

At the Universal Congress of Esperanto - dnetesn
http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2015/08/04/harry-stopes/at-the-universal-congress-of-esperanto/

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bobbybo
Esperanto is a pretty good idea. I spent a week with an introductory book and
speak it better than Spanish (3 years of study).

There is a book by Richardson I think (learning and using the international
language) that has a lengthy introduction on why its a good idea. The language
is really simple to learn and is generally easy to learn for speakers of the
major language groups (Germanic, romance...etc). We waste millions of dollars
on translators. Think of the UN where they have to translate complex ideas in
real-time. There are numerous articles on how errors are frequently made.
Think of the Soviet Union "we will bury" you really meaning we will outlast
you. This also keeps us from infringing on other culture's local languages.
Examples are Welsh people defacing street signs in English. Most Americans
think it is dumb because we like having the rest of the world spend years to
speak our own language. The tables will eventually turn.

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coldtea
The main problem with Esperanto is that you only get to speak with the very
people nobody would like to speak to: people thinking Esperanto is a good
idea.

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icewater0
Do you think Esperanto is a bad idea?

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coldtea
Yes.

In general, lab-bred languages are a 19th century concept (or early-20th if
you prefer) of the "smarter-than-though" guy who thinks he'll unify the world
from his university office and all that's lacking is a "common language"
people will adopt en masse.

Especially attemps such as esperanto, in a time when linguistic understanding
was totally lacking.

Actual languages are breed in an evolutionary fashion over centuries (or
millenia in some cases), and are shaped to fit the culture and history of the
population that breed them.

As for "universal languages" we had them too aplenty, and they are adopted for
commercial, cultural and other reasons based on an initial push by a
prevailing country (Greek, Latin, French ("the language of diplomacy" at some
point), now English, etc).

Even the least succesful of those universal languages has had 1000x the reach
of artificial languages like Esperanto.

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jgalt212
That being said, the lab-bred Korean alphabet, Hangul, has been quite
successful.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_hangul](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_hangul)

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coldtea
Almost all alphabets have been lab-bred, especially ones with short histories.
Languages are another thing though.

