One of the most successful attempts at creating a common international language was Esperanto. However, adoption of the language failed to become widespread, which may not be surprising to people familiar with sign languages. The sheer number of sign languages is a testament to how much language is tied to culture.
This may explain why people are not quick to take up an artificial tongue, even if just for international communication. There is value in learning the languages spoken by other stakeholders; it provides insight into their cultures and how those people conceive of the world and their role in it. However, there is also value in communication without the risk of misunderstanding.
Humble Beginnings
A Polish linguist and physician created Esperanto in the late 19th century. At the time, he called it simply the international language and published his first book about it under the pseudonym Dr. Esperanto, which is how we have the current name for the language. He lived in Bialystock, Poland, which at that time was a melting pot of people speaking German, Russian, Yiddish, and Lithuanian, creating confusion.
Worried about the misunderstandings that could come from these linguistic differences, Ludovic Zamenhof created Esperanto as an easy-to-learn, politically neutral language. His first book outlined more than 900 roots used to make words in Esperanto and the grammatical rules that governed the language. These roots came primarily from Latin, although certain bits were borrowed from English, Russian, German, Polish, and the Romance languages.
Esperanto combines affixes with roots to create new words, but these same affixes stand on their own for simplicity. Esperanto was not exposed to the same cultural pressure over time as natural language, so it is completely regular in terms of grammar and does not have loan words that complicate learning. Furthermore, spelling conventions are easy to follow. While the language has some accented characters, they are all pronounced the same way regardless of the place within a word. Thus, pronunciation is easy to master.
Dr. Zamenhof hoped that this regularity, which makes the language easy to learn, would add to the appeal of learning it as a shared basis for communication. The problem is that a constructed language does not have the cultural underpinnings of other forms of communication, which may be while it failed to catch on as the founder had hoped.
Surprising Persistence
While Esperanto may not be widely spoken as a second language, perhaps calling it a failure is also unfair. Today, the language has a decent number of speakers in China and Japan as well as Eastern Europe. If you look, you can find poetry, books, and magazines published in Esperanto. Additionally, people are making music in Esperanto and there are news outlets that use this language.
Considering that the language is completely manufactured, this is quite remarkable. According to recent research, about 2 million people in the world use Esperanto as a second language and many people continue to study it. This community holds a world congress regularly that remains a well-attended space for people to discuss the language’s current and potential use.
All of this is to say that Esperanto has developed its own culture that continues to morph over time. Enthusiasts have their own moniker, Esperantists, and they have a global system for recognizing each other while traveling and providing temporary housing. Moreover, Esperantists may hold gufujoj, or meetings, in someone’s house to discuss issues and there is even a monetary system unique to this population.
Keeping true to the intentions of Dr. Zamenhof, Esperantists push back against globalization and put emphasis on people celebrating their native languages. However, this raises the question of how Esperanto might evolve over time and become more complicated unless speakers adhere closely to the rules. After all, evolution of the language would fly in the face of why Esperanto was created.
The Future of Esperanto
Moving forward, it is difficult to predict the future of Esperanto. You may be surprised to learn that the language is still spoken and that it has a thriving culture behind it. This may be because Esperanto is so easy to learn. According to linguists, the average person can learn Esperanto fluently in a matter of about six months. Someone who is in an intensive learning environment may become fluent in as little as 12 days.
This ease stems from the complete regularity of the language, and the vocabulary that will be familiar to anyone who has studied Latin, a Romance language, or another language heavily influenced by one of these. This could also explain the popularity of Esperanto in parts of Asia. Esperanto may be an easy way to break into European languages and develop vocabulary that will help with more complicated tongues. For these reasons, Esperanto may be far from disappearing from the global language community.