking citizens of the EU, including those from the poorest new Member States, are subsidising the British
economy!" http://lingvo.org/grin/

Why not use a neutral language that is easier to learn? and cheaper!!

"How many people currently use Esperanto?"

Nobody knows, but is estimated that are 2 million people.

"2 million speakers is no small thing - 95% of the world's 6,912 languages have fewer speakers than Esperanto, according to the Ethnologue available at http://www.ethnologue.com/
We've got to get away from our thinking that the 90% of people in the world who don't speak English can or should be marginalized in the global community or on the Internet. Not to mention the even higher percentage who don't speak it well.
2 million people sounds small when you look at it as percentage of the world population, indeed. But 14 US states have fewer than 2 million people (US Census). 50 countries in the world have fewer than 2 million people (worldatlas.com). And the 2 million who do speak Esperanto are divided over many countries, ready to help people who share their country's language learn Esperanto as the world's second language.
Esperanto deserves serious consideration."

Some links:

Info:
http://www.2-2.se
http://www.esperanto.net/
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/esperanto
http://claudepiron.free.fr/articles.htm

Courses:
http://www.lernu.net
http://www.cursodeesperanto.com.br/
http://pacujo.net/esperanto/course/
http://www.institutoesperanto.com.ar/

Quotes:
http://www.amuzulo.net/quotes.html

Wikipedia in esperanto:
http://eo.wikipedia.org

News in esperanto:
http://raporto.info/
http://es.chinabroadcast.cn/gj/
http://www.liberafolio.org/
http://gxangalo.com/

How To Talk Dirty In Esperanto:
http://mindprod.com/esperanto/dirty.html :-P

Answer 2

1

Answer 3

No, Esperanto, while it is the most important artificial language is not very important in the world today. I'd say 2 million people at the very most use this language. It seems very unlikely that Esperanto will become important anytime soon.

Answer 4

Only if you are going to be in larger European or Asian cities...otherwise, depending where you are most of the time you may want to pick up Arabic, Mandarin, French, Russian as a second language...

some Esperanto stats...
The Finnish linguist Jouko Lindstedt, an expert on native-born Esperanto speakers, presented the following scheme to show the overall proportions of language capabilities within the Esperanto community:

1,000 have Esperanto as their native language
10,000 speak it fluently
100,000 can use it actively
1,000,000 understand a large amount passively
10,000,000 have studied it to some extent at some time.

Answer 5

I know no people who speaks esperanto, if you want to learn it go ahead, but you would rather spend wisely your time learning a language that you might be using with other people in the future ( Spanish, Italian or Japanese maybe ).

Answer 6

No.
No.
Very few.
Very little.

Esperanto is an artificial language that has no native speakers. Better you should learn Spanish, French, German, or Chinese. Any language other than Esperanto...

Answer 7

I think Esperanto is a total waste of time. Try Spanish, simply because it is easy to pronounce, easy to write and easiest to find native speakers living among the populace.

Answer 8

Saluton! it's up to you.. but don't just choose spanish because it's popular in america... choose a language u actually want to learn, if your interested in like france , learn french!

Answer 9

Spanish would be the most useful language to learn in the US. If you plan on pursuing a career in business Japanese is also useful.

Answer 10

I would say no...especially if you have to ask. It must not be important enough in your life.

Chose a language that you enjoy and that would give you a reason to travel and explore more of the world....especially if it will help in your current/future job.