Should Esperanto replace English as the global lingua franca?

[Al-Meksiki]

If any language should replace English, it should be Spanish

[Tooting Carmen]

I support it.

As a french (and it's true for most of the word), we will have to speak another language. I would prefer it's a neutral language who don't belong to any other country.
Also it's important the language is simple and that everyboody can learn it without too much effort.

In France most (close to all) people study in english during at least 7 years. How many are able to have a conversation or work in english? Honesthly not a high percent. We loose time and energy and at the end the result aren't good. It put us in a weak position where many other people are able to be fluent in english.

Actually, France is intermediate in Europe in this regard according to Eurobarometer surveys - granted, significantly fewer French people speak good English than is true of Scandinavians, Dutch and Germans, but the percentage of French people with good English is about the same as Greeks who do and higher than Portuguese, Spaniards, Italians and several Eastern European countries.

[Jehan]

Actually, France is intermediate in Europe in this regard according to Eurobarometer surveys - granted, significantly fewer French people speak good English than is true of Scandinavians, Dutch and Germans, but the percentage of French people with good English is about the same as Greeks who do and higher than Portuguese, Spaniards, Italians and several Eastern European countries.

You are probably right. But I think it's not enought.

Also spanish have a big market in america with a lot of people who speak spanish to make business with. Portugueses have Brasil. Many easterns speak russians so they can work in international field.
France has Africa... Just the worst place in the world for economic activity


A good argument is esperanto will make european union save millions of euros by years.

[Melki]

Life's not fair. Esperanto purports to contain elements of all languages. Not even close. It is a glorified Latine sine flexione with some Slavic elements. Spanish and English, due to their global hegemony, have foreign words from all over the world and 1,000,000,000+ speakers.

You missed the whole point. No matter how similar to IE languages Esperanto is (70% of its vocabulary is Latin, 20% is Germanic), Esperanto is politically neutral and is not the offical language of any country. It's significantly praised in countries like Lithuania, Iran or in East Asia. Surprisingly enough, the highest number of speakers is found in the USA.
Besides, Latine sine flexione is not Esperanto. It's another auxiliary language constructed from Latin.

[Dandelion]

Latina sine flectione is one bad idea underestimating human intelligence. Why not just Latin? At least Interslavic has all inflections known in Slavic languages.
Folkspraak only exists as a concept and never will take off. Germanic languages have diverged more than Slavic languages and probably exist longer as a language family. Hence Folkspraak is 'work in progress' by its hobbyist creators since times immemorial and never moved an inch since at least a decade. Epic fail.

Esperanto is far from Latina sine flectione. Words can be changed into function by changing the end letter. What I find less apealing is how mal- is used to make to meaning opppsite of the root word. When something's bad it's 'malbona'. I feel overuse of such feature makes vocabularies smaller and it also has a forced positivity touch to it.

Orwell's Newspeak was likely inspired by Esperanto. He had an idealist aunt who was an Esperantist and he learned to hate the language.

[Mingle]

I've heard its very easy to learn (even for non-Euros). I haven't started it myself, but take a look yourselves:

[Melki]

Latina sine flectione is one bad idea underestimating human intelligence. Why not just Latin? At least Interslavic has all inflections known in Slavic languages.
Folkspraak only exists as a concept and never will take off. Germanic languages have diverged more than Slavic languages and probably exist longer as a language family. Hence Folkspraak is 'work in progress' by its hobbyist creators since times immemorial and never moved an inch since at least a decade. Epic fail.

Esperanto is far from Latina sine flectione. Words can be changed into function by changing the end letter. What I find less apealing is how mal- is used to make to meaning opppsite of the root word. When something's bad it's 'malbona'. I feel overuse of such feature makes vocabularies smaller and it also has a forced positivity touch to it.

Orwell's Newspeak was likely inspired by Esperanto. He had an idealist aunt who was an Esperantist and he learned to hate the language.

Esperanto is more complex and diversified than you think, although the main goal of this language is to keep it simple. Every language evolve even the constructed ones. Over time, many slang words were created, such like kazo ("cock" borrowed from Italian cazzo), ĉuro (means "cum" borrowed from Hungarian csurà) or melki ("jerk off" from German verb melken = "to milk a cow") Furthermore, Esperanto is very flexible and allows the creation of many synonyms by adding prefixes, affixes or suffixes to words.

Esperanto is also more than a language, it's an international and universalist movement with no boundaries. Esperantists are pacifists driven by values like tolerance, solidarity, fraternity, mutual comprehension.
No wonder that several Leftist, ecologist and Christian associations were seduced by Esperanto. To them (and me), English represents the language of world finance, greed, competition, colonialism...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sennac...socio_Tutmonda
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intern...n_Esperantists
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Associ...n_Esperantists

[Paris-Brest]

Yes, Why not?

[Dandelion]

Yes, Why not?

Dutch should become the international lingua franca. It's your favourite language.

[Dandelion]

Esperanto is more complex and diversified than you think, although the main goal of this language is to keep it simple. Every language evolve even the constructed ones. Over time, many slang words were created, such like kazo ("cock" borrowed from Italian cazzo), ĉuro (means "cum" borrowed from Hungarian csurà) or melki ("jerk off" from German verb melken = "to milk a cow") Furthermore, Esperanto is very flexible and allows the creation of many synonyms by adding prefixes, affixes or suffixes to words.

Esperanto is also more than a language, it's an international and universalist movement with no boundaries. Esperantists are pacifists driven by values like tolerance, solidarity, fraternity, mutual comprehension.
No wonder that several Leftist, ecologist and Christian associations were seduced by Esperanto. To them (and me), English represents the language of world finance, greed, competition, colonialism...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sennac...socio_Tutmonda
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intern...n_Esperantists
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Associ...n_Esperantists

I've noticed this too. That's one of Esperanto's weaknesses. The language tends to get highly politiced because ideologues being its biggest fans.