We all know that Esperanto was designed to be an international second language. We also know that it was designed to be culturally neutral. However, how neutral is Esperanto? The entire language is constructed from Romance, Slavic, and Germanic roots and grammatical systems. It doesn't even represent the entire Indo-European language family. Let's say someone who speaks Japanese is learning Esperanto. Even if the grammar and pronunciation of Esperanto is simplified, the vocabulary is still totally alien. I think Esperanto is a wonderful tool for cross-cultural communication, and support it 100%, but I can't help but think that maybe it's "La lingvo Eǔropa" not "La lingvo internacia"

Read through the 'DID U DO ANY EFFORT' thread. There are multiple pages of it regarding this very topic.

Ditto what the wolfman said. But basically; no, learning Esperanto is not a completely equal experience for everyone around the globe. But it is more neutral than other situations. In Japan, which you mentioned, children must learn English at school from grade 5, whereas you and me didn't need to learn any foreign language. (I am actually guessing about the situation in US schools, but I presume you guys don't have any mandatory second-language classes)

"Perfect is the enemy of good enough," as they say. Esperanto is here, now, and it works as a means of international communication. Just dive in!

NO language would be equally easy to learn for everyone on the planet; at a maximum, we could devise one that would be equally difficult for everyone.

Esperanto is only as international as its creator knew how to make it, and yes, it's a European-based internationality.

However, the languages of East Asia are much less closely connected than the European languages, so even if you were to have an Asian-based international language, with root words that are international from the Asian point of view, you'd have a very difficult time of it. There is a small base of Chinese-derived basic vocabulary in many East Asian languages, but the pronunciations vary radically, even if the ideogram is preserved to a degree.

If someone were to create such an "Asian-based Esperanto", however, I would really love to see how it worked, and how the creator would successfully come up with a vocabulary and grammar that would have a basic recognizability across Asia. I think it would be a much more difficult task than Zamenhof had with Esperanto.

To summarise some previous comments on this:

- The wordstock is obviously European, but mostly based off of modified Greco-Latin roots which are well known around the world, which is an acceptable trade-off IMHO.

- Since Europe's stuck its neck out in everyones business for god knows how long, there's been a long-term exchange of culture between Europe and the world, so it's not like Europe's "isolated" from the world, and that sort of softens the blow of us not being able to be completely neutral

- Completely neutral languages drive people crazy since they look weird and various words etc clash together in a way that looks sorta like the language was made by someone who didn't care about it aesthetically speaking.

I might also add something, and that's that, because Europeans have already played the role of the evil conquerers and colonisers, European language tends to make a good "neutral language" in places that, well, aren't Europe. Asia for example, heck, even Eastern Europe, there are cases where slavs who can understand each others languages with little effort speak English together anyway.

I guess that's all because each region has its power imbalances and culture clashes, so it's better to just use the usual european scape-goat for neutral communication than stir up the beehive by, for example in Asia, making Chinese the "neutral language" or Japanese or something like that.

(Of course, many Chinese learn Japanese, many South East Asians learn both languages, and the Japanese learn whatever they seem to find interesting, but if one of their languages was to become the "pan-asia language", suddenly everyone would complain in some manner. So, by having English there, it takes away a lot of flak that would have been kept within the region.. like stress ball lol).

That's my "defence" though

@ Erinja:
An Asian Esperanto? Mm... I imagine such a "Zamenhofu-san" would have created something akin to a Japanokoreanified Chinese* with flexible word order using post-positional declension/conjugation like in Japanese and Korean... The writing system though would be where things start to get hard, but simplified a cross between Kanji and Simplified Chinese would probably help...

*(pronunciation like in Japanese (aijin instead of airen), but using vocabulary of modern Chinese, particularly all those bisyllabic words).

3rdblade:In Japan, which you mentioned, children must learn English at school from grade 5, whereas you and me didn't need to learn any foreign language. (I am actually guessing about the situation in US schools, but I presume you guys don't have any mandatory second-language classes)

When I went to school in the US, no second language was mandatory. Admittedly I went to highschool in a crack infested ghetto, and the teachers were more interested in scanning our bags with metal detectors than teaching us foreign languages.

Nevertheless, I did hear a few years ago that Spanish was now required, and that Americans in kindergarten are now forced to learn Spanish as well as English. I think its fabulous, as Spanish is basically much more of a language of "life" than English.

Concerning Esperanto, I think it is a great bridge between Spanish speaking nations and non-Spanish. Through Esperanto I have talked to some interesting people in Spain, Cuba, etc. I would not say it is overall a good language to talk to just anybody.

As far as Asia, I did read about one man in Vietnam. Phạm Xuân Thái used Indonesian grammar and latin words. Not sure, but it is hard to find a manual on learning this language:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_sistemfrater

ceigered:

- Completely neutral languages drive people crazy since they look weird and various words etc clash together in a way that looks sorta like the language was made by someone who didn't care about it aesthetically speaking.

That's a good point. Languages like Lojban don't seem very user friendly.

I just want to put in a couple of articles on the subject done by Claude Piron, a relatively short one and a much longer one full of examples

Yes, Esperanto's vocabulary is largely European but it's less of a burden than other languages because with Esperanto's word-formation process, someone doesn't have to learn a gigantic amount of European roots and can instead make lots of words using the ones they already know. I know in some cases people use borrowed European terms instead of deriving:

samtempa--simultana--at the same time
kontraŭjuda--antisemita--anti-Semite
ununombra--singulara--singular
plurlingvulo--poligloto--polyglot
malsanulejo--hospitalo--hospital
tertiro--gravito--gravity
kosmoscienco--astronomio--astronomy
deklaro--deklaracio--declaration
sonsistemo--fonologio--phonology

Other people can argue if some words are actually used. Of course, some of the words in the list are mostly theoretical, like "tertiro" and "sonsistemo" but an advantage of Esperanto is if someone (possibly non-European) doesn't know a word like "singulara" they can form a word like "ununombra" and still be understood.

About US foreign language education, I think it depends on what part of the country a school is in. Wyoming probably insists less on foreign languages than California. Some states declare offical language(s) but I don't know how that affects education. I don't know of any federal requirement.

IMHO, unless students are in an immersion class or the teacher is good at encouraging students to actually use the foreign language, all people do is memorize vocabulary lists, understand grammar, and pass written tests, but still don't feel comfortable having a real conversation.

Aside from the content of the language which will never be entirely neutral for all the reasons previously stated, I think there is one important place where Esperanto is totally neutral.

It belongs to no one. It's not associated with any particular nation. By learning it, you are not giving in and learning another country's language instead of them learning yours. Given that it's not a language of a nation with most speakers therefore native, everyone can be on neutral grounds if they make the effort to learn the language well.

PatrickB:

ceigered:

- Completely neutral languages drive people crazy since they look weird and various words etc clash together in a way that looks sorta like the language was made by someone who didn't care about it aesthetically speaking.

That's a good point. Languages like Lojban don't seem very user friendly.

Hehe, no, not really. Cool language though if you've ever got time and are willing to have your mind reconstructed!*

(also, at least Lojban mixes things up in a relatively smoothly blended way. Lidepla on the other hand I have a pet bias against since to me, since things quite obviously clash in that).

novmik:I think its fabulous, as Spanish is basically much more of a language of "life" than English.

Probably since we English speakers have this strange fear of having fun...

Also, I think sistemfrater's grammar was more inspired by vietnamese and SE Asian languages in general, but it doesn't matter in the end since they're all isolating languages with similar word order, which sums up Indonesian (well, almost- indonesian has a mix between isolating and agglutinative grammar, ie. kambing hidup = the goat lives, but ia menghidupkan komputernya = they (singular) turned on their computer (bold being affixes etc))