It is easy to argue that the modern world needs an international language (just one!) by means of which everyone can communicate with everyone else. That need is present today and will become more pressing in the future.

For today's needs English is the only rational solution. If I were a Dane and my native language were Danish and if I had a child who I wanted to be able to take advantage of all opportunities which may present themselves, I would certainly advise my child to learn English. Esperanto would not be an option.

But the world is probably going to be around for awhile, and international communication is a long-term problem as well as a short-term problem. As a _long-term_ solution English leaves a lot to be desired. Like all natural languages, it is full of irregularities, and the spelling system is one of the worst --- maybe the worst. Since I am a native speaker of English, I have no direct experience about how difficult it is to learn the language, but my impression is that in comparison to other natural languages it is not especially difficult. It is more difficult than some, easier than others, but in comparison to a planned language with no irregularities and an intentionally simple structure, like, for example, Esperanto, it is much more difficult. It is sometimes said that for English speakers Esperanto is 5 times easier than Spanish and 10 times easier than Russian. I am not aware of any careful study of comparative difficulty, but I speak Spanish well and have studied Russian, and my experience suggests to me that those ratios are roughly correct. I also speak Esperanto.

In other words English is just not very efficient. If the goal is to teach everyone in the world (several _billion_ people) a common second language, each of learning is very important. The number of man-hours that can be saved by learning a simple language rather than a difficult one is enormous.

Whether a planned language can be sufficient for international communication is an empirical, not a philosophical, question. Esperanto has been in use for nearly 120 years, and the empirical evidence shows clearly that it is sufficient. There is lots of original literature in Esperanto, some of it good, some of it bad. Can one create literature of the highest quality in Esperanto? I don't know, but the question is irrelevant, since the goal of Esperantists is that everyone continue to speak his native language and learn Esperanto to communicate with anyone outside his own language community. Esperanto may become a great literary language, but that is not is primary purpose.

For those who think that English has already won, I point that a poll conducted in 2000 in the 15 countries of the unexpanded European Union showed that 53% can speak a second language. 41% of those speak English. In other words about half don't speak any second language, and often that second language is not English. A few years ago I had an interesting experience in southern Mexico. I was on a bus approaching San Cristobal, when I realized that I had neglected to copy the map and lodging recommendations from my Lonely Planet guidebook before I left the US. A middle-aged couple had the French version of that guidebook, and I wanted to borrow it briefly. I asked if they spoke Spanish or English, and they said no. I don't speak French, but somehow we became aware that we both speak German and were able to communicate quite adequately on a non-advanced level. I found out that they had worked in North Africa and also spoke Arabic. But not English.

Statistics available on the internet indicate that only about 2% of the people in India, a British colony for many years, speak English, although almost all of the educated elite speak it. Esperanto aims to be for everyone, not just the elite.

So if Esperanto is the greatest thing since sliced bread, why has it swept the world already? Remember that big ideas take a long time to establish themselves. The idea of the metric system is nearly 350 years old, and it still hasn't conquered the world's biggest economy. But it will.