| Would you learn the international language Esperanto if 1% of people in each country agreed to learn it as well? |
|
|
|
Asked 3 years ago
by gxeremio  United States |
| 12 Points |
I am so rubbish at languages.
I love the idea, but in truth it would need a much greater sign up (say 25%) before I would have a go.
English and Chinese each have only about 10%-20% of the people in the world, so that's a pretty high bar!
By the way, today is an Esperanto holiday called Zamenhof Day. Happy Zamenhof Day, everybody!
Same to you - and I live near the Zamenhof Street :-)
But no I would not learn Esperanto if just 1% of the world joined me. In the part of the world where I communicate most people can speak English, perhaps it would be less of an effort if the whole world learned English or Mandarin.
If it's not true today it soon will be true that China and India will be the number one and two English speaking country in the world.
fair enough, I should have specified about 25% of the people I am likely to meet.
I tend to stick with the tourist areas when I travel, and as these areas have service industry people who are more likely to learn languages, that would do me nicely.
I have no desire to travel in China or India, and hopefully I'll be long gone before they take over the world and make their languages a legal requirement (assuming they don't fight each other first).
At least 1% of the people in any given nation- possibly excepting north Korea and a few rat holes I don't want to find myself in- already speak English, which I speak. So we already have an Esperanto. Why do we need 2?
You might want to double-check your figures. If you only speak English, you're unable to communicate with more than 80% of the people in the world. English is difficult to learn and tied to a particular culture and thus unacceptable to many.
This comment was deleted.
[2 points] 3 years ago by deleted user Reply80% of the world's population speaks NO English? I'm sorry... I'd need to see your source on that one. ;o)
The current population of the world is 6.6 billion. The population of native English speakers in the world is around 400 million. Add in those who have learned English, and the most generous estimates of the number of total English speakers is 1.5 billion (though most estimates are much more conservative, between 500 million and 1 billion). 1.5 billion divided by 6.6 billion is 22.7%. More likely the actual figure is between 500 million (7.5%) and 1 billion (15.2%).
Sources: http://books.google.com/books?id=d6jPAKxTHRYC&pg=PA68&lpg=PA68&dq=estimates+of+total+number+of+english+speakers&source=web&ots=3eC3z1Fr2t&sig=Q3W-lQCM2Gpxq2bBT-kpSSisi6w&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=6&ct=result#PPA69,M1
http://www2.ignatius.edu/faculty/turner/languages.htm
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=eng
Don't much feel attracted to a language with no swear words. Kinda loses some flavor.
LOL - Esperanto has that covered, though: http://en.lernu.net/lernado/vortoj/vortlernado/listo2.php?bildoj=0&sonoj=0&id=75&p=37
Well that has all the words Jonapril knows, he has got it made.
yes that's all the world needs is another language to learn.Wait a minute are you William Shatner!?
This comment was deleted.
[1 point] 3 years ago by deleted user ReplyOnly 1%?
No. It must be at least 10%.