Could Esperanto become the lingua franca of the world?
Esperanto's fundamental problem is that basically nobody who's actually running things seems to have had any desire to adopt it. Maybe you could get it forced through as the official working language of the UN or equivalent, but that strikes me that it's just going to be like the Irish Dáil operating officially in Gaelic but where everybody's speaking English in practice.
Could plausibly result in it being a not uncommon language to learn in school etc, although probably never the most common.Esperanto's fundamental problem is that basically nobody who's actually running things seems to have had any desire to adopt it. Maybe you could get it forced through as the official working language of the UN or equivalent, but that strikes me that it's just going to be like the Irish Dáil operating officially in Gaelic but where everybody's speaking English in practice.
Bit chicken and egg of course, if it gets adopted as a common language it'll develop those things a bit more.Esperanto has no culture, no literature and perhaps more damningly of all, no army.
Esperanto has no culture, no literature and perhaps more damningly of all, no army.
Esperanto has no culture, no literature and perhaps more damningly of all, no army.
So if we can get the French on board or at least neutral
That's the sort of thing that would need a sweeping cultural change in France. Five centuries of conscious imperialistic strategy through language (plenty other imperialism through other means, of course) is not going to vanish because the League is asking nicely.
You're right.
What about some kind of POD involving World War I? Maybe in a CP-victory scenario (say international politics are a little different in the lead up to WWI, there's more Anglo-American hostility, and the USA eventually joins the CPs) a German/American lead version of the League decides to promote Esperanto as an alternative to French as the diplomatic language and a defeated France is in no position to oppose it?