English vs. Esperanto: who does the future belong to?
Over the past 50 years, the position of English in the international arena has strengthened to a level not seen before. Today, approximately 378 million people in the world speak English as their first language, and another 470 million to 1 billion indicate it as a second language.
Remarkably, English is spoken in 138 countries of the world - not a single international language has previously achieved such indicators. Therefore, just English has all the resources to become lingua franca in the foreseeable future - the universal global language.
But are there acceptable alternatives to English? Some scholars and enthusiasts believe that Esperanto is one of them. Is it really so? Let's find out.
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Esperanto is the most popular artificially created language, which was developed as an auxiliary language for communication between representatives of various nations.
It was developed by Lazarus Zamenhof, a Polish doctor who for more than ten years tried to create a language:
Zamenhof himself was a polyglot, so he understood the main shortcomings of national languages as global. Due to the natural evolution, national languages have become overgrown with a large number of rules, nuances, subtleties that were extremely difficult to learn - especially for beginners.
The artificial language Zamenhof was designed to get rid of the conventions of national languages. Partially managed to do this. Here are the main linguistic features of Esperanto:
The main advantage of Esperanto is its speed of learning. According to research by French linguists , the study of Esperanto from scratch to the conversational level takes only 150 hours. For comparison - to learn Italian you need at least 1000 hours, English - 1500 hours, German - 2000 hours.
Now a little about the development of Esperanto as an independent language. Zamenhof presented it to the public in 1887 and was actively engaged in its promotion. The language spread in Europe and abroad, the number of people speaking Esperanto increased very quickly. And in the 1920s it was expected that he would become the new world language.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Esperanto was spreading quite actively in Europe and the Russian Empire. So much so that in 1920, a proposal was made to make Esperanto the working language of the League of Nations.
The French delegate vetoed this proposal. French at that time was actively losing popularity in the international arena, so the French saw a threat to Esperanto.
Linguistic scholars argue that if the proposal were nevertheless accepted, then it is quite possible that now Esperanto would be one of the most popular world languages.
At first, the Soviet Union planned to use Esperanto, but in the 1930s many Esperantists were accused of espionage and terrorism. The same happened after the appointment of Adolf Hitler by the German Chancellor in 1933. In his book “Mein Kampf” he wrote: “Esperanto was created as a universal language for uniting the Jewish diasporas” , therefore, even before the start of the Second World War, the study of Esperanto in Germany was prohibited.
After the end of the Second World and Grandiose Economic Growth in the USA, English began to move very actively in the international arena. The Esperanto movement, though revived, was no longer able to achieve such success as in the 1920s.
Dr. Zamenhof argued that Esperanto is the first truly multicultural language, which does not depend on state borders.
But there is one serious nuance - this statement is relevant only for Latin-based languages. For people who speak one of the languages of the Romano-German group, Esperanto will seem pretty simple.
Although many Slavic languages use the Cyrillic alphabet, they still have Romano-Germanic roots. For Slavs, Esperanto will also seem easy to learn. Therefore, Esperanto received the greatest popularity in Europe and the Russian Empire.
But what about languages that use completely different alphabets and principles of word formation? For example, Arabic, Hindi, Bengali, Chinese, Korean or Japanese?
More than 3 billion people speak the languages of the Indo-Iranian, Sino-Tibetan, Japanese-backpack and Turkic groups. This is approximately 40% of the total population of the globe.
For Japanese, English and Esperanto will be equally difficult to study, because they are completely different from Japanese with its syllabary alphabet and hundreds of hieroglyphs. Therefore, there is absolutely no advantage over other European languages that Esperanto has in this situation.
A person learning a second language does this from a position of personal gain. In most cases, this desire to improve in work or school, the desire to communicate with people from different countries, explore different cultures on their own experience, read books and watch movies in the original. There are a lot of reasons, but they all pursue purely selfish goals. And that's fine.
At the moment, the English language gives much more opportunities for development than Esperanto.
In terms of use, English is several orders of magnitude greater than Esperanto. Even despite the fact that books are published in Esperanto, films are localized, its prevalence is too small.
According to various estimates, there are between 200,000 and 2 million people in the world who speak Esperanto. If you compare with more than a billion English speakers, it is not even funny.
Esperanto has its advantages. For example, the language has excellent didactic properties. Learning Esperanto 2-3 times makes it easier to learn other languages in terms of grammar and vocabulary. For example, if you are learning to learn Spanish after Esperanto, you will need an average of 400 hours instead of the standard 1000.
But psychologically difficult to learn a language that you can only use as a springboard for learning other languages. Motivation is very much lost. Even with obvious advantages, the majority chooses more difficult English, because it can be used in practice here and now.
The trends in the popularity of languages in the world change every 70-100 years.
In the 19th century, French was at the peak of popularity, in the first half of the 20th century - German, and from the 1950s to the present - English. And what language will be at the peak of popularity in 2120?
Perhaps English will remain the leader, but it may happen that everyone will learn Chinese instead.
Esperanto has enough potential to become a world language in theory, but this option is rather unlikely. And here are some reasons for this:
The value of English in world society today is hundreds of times greater than the value of Esperanto. And the trends say that in the next 10-20 years, the position of English will only strengthen. But Esperanto essentially remains in the same position of stagnation in which it was in the 1950s.
Of course, the situation may change. For example, if the UN adopts Esperanto as an auxiliary language, it will play an enormous role in its popularization. Or suddenly there is a billionaire enthusiast who will invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the development of Esperanto.
Yes, it is unlikely, but still. This option should not be completely ruled out.
In the meantime, friends, learn English. Today it is much more useful than all artificial languages combined. Successes you in this!
Only for Habr's readers - the first lesson with a teacher on Skype for free ! When purchasing 10 lessons, specify the promotional code eng_vs_esperanto and get 2 more lessons as a gift. The bonus is valid until 05/31/19.
Get 2 months of premium subscriptions for all EnglishDom courses as a gift .
Take them right now on the link
Our products:
Learn English words in the ED Words mobile app
Learn English from A to Z in the ED Courses mobile app
Install the Google Chrome extension, translate English words on the Internet and add them to the study in the Ed Words application
Learn English in the form of an online simulator
Consolidate conversational skills and find friends in conversational clubs.
Watch the video lifehacks about English on the YouTube-channel EnglishDom
Remarkably, English is spoken in 138 countries of the world - not a single international language has previously achieved such indicators. Therefore, just English has all the resources to become lingua franca in the foreseeable future - the universal global language.
But are there acceptable alternatives to English? Some scholars and enthusiasts believe that Esperanto is one of them. Is it really so? Let's find out.
')
What is Esperanto?
Esperanto is the most popular artificially created language, which was developed as an auxiliary language for communication between representatives of various nations.
It was developed by Lazarus Zamenhof, a Polish doctor who for more than ten years tried to create a language:
- easy to learn due to the limited set of rules and the complete absence of exceptions to them;
- global and non-national, not having cultural attachment to a specific state or nation, and therefore equal for all who will study it.
Zamenhof himself was a polyglot, so he understood the main shortcomings of national languages as global. Due to the natural evolution, national languages have become overgrown with a large number of rules, nuances, subtleties that were extremely difficult to learn - especially for beginners.
The artificial language Zamenhof was designed to get rid of the conventions of national languages. Partially managed to do this. Here are the main linguistic features of Esperanto:
- Esperanto uses the extended Latin alphabet, which includes letters with diacritics (caps and check marks on top).
- Each letter represents one sound. No diphthongs and words like "daughter" or "queue" .
- In Esperanto, there are only 16 rules on which the language is built. And that's it!
- Words are created in Esperanto with the help of prefixes, suffixes and endings, which allows reducing the amount of vocabulary necessary for learning vocabulary. For example, inko - “ink”, inkujo - “inkwell”.
- Most of the words in Esperanto have common roots in different European languages, which makes them easy to remember. For example, ĉokolado (chocolate), etaĝo (floor).
The main advantage of Esperanto is its speed of learning. According to research by French linguists , the study of Esperanto from scratch to the conversational level takes only 150 hours. For comparison - to learn Italian you need at least 1000 hours, English - 1500 hours, German - 2000 hours.
Now a little about the development of Esperanto as an independent language. Zamenhof presented it to the public in 1887 and was actively engaged in its promotion. The language spread in Europe and abroad, the number of people speaking Esperanto increased very quickly. And in the 1920s it was expected that he would become the new world language.
Why did English, and not Esperanto, become the most popular language?
Reason 1. Historical and Political
At the beginning of the 20th century, Esperanto was spreading quite actively in Europe and the Russian Empire. So much so that in 1920, a proposal was made to make Esperanto the working language of the League of Nations.
The French delegate vetoed this proposal. French at that time was actively losing popularity in the international arena, so the French saw a threat to Esperanto.
Linguistic scholars argue that if the proposal were nevertheless accepted, then it is quite possible that now Esperanto would be one of the most popular world languages.
At first, the Soviet Union planned to use Esperanto, but in the 1930s many Esperantists were accused of espionage and terrorism. The same happened after the appointment of Adolf Hitler by the German Chancellor in 1933. In his book “Mein Kampf” he wrote: “Esperanto was created as a universal language for uniting the Jewish diasporas” , therefore, even before the start of the Second World War, the study of Esperanto in Germany was prohibited.
After the end of the Second World and Grandiose Economic Growth in the USA, English began to move very actively in the international arena. The Esperanto movement, though revived, was no longer able to achieve such success as in the 1920s.
Reason 2. Linguistic
Dr. Zamenhof argued that Esperanto is the first truly multicultural language, which does not depend on state borders.
But there is one serious nuance - this statement is relevant only for Latin-based languages. For people who speak one of the languages of the Romano-German group, Esperanto will seem pretty simple.
Although many Slavic languages use the Cyrillic alphabet, they still have Romano-Germanic roots. For Slavs, Esperanto will also seem easy to learn. Therefore, Esperanto received the greatest popularity in Europe and the Russian Empire.
But what about languages that use completely different alphabets and principles of word formation? For example, Arabic, Hindi, Bengali, Chinese, Korean or Japanese?
More than 3 billion people speak the languages of the Indo-Iranian, Sino-Tibetan, Japanese-backpack and Turkic groups. This is approximately 40% of the total population of the globe.
For Japanese, English and Esperanto will be equally difficult to study, because they are completely different from Japanese with its syllabary alphabet and hundreds of hieroglyphs. Therefore, there is absolutely no advantage over other European languages that Esperanto has in this situation.
Reason 3. Personality-psychological
A person learning a second language does this from a position of personal gain. In most cases, this desire to improve in work or school, the desire to communicate with people from different countries, explore different cultures on their own experience, read books and watch movies in the original. There are a lot of reasons, but they all pursue purely selfish goals. And that's fine.
At the moment, the English language gives much more opportunities for development than Esperanto.
- 92% of the top 100 universities in the world conduct study programs in English.
- 90% of all information on the Internet is written in English.
- 85% of international conferences use English as the main one.
- 50% of scientific publications, manuals, highly specialized articles and solutions are written in English.
- 28% of all fiction in the world is published in English. At the same time, English is the first language into which books are translated from other languages.
In terms of use, English is several orders of magnitude greater than Esperanto. Even despite the fact that books are published in Esperanto, films are localized, its prevalence is too small.
According to various estimates, there are between 200,000 and 2 million people in the world who speak Esperanto. If you compare with more than a billion English speakers, it is not even funny.
Esperanto has its advantages. For example, the language has excellent didactic properties. Learning Esperanto 2-3 times makes it easier to learn other languages in terms of grammar and vocabulary. For example, if you are learning to learn Spanish after Esperanto, you will need an average of 400 hours instead of the standard 1000.
But psychologically difficult to learn a language that you can only use as a springboard for learning other languages. Motivation is very much lost. Even with obvious advantages, the majority chooses more difficult English, because it can be used in practice here and now.
Can Esperanto become a global language in the future?
The trends in the popularity of languages in the world change every 70-100 years.
In the 19th century, French was at the peak of popularity, in the first half of the 20th century - German, and from the 1950s to the present - English. And what language will be at the peak of popularity in 2120?
Perhaps English will remain the leader, but it may happen that everyone will learn Chinese instead.
Esperanto has enough potential to become a world language in theory, but this option is rather unlikely. And here are some reasons for this:
- The novelty effect of the idea has disappeared. On the world stage, Esperanto is considered a relic of the past, not a very successful experiment. Moreover, only about 40% of the inhabitants of the developed countries of Europe (France, Germany) are in principle aware of the existence of such a language. In Slavic countries, this figure is much lower.
- Esperanto is a financially unprofitable project that requires a huge infusion of money. In order for the “golden era” of the language to come for the second time, you need to invest billions of dollars in its popularization, and now there are no enthusiastic patrons in the world who would like to do this.
- The geopolitical ambitions of developed countries are unlikely to favor the attempts to promote a new language, because in fact this will be a new factor in the destabilization of society. Of the world organizations, the development of Esperanto supports only UNESCO, but this is clearly not enough to change the existing state of affairs in the world.
- The very idea of creating an artificial language discredited itself. Esperanto, Ido, Novial, Interlingua - none of the artificially created languages have become any significant in the world community. Most of the attempts to create them as an alternative to the national languages were made at the end of the XIX - beginning of the XX century. Modern artificial languages are primarily of cultural and artistic value and are used in fiction, cinema or computer games. For example, the elven of Tolkien’s universe, the Klingon of Star Trek, or the dragon of The Elder Scrolls.
- Esperanto is a second language for most people who know it. According to various sources, there are only 200 to 2,000 people in the world for whom Esperanto is native. For the rest, the degree of proficiency in the language simply does not allow the creation of highly artistic works, serious scientific works or other complex texts.
The value of English in world society today is hundreds of times greater than the value of Esperanto. And the trends say that in the next 10-20 years, the position of English will only strengthen. But Esperanto essentially remains in the same position of stagnation in which it was in the 1950s.
Of course, the situation may change. For example, if the UN adopts Esperanto as an auxiliary language, it will play an enormous role in its popularization. Or suddenly there is a billionaire enthusiast who will invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the development of Esperanto.
Yes, it is unlikely, but still. This option should not be completely ruled out.
In the meantime, friends, learn English. Today it is much more useful than all artificial languages combined. Successes you in this!
EnglishDom.com is an online school that inspires learning English through innovation and human concern.
Only for Habr's readers - the first lesson with a teacher on Skype for free ! When purchasing 10 lessons, specify the promotional code eng_vs_esperanto and get 2 more lessons as a gift. The bonus is valid until 05/31/19.
Get 2 months of premium subscriptions for all EnglishDom courses as a gift .
Take them right now on the link
Our products:
Learn English words in the ED Words mobile app
Learn English from A to Z in the ED Courses mobile app
Install the Google Chrome extension, translate English words on the Internet and add them to the study in the Ed Words application
Learn English in the form of an online simulator
Consolidate conversational skills and find friends in conversational clubs.
Watch the video lifehacks about English on the YouTube-channel EnglishDom
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/446842/
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