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> to be honest there are no practical uses for it I find this hard to believe as a conclusion anyone could come to. A universal shared language for internation

> to be honest there are no practical uses for it I find this hard to believe as a conclusion anyone could come to. A universal shared language for international communication? People can keep their mother tongue yet no matter how provincial it may be, can still communicate effectively with the rest of the world?

drugme 8y ago
A universal shared language for international communication? In theory, yes - but not in practice. Which is precisely what the above commenter was saying.
- em-bee 8y ago
  why not? because not many people speak it? that would be like saying, phones are not practical because not everyone has one. or maybe facebook or google+ are not practical because not everyone is on them. but that is a limitation that has nothing to do with any inherent quality of esperanto, only with it's lack of popularity which is something that can be changed without needing to change esperanto itself.
  - drugme 8y ago
    There's a big distinction between "not many people" versus "not everyone".
    - em-bee 8y ago
      yes, but all of these at one point had not many people use them. if that were a problem in itself, then they would never have become popular.
krapp 8y ago
Esperanto is no more "universal" or "shared" than any other European or Romance language, which is to say its idioms are "universal" only to a limited subset of humanity. Might as well just tell the world to keep using English, or make Westerners learn Mandarin.
hannob 8y ago
> A universal shared language for international communication? That is a very good idea. But in order to be successful such a language needs to be spoken by a large share of people internationally. The best language we have for this is English. It's not perfect, because in large parts of the world, particularly in Asia, many people don't speak it. But it's far better suited than Esperanto in almost every imaginable way.
- the_duke 8y ago
  Before WW1, Esperanto was actually becoming popular and was taught in schools in parts of Europe. The nationalistic policies around WW1 and after put a stop to it. I think it's a tremendous shame... it would be so nice to communicate with everyone in a simple language. Note that such a language would not actually need to be actively spoken in normal live much. It just needs to be simple enough to be learn in a short amount of time and to have international backing so it is taught in schools.
  - drugme 8y ago
    Note that such a language would not actually need to be actively spoken in normal life much. Almost by definition - if a language isn't "spoken much" - it isn't really language. But rather a collection of rules and definitions.
    - chillacy 8y ago
      Latin isn't spoken much and we still call it a language: a dead language. Esperanto is still spoken, it's just a particularly uncommon (but not even the smallest) language.
      - drugme 8y ago
        OK, I'll correct myself: "If a language is (or never has been) spoken much..."
        8y ago
karmasimida 8y ago
> A universal shared language for international communication Practical, but we already got one, that is English. Even this post itself is written in English to reach bigger audience. And I would argue Esperanto is hardly universal for the world, more for european languages.
- ghaff 8y ago
  And for Europe, we had Latin before that for scholars and French for diplomats as it was largely Europe’s court language.
- wenc 8y ago
  True, and some people would even call it "globish". (as in "globe") It's a form of non-native English that is as close to being universal as the world has ever seen. This is particularly noticeable in Europe. Due to the European Union's thinning/erasure of borders, there is an order of magnitude more inter-European travel and mobility than 10 years ago. And the most widely understood language between these travelers is English. In Barcelona, vendors would speak to Dutch and Chinese tourists in English. Even in Paris, famous for its disdain of English, the language is fairly widely spoken, not so much to accommodate the British, but visitors from the rest of Europe and the world. Folks quickly figured out that instead of learning multiple European languages (and even then, only be able to communicate with other Europeans and people from former European colonies), they could instead learn English and be able to communicate with not only Europeans but people from Asia, the Middle East, etc. English is used even among people of the same ethnicity. I was with a friend at a restaurant in Chicago's Chinatown, and noticed that my Cantonese-speaking friend had a hard time conveying her order to the Mandarin-speaking mainland Chinese waiter, so they both switched to English. The communication was successful.
- beatgammit 8y ago
  I've heard it's reasonably popular in Japan, so there's that.
  - karmasimida 8y ago
    Only if you consider that 10% of Japanese vocabulary is already English or English-originated (as Gairaigo).

drugme 8y ago

A universal shared language for international communication? In theory, yes - but not in practice. Which is precisely what the above commenter was saying.

em-bee 8y ago
why not? because not many people speak it? that would be like saying, phones are not practical because not everyone has one. or maybe facebook or google+ are not practical because not everyone is on them. but that is a limitation that has nothing to do with any inherent quality of esperanto, only with it's lack of popularity which is something that can be changed without needing to change esperanto itself.
- drugme 8y ago
  There's a big distinction between "not many people" versus "not everyone".
  - em-bee 8y ago
    yes, but all of these at one point had not many people use them. if that were a problem in itself, then they would never have become popular.

krapp 8y ago

Esperanto is no more "universal" or "shared" than any other European or Romance language, which is to say its idioms are "universal" only to a limited subset of humanity. Might as well just tell the world to keep using English, or make Westerners learn Mandarin.

hannob 8y ago

> A universal shared language for international communication? That is a very good idea. But in order to be successful such a language needs to be spoken by a large share of people internationally. The best language we have for this is English. It's not perfect, because in large parts of the world, particularly in Asia, many people don't speak it. But it's far better suited than Esperanto in almost every imaginable way.

the_duke 8y ago
Before WW1, Esperanto was actually becoming popular and was taught in schools in parts of Europe. The nationalistic policies around WW1 and after put a stop to it. I think it's a tremendous shame... it would be so nice to communicate with everyone in a simple language. Note that such a language would not actually need to be actively spoken in normal live much. It just needs to be simple enough to be learn in a short amount of time and to have international backing so it is taught in schools.
- drugme 8y ago
  Note that such a language would not actually need to be actively spoken in normal life much. Almost by definition - if a language isn't "spoken much" - it isn't really language. But rather a collection of rules and definitions.
  - chillacy 8y ago
    Latin isn't spoken much and we still call it a language: a dead language. Esperanto is still spoken, it's just a particularly uncommon (but not even the smallest) language.
    - drugme 8y ago
      OK, I'll correct myself: "If a language is (or never has been) spoken much..."
      - 8y ago

karmasimida 8y ago

> A universal shared language for international communication Practical, but we already got one, that is English. Even this post itself is written in English to reach bigger audience. And I would argue Esperanto is hardly universal for the world, more for european languages.

ghaff 8y ago
And for Europe, we had Latin before that for scholars and French for diplomats as it was largely Europe’s court language.
wenc 8y ago
True, and some people would even call it "globish". (as in "globe") It's a form of non-native English that is as close to being universal as the world has ever seen. This is particularly noticeable in Europe. Due to the European Union's thinning/erasure of borders, there is an order of magnitude more inter-European travel and mobility than 10 years ago. And the most widely understood language between these travelers is English. In Barcelona, vendors would speak to Dutch and Chinese tourists in English. Even in Paris, famous for its disdain of English, the language is fairly widely spoken, not so much to accommodate the British, but visitors from the rest of Europe and the world. Folks quickly figured out that instead of learning multiple European languages (and even then, only be able to communicate with other Europeans and people from former European colonies), they could instead learn English and be able to communicate with not only Europeans but people from Asia, the Middle East, etc. English is used even among people of the same ethnicity. I was with a friend at a restaurant in Chicago's Chinatown, and noticed that my Cantonese-speaking friend had a hard time conveying her order to the Mandarin-speaking mainland Chinese waiter, so they both switched to English. The communication was successful.
beatgammit 8y ago
I've heard it's reasonably popular in Japan, so there's that.
- karmasimida 8y ago
  Only if you consider that 10% of Japanese vocabulary is already English or English-originated (as Gairaigo).