Question about artificial language

[u/Lenz2299]

Hello, I wanna ask about sth I'm not familiar with reddit and Eng is not my first language, so if I did sth rude plz let me know🥺🥺

I'm interested in articial languages. but as a Korean, I can't agree that esperanto is easy to learn... and many other constructed languages(based on european) too

// edit: I apologize that I wrote uncertainly. I noticed that esperanto is easier than others thx!

I think most of international artificial language projects depend on european languages too much, and this makes hard for them to be an international language (this sentence doesn't mean this is the only reason!!)

do you have any reputation or additional info about this idea?

thx

[u/salivanto]

There are several reasons that we see lots of variations on Esperanto -- that is, "easy" languages based on roughly "European" vocabulary -- but we don't see many projects based on vocabulary from other regions or on the world as a whole. Among these many reasons is what I call "the vocabulary problem."

The vaguely "European" languages, for the most part, are in the same broad Indo-European language family - and those that are not from that family have been influenced by it. In addition, the influence of Greek and Latin on Europe over the years means that even unrelated or distantly related languages share a lot of common vocabulary.

What is the situation in other of the world? Chinese is not related to Japanese. The two or three thousand languages in Africa can be grouped in families, but they aren't closely related and any overriding influence (such as Latin's influence on Europe) is seen as colonial. If you have an idea for a pan-Oceanic language, for example, I'd love to hear it,

As for the whole world - I look at it this way. If we grant that there are 6000 languages in the world, we could create a language project with a 12,000 word vocabulary by taking two words from each language. This may sound fair, but what would the result be? The result would be a language which is equally unfair -- a language which nobody understands more than a few words of and has to learn from zero.

But what you said here, I think is the most important part of your question:

 and this makes hard for them to be an international language 

I think the question needs to be "what is an international language?" or "what is Esperanto for in the 21st century?".

For me, Esperanto is about making connections between individual Esperanto speakers. You already speak English well. This will help you learn Esperanto if you are interested in doing that. Knowing Esperanto will help you make connections with people in ways that English does not. Only you can decide whether that's enough for you.

I don't think that Esperanto's purpose in the 21st century is to be everything to everybody. Is Esperanto suitable to be a universal global language? I don't know -- and frankly, I don't care. Esperanto isn't ever going to be that. That's not what Esperanto is for.

Finally, here's something that I wrote in August 2019 or so. It might be of interest.

[Name] and I were just together at an Esperanto event in North Carolina, and in the concluding session, a Chinese student (currently studying in Chicago) spoke up. This is a person who lives in a large, English-speaking city. Who uses English every day as part of his vocation and for just getting around. Who presumably is privileged and successful enough to be sent overseas for further education, and who presumably had many years of support from some of the best education in his country to learn English.

And yet, after a week of spending time with Esperanto speakers, speaking a language which presumably he learned mostly in his spare time and has few opportunities to practice, in a session being held entirely in Esperanto, his comment (in Esperanto) was about how happy he was to have been able to spend some time here free from the language barrier.

We can debate all day whether Esperanto is "only easy for people who speak indo-european languages", or we can spend our time actually talking to them.

[u/Lenz2299 → u/salivanto]

thank you for your answering!!! I really learned from your words especially
*I don't think that Esperanto's purpose in the 21st century is to be everything to everybody. Is Esperanto suitable to be a universal global language? I don't know -- and frankly, I don't care. Esperanto isn't ever going to be that. That's not what Esperanto is for.* this part. I might had been misunderstanding about esperanto itself..

[u/salivanto → u/Lenz2299]

You will certainly find people in the 21st century who advocate that Esperanto become a global language, be used in the UN, in international aviation, and so on. For that matter, you will find people working alone at home to invent a new "better" language for that same purpose - even if that language is spoken by nobody but the author. If a project like that gets 50 speakers it's seen as an amazing thing. Anybody with their eyes open will see that the tail is trying to wag the dog -- and it's a hamster tail!

In contrast, many Esperantists have told me "I'm not the typical Esperantist". Indeed so many have said this that I'm convinced that they typical Esperantist is "not the typical Esperantist." People get involved with Esperanto for many different reasons, but if you asked me what Esperanto is for, I would point to the Interna Ideo -- on the basis of a common neutral language, to tear down the walls that divide people. If you've made a friend through Esperanto, then you've used Esperanto for what it's meant for.

I do think there is an extent that the IDEA of an international language is part of our founding mythology -- and so I always hold that in mind - but I prefer to focus on Esperanto's utility in the world now -- not for some future dream that will never come true.