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Comment by der_ketzer | Hacker News Reader

Esperanto tried it and failed. Languages are a way of identity.

And it's not a matter of "third world countries". I'm from Mexiko and started learning german at the age of 4, spanish (at school) at 7, english at 11, and french at 16. Thanks to that I could study Informatics at Germany. I think learning languages gives you another perspective of the world, helps you to communicate with others in different ways (not only in theri native language), helps you to "understand" their logic, etc. Sadly my english is bad and my french worst. But I'm able to read/speak three languages and has helped me in my labor life.

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The problem that I was identifying was the unification of humanity through language. There are two main ways to attack the problem, everyone can be multilingual or everyone can know a common language.

Every first world country teaches English to their students, so who do we focus on? Every quickly developing nation has a culture which encourages English (by her grandparents suggestion, my neice in Beijing is only allowed to speak English when I visit). And by having English language education in developing countries you get past the cultural disparity much quicker. The point here is the difference between missionaries and ex-pats, who helps a country more? If India is an example, the answer is clearly expats.

Language as identity does not explain the failure of Esperanto. Heres the difference between Esperanto and English. In comparison to working through Unua Libro, the benefits of learning English actually exist. If I know Hungarian and Esperanto, I can not find a job as a taxi driver in London no matter how long I spend driving around town. If I know Hindi and English, with a few trips to the library and a couple years of practice I can work at any tech company in the world.

Language as identity does not explain the failure of Esperanto.

True. Lack of a large and interesting network (as you say) and some remarkable design blunders

http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/ranto/

are what explain the failure of Esperanto. The MAJORITY of people using English worldwide at this moment have no national identity in common with the English. (I have English ancestry, but it is the smallest part of my ancestry, and the majority of the population of the United States is of non-English descent, and yet uses English as the primary language of communication.) People learn English not because English has any particular virtues as a language, and certainly not because they have an identification with Anglo-Saxon heritage, but simply because English is an available tool of communication with unmatched network size. You and I can have great conversations with interesting people from all over the world in English, as we do every day on Hacker News.

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