> if there was a strict governing body for it that wasn't a Webster-style "whatever people are speaking is the new definition of correct".
There is no way it can work.
People don't care about governing bodies when they speak a language.
There is no way it can work.
People don't care about governing bodies when they speak a language.
Ie, the governing body decrees that the regionalisms from the dominant region is the definitive version of the language. But it might be considered cool to speak that way even without a governing body.
Maybe it's a totally different language but still it goes to show that even a very prestigious central authority doesn't make a language better or less prone to diverge. Regardless of the reason, French is evolving much more quickly than English.
The point of esperonto was to make it easier to learn. French is regular, but extremely complicated. English is complicated and has a million special cases. Both languages are hard enough to master that society starts to judge a person's intelligence by how well they know the rules and special cases.