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Comment by inetsee | Hacker News Reader

I am a native English speaker. The problem I have with English as the Universal International Language is that it gives enormous economic and political power to the United States. I am not convinced that the United States can be relied upon to use this power responsibly.

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> is that it gives enormous economic and political power to the United States

All the best to them :-) I think having models in nations that actually use a language as their native tongue is far better than choosing a language for which there is no living model (such as Latin or Esperanto).

But then, why don't you also add Britain, Australia, Canada or South Africa to your list?

I am aware that there are other countries that have English as their primary language. According to Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi... the US GDP is approximately 3.45 times the combined GDP of the other countries you named. I stand by my statement that the US has "enormous economic and political power".

edit: I personally think Esperanto would be a good choice as an International Language. I believe it's much easier to learn than English.

I am not disputing this statement.

Moreover, it is well known to sociolinguists that political and economic power is something that makes a language spoken by that nation more prestigious and more desirable to attain, and, therefore, contributes to the spread of that language. So, for the purposes of my dream, I can only wish that the US remains as influential as it is (and doesn't switch to Spanish in the process) :-)

I guess my point is that I am not sure that, say, having other countries where English is the primary language (as listed in the previous comment) contributes to the power of the US. Likewise, I am not sure that the further spread of English as an international language will by itself contribute significantly to the power of the US.

> I personally think Esperanto would be a good choice as an International Language

Ugh, not a fan. English is a vibrant, living language that already is being used by huge swathes of people for various purposes; Esperanto is not.

You've got this backwards: English is the Universal International Language because the US has enormous economic and political power (and before that, the British Empire).

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