Comments on: Should We Teach American Children Esperanto?

By: Mike Jones

Mike Jones — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 12:15:26 +0000

The first use of Esperanto is as a metalanguage for the other languages. The documentation even of English is almost laughably meager, but merely supplying a parallel version of it would exponentially increase its value. It would have economic benefit as well, by way of economies of scale: Only one textbook, in Esperanto, would suffice for anyone and everyone in the world wanting to learn English, and this textbook, because of the massive printing, would be dirt cheap. As this “meta” use goes forward, Esperanto will gradually and naturally become accepted for the role that it originally set out to play – that of the international auxiliary language used by all of humanity.

By: Dustin

Dustin — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 16:57:47 +0000

Esperanto helps you learn other languages, and it only takes a little kid two years to become fluent, as if it was one of their first languages. Compare that to Spanish, where it takes six to seven years for a little kid to become fluent. And while Spanish is helpful in learning some other languages, the fact is that it isn’t really going to be that big of a plus when learning non-romance languages. The same with most other languages.

Esperanto, on the other hand, has been shown to increase a person’s ability to learn other languages. So when teaching it to a little kid, they will probably do better with a foreign language than someone who was *not* introduced to Esperanto at an early age. There are children who learned Esperanto as their first language, and went on to become what we can call ‘hyperpolyglots’. That is, they have learned around thirty languages fluently. And considering there are more native Esperantists who became hyperpolyglots than not, it can’t just be a coincidence.

By: Leon

Leon — Fri, 13 May 2011 21:53:17 +0000

It’s interesting that in Briton, all the children learn a foreign language for about 4 years, but most of the adults in Briton only speak English. Most of the ones that do speak a foreign language do so because the have some kind of practical investment in the country/culture.
For me, learning a foreign language in school was a hard chore that I was glad to be free of when my secondary school finished and I had the freedom to choose my own educational path. After the 4 years I had a very bad knowledge of French, and no interest in the country or culture. My education had put me off languages for good.
If I would had learned Esperanto however, it may have given me a confidence and advantage to pursue other languages of personal interest.

By: Hookdump

Hookdump — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 00:04:13 +0000

I think you are missing the point of learning Esperanto.

Teaching Esperanto is the only way to teach languages without endorsing any language over another. Because it is kind of a mix of lots of languages, and it’s not attached to a specific culture or country. That’s why it can really be called a “universal language”.

I think Esperanto is an special and exceptional language, and it should be thaught everywhere. Simply because what I’ve just exposed, and because it’s easy to learn. Also, knowing Esperanto makes it easier to learn new languages in the future.

So, it’s not endorsing one language over another. It’s provinding children a powerful tool for learning new languages, without endorsing one country/culture over another.