Thanks for posting this. I'm hoping now that Esperanto is on Duolingo, we will see an uptick in Esperanto speakers.
It's also not tied to any particular nation which makes it easier for people to adopt without feeling like they are just being taken over by another culture.
This is all to say that Esperanto is genuinely better as a second language for Europe and the Americas if not the world.
>This is all to say that Esperanto is genuinely better as a second language for Europe and the Americas if not the world.
English is as close to a global lingua franca as we've ever had. There's just so much momentum behind it, that it would take something world shaking to change that. I think we'd be better off trying for an artificial language that is mostly mutually intelligible with English if the goal is really widespread adoption.
However, he was also fighting (and is still fighting) very significant economic or incentive issues. Even before the era of English as an international language, there was always an obvious incentive to learn the most widely spoken or prestigious language or languages in one's region -- such as the language of a nearby large, rich country. People still feel that incentive today and the benefits of learning specific languages of wider communication or languages of prestige can be very tangible. And there are definitely people who feel that it's unfair that they have to learn English rather than English-speakers having to learn their language (and it is!), but many of them learn English anyway because they can clearly see the benefits.
Having a really apparent worldwide Schelling point of "everyone in the world in going to learn this" or "enough people already know this that it's clearly useful for international communication" would help Esperanto tremendously, and Esperanto did have momentum of that kind at one point, but according to the Esperanto Museum in Vienna it seemed to lose it in the course of the World Wars.
Then it would start to displace a few native languages until it became some community's native language.
After that it would start to fragment and evolve and lose all the simplicity that comes from it being an artificial language.
600 years ago (before the printing press) most people lived either on or near their farm. You went to the nearby village for things you couldn't make on the farm. Traveling to the next village was as far as most people could go: they needed to get back to the farm to milk the cow again, or otherwise care for the farm. As such there was no way to know your language was fragmenting, much less any reason to care.
Today we have printing presses, telephone, TVs, movies. All give us ways to find out about fragmentation and reasons to care. While languages will still change and fragment over time, the above pressures will help to keep the changes in check.
There's also no reason to think Esperanto would evolve or fragment any slower than English once it's actually in use. Which negates many of the arguments that we need Esperanto as a global lingua franca because English will fragment once America declines.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_planning
Some world language scenarios might include an idea of a language regulator for the world language
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_language_regulators
and some kind of mechanism to enhance the language regulator's influence (although I don't know exactly what that would be).
I don't think that Zamenhof thought this aspect through in much detail, because he thought that people would continue to use Esperanto exactly as described by the Fundamento de Esperanto. See paragraph 4 of the Boulougne Declaration:
> [...] The only single, perpetually obligatory foundation of the language Esperanto for all Esperantists is the work, Fundamento de Esperanto, to which no one has the right to make changes. If someone deviates from the rules and models from the above-mentioned work, he or she cannot ever excuse himself/herself with the words: "so desires or advised the author of Esperanto". Every idea that cannot be conveniently expressed by the contents of the Fundamento de Esperanto, all Esperantists can express in a manner which they deem the most correct, as is done in any other language. But for reasons of unity all Esperantists are recommended to imitate, as much as possible, that style which is found in the works of the creator of Esperanto, who has worked more that any other for and in Esperanto and who knows its spirit better that any other.
https://web.archive.org/web/20140506075349/http://aktuale.in...
https://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deklaracio_pri_Esperanto
However, I don't think this has worked out exactly as Zamenhof intended, because I think there have indeed been unofficial changes and divergences, as well as slang (maybe smaller than those you'd expect to see in a non-constructed language, but still some). Also, I think there are ultimately grammatical and usage questions that the Fundamento de Esperanto didn't address, because Zamenhof wasn't quite a linguist in the modern sense, didn't know about certain grammatical issues, and didn't conduct user testing with speakers from different linguistic backgrounds.
http://www.akademio-de-esperanto.org/
I don't know how readily and consistently Esperanto speakers follow its rulings.
zamenhof "but sincerely"
in case anyone is interested.
In my travels I've found English language proficiency to be exaggerated. First, almost every country lies about the degree and extent of proficiency among its population. Second, where you do see relatively decent English language proficiency, you'll also often see a creole emerging. For example, Singlish. Once the the global cultural dominance of Hollywood peaks (maybe it may already peaked?), expect English to begin to slowly fragment.
For various reasons I think Esperanto would be a great international auxiliary language, in large part precisely because of widespread familiarity with English. Esperanto might not be a reasonable choice today given the dominance of English, but the case for Esperanto will only get stronger.
I say this as someone who absolutely sucks at learning new languages. I don't even know Esperanto; I've only dabbled in it a little. But put me in a room with native English speakers from rural Ireland, a rich Indian neighborhood, or teenage girls from Singapore, and on some days I'd understand them better if they were actually speaking Esperanto.
We are already starting to see the development of a simplified international English dialect. Given enough time, once American dominance seriously declines, it's possible that English and International English will diverge into 2 languages.
However, I think you'd see the same level of evolution and fragmentation with Esperanto as well if it were to really take off. Eventually people would start making blockbuster movies in Esperanto, kids would start learning it, and younger people in smaller countries would use it more than their native tongue.
It would evolve and it would no longer be simple because it would no longer be artificial. It would no longer have the advantage of belonging to no one.
But I suppose that's somewhat circular reasoning. At least, it presupposes that an auxiliary language can see substantial uptake and remain viable while not succumbing to the typical forces that shape language.
I've always thought of liturgical languages (e.g. liturgical Latin, liturgical Syriac) as the closest example we have of languages resisting those forces. But I really have no clue how well they've done so. For example, I haven't read any papers that analyze the stability of liturgical Latin, such as whether the vocabulary has narrowed or pronunciations shifted. I'm sure it exists, but I'm not a linguist (or anything of the sort).
It's not just easy for speakers of latin-based languages! Esperanto has much in common with various Asian languages and the Chinese also have historically pushed Esperanto more than any other nation. For example, Radio Peking has (or had) daily broadcasts in Esperanto.
It's so much easier you can learn Esperanto with zero effort if you want to learn English:
[1] http://www.aaie.us/wordpress/?page_id=42
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaedeutic_value_of_Esperant...
The roots of Esperanto are European so it’s rather “privileged” of one to say that it’s the “best” second language.
And who actually avoids learning a language because they are being felt like they are being taken over by another culture? That actually seems like a veiled anti-English can concept, which, if that were the intent, actually indicates that Esperanto DOES have a cultural bias – it’s a culture of being the “anti-English” because otherwise why not just promote English? Who the hell actually speaks Esperanto? There are apparently 300 “native” speaking families worldwide. It certainly isn’t a language you’ll hear at a market or a playground. It has zero practical value beyond being a possibly fun hobby.
English might be “hard” but the benefits are extensive. Why someone in the Americas would learn Esperanto as a second language rather than English or Spanish is beyond me. That’s an exceedingly irrational. Why a Italian-speaking European would learn Esperanto before French, German, Dutch or English – that is also ridiculous.
Esperanto advocates aren’t advocating it as a third or fourth language but a second language. That suggests that they are delusional or at least highly irrational. Why would I spend 150 hours mastering Esperanto rather than 150 hours getting conversational in Spanish?
I can respect it as a hobby that people enjoy, but as a legitimate language? It’s as legitimate as Klingon and spoken by fewer people.
But the value of a second language isn't in how easy it is to learn (that's just saying it's low cost.)
The value is in the pool of people it lets you communicate with that your first language does not, and on that measure, Esperanto is particularly poor, compared to whichever of (in no particular order) English, Spanish, Mandarin, Arabic, French, and several others you don't already speak.
That said, I feel the Duolingo courses in general don't have enough content, and the Esperanto course seems to be on the short side even then.