[wahern]

As far as learning Esperanto is concerned, English is just as much a Romance language as Spanish or Italian.

In my travels I've found English language proficiency to be exaggerated. First, almost every country lies about the degree and extent of proficiency among its population. Second, where you do see relatively decent English language proficiency, you'll also often see a creole emerging. For example, Singlish. Once the the global cultural dominance of Hollywood peaks (maybe it may already peaked?), expect English to begin to slowly fragment.

For various reasons I think Esperanto would be a great international auxiliary language, in large part precisely because of widespread familiarity with English. Esperanto might not be a reasonable choice today given the dominance of English, but the case for Esperanto will only get stronger.

I say this as someone who absolutely sucks at learning new languages. I don't even know Esperanto; I've only dabbled in it a little. But put me in a room with native English speakers from rural Ireland, a rich Indian neighborhood, or teenage girls from Singapore, and on some days I'd understand them better if they were actually speaking Esperanto.

[learc83]

You're right, English will continue to fragment and already is fragmented.

We are already starting to see the development of a simplified international English dialect. Given enough time, once American dominance seriously declines, it's possible that English and International English will diverge into 2 languages.

However, I think you'd see the same level of evolution and fragmentation with Esperanto as well if it were to really take off. Eventually people would start making blockbuster movies in Esperanto, kids would start learning it, and younger people in smaller countries would use it more than their native tongue.

It would evolve and it would no longer be simple because it would no longer be artificial. It would no longer have the advantage of belonging to no one.

[wahern]

I was thinking that as an auxiliary language which is intentionally kept a second-class language, Esperanto might be more resilient to that kind of fragmentation.

But I suppose that's somewhat circular reasoning. At least, it presupposes that an auxiliary language can see substantial uptake and remain viable while not succumbing to the typical forces that shape language.

I've always thought of liturgical languages (e.g. liturgical Latin, liturgical Syriac) as the closest example we have of languages resisting those forces. But I really have no clue how well they've done so. For example, I haven't read any papers that analyze the stability of liturgical Latin, such as whether the vocabulary has narrowed or pronunciations shifted. I'm sure it exists, but I'm not a linguist (or anything of the sort).