jaidit:

leporinjo:It's had far more time than, say, Lojban, Toki Pona or Klingon, so I would reserve judgment on anything like those languages. Considering it has only been around for 35 years or so, Klingon is impressively popular. The same goes for Lojban, which has been around for 18-25 years depending on where you start counting, and Toki Pona, which has been around for 14 years.

As far as Ido and Volapük and Interlingua and Occidental and Idiom Neutral etc. go, the one thing you can say for sure is that people in the late 19th century and early 20th century were more passionate about Esperanto than any of them, and to this day very few people are taking much interest in them.

I don't think this can just be attributed to the qualities of the language alone. It has to do with culture, which also explains the popularity of Klingon and Toki Pona, as well as the early popularity of Volapük. It also has a lot to do with the Fundamento, which prevents people from hastily reforming the language away, and the Interna Ideo.

Leporinjo raises an intersting point with a comparison to Klingon (which turns 30 this year). Think about Esperanto at 30 (1917): thousands of people spoke it. Reportedly the number of people who can speak Klingon conversationally without frequent recourse to a dictionary is fewer than a dozen. Klingon gets a lot of media attention, but in terms of actual users, I don't think it's actually "impressively popular."

It was never a goal of klingon to be spoken by many people. So terms like "success" or "failure" dont really apply. Esperanto has a goal, the finan venkon, other artlangs and conlangs dont.

Klingon was used in the TV show as intended, and I guess its inventor was paid for the job. Hence, it was a success. Different aims.

Gleki:Lojban has other goals. It can't fail in what Esperanto is supposed to succeed.

No one says "Why PHP failed?" It has its own applications. Same for Lojban. It will be used in certain areas. Esperanto can't replace Lojban, and Lojban can't replace Esperanto.

Yeah, and the same can be said for Klingon and Toki Pona. They each have their own purpose, and more or less fulfill those purposes; after all, Klingon was originally made to be spoken by actors in Star Trek, any use it gets off the screen is an extra bonus . And Toki Pona was, from what I hear, mostly an experiment for "jan Sonja", the inventor, who now apparently has lost interest (note that all this is hearsay on my part). So both of them are actually going beyond their original purpose! And of course there are many others made with various purposes other than international communication.

So that just leaves the actual competitors, those made with a similar purpose to Esperanto, to contend with; like Volapük, Interlingua, and Ido. Why is it that Esperanto is the only constructed language name I know of that is recognised by this spell-checker?

For me the big difference seems to be that Esperanto was artistically created, I think that was Zamenhof's genius; I gather that he spent years perfecting it. It seems to work aesthetically as well as logically.

By the way, did someone try to learn Iţkuîl?
According to Wikipedia, it's "designed to express deeper levels of human cognition briefly yet overtly and clearly, particularly with regard to human categorization".

Some phrase examples from the official site:
hremsoqaiţsurkoi - purportedly by means of the value derived from all the varied attributes of humanity
/qhûl-lyai’svukšei’arpîptó’ks - being hard to believe, after allegedly trying to go back to repeatedly inspiring fear using rag-tag groups of suspicious-looking clowns, despite resistance
ˇxhoehwe - according to those variously interdependent but differing networks of people
Awuçkhoewi andawútļ? - Are those formally recognized groups of people making inquiries about the pair of you?
Ilmaţár êqeil. - The woman doesn’t sing [even though she can, i.e., she chooses not to].
Ilmàţîr êqeil. - The woman doesn’t sing [because she can’t, i.e., she is mute].

If the goals are logicality and conciseness, maybe Iţkuîl is better, than Esperanto. But it's hard to believe that someone except the author perfectly speaks it.

bartlett22183:Years ago, I wrote an essay "Thoughts on IAL Success," available here. By no means do I consider it the last word, but it is a little too long to summarize in a brief post here.

I read this years ago, and find it great. A comment, though: factor no. 2 can be simply named the "Goldilocks principle."

melitopolano:By the way, did someone try to learn Iţkuîl?
(snip)
If the goals are logicality and conciseness, maybe Iţkuîl is better, than Esperanto. But it's hard to believe that someone except the author perfectly speaks it.

I do not think it is better. Is it more useful as a means of international communication? - No. Is it clever? - Yes, but so is Esperanto. I see you have a blog, though I cannot read the language it is in. Which language would you rather translate it into, Iţkuîl or Esperanto?

jaidit:Leporinjo raises an intersting point with a comparison to Klingon (which turns 30 this year). Think about Esperanto at 30 (1917): thousands of people spoke it. Reportedly the number of people who can speak Klingon conversationally without frequent recourse to a dictionary is fewer than a dozen. Klingon gets a lot of media attention, but in terms of actual users, I don't think it's actually "impressively popular."

I was thinking of learning some Klingon but then I got annoyed when I found out that it is a copyrighted. I think you can't publish anything in Klingon without getting approval. That might be part of the problem with Klingon.

This kind of approach can be deadly, in my opinion. James Cooke Brown tried to control Loglan so severely that eventually Bob LeChevalier and Nora Tanski broke away and created Lojban (and a notorious court fight). Leslie Jones tried to keep a chokehold on Eurolengo, I think, and Johann Schleyer tried to rule the world of Volapük with an iron fist. It doesn't work. Zamenhof had the good sense to let Esperanto go. Yes, he remained perhaps "the" examplar of good usage in the early days and the go-to authority, but not a dictator. I think that this freedom, yet within the standards set by the Fundamento, help E-o's case greatly.

I was thinking of learning some Klingon but then I got annoyed when I found out that it is a copyrighted. I think you can't publish anything in Klingon without getting approval. That might be part of the problem with Klingon.

Well, Klingon was not intended as an auxlang - it is really purely a work of art, and is subject to intellectual property laws like other works of art.

melitopolano:By the way, did someone try to learn Iţkuîl?
(snip)
If the goals are logicality and conciseness, maybe Iţkuîl is better, than Esperanto. But it's hard to believe that someone except the author perfectly speaks it.

I do not think it is better. Is it more useful as a means of international communication? - No. Is it clever? - Yes, but so is Esperanto. I see you have a blog, though I cannot read the language it is in. Which language would you rather translate it into, Iţkuîl or Esperanto?

Melitopolano's blog is in Russian, unless I'm much mistaken

I do agree that Zamenhof's willingness to let his language be its own thing, instead of attempting to hold on to and control it, was a very wise decision.

I plan to at least dabble in Klingon when the course arrives on Duolingo because it intrigues me as a curiosity, but I doubt I will study it seriously.