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What's your opinion on Esperanto (language)? (en.wikipedia.org)

submitted 1 month ago by NateNate60@lemmy.world to c/socialism@lemmy.ml

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Apparently the language was popular among early 20th century socialist movements because it was of an international character and therefore not associated with any nationality and its use by international socialist organisations wouldn't show favour to any particular country. It was banned in Nazi Germany and other fascist states because of its association with the left wing, with anti-nationalism, and because its creator was Jewish. It has mostly languished since then but still has around 2 million speakers with about 1,000 native speakers.

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[–] fartsparkles@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

All estimates are flawed since there’s no real definition of “knowing” a language. There might be millions of people who have dipped a toe in yet most discussion online is pretty much along the lines of “Mi nomiĝas Fartsparkles kaj mi lernas Esperanton.”

I’ve seen other estimates that put it at around 60,000 to 100,000-ish that can actually converse fluently in the language.

[–] whydudothatdrcrane@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 month ago

Well there is a standardized system of foreign language skills, which is called A1, A2, A3,..., all the way up to C2. I think that it is only a matter of gathering statistical data to know what percentage of speakers are conversational. It is not an "unknowable unknown".