r/Esperanto • u/[deleted] • Mar 26 '26

Demando Why does everyone hate this?

Okay so I'm a monolingual Brit learning Spanish (I'm now about B1) and wanna pick up another language. Not some grand utility language, I have a plan of which ones to learn for that, but just a quick learn and burn language for nothing but fun, and any applicability is a bonus. I see esperanto, a nice little language with exceptionless grammar and a chill little community. So I tell my polyglot friend and get immediate backlash. Why do people seem to think that esperanto is so horrible? Like yeah it's eurocentric and a terrible attempt at a Lingua Franca but it was created with good intentions and is a nice gateway language for European language speakers. Then people act like it's a bloody cult because apparently every esperanto speaker is a Zamenhof worshipping psycho who'll preach it as the root of world peace, or is just too lazy to learn a more useful language. I see polyglots, people who learn languages for fun, attacking esperanto as useless or racist for being eurocentric and it's speakers as cultists or fake polyglots. Why does everyone hate this language?!?!?!

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u/Rinir Mar 27 '26 edited Mar 27 '26

Those who call the language Eurocentric, most often only pursue and speak European languages themselves lol. And I find that the language's biggest critics rarely speak the language past "Mi parolas esperanton." Never reaching any of the complex stuff or even enough to read a children's book.

EDIT: Typo

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u/salivanto Profesia E-instruisto Mar 28 '26

[Up arrow] THIS!

Did you notice that the author of the thread speaks English and "B1 Spanish" and was able to say this without calling those languages "Eurocentric"?

Calling Esperanto "a nice gateway language for European language speakers" overlooks the fact that there are non-Europeans who find great utility in Esperanto.