ceigered:I seem to have misinterpreted the scope of this fina venko. But I agree Sudanglo that if Erinja's predictions occur (which I stress I'm trying to say "no that's impossible"), we might have to rewrite the way we think of social change and languages in a historical context.

My predictions are strictly hypothetical, because I don't happen to believe that the fina venko will ever occur. It's a bit like a science fiction fantasy world for me, to imagine the role of Esperanto after the fina venko. It's almost like saying "What will the world be like when we finally achieve world peace?", a concept in which I also do not believe.

However if I were to write a fantasy story about it, it's my opinion that use of Esperanto on a worldwide scale would be very much like use of English in Europe today. I wouldn't say that European usage has made much of a change to English. Though Esperanto doesn't have a home country and large native speaker community like English has, it does have a normative language, a body of literature, and other things which are a stabilizing influence.

Mmm, perhaps you've swayed me there to agree with your opinion... I guess though that the rest of the world would have to operate a lot more like Europe though, e.g. cultural safeguards thanks to a relative abundance of wealth, power (but that's much easier than making everyone speak Esperanto! ).

But yes, I feel a bit silly now that you'd gone and mentioned that science fiction bit, because that really is the case isn't it...

People who need a morale boost regarding the prospects of Esperanto may benefit from Claude Piron's talk at Boulogne on the centenary of the first World Congress. Youtube has parts One, Two and Three, mostly with Esperanto subtitles.