Apparently the language was popular among early 20th century socialist movements because it was of an international character and therefore not associated with any nationality and its use by international socialist organisations wouldn’t show favour to any particular country. It was banned in Nazi Germany and other fascist states because of its association with the left wing, with anti-nationalism, and because its creator was Jewish. It has mostly languished since then but still has around 2 million speakers with about 1,000 native speakers.
I think its a good idea in theory but sadly it is absolutly not a Universal language, it is an european language (i tried learning it and from my limited experience , its a mix of french/spanich/italian/english with a little bit of german.) So i dont really like it because of the racist implication that European language are the most important and are "Universal ".
Then we need to look at Ithkuil. It includes not only the features of European languages, but it also seems more difficult to learn. :D
I don’t think it’s because someone thought that European languages were the most important, it just seemed to the creator that it would make the language easier to learn. Maybe it was because he knew and spoke more European languages himself.
If Klingons spoke Esperanto, it would be a thing
I’m currently learning it. I like the concept, and no other conlang/auxlang has become as widely spoken or treated as seriously as Esperanto. There are actually children who are native speakers, as in Esperanto is their first language, no other conlang can claim that.
However, as many users here have pointed out, it has problems. It’s very Euro-centric. So while it is easy for romance language speakers to pick up, if you are from a different language family, it’s no picnic.
There is also the issue of relevance. Esperanto has a fairly active online community, you can pretty easily find Discord servers and forums with several hundred to 1000+ active speakers from all over the world.
If you are lucky, there are local clubs and groups that meet up in person and speak Esperanto to each other.
Esperanto has also been shown, at least in children, to aid in learning a second language. Learning Esperanto helps you get used to the process of learning a language in general, and basically gives it to you in easy mode.
But if your goal to learn a second language is utility, then Esperanto almost certainly isn’t a good choice. For instance, I live in the US, and not in a region that has a high Hispanic population. That being said, I still encounter 3-5 people a month who are Spanish speakers. So even for me, learning to speak conversational Spanish would be much more useful as a second language than Esperanto.
That’s actually my long term plan, to start with Esperanto because I really struggle with learning languages, even Spanish has been too tough for me. But Esperanto has made it easier so far, and it’s fun.
Ultimately, Esperanto would have been a far better world language than English, which annoyingly has become the de-facto world language, and I say that as a native English speaker.
I don’t see anything like Esperanto arising anytime soon, if ever. If you think it’s cool, learn it, you’ll at least learn how to learn a foreign language better and you’ll maybe find some new friends online, can’t complain about that.
Mi parolas ĝin! Mi lernis ĝin dum la pandemio. Esperanto ne estas utila, kaj nun mi learnas la japanan, sed mi amas la lingvon.
Mi komencis lerni Esperanto naŭ tagoj antaŭ. Mia gramatiko estas ankoraŭ malbona kaj mi vortprovizo estas malgranda, sed ĝi estas tre facile lernebla.
Bone! Vi estas kompreneblea. Sed vi forgesis la akuzitivon mdr. Vi komencis lerni Esperanton naŭ tagoj antaŭ.
Pardonu, me estis komencanto. Dankon pro la korekto
Nedankinde! Ĝi estas la plej ofta eraro. Me esperas ke vi amus Esperanton!
I like what Arcadius Avellanus, a Latin scholar and speaker, wrote about Esperanto.
I find the idea of making a distinctly European language and calling it universal quite thoughtless at best.
Of the newly created international auxiliary languages, Globasa looks the least eurocentric. Also has an onboarding process for new words that makes sure there’s a good distribution of language families.
Somehow I think it would have been better if they just modernized Latin.
I have read most of this thread, and it is very interesting question indeed.
My response:
Taken as a hobby in con-langs it has an impressive community (I don’t speak it though). This is to be compared to other con-langs, not other natural languages. Just the number of learners or historical connotation do not make it necessary preferrable to other con-langs in this day and era.
I believe its practical purpose as international lingua franca is defeated by its Eurocentrism and the actual spread and expansion of its users. It is not a matter of merely the number of users but where and how you actually often they meet them.
For this reason I think it is better to follow the advice I read elsewhere (I think on Lemmy), like French and Spanish can open up many more communication opportunity in ex-colonies, and we should really pay more attention to languages or families that have been local lingua franca in localities of Asia and Africa, to have a more global perspective.
