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Esperanto is a "failure" only if help up to standards and goals that are completely unrealistic. Compare English: Britain spread it throughout a global empire
by panglott 11y ago
Esperanto is a "failure" only if help up to standards and goals that are completely unrealistic.
Compare English: Britain spread it throughout a global empire for centuries. America is the world's fourth most populous country, possibly the most powerful and prosperous country in the history of the world, and nearly entirely monolingual in English. India is the world's second most populous country, where English is the major language of intercommunication. Nigeria, the Philippines, and other large countries use English in an official capacity. English is now the dominant language of science, and increasingly the language of intercommunication in Europe.
And yet for all that power, prestige, and influence, English only has 1.2 billion first- and second-language speakers, and is far from the world's only interlanguage.
So by those standards, English is a "failure" as the world interlanguage.
Edit: To be sure, Esperantists can be pretty off-putting. They are nothing if not...enthusiastic!
- tokenadult 11y agoYou have just related a lot of facts that show that English is a success as a world interlanguage. The British Empire has barely existed during my lifetime, and the great majority of people now living were born after its demise. English has a majority of speakers who live outside the "inner circle" on English-speaking countries, and a very widespread use of English is as an interlangauge among persons all of whom are not native speakers of English. I have seen numerous conversations in English in the country of Taiwan among people who grew up in various countries of Asia where English is not a native language, and I hear news reports literally every day with interviews in English from people all over the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language#Geographical_distribution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language#Geographical_...
- panglott 11y agoEnglish is perhaps the most successful world interlanguage in the history of the world. My point is that, it would still be considered a failure by the standards that Esperanto set for itself. I take that more as an indication that Esperanto's standards are unrealistic more than that Esperanto is a "failure".