Why Esperanto is not my favourite Artificial Language
Geoff's homepage -> Artificial Languages -> Esperanto criticism
Last update: 17 January 2008
This rant has been removed
If you're looking for my lengthy attack on Esperanto, to which there
are still worryingly many references on the Internet, you won't find
it here any more. I took it down after I started getting more emails
in response to it than I could be bothered replying to, and this was a
long time after I ceased to care about the subject of international
auxiliary languages, or about the supposed merits or deficiencies in
specific languages. It seemed rather silly to keep my opinions public
without allowing anyone the chance to bite back, so I decided,
especially since better criticisms are available anyway, that the rant
should be dumped in the Great Bit Bucket.
This does not imply in any way that my opinion about Esperanto has
changed; I just have no further desire to engage in any debate on the
subject, especially not with people whose opinions are as unlikely to
be changed as my own. I'm well aware that there are those who consider
it to be beautiful and useful in its own way; however, along with a
great number of people who create languages for pleasure, I think it's
ugly, full of bad design decisions, poorly thought out, and in general
a very good example of how not to create a language. I can't read any
significant amount of text in it without feeling ill.*
If you're really desperate to read the original, there's probably a
copy over at the Wayback
Machine. But please note: the Wayback machine is someone else's
project, and as far as I am concerned my rant no longer exists,
and for this reason I will not engage in any debate over its
contents. Any emails which imply that the sender does not
understand the emphasised text will be either ignored altogether, or
replied to very rudely if I'm in a bad enough mood. You have been
warned!
*The programming language ADA provokes a similar reaction
in me, in case anyone wants to do a psychlogical study.
Where to go next
If you're still in the mood for some Esperanto-bashing, I recommend
Justin Rye's Learn Not
To Speak Esperanto!, which is probably the best piece of
anti-Esperanto criticism on the Web. Attacks from within the IAL
debate may be found in The
Problem of an International Auxiliary Language and its Solution in
Ido by L. H. Dyer, James Chandler's critique
and list of
Ido's improvements over Esperanto, and AN
INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE (1928), by the late Otto Jespersen, one of
the greatest linguists of the 20th century.