T0dd:
Many of the people arguing for English as the official language of the EU are not native speakers. They are well aware that the adoption of English as the official language of EU business would give the United Kingdom a tremendous advantage, and that it would indirectly give American economic and political interests an advantage as well. But apparently they just don't care.

This is also linked to what someone has studied in the past. I can totally understand it if someone spends many years of their life studying English, trying to perfect their English. This person has a lot invested in English. I can understand that this person would support adoption of English as the EU's official language even if they don't particularly like the US or the UK, simply because they have already invested so much time (and probably money) in it. I can imagine that if the EU's official language were announced to be something other than English - even a relatively much easier language like Esperanto - this person would be justifiably upset at having to start all over again.

Curiously, it was a Spamiard who suggested that Esperanto be the official language of the Communist International, at its second congress.
Of national languages becoming international, may I suggest Arabic? I had a concrete example of this in my neighbourhood: a Lebanese discussing with an Eritrean in that language. With the collapse of Stalinism, Islam is seen by some people as a counter-culture. However I think Arabic is difficult language to learn.
As an international language, didn't Latin survive the fall of the Roman Empire, the fall of the Byzantine Empire, and the Reformation? Didn't people like Isaac Newton write in that language?

piteredfan:
As an international language, didn't Latin survive the fall of the Roman Empire, the fall of the Byzantine Empire, and the Reformation? Didn't people like Isaac Newton write in that language?

Because so many scholarly and religious works were written in Latin, is why it continued on. It was taught in school, so you could read the thousands of years of literature. Chinese would be the next language to reach that, I believe.

Chinese is becoming important due to the number of speakers, their growing distribution and imposing economical power of China. Latin did die as a usual language even if indeed its litterature and tradition remained. I don't think Chinese is dying. I don't think either that it as reach that no.2 spot in the world just yet.

ok returning to the subject.... I, myself am a native Spanish speaker, I've lived in Mexico for 17 years until this past year when I moved to Canada. I studied English in Mexico for 10 years and Japanese for about 2 years and here in Canada I learned French. Regardless of my age I'm pretty good with languages (I may suck for math but we all have our pros and cons, right?)

I don't think Spanish might be any kind of menace to Esperanto. Yes, Spanish is easy to pronounce and has grammar rules with few exceptions, but it wasn't created for the same means as Esperanto was, Spanish derived from vulgar Latin a few thousand years ago and they only spoke it, there wasn't any documentation or rules of the language and it wasn't until the 15 century when a writer called Elio Antonio de Nebrija told the Queen that they should write the rules and everything about Spanish and she said "Why do I want to write that if i already know how to speak the language?" to what he replied "your majesty, the language is the instrument of the empire".

Sorry I got carried away with that hehe... The point is, that Spanish is not EASY as many people say, yes it's easier than English in many ways, but the verbs in Spanish are very complex and its vocabulary is tremendously huge! You're getting this from a native Spanish speaker that has been comparing these languages for a while already. I personally don't like English at all. English pronunciation is dated to thousands of years ago and you probably already know that the English from U.S.A. is different from that of the U.K., Canada and any other place where this is the official language, but yeah I live in a place where English is the official language and most of the world's population speak it to a conversational level so what can I do? =/ Maybe I'll move to Montreal next year and I'll be speaking French instead; I can't wait to do that.

I like Esperanto pretty much, and I don't think it will ever overcome English, but still by studying Esperanto you gain more linguistic knowledges and therefore, can learn another language faster. It happened to me with French, and since I want to study the career of Translator specialized on Interpretation, it will be helpful eventually =]

I'm open to any opinions you might have about my comment so go for it, Thanks a lot.

Regards.

Edgar Hernandez Navarro

fojo:With the ascension of Spanish as a popular choice as a foreign language, I see trouble for Esperanto.

An asset of Esperanto upon which the purported ease of learning rests is the consistent spelling and a phonological system syntetic and supposedly accessible to most speakers; now, it's being conspicuous now that that natural language can claim same thing for itself.

And if you elaborate on arguably syntactic and verbal system complications, you ll be dismissed with the thought that the existence of a huge speaking community far outweight that possible flaw.

Could be now or never...

To be totally honest, i think you're being a little paranoid. I myself speak spanish, and i can tell, es muy deficil (it's pretty hard). Spanish doesn't pose any real "threat" (i hate using that word) because it is not as friendly to Eastern Europe as E-o. Besides, what is the whole point behind E-o? To be a lingvo internacia, right? World communication is its goal, and if this is achieved through Spanish instead of E-o, so be it! (though i have to say, the aspects of neutrality and linguistic equality will go right out the window. The dialect that I, a Puerto Rican American, am using makes it difficult to communicate with, say, a Mexican (tomate vs. jitomate, for example)).

What im trying to say, i guess, is that E-o should never try to diminish the predominance of natural languages like English or Spanish, but simply become an AUXILARY LANGUAGE. Its okay for Spanish (or Italian or Hindi or Greek) to gain usage; E-o remains an ever-popular secondary language.

I just wanted to interject a little something:

Spanish is spoken on about 4 continents and while there might be variance in accents, it doesn't make it hard for those who speak spanish to understand each other.

I would liken it to say, Southern US and Northern US accents and the use of different words to describe things. For example: "spicket," when I heard that word, I had no idea what it meant. (I later found out that Northerners say that to mean "faucet.") Also, American, Canadian, UK, South African, etc. English. There'll be differences in accents and words, but you'll still understand each other.

I'm a speaker of Spanish and, personally, I find that Spanish is really easy to get the hang of it. Granted, it may take time to learn all the complexities, but let me guarantee you, native speakers of Spanish don't really give a lot of thought on being 100% grammatically correct.

dannyjmt:I just wanted to interject a little something:

Spanish is spoken on about 4 continents and while there might be variance in accents, it doesn't make it hard for those who speak spanish to understand each other.

Yet there are still big enough differences that Spanish-language TV series are dubbed into different varieties of Spanish for different dialects. When was the last time you heard of this for English? (I can only think of one or two cases, cartoons)

I would liken it to say, Southern US and Northern US accents and the use of different words to describe things. For example: "spicket," when I heard that word, I had no idea what it meant. (I later found out that Northerners say that to mean "faucet.") Also, American, Canadian, UK, South African, etc. English. There'll be differences in accents and words, but you'll still understand each other.

(You're referring to "spigot", right?) Isn't this the same in Spanish? Different accents, some different words. I think this is common in every language spread across the world. There are certainly vocabulary and accent differences between Quebec French and what is spoken in France, and likely also differences between those and African French.

I'm a speaker of Spanish and, personally, I find that Spanish is really easy to get the hang of it. Granted, it may take time to learn all the complexities, but let me guarantee you, native speakers of Spanish don't really give a lot of thought on being 100% grammatically correct.

They must be much like English speakers in that way!

When was the last time you heard of this for English?

I'm just making suppositions here and I don't even know if it actually does have a difference, but when was the last time you watched Australian or South African TV?

You're referring to "spigot", right?

Excuse my ignorance but what's a "spigot"?

There are certainly vocabulary and accent differences between Quebec French and what is spoken in France

De kossé tu parles, la floune? T'as pas rapport...

I know you're gonna point out we should always put translation for other languages within the forum and since I specifically made it so nobody out of Québec would actually understand it, this would translate into: "What are you talking about, young girl? You're not making sense..."

Islander:

You're referring to "spigot", right?

Excuse my ignorance but what's a "spigot"?

It's a faucet. Technically, it is any faucet-like apparatus which dispenses liquids (so an espresso machine, for example, would have something that is more likely to be referred to as a "spigot", whereas what you have over the kitchen sink is more likely to be referred to as a faucet - but both do essentially the same thing).