[robotoloco]

English does not fulfill the neutrality ideal of Esperanto, which many people that speak Esperanto think it's very important. Currently, if you are born in an English speak country, you have such a great advantage over everybody else (starting with you don't have to spend lots of money to learn English, and few people attain native speaking levels later in life).

But it is true that the current purpose of Esperanto is more ideal than practical. I study Esperanto because I really like its internal ideals. I study English because I want to eat.

[msla]

Esperanto fails at being neutral because it's inherently oriented towards the subset of European languages Zamenhof based it off of. Someone who speaks German or Czech would have an easier time learning it than someone who speaks Mongolian or Korean or Mandarin Chinese.

[chillacy]

I find that spanish/italian speakers pick up esperanto the easiest, followed by I suppose french speakers and english speakers. Harder for any speakers who don't already speak a latin-derived language.

[dragonwriter]

> English does not fulfill the neutrality ideal of Esperanto, which many people that speak Esperanto think it's very important.

Yeah, but neither does Esperanto; it's kind of unlikely that a language designed by a human without a strict, mechanical methodology to assure neutrality would, and even then it would need to be isolated from the normal forces that affect natural languages for it to retain that neutrality.

English is probably, in some senses, more neutral than Esperanto; for one thing, English probably has a far greater share of speakers (even first-language speakers) that aren't middle-class-and-above natives of developed countries in Europe or dominated by populations of European descent.

[chillacy]

Eh, I wouldn't say the share of english speakers everywhere reflects its neutrality as much as its usefulness in the modern world.

English is currently the international language, even at the esperanto congress. But it makes me appreciate having english as a native language, because I have to watch two non-native speakers struggle (like a polish guy ordering coffee from a korean barista).

[awkwarddaturtle]

> English does not fulfill the neutrality ideal of Esperanto

Esperanto isn't "neutral". It's entirely a european language which copied tons from latin/german/russian.