How does, to analogize if I may, “a language we know from experience that enables two parties to talk and fully understand each other despite not having a common ethnic language” and “a language that only a few hundred thousand speak world-wide” even come close to relating to each other? The Esperanto solution to this problem has been demonstrated practically throughout history since its first publication in 1887. That others don’t agree to adopt its use IS NOT a reflection of Esperanto’s ineptitude towards solving this problem, but instead speaks to the ignorance, and I dare say even _fear_, of those who deny its utility.

Numerous technologies (yes, language is a technology) have existed without problems to solve for years. Consider the most well-known — the laser. Esperanto might be a solution in search of a problem, but we’re increasingly finding ourselves encountering problems awfully close to what Zamenhof tried to solve.

Consider if there are 6000 spoken languages on the planet. To translate any one of them to any other, you’ll need 36 *MILLION* translation knowledge-bases, to adequately cover idiomatic expressions and the like. Or, you can write 6001. As a business owner, looking at this purely from a programming resource management and cost analysis problem, the answer is self-evident. I will spend three orders of magnitude less funds on using Esperanto as the common inter-language representation.

See how this works? YOU don’t need to know it’s Esperanto under the hood. YOU only see English and, well, pick whatever else you want to deal with. The COMPUTER, however, maintains its common language understanding in terms of Esperanto.

So, to answer the question I posed above, it doesn’t. Your argument is *COMPLETELY* predicated on a fallacy big enough to drive a _planet_ through.

There are 6,800 languages worldwide, not fifty-two !

Moreover, if I met a native in Borneo, and he said to me in Hakka “I’ve lost my mobile phone” how would I understand him And how many starving Africans can afford a mobile phone !

As English loses its economic power, the answer is not for us to move to Mandarin Chinese, but to Esperanto which puts all speakers on an equal footing.

Have a look at http://www.lernu.net or http://www.esperanto.net

Over the last 25 years I’ve seen a couple of campaigns to promote Esperanto. None gained much traction.
Reason: People ask themselves: How many people can my kids talk to when I teach them English as a foreign language? Compare that to Esperanto.

For native speakers, substitute English with, let’s say, Spanish or Chinese.

Although I admit that Google’s solution might be suboptimal (linguistically), I don’t see how billions of people will be lifted over the barrier of learning Esperanto.

Perhaps, Spanglish is the new Esperanto!

Google enjoys big challenges. Thanks for posting. Keep ‘em coming.

Stephen E Arnold, February 8, 2010

I advocate a non-technological solution, i.e. wider use of the planned international language Esperanto. At least we know it works.