Re: [engelang] The future of languages. - engelang messages

Well, Esperanto has the largest bases and the oldest and best functioning set or organizations speaking in its behalf. It also has the advantage of being almost familiar to speakers of most of the Western European languages. Of course, that latter is a disadvantage out of the area where those languages have sway. And it has no particular nationalist, imperialist, colonialist background (except its WE ness -- but that is a realm of conflicts in all the -ist areas, so not a unified threat). Still, its time -- and maybe the time for a one-language solution -- seems past. For now.

From: Leonardo Castro <leolucas1980@hidden.email>
To: engelang@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, September 21, 2012 12:46 PM
Subject: Re: [engelang] The future of languages.

2012/9/21 John E Clifford <kali9putra@hidden.email>

But consider Latin throughout Western Europe and Arabic in the Middle East and Spanish in Latin America. To be sure, religion has a hand in all that, too, and surely should be in the mix (if separable from conquest and commerce). And, of course, the babu class has to distinguished from the masses in all this. The counter case of China is worth looking at.

Isn't it the case that ideology-driven language learning may become more significant in the future than it was in the past?

Here in Brazil, at least, there is a significant ideological propaganda in favor of Esperanto, and it is the only artificial language that I have seen figuring in a few language schools, and it's the only I have seen being considered for government programs. In spite of the fact that most people probably have never heard about it, Esperanto will be probably the first artificial language they will hear about, if they ever hear about any artifical language in their lives...