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To be fair to Esperanto, when it was invented English wasn't nearly the lingua franca it is today, and the Internet didn't exist. I don't think it's fair to cr

To be fair to Esperanto, when it was invented English wasn't nearly the lingua franca it is today, and the Internet didn't exist. I don't think it's fair to critique it just because its original intent was as an auxiliary language. I would argue that intent failed. But it has native speakers, and it has communities who use it, and that itself justifies a language's existence.

msla 9y ago
Esperanto has nothing to be ashamed of as regards its history or current use, but if it's being touted as a modern auxlang which should be used more often, there are a number of problems its promoters have to come to grips with.
- akvadrako 9y ago
  It's not perfect, but practically it's still the best option. Of all the candidates for an easy to learn international language, it has by at least an order of magnitude the most speakers and materials. For example, the Esperanto wikipedia is larger than the Arabic one. I also haven't seen any of the other conlangs demonstrate they can be both as expressive and easy to master.
- taoistextremist 9y ago
  I don't think it's any worse than other auxiliary languages (which I think are all doomed to failure if that's really their goal as opposed to just building a community). I don't know if you can really attack the languages for "problems" if it starts being adopted to the point that it evolves like a natural language (as Esperanto has done). Anything "inefficient" or the like about the language will be changed to the point that native speakers find it suitable.
jcranmer 9y ago
When Esperanto was invented, the major powers of Europe were pretty much England, France, and Germany, and French was already the primary language of diplomacy and high culture. At the time, polyglottalism was a feature of, e.g., scientific literature (French and German die out only in the mid-to-late 20th century), but practically speaking, learning just English, French, and German would give you a fairly "universal" coverage, and possibly even just French. So credible lingua francas already existed back then.
- wahern 9y ago
  Esperanto arose at a particular time and place where linguistic and ethnic divisions fractured communities and even families. We all know that English, German, and French were long used--and are still used--to project power. But where Zamenhof lived this aspect of language played out in a much more complex, violent, and personal manner. While the late 19th century was an unprecedented period of peace and prosperity for Western Europe, it was exceptionally violent for the lower-classes in much of Central and Eastern Europe. The point of Esperanto wasn't just to be a shared language. Much more importantly to Zamenhof and early Esperantists, the point was a language that wasn't bound to provincial, ethnic, or religious identity. This backfired in the early 20th century as Esperanto became associated with, e.g., Jewish and Anarchist groups. But it seems like in the latter 20th century Esperanto reverted to an internationalist language without association to any distinct political movement. And in that sense it's once again a reprieve from and perhaps an antidote to provincial power dynamics, notwithstanding its European language bias.

msla 9y ago

Esperanto has nothing to be ashamed of as regards its history or current use, but if it's being touted as a modern auxlang which should be used more often, there are a number of problems its promoters have to come to grips with.

akvadrako 9y ago
It's not perfect, but practically it's still the best option. Of all the candidates for an easy to learn international language, it has by at least an order of magnitude the most speakers and materials. For example, the Esperanto wikipedia is larger than the Arabic one. I also haven't seen any of the other conlangs demonstrate they can be both as expressive and easy to master.
taoistextremist 9y ago
I don't think it's any worse than other auxiliary languages (which I think are all doomed to failure if that's really their goal as opposed to just building a community). I don't know if you can really attack the languages for "problems" if it starts being adopted to the point that it evolves like a natural language (as Esperanto has done). Anything "inefficient" or the like about the language will be changed to the point that native speakers find it suitable.

jcranmer 9y ago

When Esperanto was invented, the major powers of Europe were pretty much England, France, and Germany, and French was already the primary language of diplomacy and high culture. At the time, polyglottalism was a feature of, e.g., scientific literature (French and German die out only in the mid-to-late 20th century), but practically speaking, learning just English, French, and German would give you a fairly "universal" coverage, and possibly even just French. So credible lingua francas already existed back then.

wahern 9y ago
Esperanto arose at a particular time and place where linguistic and ethnic divisions fractured communities and even families. We all know that English, German, and French were long used--and are still used--to project power. But where Zamenhof lived this aspect of language played out in a much more complex, violent, and personal manner. While the late 19th century was an unprecedented period of peace and prosperity for Western Europe, it was exceptionally violent for the lower-classes in much of Central and Eastern Europe. The point of Esperanto wasn't just to be a shared language. Much more importantly to Zamenhof and early Esperantists, the point was a language that wasn't bound to provincial, ethnic, or religious identity. This backfired in the early 20th century as Esperanto became associated with, e.g., Jewish and Anarchist groups. But it seems like in the latter 20th century Esperanto reverted to an internationalist language without association to any distinct political movement. And in that sense it's once again a reprieve from and perhaps an antidote to provincial power dynamics, notwithstanding its European language bias.