ceigered:
Well Esperanto technically hasn't been "successful" either, has it?

That depends on the definition of "successful". The fact that our language is spoken the world over, has regular international conventions and even this website is a testament to it's successful transition from a desktop project in late 19th century Poland to a worldwide phenomenon. If instead you define "success" to mean 1 billion speakers then yes it's failed, but so have most languages (artificial nor not).

Ultimately the point is that after all these years, Esperanto is still recruiting new speakers, is still very much alive and looks very much like it will be for the rest of my lifetime. That is a success in my eyes.

Ceiger, Esperanto is the Japanese knotweed of IAL's. No matter how drastically its population of speakers has been cut back at various times (Hitler, Stalin) it still perversely flourishes.

You might say it has been egregiously successful (you can add that word along with 'specious' to your vocabulary).

And on the influence of any imagined growth in the number of native speakers of Esperanto on the language, such is the pervading nature of the fundamental characteristic of the structure of Esperanto (combination of unchanging elements, which includes also the gramatikaj finaĵoj) that I still cannot see a mechanism for descent into chaos.

Your take is like arguing that regular verbs in English might diverge into a series of irregular groups with the passage of time.

sudanglo:Your take is like arguing that regular verbs in English might diverge into a series of irregular groups with the passage of time.

Which would be a great argument seeming as that's happened before!

Compare "catch" with "caught". (apparently despite being Anglo-Norman in origin it was influenced by the Anglo-saxon "latch", which presumably had a "laught" form before becoming regular.) Or bend with bent, build with built, feel with felt, and presumably leave with left.

(Earnt/earned and learnt/learned and leant/leaned are special since they preserve the t/d distinction that used to be used more often in English, so I wouldn't call them irregular).

Not to mention other surprise changes like "noumpere" and "naddere" becoming "umpire" and "adder", but that shouldn't be a problem in Esperanto due to the proliferation of the written language, which certainly helps slow down these processes (meaning an irregular Esperanto would theoretically take a long time to develop if we continue to monitor its progress as diligently as now despite future growth).

Not to mention EO is a bit more CVCVC than English which is sorta CVCCCCC. It's more a long term threat/concern to regularity than it is something I expect us to see in our lifetimes, but if we want to use our lifetimes to sow the seeds of the future for Esperanto, we should be wary of what we say now.

*Perhaps Esperanto's fairly regular structure would result in features being lost or simplified before true-blue irregularities?

@ Aslan:

I'd agree, but my point is that Esperanto is successful, but we shouldn't use Esperanto's personal successes as a guide to other conlangs (I direct this to Sudanglo too). Esperanto, to the eyes of someone supporting English as the world language, is a collossal failure (surely we all know the infuriating news reports that mention Esperanto as if it's synonymous to failure). I mean, "no one" (read as "not as much") people speak it, and there's no "great literature or culture") (read as "no internationally venerated culture works").

So, to us, while other conlangs might appear to be failing, to those who speak/write/use them, that's not true at all. Using Esperanto as a standard of success is silly. Esperanto has its successes that only Esperanto can claim, we can't say other languages have failed simply because they aren't Esperanto

Who knows, perhaps other conlangs are also Japanese knotweed, with their speakers being cut back by the more invasive Esperanto . David and Goliath makes Goliath look like a giant, but surely David struck fear into others when he defeated the... erm... philistine? Big guy?

jean-luc:But any other conlang will not only need to overcome the same difficulties esperanto has already overcame, but also they will have to overcome the fact that EO did not succeed to become the IAL of choice.

They should put that as a big warning on all those "build your own language!" websites

jean-luc:..any language wanting to replace english (as IAL) should explain why esperanto has failed to be the one *and* why they will succeed.

Certainly. E-o failed (at first) because the French stopped it at the League of Nations (Hitler and Stalin didn't help either).

However it might succeed eventually because the alternative likely future is for the International Language to be la angla, and the French might like that prospect even less.

I wouldn't say Esperanto "failed" as much as it "has yet to succeed." But like Aslan said, it depends on your definition of "success."

The obstacles Esperanto faced were largely political. Try to avoid getting countries to adopt it and focus your efforts instead on cultural development.

I can't believe only now I saw this topic!

As I understand, I think the problem is that we're another small group in the world, who can't "buy" mainstream attention, who fight for our rights for ages and who have an ideology which makes sense and shall be accepted by everybody. There are other small groups, but I think Esperanto is the nicier of all; we take it too easy, so that people think "I can ignore it for ever". We don't need to use violence or to use illegal political ways, but we could try some kind of advertising, which were more heavy. Not advertising EO in Superbowl or in Madison Square, but telling toddlers what's Esperanto, why it should be used, so that they will grow up thinking about Esperanto and studying it, and they will pass it to their children, so that Esperanto will become a family thing. And during this process, it will become a friendly thing, a scientific thing [for the family business] etc...
It will take a long time, but that's the way it should be, so that our language will develop, will take new ways and grow up. Eventually, will become the lingua franca sooner than I think.

razlem:I wouldn't say ..

All valid points, though I'm sure you understood that my response to jean-luc was mainly a joke. The prejudice against E-o does need to be overcome. The development of E-o culture, and especially a community of speakers, is certainly a vital part of this, because a large number of fluent speakers will lend the language credibility. But we also need some publicity (hopefully more positive than negative) so that it is not forgotten.

Esperanto, to be accepted by the more mainstream society, needs to be introduced in a slow and nonthreatening way. In terms of popular culture - advertisements, movies, music, television, radio, books, games, toys, etc. - it will HAVE to be introduced in some fashion that mixes it with the societies national language. Otherwise, it will be ignored.

Non-esperantists will not read books in pure Esperanto. They certainly might read books in which Esperanto plays a part.

Non-esperantists will not watch movies in pure Esperanto. But they might like movies that are mainly in English (or whatever), but with some Esperanto as part of the plot/environment.

Non-esperantists may be more likely to hear pure Esperanto music than experience any other kind of Esperanto art, but if they do they will make no effort to learn or understand the lyrics. They might learn the words, though, if the Esperanto is just in the chorus.

In the US, at least, when someone is presented with a language they don't understand, they generally just ignore it. They have nothing to hang the new language on, so it just slides right off them. The un-understood language becomes visual or auditory clutter, and not much more.

For example, very, VERY few non-English songs will get airplay here (in fact, I can't think of more than three or four popular (chart-reaching) songs that were entirely in some other language; now that I'm trying to, maybe I can't even think of that many (99 Luftballoons (sp?), and Guantanamera, are about all that come to mind - I'm sure there must be at least a couple of others, though, and I'm no doubt musically behind the times).

In any case, in the US at least, pure Esperanto anything will not make any kind of dent at all, as it will simply never even reach the radar of most people, will be ignored by the few it reaches, and will likely be considered threatening by a certain stupid subset of the population.

On the other hand, just ONE positive depiction of it on a hit television show like "The Big Bang Theory" - a place I've always thought would be a perfect introductory point (which will of course never happen) - and Lernu would instantly be inundated with new US members.

Music in which Esperanto - maybe just one or two phrases of it - is mixed with mainly English (or whatever) would be preferable to pure Esperanto. In the former, it might be seen as a gimmick or curiosity, but in the latter it will simply never be heard.

Americans hate subtitles. Pure Esperanto movies would be seen by no one if unsubtitled, and by only next-to-no-one if subtitled. But an English movie in which it was the language of the spies, or the good guys, or some cool subculture, or something where it wasn't otherwise front and center, might be seen by a larger proportion of the population, and would interest some of the viewers.

And so on. In order to get anyone interested, *pure* Esperanto in the popular culture will simply fail to attract any attention until it's already popular (at which point the goal of popularizing it has been reached, anyway).

I wondered how long it would take for someone to post a link to the Radio 4 broadcast - well done Miland.

A spirited defence from Hilary Chapman. But what was the point of having David Blunket on, when he could only remember one word of Esperanto, and, to my mind, had nothing useful to contribute.

However, probably any publicity, is good publicity. If the general public hears the word Esperanto enough, this must have some beneficial effect.

I wonder how the BBC came to have the idea of including an interview on the subject in the Today programme?