Comment on How would we choose a "world language" in a fair way, for a hypothetical one world government?
pleasestopasking@reddthat.com 2 days agoHonestly I think so menu little would be on board with something like this since so many people speak multiple languages. Unfortunately, I can’t imagine a world where even 50% of Americans would even try to learn a second language. I think many would outright refuse as a matter of anti intellectual and xenophobic ideology.
Fondots@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I think your first sentence got a little butchered by autocorrect, I assume it’s supposed to say “so many people”
But I agree that America (and honestly many other primarily English speaking countries) would be a big holdout if anything but English was to be adopted as the auxiliary language. Many other countries would probably be somewhat more open to it, but it has been tried before and never seems to gain traction (esperanto almost had a moment in the early 20th century where an esperanto-speaking county was almost established and where it almost became a working language for the League of Nations- the latter never came to pass basically because the French threw a hissy fit over it.)
pleasestopasking@reddthat.com 1 day ago
Your assumption is correct, thank you, I edited :)
I had no idea that there was ever actually a moment for Esperanto that got blocked! I figured it had just been dismissed out of hand since its inception.
Fondots@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Yeah, I don’t think it’s ever exactly been a widespread movement among the general world population, but there have been a few interesting examples of groups that have adopted it, and at times it’s been big enough to draw the notice of some fairly influential people, both positive and negative, and you can kind of imagine that maybe if things had gone just a little differently at a couple different points that it might have been able to gain some traction.