On Mon, 31 Mar 2003 12:00:18 -0500, Samuel W. Heywood wrote: > I remember back in the late 1950's and early 1960's there was > an international movement to adopt Esperanto as an international > language. The proponents of the movement said that Esperanto
Esperanto was invented in 1871 by a Polish doctor for use as an International second language. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica it has around 100,000 speakers, is used by around twenty professional orgainizations and over 100 periodicals. Not bad. But not really sucessful. > For use as an international language, why don't they consider adopting > Latin instead of Esperanto? Latin is of limited usefulness and hard to learn I'm told. English is the de facto international language now and the second language of choice around the world. If people want to communicate, do business internationally, study the latest advances in science, medicine, engineering, the arts, then they will learn English. People are doing that with great enthusiasm all over the world. This certainly isn't because of any inherent virtue in the language or in it's native speakers but because it's so useful and of obvious economic benefit. Sam Ewalt Croswell, Michigan, USA -- Arachne V1.70;rev.3, NON-COMMERCIAL copy, http://arachne.cz/
