The major player in the future of Esperanto is Brazil. Brazil is a very progressive, large, and rich country. It has to now no international enemies. Brazilians are generally very tolerant but they are not big into acquiring foreign languages. In fact - and I teach English as a foreign language here in the USA - they have more difficulties than my average non-English speaking student. But Esperanto is a horse of another color. They do very well in Esperanto - my guess is less that the similarity of the two languages is in play than the idea that studying Esperanto is not a concession to any other country's culture. Brazilians are very touchy about how people perceive Brazil and they are very loyal to their cultural roots. They do not well adapt to other cultures - believe me, I am married to one!
I am always amazed in Brazil how they find it very "normal" that I as a native speaker of American English speak Esperanto with gusto. (They also like the fact that I really go all out for Portuguese. Of course, in my husband's hometown I don't have much of a choice since nobody there speaks anything but Portuguese.)
I want to move to Brazil to support the advance of Esperanto in that country.

Alkanadi:The Wall Street Journal mentions Esperanto in this Article

Do you think that English crushed Esperanto's chance of being the lingua franca of the world?

On the contrary: Esperanto can ride the coat-tails of English to garner many more speakers, because Esperanto is the easiest path for learning English (or any other language, for that matter). One possibility is the website that I am building called "The English Engine". Its address is www.the-english-engine.com

mkj1887:

Alkanadi:The Wall Street Journal mentions Esperanto in this Article

Do you think that English crushed Esperanto's chance of being the lingua franca of the world?

On the contrary: Esperanto can ride the coat-tails of English to garner many more speakers, because Esperanto is the easiest path for learning English (or any other language, for that matter). One possibility is the website that I am building called "The English Engine". Its address is www.the-english-engine.com

How can one language X (in your case Esperanto) be the easiest path to learn language Y, no matter which is your L1?

If I am a Q'eqchi' speaker, then the easiest way to study K'ichee is to study Esperanto first? Are you sure about that?

I suppose that the argument is that when you learn your first foreign language, there are things you have to learn which are not specific to the language you are learning, and learning Esperanto gives you a gentle introduction to such things as reformulating your thoughts in another language, basic grammatical concepts, developing a sensitivity to ambiguity and clear expression, and so on.

It's like how teaching you a simple musical instrument like the recorder introduces you to musical ideas and sets you up for music making with more difficult instruments.

Also, because Esperanto guarantees early success, you develop confidence in yourself and that makes tackling a national language seem less daunting.

There's a general pedagogical principle that you start with the simple and progress to the complicated.

Esperanto frees you from many of the complications that you would encounter in learning a national language and which can be overwhelming - preventing you seeing the wood for the trees.

sudanglo:It's like how teaching you a simple musical instrument like the recorder introduces you to musical ideas and sets you up for music making with more difficult instruments.

I heard of a study that shows students who take 1 year of Esperanto and 3 years of French did better in French than those who take 4 years of French. I don't know if it is true and I may be misquoting the study but it is interesting.

nornen:If I am a Q'eqchi' speaker, then the easiest way to study K'ichee is to study Esperanto first? Are you sure about that?

If Q'eqchi' is the one and only language you speak, then many people would say yes, studying Esperanto first would be the easiest way to learn K'ichee. The hardest language to learn is your second language, so, the argument goes, make the second language as easy as possible.

Now, of course, I don't know anything about Q'eqchi' or K'ichee. Perhaps K'ichee is roughly as easy as Esperanto. Perhaps it has no irregular verbs, gendered nouns, has just two cases, etc. Or perhaps K'ichee is just a very similar dialect of Q'eqchi'. If so, then it may make no difference. But if Q'eqchi' and K'ichee are quite different, and the student, through inexperience, just thinks K'ichee (or any other language) is just "Q'eqchi' with different words", then Esperanto might provide a simple eye-opener.

When studying Esperanto you are faced with the problem of formulating things in a specific culture - just as in any other language. The difference is that the culture of Esperanto is the common denominator of all cultures, i.e. what people of any culture would understand. I am using the word 'culture' here in the larger sense, i.e. the world culture as we know it. When learning an ethnic language you must learn the specific culture of that language in order to use it correctly. That was the subject of my dissertation and the years of research I did in preparing to write it.
I wish that I had the means to describe "world culture" but I do not have the resources to research this.

robbkvasnak:English may not have a lot of declinations or grammatical gender (at least as expressed by articles) but - believe me! - it is very complex. Try to explain the vernacular expression 'you better not shout, you better not cry, you better not pout I'm tellin' ya why!" And don't just put it off as slang. It plays every year for a month in all the store here and my foreign students go crazy. Yes, I know, "you had better not...." but that is not what people say! And I have even seen it in writing in he daily media. To put it off as a prescriptionist would is dishonest. If people are to live in and use this language, then you must adapt to it. And there is plenty more - on the radio, on TV - when the lights are out it is dark, when the sun is out it is bright .... and more and more and more

Right. And we park on the driveway, and drive on the parkway.

Of course, to use a national language effectively with native speakers, it is helpful to be aware of the prevailing cultural norms in their country.

For example, it helps to know that on entering a carriage on the London underground it is expected that you should shake hands with your fellow travellers enquiring of each their monthly salary.

Or that in a rural French Post office it is alright to jump the queue provide that you exchange pleasantries with each of the women in the queue on the subject of the size of their breasts.

But alas, because in no one country is Esperanto used for conduct of daily life, the Esperantist abroad must prepare himself to encounter the worst antics of Johnny foreigner. There are no norms of 'world culture' that the travelling Esperantist can turn to for guidance.

nornen:

mkj1887:

Alkanadi:The Wall Street Journal mentions Esperanto in this Article

Do you think that English crushed Esperanto's chance of being the lingua franca of the world?

On the contrary: Esperanto can ride the coat-tails of English to garner many more speakers, because Esperanto is the easiest path for learning English (or any other language, for that matter). One possibility is the website that I am building called "The English Engine". Its address is www.the-english-engine.com

How can one language X (in your case Esperanto) be the easiest path to learn language Y, no matter which is your L1?

If I am a Q'eqchi' speaker, then the easiest way to study K'ichee is to study Esperanto first? Are you sure about that?

Ordinary language, which is what we’re using here, is heavily dependent on abbreviations and shared understandings. You can make anyone look ridiculous at any time by suddenly imposing the requirement of mathematical precision. (A large amount of humor is based on this phenomenon.) For example, when the Founding Fathers of the USA said that all men are created equal, they did not feel it necessary to spell out the numerous exceptions they had in mind. Anyway, clearly, out of the thousands of existing languages, and languages yet to come into existence, there could be cases where going directly from one of them to the other would be easier than using Esperanto as a bridge language. I regarded this as self-evident, and did not want to bloat my reply by dragging it in. And even if you are going to insist on mathematical precision, remember that in Mathematics there is the common qualifying phrase, “except for a set of measure zero”, which we could append to fulfill your strict requirement.