Esperanto?

Question

Does anyone speak Esperanto, knows someone who speaks it, or knows anything about it? Why is this the international language and not English or even Spanish?

Answer 1

Well, some people obviously have a use for Esperanto. Me for one.
As for being an international language, well it's a slow process, but one that is moving forward none-the-less.
In a recent reprint of the Unua Libro (first book), editor Gene Keyes said that when he first started the project in 2000, he did a search for Esperanto on Google and it yielded over 1 million hits. At the completion of his task in February of 2007, the same search yielded over 34 million hits. Out of curiosity, after I had read that I did the same search and it yielded over 39.2 million hits. That's up over 5 million in two months. So it's growing. Slowly (or maybe not so slowly!)
Obviously not everyone will find a use for it, and that's fine. However for those that take the time and bother to search out the other users, it's worth it. Of course searching out other uses gets easier with each passing day.
Personally I have friends all over the world. Friends I wouldn't have had with out Esperanto.

Let's answer some specific concerns that many people have raised but not bothered to research.
The language is Impractical and awkward?
The two million plus (as of 1995) people that use it says it's not Impractical. Two million was considered the functionally fluent level (IE: able to get by in the necessary elements when travelling) in 1995. Since 1995 the Internet has grown by leaps and bounds, and Esperanto right along with it.
Wikipedia hosts around 250 different languages. Esperanto ranks 15th in the most numerous articles category.
More than these languages to name a few.
16 Turkish
17 Slovak
18 Czech
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias
Awkward?
Anything that is generally new to people tends to be awkward. That changes with practise. I can vouch for that personally.
Never use it? I think I answered that.
European based?
Ask the thousands of asian speakers if they'd rather learn Esperanto or English, French or one of the the other rule riddled languages (and ALL of their exceptions). The only reason that they would say any but Esperanto is because of the coverage that English has. That however is changing.
Pax Americana is coming to a close. Of course that will draw some scoffs. Naturally when you stand in a very small segment of history, you draw conclusions from that small segment. The Romans thought they would last forever too. The Nazi's were supposed to last 1000 years. Only 994 years short!
(Let's be clear on this. I view the demise of the Nazis as a good thing)
When you stand back and view history as a whole, and watch as history repeats itself, you can draw conclusions from a firmer perspective.
The real value of Esperanto lies in its desire to allow other languages to thrive right along side of it. As an AUXILIARY language, it serves as a means of communication between cultures, and allows tham to continue to grow and enrich human kind much as thay have always done.
The best observable item that says it's making progress is the fact that Esperanto (UEA) holds observer status (Class 'B') at the UN and UNESCO.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Esperanto_Association
The Iranians atempted to have Esperanto included in the League of Nations as a working language in the 20's, but the French killed that. They didn't want to loose the prestige of owning the "International tongue of diplomacy". The Americans pulled the same thing in the 50's.
Sooner or later, the $600 million plus that is spent on translation services at the UN and EU is going to cause a big problem. (Actually, it already has). Then someone is going to go looking for a solution, and they'll find it right on their door step. The question has already been raised a number of times in the EU.
Think about this. What could you do with 1.2 Billion + USD a year?
Christianity was very slow in making the progress that it did. Not without bumps either. Yet it took hold, and florished.
Hummm, similarity? Time will tell.

Research and draw your own conclusions.

Ĝis!

Answer 2

Have you tried a search engine? You can find out many things about Esperanto and its history. You might look in Wikipedia or wait for the inevitable copy-and-paste reply (may already be posted before I finish this). Esperanto is an international language, one of the first created specifically for that purpose, but it is not _the_ international language. Hundreds of millions of people speak English and Spanish, and only an estimated 2 million worldwide speak Esperanto. On the other hand, Esperanto has a simple grammar and words derived from many languages, so it might help people to communicate when they have no common language.

Answer 3

> Why is this the international language

Unfortunately, it isn't. It's one of many projects to develop a truly international non-aligned language, but it couldn't compete with the national interests of countries like France, the UK and the USA. You will still find many Esperanto clubs all over the world, especially in Eastern and Middle Europe. I knew a German guy once who learned Esperanto and traveled all over Middle Europe for free, staying with members of local Esperanto clubs.

"Esperanto is the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language." "Although no country has adopted the language officially, it has enjoyed continuous usage by a community estimated at between 100,000 and 2 million speakers. By some estimates, there are about a thousand native speakers."

"As a constructed language, Esperanto is not genealogically related to any ethnic language." "The phonology, grammar, vocabulary, and semantics are based on the western Indo-European languages. The phonemic inventory is essentially Slavic, as is much of the semantics, while the vocabulary derives primarily from the Romance languages, with a lesser contribution from Germanic."

"Esperanto" : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto

Answer 4

Esperanto isn't the international language.

That was its intention upon creation. There have been other constructed languages such as Interlingua. Their creators intended for them to become a sort of neutral language which could be used internationally.

As such it was specifically designed to be very easy to learn for speakers of most Indo-European languages. It has been criticized for this though because it draws most heavily from Romance languages for syntax and other grammatical aspects.

But like all the others it never caught on. English is to a large degree a de facto international language, but the point of the constructed ones were to make it easy to learn and a neutral ground so people don't feel like one language is being favoured.

Today there are very few Esperanto speakers, mostly just people with an interest in Linguistics and language learning who do it as a hobby and probably correspond with other speakers online. It's quite easy to learn for speakers of English, apparantly you can gain a pretty high level of proficiency in only say 3 or 4 months of 1 hour/day study.

Answer 5

Esperanto is an artificial language. It was created to be THE international language but it didn't work. There is people who speak Esperanto because, since it was created, it is almost perfect and (some people say) the easiest to learn.
The official/international language is English.

Answer 6

Because Esperanto is an artificial languages.
It has no history, no culture, no literature, no jokes, no plays on words, no songs, no poetry...
From this point of view, even ancient Greek or Latin are much much more ineteresting than modern Esperanto.
You know, a language isn't only mere mean of communication.
Esperanto is only a mean of communication.

Answer 7

I dont know what that is.. sorry...