Esperanto is like the "Soylent" of languages. Some folks like the idea of it, some might even use it, but no one _actually_ likes esperanto (OK, except the 1000 "native" speakers the article refers to).
There's something profoundly unappealing in a hard-to-define subjective sense about engineering a language for humans to communicate with.
There's plenty of languages in existence that already "just work". What's wrong with English, Spanish and French? One could argue that English has already taken on the role that Esperanto was supposed to have. In the colonial past that might have been French or Spanish. In the distant future an Asian language could become a lingua franca? Or perhaps more radically, effective machine translation could render such efforts unnecessary?
Yes, there's annoying things about real languages. There's inconsistent grammar in English, "Passe Compose" tense in French, one could list hundreds of pain points for every language. But none of these things actually prevent someone from the practical usage of a language and being conversant in the language. Why do we need to make-up another language with iron-clad consistency? It's just not necessary.
I can understand French and German. I will never be able to speak French without offending the ears of natives. German I might do better in with another 10 years, that will be about 20 years of being an annoying drain on the culture.. A bit like a second childhood.
In Esperanto, it's about 3 months to get to not terrible for native speakers (yes there are native speakers) and a year or two to be quite good, maybe as annoying as your typical undergraduate to the top level of translators, authors, etc.
> Some folks like the idea of it, some might even use it, but no one _actually_ likes esperanto
I do. And I know a few others who do.
I mean, my preferred choice is to use my native language. Esperanto comes second. English third. But of course, the choice of language is usually determined by the intended audience.
The reason Esperanto comes second despite being used less than English is that it feels "more natural". This is probably hard to explain and hard to believe if you don't have a personal experience, but it is so. The high regularity has a psychological impact. I usually don't notice irregularities in my native language, because I am used to them so much. But in a foreign language, any irregularity is a mental reminder than I am not speaking my native language. Esperanto has more regularity, therefore fewer reminders of being foreign.
Same reason Americans use Phillips head screws instead of something sensible like square drive. Network effects. It may not be ideal but you can get by with it, and most other people are using it as well. Some might look north wistfully, but most around them continue using what they know.
And keep in mind, switching to square drive would be easy. Screwdriver sets already come with square drive bits, and hardware stores sell square drive fasteners. Robertson's patents expired generations ago. If America can't drop Phillips head screws, do you really think there is any chance for replacing the Latin alphabet? Let's get real.
Well, I suppose the printing press has a way of blocking progress. Some languages did manage to update their orthography more recently though, e.g. Lithuanian.
If you look at the former Soviet Union (CIS), you can see a shift away from Russian Cyrillic, so I suppose given enough political incentive, such changes are in fact possible.
I’m going to be pedantic here, but Phillips head screws serve a purpose - they limit torque by allowing the driver to cam out. They’re almost always improperly used, but my point stands :)
Cam-out seems like an ex post facto justification to me. Henry Ford would have picked Robertson if not for the licensing trouble. Robertson's lack of a cam-out 'feature' wasn't the reason.
Agreed, and that's what I meant by "almost always improperly used". Phillips is great for use in plastics in many cases, but they were popular long before that became an issue.
Personally my drive of choice is Torx - they're six-sided so they're easier to align the driver, they have excellent torque transfer, they're hard to "wallow out", and the drivers are relatively inexpensive to manufacture. Beyond that, hex ("Allen") head are good for smaller fasteners where the "wings" on a Torx driver are so small they're fragile, Phillips is good for applications where you don't want it to be easy to over-torque, and plain old "flat head" is very well-suited for dirty environments where grease and debris may end up coating the head. I'd certainly not want Torx heads on the bolts under my Jeep, for instance, because they're a pain to clean out. I can clean out a flat head with the corner of the driver and be able to use it effectively, which is practical unique to that design and very important for those applications.
I have nothing against Robertson. They're as good as anything for 90%+ of applications, it's just that they're uncommon enough where I am that it doesn't make sense to use them.
We use the "character set" our parents and our culture gave us. It does the job as well as any other character set, because language is not merely a tool, like a set of bits for your screwdriver. It's a part of your identity and your place in the world.
You can, of course, pick up other languages and with effort use them either skillfully, or just pragmatically. But no one will ever feel that Esperanto is "their" language. It will always be either a curiosity or, at best, a utilitarian tool (and even then only if it ever becomes wildly successful).
I don't feel English is "my" language, either. It's a language I use, more than my native one, even... but that doesn't necessarily mean I think it's perfect. The point is that its textual representation is lossy.
There's something profoundly unappealing in a hard-to-define subjective sense about engineering a language for humans to communicate with.
There's plenty of languages in existence that already "just work". What's wrong with English, Spanish and French? One could argue that English has already taken on the role that Esperanto was supposed to have. In the colonial past that might have been French or Spanish. In the distant future an Asian language could become a lingua franca? Or perhaps more radically, effective machine translation could render such efforts unnecessary?
Yes, there's annoying things about real languages. There's inconsistent grammar in English, "Passe Compose" tense in French, one could list hundreds of pain points for every language. But none of these things actually prevent someone from the practical usage of a language and being conversant in the language. Why do we need to make-up another language with iron-clad consistency? It's just not necessary.