Have you heard about the Esperanto?
By youless
@youless (114117)
Guangzhou, China
7 responses
@WorDazza (15826)
• Manchester, England
19 Feb 19
Back in the 1980s it was predicted that Esperanto would be the most widely spoken language in the world. At that time I worked with someone who was fluent in Esperanto.
As it turns out he would have been better off learning Spanish or Mandarin.
2 people like this
@WorDazza (15826)
• Manchester, England
19 Feb 19
@ScribbledAdNauseum I think it was quite popular at one point in Europe. Probably around the time when the EU was becoming more of a thing (70s and 80s). If I'm being honest I just assumed it was invented in the 1950s. Considering the rationale behind it I thought it made sense that it would come about as a consequence of the second world war.
I think the biggest problem it faced was that English was already fairly well established as an international language.
@ScribbledAdNauseum (104615)
• United States
19 Feb 19
@WorDazza I was just thinking about how much more we'd benefit with Esperanto here in the USA. It's not that we aren't taught other languages in school, it's just not as much of a requirement as it is in other countries. When I was in school, for instance, I did not take any foreign language in high school but graduated despite it being a "requirement".
3 people like this
@WorDazza (15826)
• Manchester, England
19 Feb 19
@ScribbledAdNauseum I think when you live in an English speaking country there is a difficulty in choosing which language to learn.
In that respect a common world language would make it a no brainer.
@Porcospino (31365)
• Denmark
19 Feb 19
I know what Esperanto is, but I have never tried to learn it. There is another constructed language called Volapük, and I think that Volapük was created before Esperanto.
1 person likes this
@Porcospino (31365)
• Denmark
20 Feb 19
@youless I think that Volapük was less popular than Esperanto. The word Volapük means world language, but today we use the word in a different way. In Danish volapük means nonsense.
1 person likes this
@ScribbledAdNauseum (104615)
• United States
19 Feb 19
Esperanto was a language designed to be easy to learn. It was supposed to be a means for easy conversation between people of different cultures. I know Esperanto is very heavily based in Latin, Spanish (as spoke in Spain) and possibly French.
I tried to learn a little of it at one time. I don't think it would much matter, people are not learning this language as much as they once did. I think it was created in the 1930's?
1 person likes this
@JESSY3236 (22246)
• United States
19 Feb 19
I never heard of it until I looked up about it.
1 person likes this
@JohnRoberts (109841)
• Los Angeles, California
19 Feb 19
I have never heard of that before.
1 person likes this
