The writer did not do a research on the use of English. BBC in 2010 reported that 75% of the people in the world do not speak a word of English. How could the writer claimed that many people. Besides, The Telegraph in 2008 also reported that by the turn of 2020, native English speakers would be only 300 millions.

Esperanto is recommended by UNESCO since 1954 as the international language. The 1985 resolutions urged all the international NGOs to use Esperanto. The 1980 Manila Manifesto also urged the tourism industry to use Esperanto. But a handful of the org are using Esperanto.

If anyone wants to dispute the use of Esperanto, get the UNESCO to cancel the resolutions.

It is the word RESPECT that human beings are not into it.

Paying interpreters in the UN is from your pocket. Is that difficult for most people to command two languages, the native language and Esperanto. If unfortunately one, like me, have to learn 3 languages instead of two, the mother tongue, the national language and Esperanto.

Read http://www.2-2.se to see how much money can be saved from the UN translation to save the lives in Africa.

Esperanto tried to use too many languages. If you want an artificial global language take English (because of global reach and importance) Spanish (has a wide range that is more localized than English but larger population) and maybe Mandarin (due to the large number of speakers but lesser range) and merge them. Choose extremely common words from each language and include them in the new language so that each group of speakers can pick up the new one faster–recognizing half to one third of the words to begin with. This would make the languages merge quickly and create a critical mass needed to make the new language valuable for other language speakers to learn. Publishers, broadcasters and content creators would have a massive audience, encouraging them to use the new standardized “Spanglish” or “Spanglese”.

Or just accept that the need for an international language is so great and English has found itself in the right place at the right time to fit the role. An English speaker doesn’t gain as much from learning any language as those speakers gain from learning English. Not arrogance, realism.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1233-english-is-toughest-european-language-to-read.html

Learning Esperanto requires about 200 hours or less but learning English needs 3200 hours. Who can afford that much of time to learn that imperialist language. With Esperanto as the base, perhaps, they can speak and understand better Russian.

Cambridge ESOL said that each level is reached with the following guided learning hours:

A2, 180–200;
B1, 350–400;
B2, 500–600;
C1, 700–800, and
C2, 1,000–1,200.

Total:3,200 hours

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

I hope the 2018 Winter Olympic in Korea and also 2020 Summer Olympic the Esperantists in both countries can do some counselling to the organisers about Esperanto. Just learn the language a year or half a year before going to the host country and solve most linguistic problem.

Braaten, for example, became Bretarn (strong stress on the last syllable) Any French name with an “e” at the end was Australianized — except for the “e”, which was pronounced “ay”.

What would English speakers think if “Jones” was pronounced “Jenos” or “Smith” Shmif”?

I have no idea whether commentators speaking other languages did similar things. If they did not, then we would have a sad reflection on the hegemony of English and its effects…

Consider throwing into the mix the increasing strength of Mandarin Chinese as Beijing’s economy expands while Washington’s legions abroad start to come home. Déjà vu?

For the moment let’s put aside the questions of (1) language justice cited in the UN’s Declaration of Human Rights and (2) examples provided by contenders from the past like Latin, Manchu and French while we consider some practical issues vis-a-vis English:

Although English is currently used as the international language of tourism and business and ergo aeronautical and marine navigation and communication too, numerous fatal accidents testify to its dialectal variation and the extreme difficulty to both learn and retain it. For example, we Australians are not renowned for our pronunciation of English, thus creating some minor problems for American and British visitors. Imagine a Pakistani pilot being guided by a Scottish air traffic controller to land his stricken aircraft. Yet, all these nationalities mentioned have used English as an official language for centuries.

By the way, ‘water’ in Chinese simplified, traditional and Japanese is virtually the same – 水 水 水 – provided my old eyes are up to it. Nevertheless, the People’s Republic has some work ahead unifying the scripts used in Hong Kong, Taiwan etc. In the role of an easy universal auxiliary idiom I prefer ‘akvo’.