Take an unguided wander around the net. You wil find political stuff, religious stuff, scientific stuff - all in Esperanto.

When I was active in the Esperanto movement, it was common for my fellow Esperantists to joke or kvetch about how certain kinds of political movements or bizarre lifestyles would come out in force at congresses and make everyone else cringe, or how creepy or insufferable one's Pasporta Servo host turned out to be. Something as idealistic and unfashionable as Esperanto is bound to attract more odd people than when using a language like English that is more utilitarian and has less overt shared values.

The great thing about Esperanto is that the speakers are very enthusiastic to speak it with other people, so you'll get better than average hospitality. You're also right about the weirdos, so you need to be very careful when selecting a host.

I really like the idea of Amikumu, where you chat with people in Esperanto before meeting in person. Meeting more Esperantists is great because you can discuss experiences using Esperanto abroad.

I am marginally into the language (I lurk about on Esperanto subreddits, have done the Duolingo course, and visit Lernu.net periodically), but I wouldn't call myself fluent or anything. However, I might try to use it if I go somewhere with generally weak English skills, like Japan or parts of each Europe.

those wierdos and eccentrics showing up is a sign of the openness and tolerance that is lived in the esperanto community. so yes, esperanto is bound to attract those people.

eccentrics by necessity favor communities where openness and tolerance for their lifestyle is practiced. so they will gravitate to communities where they are welcome.

to the chinese for example, all western foreigners look like wierdos and eccentrics. the sideeffect is that weird and eccentric westerners in china are treated with the same respect as everyone else because the chinese for the most part can't tell the difference, unlike at home where they don't fit in.

but those eccentrics are part of the early adopters in the innovation adoption lifecycle. they have less opportunities to find acceptance elsewhere. esperanto presents an opportunity for them.

the challenge of the esperanto community is to break out of the early adopter phase and find a way to let the language appeal to the majority.

I don't doubt that Esperanto is easy to learn, but there's no evidence to suggest that learning Esperanto helps more with learning another language than spending the same time learning that language instead.

One may argue that people who learn Esperanto are naturally inclined to language learning anyway, but what you actually see is people who allegedly have always struggled with languages and, after giving Esperanto a try, they begin to find more effective ways of learning foreign languages in general.

It worked for me at least.

once you learned one language, learning others should be easier because you have overcome that first mental challenge.

introducing esperanto as that first foreign language should provide some early success that motivate the students in their language learning.

that's the theory anyways. we do need some more studies to verify that.

any second language makes it easier to learn a third one.

If you feel interested, google about Esperanto propaedeutic properties.

I have absolutely nothing against traditional Classics though I’m not sure how good a fit they are with typical US public high schools today. However I’m pretty skeptical that a few years of Latin—as opposed to Spanish, German, or French (which I also took) or something else entirely—is a uniquely good use of time.

However, what makes latin special is that spanish, german, french, english and many european languages have significant history with latin as a language and has been tremendously influenced by latin. And it's not just language. Much of science, literature, music, math, etc has strong latin roots.

If there is one language that offers the most bang for the buck, it's latin. It's something every kid should be taught in my opinion, especially in the west since latin influenced nearly every language and academic field.

esperanto is different because it is easier to learn, so instead of taking years to mastery, you are done in a few months, and teachers can focus on proper learning techniques without fearing that students get demotivated because it takes so long. then you can apply those techniques to the next languages and hopefully come out ahead

but also, dutch is similar enough to english that learning spanish will not help you much at all, other than that third language effect which can be had with any other language too.

I find this hard to believe as a conclusion anyone could come to. A universal shared language for international communication? People can keep their mother tongue yet no matter how provincial it may be, can still communicate effectively with the rest of the world?

Practical, but we already got one, that is English. Even this post itself is written in English to reach bigger audience.

And I would argue Esperanto is hardly universal for the world, more for european languages.

This is particularly noticeable in Europe. Due to the European Union's thinning/erasure of borders, there is an order of magnitude more inter-European travel and mobility than 10 years ago. And the most widely understood language between these travelers is English. In Barcelona, vendors would speak to Dutch and Chinese tourists in English. Even in Paris, famous for its disdain of English, the language is fairly widely spoken, not so much to accommodate the British, but visitors from the rest of Europe and the world.

Folks quickly figured out that instead of learning multiple European languages (and even then, only be able to communicate with other Europeans and people from former European colonies), they could instead learn English and be able to communicate with not only Europeans but people from Asia, the Middle East, etc.

English is used even among people of the same ethnicity. I was with a friend at a restaurant in Chicago's Chinatown, and noticed that my Cantonese-speaking friend had a hard time conveying her order to the Mandarin-speaking mainland Chinese waiter, so they both switched to English. The communication was successful.

That is a very good idea. But in order to be successful such a language needs to be spoken by a large share of people internationally. The best language we have for this is English. It's not perfect, because in large parts of the world, particularly in Asia, many people don't speak it. But it's far better suited than Esperanto in almost every imaginable way.

The nationalistic policies around WW1 and after put a stop to it.

I think it's a tremendous shame... it would be so nice to communicate with everyone in a simple language.

Note that such a language would not actually need to be actively spoken in normal live much. It just needs to be simple enough to be learn in a short amount of time and to have international backing so it is taught in schools.

Almost by definition - if a language isn't "spoken much" - it isn't really language. But rather a collection of rules and definitions.

"If a language is (or never has been) spoken much..."

it is easier to learn, even for non-europeans.

it is nationally (edit: i used the wrong term 'politically' before) and culturally neutral.

english wasn't always the most used language for international communication. until a century ago, that was french.

english replaced french because of the success of british colonialism.

there is no reason why some day esperanto could not take its place.

it is for example conceivable that people could use esperanto as a communication language with foreigners to avoid english domination out of a conservative isolationist motivation.

i edited my post to clarify.

by comparison, the speakers of latin are all dead. so, while latin has a rich historic culture, it is not dominated by any living culture.

likewise, esperanto is not dominated by any living culture because its speakers come from all over the world.

In theory, yes - but not in practice.

Which is precisely what the above commenter was saying.

that would be like saying, phones are not practical because not everyone has one. or maybe facebook or google+ are not practical because not everyone is on them.

but that is a limitation that has nothing to do with any inherent quality of esperanto, only with it's lack of popularity which is something that can be changed without needing to change esperanto itself.

Might as well just tell the world to keep using English, or make Westerners learn Mandarin.