this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2023
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Esperanto.
Alas, there are enough serious problems to fill a book.
Given that Esperanto was created before most of modern linguistics, this isn't all that surprising. Programmers don't much write in Plankalkül either.
Toki Pona
A language that's hard to say much in even if you know 100% of the vocabulary.
Sorry to say, but once I realised how euro-centric, and to my ear/eye, latin-centric esparanto is I completely lost interest.
I don't know if anyone has tried, but something which similarly draws influences from the languages that the vast majority of the world speak would be wonderful.
You made me think of that xkcd about standards.
Anyway, the eurocentrism argument, while perhaps true due to the Latin root, seems to be a little bit of a savior complex don’t you think? China itself pushed for Esperanto to be used as a business language internally late last century as I recall.
I don’t see that at all.
It’s about making a language that the maximum amount of cultures can see themselves in, can have at least some familiarity with, and feel like they’ve been acknowledged in the making of a global language … all of which is intended to get maximum buy in around the world to establish a truely international language rather than a Lingua Franca derived from hegemony.
Maybe China was interested in Esperanto for a bit, but I’m betting like most stories like that it’s heavily exaggerated or outright bogus.
Someone already said that either the created language takes from too few source languages and alienates speakers of languages with no common characteristics or takes from every language family and becomes a horrible mess that's hard to speak for everyone.
So if a world language is a bad idea no matter what languages you use as a source, why not have Esperanto or something similar for Europe/English speaking world and then a different language for Asia, and another one for Africa. You've reduced the number of translators needed and left most people with a language close to their mother tongue. You could also break the suggested regions in to smaller sections eg give Germanic Europe a common Germanic language. West/south Europe get Esperanto, east Europe sets a common slavic language. You still get languages that don't neatly fit like Hungarian but its better for most language learners than the last example.
Personally I'd not propose universal languages as a utopian idea and instead promote indigenous languages such as Catalonian, Breton, Irish and promote learning many languages in a post work society.
Yeah we can invent yet another language, and go through the motions of including everyone. But by god make sure you don’t forget anyone. Let’s throw in Chamicuro, Warlpiri, Liki, Tanema, Ongota, and Dumi, just to make sure. Don’t want to upset anyone….
Or we could stop inventing new ways to accuse things of not being inclusive enough. It’s getting bonkers… Not saying Esperanto is the best language, and it has its flaws as others have so vehemently stated, but if inclusivity is the primary motive when designing a language, then I can almost certainly guarantee that new language will be much worse.
I mean English is basically the world language. It’s used by pilots, scientists, global finance, and diplomatic efforts. I’m gonna assume that almost no one would classify English as inclusive in its vocabulary. Unless you’re German, Dutch, or French of course. Esperanto is at least more accessible and easy to learn and carries Latin roots… shared with lots of languages. And it was invented by a member of a repressed minority in the old Russian Empire. What’s not to love?
My problem is not with inclusivity but with promoting uptake. If you are familiar with the grammar or phonetic sounds or some of the vocab, you are more likely to find that language easier to learn.
Both English and Esperanto share the same problems of universal languages that I mentioned. English does have the advantage of number of speakers but it is a mess of a language for people to have to learn.
Again to reiterate my counter to universal languages, why not learn and potentially help revive your local indigenous languages. In a world where universal translation exits on our phones everybody being able to speak the same language matters less.
Who cares if it's European sounding, it's still an interesting language that is relatively easy to learn, even for people from non-romance backgrounds.
Neo-Indo-European?
The issue is that modern languages are so diverse, you would wind up with a horrid, unusable patchwork.
Lojban
What disrupted the fun for me:
I think OP means programming language. Not the languages used by human to communicate each other.
Jes
As a regular person who speaks a non-indo-european language, yeah I thought that was obvious
I'd love to read more about that! Normally, I'd just do my own searching, but since you have actual expertise in the area, is there someone in particular I should search for who explains this?
I also want to clarify that I'm not skeptical; on the contrary, I can think of three reasons off the top of my head, as a layman who knows virtually nothing about Esperanto, just based on you identifying colonialism as an issue, but I was hoping to get an educated take on it.