Whatever happend to esperanto?

Question

The universal language never really caught on. What are your thoughts on establishing a universal language?

Answer 1

Esperanto is still around, and is as strong as it ever has been. "Never caught on" is a rather strange way of putting it, since the goal of Esperanto is rather big, and should be expected to take time, certainly more than a few decades is entirely reasonable.

The goal of Esperanto is that everyone should use it in international communications, with people of different native languages, and continue to use their native language in their own community. Since Esperanto is very easy to learn, this would result in preserving and enhancing linguistic diversity, not reducing it, because powerful national languages, such as English and Spanish, would no longer threaten minority languages.

Languages spoken over vast areas do not necessarily diversify into mutually unintelligible dialects and languages. That depends on the amount of communication between the speakers. The Latin of the Roman Empire remained a unified language, understandable to all its speakers, and only branched out into the Romance languages after the fall of the Roman Empire. English has been spoken over vast areas for several hundred years, and yet the different dialects of English are probably growing closer to each other, not further. Esperanto has been spoken in scores of countries since its beginning, and yet has not significantly broken into dialects, because Esperanto speakers tend to have many international contacts with other Esperanto speakers, and there's no reason to think that that will change with more speakers.

English is not really a potential universal language. The number of people who speak English in non-English speaking countries, outside of tourist and business areas, is rather small, and often they don't speak it very well.

As far as the unnaturalness of Esperanto, I guess that is personal taste and there's not much to be said about it, but personally I find Esperanto to be the most natural language I know, the one that most easily enables spontaneous expression.

Answer 2

I've never even heard of esperanto until today!

It IS an interesting concept. I guess the only logistical issue there'd be is establishing enough interest in it worldwide.

Who would oversee the education process? Who would establish the nouns, verbs, adverbs, etc. that'll make up this language. Would it be easy or hard to learn? Would gov't officials be required to learn it first? How could all of these things take place in an efficient and rational manner so everyone from ages 2 to 102 could understand it and effectively communicate?

Plus with a democracy, it wouldn't be fair to impose this onto others. There's bound to be a lot of opposition to it.

It seems to be more trouble than it's worth, even though it sounds like a cool idea.

Answer 3

Esperanto was created by Euro-centric people who get rid of non-European element in Esperanto even when it will make it unsuitable for auxlang so Esperanto only survive because it gain political support instead of being a effective auxlang. A creole language actually fulfill the auxlang role more better then Esperanto especially Tok Pisin.

Answer 4

Unfortunately, you would have to have it ratified by congress or parliment or whatever law making body of government your country has as an official language, then all school teachers would have to learn the language and teach it. There is also the problem of teaching all adults the language too. Not everyone has time to learn a new language while supporting yourself on low income budgets and working two jobs while possibly raising kids.(That is one common scenario) It apparently seemed to be a bit too much effort, and quite cost ineffective.

There is a serious of books, however, that I have seen esperanto appear in. The Stainless Steel Rat series by Harry Harrison use esparanto as the interstellar language. It's a comical sci-fi series written in the late 60s and 70s.

Answer 5

Universal language is a tricky concept. Esperanto is not that. Esperanto is an international auxiliary language.
Your opinion that it "didn't" catch on is only that, your opinion. Esperanto has more speakers than some "natural" languages.
If you are really interested (because maybe this question is just to kill your free time), you should take a look at the Esperanto community. You'd be surprised to see how active it is.

Answer 6

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 7

Good question. I think that the world must first come up with world peace. Then, people might actually realize that there are some serious dangers that the world is over due for (example: North and South poles changing). We can then come up with a universal language so that we can more easily communicate and fix these problems.
Right now, there is too much war in the way of a universal language.

Answer 8

Within two generations of establishing a world language, that language would be diversifying into thousands of local dialects. Within a century or two, people on one side of the world would not be able to understand people on the other side. That's just the way it is with language. Esperanto was pretty much useless. You should find a movie called "Incubus" from the 50's or 60's. It stars William Shatner and is the only movie ever filmed entirely in Esperanto.

EDIT: Whoever said that language do not necessarily diversify is quite wrong. While official, written Latin stayed as a monolith during the history of the Roman Empire, spoken Latin was diversifying into different dialects. The growth of the Romance languages was beginning just as soon as Rome solidified its control over the different areas of western Europe. By the time of the fall of the empire, there were already different regional dialects of Latin. An if you think that English dialects are growing closer, you are also wrong. Just watch a Scottish film like Trainspotters. See how much you understand without subtitles. Not too much, especially when they are talking fast. Detailed dialect studies in the United States show that regional dialects are still diversifying as fast as they always have. Mass communication has meant that people can understand multiple dialects, not that their dialects have stopped diversifying. And English is not just popular "in the tourist areas". Some countries, like Ukraine, encourage the teaching of English as a second language in every school in the country. When you add up native speakers, second language speakers, and third language speakers, English is by far the most spoken language on the planet.

Answer 9

Esperanto is not listed as an option here in yahoo answers, nor is it an option on babel fish or a few other translation sites I checked. I guess it's true it's "as popular as ever"

Answer 10

As much good a universal language would do to the world, I'm afraid it would take away from the world's diversity. It would take away from all of the cultures of the world. I understand it would be useful in unifying the world to work together but I just don't see it happening.