Ease of learning, neutrality, and its romantic vision of peace and international understanding remain the best reasons for learning and using #Esperanto. The artistic aspects of language creation and history of the language and its movement also add to its allure.
– The problems with English
In some ways, English is not a terrible choice for a lingua franca. It blends the Germanic and Latin root vocabulary, two of the major language families in both Europe, as well as Latin America and francophone Africa. Its grammar is not too complicated, compared to for example German, Russian, French or Latin. That is about where the benefits end. The spelling system is among the worst, it is highly non-phonetic, the spread of the language has colonial overtones, and it is considered a “killer-language” in linguistics, as it wipes out smaller local tongues, and with them, their cultures.
It also gives an unfair advantage to the Anglosphere – 6 billion € per year, that is how much François Grin calculated that the UK saves compared to France due to the dominance of English – in 2005. Add 21 years of inflation and further linguistic homogenisation. Add the global dominance of the United States, and the way English has been built into IT since then. This is massive unpaid labour done by many already at relative disadvantage internationally.
Another aspect is efficiency. Learning a relatively hard language merely for international communication, on the selective basis of nothing more than historical coincidence, takes time that could be used for other things, for example other school subjects, or learning another language! From this perspective, English is actually reducing the amount of international communication possible rather than increasing it.
It takes about 1000 hours to become fluent in English, according to estimates citing the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). Many never gain working proficiency, and remain disadvantaged in international contexts, such as education, work, travel, and struggling with cultural integration. Estimates for Esperanto suggest that it is about 10 times faster than learning a natural language. The Esperanto Society of Chicago, citing The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) of the U.S. Department of State, estimates a mere 150 hours.
We are hardly aware of how much human potential is lost. A brilliant scientist such as Albert Einstein may never have been able to succeed if English fluency had been required. How many Einsteins are we missing out on now?
It is common to see Esperanto criticised. I sometimes joke about how Esperanto is the only language where you have to defend yourself for learning it. However, many of these criticisms are misinformed or poorly argued.
–“Esperanto is too European / Esperanto is not neutral”
One common critique is that the vocabulary is too European (mostly Latin-based), and thus not neutral at all. Yet Esperanto is inherently neutral by not being tied to a specific country, and it was enthusiastically received in very much non-latin speaking countries such as Iran, Russia, Japan, and China, several of them still broadcast in Esperanto today. No one forced Esperanto upon them, and it is rather arrogant to claim to speak on their behalf.
It is true that a native Spanish or Italian-speaker will probably find Esperanto easier to learn than a native Mandarin speaker. However, sourcing the root vocabulary from all different languages would make it significantly harder to learn for European-language speakers – the most commonly spoken on 5 out of 6 continents – but hardly make it easier to learn for anyone else. The Latin roots are also often seen internationally as they have spread through loan words and scientific vocabulary. It should also be noted that while the vocabulary is mostly derived from European languages, the grammar is more similar to some Asian languages.
The fact that many of these critics rather continue to use English, which has absolutely no neutrality, and do not opt to learn any constructed language with a globally sourced vocabulary, such as Lojban or Pandunia, suggest that this critique is mere pretext.
– “Esperanto looks weird / Esperanto is ugly”
It does look a bit weird, but does it look weirder than foreign natural languages do to each other? Finnish, Polish or Albanian can certainly look weird to someone who is used to English. This is probably just a matter of getting used to it. The “ugliness” has not prevented many of its users to make excellent songs and poetry in Esperanto, something that many even feel is too hard or awkward to do in their native language. If it does look weird to everyone, it is just a testament to its cultural neutrality. Nonetheless, there are other alternatives out there focused more on beauty, such as Elefen (Lingua Franca Nova). I concede that it is better in some regards, such as aesthetically and to some extent grammatically. Elefen has a simple creole grammar that is easier to learn. Esperanto's grammar may however make it more suitable, due to its higher specificity, as a bridge language for translation between other languages. I see Elefen more as an excellent zonal auxilary language for Latin Europe and Latin America.
– “Esperanto has failed / What can I use it for?”
Esperanto was never intended to replace anyone's first language, so saying it's failed as it's not the main language in any region, is like saying Usain Bolt failed swimming after he ran a race.
Esperanto was extremely popular in the decades after its creation. Associations popped up in many corners of the world, it was taught in schools (and still is, to some extent), there was even an Esperanto bank with its own currency, called spesmilo. Critics seem to imply that its use faded merely due to lack of merit, but truth is that its use waned as Esperantists were persecuted by both the Russian Czar, Hitler, Stalin, Franco, the mullahs in Iran, Ceausescu, and more. That dictators seem to hate it is reason enough to cherish it!
Nonentheless, there are currently around 2 million speakers. That's about 4 Icelands or Luxembourgs, or half the population of Mongolia. The internet offers more opportunities than ever to speak it with others. Esperanto has the 37th-largest Wikipedia as measured by the number of articles, outperforming for example Hebrew, Danish, and Cantonese.
Esperanto has speakers in 120 countries, and through Pasporta Servo, you can stay for free while traveling in the homes of Esperanto speakers in over 90 countries. Some Esperanto organisations work actively with the United Nations, it is not hard to find both music and books in Esperanto, and there are festivals and congresses every year.
Dankon pro legado!
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