Adam,

Why? (I was making fun of Chomsky’s politics with the “Soviet” crack). Why would Esperanto be a better and more effecient choice? This is a well hashed subject in liguistic circles that’s worth revisiting.

There’s no single institution or body that defines “English” as a written language in an ‘international’ sense. Typically we accept a couple of “authorities” like Websters or the OED, but even those are perpetually a decade behind the loop in codifying the practical “use” in spoken English. I’d argue that it is the ability of writers in English to defy institutional definitions of terms and “rules” with the expectation that popular “use” is more powerful a linguistic argument than dictate from above.

As either Tweedle Dee or Tweedle Dum (I get them mixed up) said to Alice: “He who defines, Rules”. If Esperanto ISN’T an argument in favor of centralized and controlled “definition”, what is it? Eh, Comrade?

People are unlikely to adopt Esperanto because of the problem of bootstrapping a large number of speakers, not because it’s “artificial” or “fabricated”. Because it’s planned, it is easier to learn for non-native speakers, and non-native speakers don’t have to study it for years just to speak it at a level inferior to native speakers.

BTW, my guess is that around 1921 someone or other predicted the global dominance of each of the top five or more languages, so it’s not too surprising that someone also predicted the dominance of English.

Nor is there any reason to think that people would adopt Esperanto, a fabricated language, in its stead. So, the common language you propose for the whole world, if we ever have one, is pretty likely to be English.

A World Soviet at last… I was just reading Spensor on the right of the individual to ignore the state. It struck me, does this

http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/02summer/liotta.htm

lRead like it’s familiar to any of you guys?

One thing that stands out about the U.S. is that it’s possible to be wealthy, and even socially or politically prominent, and still to move around in freedom with little concern for personal safety. There are so many successful people in our society that it’s difficult to stand out as the big fish in the small pond. And the rule of law is established to the point that one doesn’t worry about being shaken down by petty officials. There are numerous countries where the business and social environments are routinely more hostile than they are in the worst parts of the most badly managed U.S. cities.

Amon is making a fairly common mistake in his assumption that “physical location has little meaning when one works via the net”. I have an office in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and although we exchange files via the net, we couldn’t do more (baud rate of maybe 24k) easily. The bottom line is that Bangladesh is the most corrupt country on the planet, and service in almost everything depends on either theft or bribes. So there’s a lack of places, even within India, one can find consistent ISP service. Then there’s the town or city in which one actually lives. Does it have typhoid outbreaks? Dengue? Crime? Physical location affects all of those things.

Then there’s the tax question. Brussels and many US States want to levy their own taxes on internet exchange and traffic and trade. So if the EU decides it’s got to control the internet pipeline between Ireland and the US, then the US companies will go elsewhere to avoid the theivin EUrocrats.

A double-edged sword though. As the US slowed down, so did Ireland, virtually overnight. You need to walk before you run, of course and Ireland has been walking faster than many lately. One can only hope bone-headed EU tax harmonization does not push it back down the slope.