[bmacho]

Zamenhof stated multiple times that he wanted to create an universal second language, as opposed to an universal first language. I don't think this distinction makes much sense, had any effect on any design decision, but probably it was important for the marketing of the language. In this sense it was indeed intended to be a "diplomatic" language, so that diplomats can use a single language. (As well as international organizations, merchants, tourists etc.)

[Aachen]

That doesn't sound logical to me. If Zamenhof didn't intend for it to be a primary language, one you learn from birth, then why couldn't it be used by random people still? There has been trading between countries for much longer than Esperanto exists for, especially in border regions or small countries but also across oceans and continents.

Esperanto is from 1887. I was curious what holidays were like at the time:

> According to Stowe (1994), “many nineteenth-century Americans traveled, and many more participated vicariously in the experience of travel by reading travel letters, sketches, and narratives in newspapers, magazines, and published volumes” (p. 3). Similarly, the appetite for travel in the U.K. was also voracious --https://regrom.com/2020/08/26/regency-travel-traveling-abroa...

So also a goal Zamenhof could intend. I don't know how you get to the conclusion that, because it wasn't intended for my mom to use while I was a baby, it wasn't intended to be used by my mom or me on holiday if we're not "diplomats", unless you call any tourist an international diplomat

[shadowofneptune]

Western Europe is very different from the Europe that Zamenhof grew up in.

You get so many internationalist movements out of Russia because it already was in many ways international internally. Lots of languages and land, but both travel and speech were restricted by authorities, secret police seemed to hover invisibly everywhere. The language of everything important, the language of rulers, was Russian. Vacations were in-country, if they happened at all.

Looking to the UK, France, and the US is in this case misleading.

[senloke]

I think that view of you is wrong. The distinction is an important one.

By saying you create a diplomatic language, you are marketing towards the elite, as I wrote in my post.

By saying that everybody speaks it as a second language, which is indeed what Zamenhof, the creator of Esperanto, wanted is a different focus. The first is focusing on an elite, the latter focuses on the people.

It's like the distinction between "computers for knowledge workers" and "personal computers", the first is only for a small elite, the latter is for everybody. Or the distinction between "politics for a couple of few" and "politics elected by everybody", the first is called a form of dictatorship, the latter democracy.

[bmacho]

Right, Esperanto wasn't created for the elite, or only for diplomats. That wouldn't make much sense. Also I don't think GP intended to suggest it, but you clarified it anyway, so all's good.