What happened to Esperanto?

Question

When I was a kid in the sixties,we had a teacher in primary school who used to teach it.

Answer 1

There are many of us out here who speak Esperanto.

There is a world-wide Esperantist organization (UEA - Universala Esperanto-Asocio) and there are also yearly conventions of Esperanto Speakers from all over the world as well as annual conventions for just about every country on earth. This year's U.S. annual convention will be a joint convention between the U.S. and Mexican Esperanto Associations and will be held in Tijuana, Mexico.

Since Esperanto is a constructed language and is not the national language of any country, there is no way to know exactly how many people speak it. We know some facts, there are more than 200,000 speakers in the world (the number of people who are members of Esperanto clubs in the world), and we know that there are many more people who speak the language who are not club members. I ran into a man in an Esperanto Chat room a while ago who lives in California, but is not a member of ELNA or UEA. Most Esperantists accept the approximation of 2 Million Esperantists in the world.

There are also a few hundred Denaskaj Esperantistoj (From-Birth Esperantists) or people who's families spoke Esperanto at home, so it is their "native" language. They are born to couples who met via Esperanto, but with different native languages, so in their homes they speak Esperanto as the family language. I know one family (Mom, Dad, and three children) in New York who speak Esperanto at home, and their children are in this catagory.



Thanks to Fajro for this list of resources:

Benefits of learning Esperanto to help with learning other languages:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaedeutic_value_of_Esperanto

Source(s):
Info:
http://www.2-2.se
http://www.esperanto.net/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto
http://claudepiron.free.fr/articles.htm

Courses:
http://www.lernu.net
http://www.cursodeesperanto.com.br/bazo/index.html?en
http://pacujo.net/esperanto/course/
http://www.institutoesperanto.com.ar/

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

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

Esperanto in Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/esperantujo
http://www.flickr.com/groups/esperantajx

Videos in Esperanto:
http://www.youtube.com/index?&session=gAJ9cQEoVQxlcnJvcl9maWVsZHNxAmNfX2J1aWx0aW5fXwpzZXQKcQNdhVJxBFUGZXJyb3JzcQVdcQZVJ1RoZSB1cmwgY29udGFpbmVkIGEgbWFsZm9ybWVkIHZpZGVvIGlkLnEHYVUIbWVzc2FnZXNxCF1xCXUu
http://farbskatol.net/

Music in Esperanto!
http://webjay.org/by/Fajro
http://www.vinilkosmo.com

Radios & Podkasts:
http://radioarkivo.org
http://www.radioverda.com/
http://chitienun.zervic.com/
http://esperan.to/podkasto/

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

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

A good start page:
http://www.startu.net

Answer 2

Nothing "happened" to Esperanto. Esperanto is as strong as it has ever been. There is still a vibrant worldwide community that speaks and uses it, and there are people learning it all the time.

That Esperanto has not succeeded in becoming the dominant means of international communication yet does not mean it's a failure. First of all, these things take time, and Esperanto so far has succeeded in incredible ways when all the good money would have said that it should quickly die. Second, the current speakers of Esperanto use it even now for many diverse kinds of international communication that is not possible at the same level of equality and quality in English or any other national language.

Answer 3

Esperanto has not completely died, there are some groups here and there around the world who come together sometimes. This is just an evidence of that the world can never just have one language. But the idea was quite interesting.

Answer 4

It was supposed to the the 'Universal language' that everyone would be taught to breakthrough the language barrier.

But then people realised that most countries spoke English (The official language of business), which is a far more useful language - so Esperanto went the way of Latin.

Answer 5

There is a pub in Smallthorne, Stoke on Trent called the Verda Stello where esperanto is spoken.

Answer 6

It never really caught on but it hasn't completely died out. There are some people who still go to classes and clubs for Esperanto.

Answer 7

It never took off,even though it is logical and simple and consistent in its grammatical rules, since it is too Latin -based for world use and it has no native base. There are still Esperanto clubs,groups,teachers and conferences.Maybe a simplified English will take its place?

Answer 8

I recently met two people speaking esperanto in Croydon, England, so what's wrong?

Answer 9

it fairly is around - curiously, extremely conventional in Sweden. in spite of the fact that, it replaced into in no way all that international. It replaced into heavily in accordance with Latin, which replaced into ok for some Europeans, yet, not many others. And, with the aid of the time it replaced into invented, English replaced into already taking over through fact the international language. For all it rather is issues!

Answer 10

I think he'splaying for Stalybridge Celtic in the Cheshire league.