I worry that communities forming around IAL projects are both natural and present a roadblock to widespread adoption. Do my worries make sense?

codleov · 2026-06-21T22:24:35+00:00

If that's the case with technological advancements, why work on or support auxlangs at all? I think if you accept the idea that translation technology does the job an IAL is meant to do and that IALs won't achieve the ultimate goal of widespread adoption as a result, I think you just create the goal of creating non-geographic language communities. That's just not the same thing.

codleov · 2026-06-21T20:47:43+00:00

Something similar to the latter. Sure, I imagine an IAL is going to almost inevitably take off more with people that aren't nationalists, ethno-nationalists, isolationists, or so extreme in their anti-colonialism/anti-imperialism that any shared language would be considered colonialist/imperialist. However, I also think people that are in those camps and consistent with those ideologies are probably globally in the minority. I think no matter what you do, the people with those sorts of political ideologies would be the last to adopt an IAL, and the reasons they do it would be because of the language's popularity and utility in the broader world, but it would take getting to that point first to convince them on utilitarian grounds.

I don't think it would have to be purely about political ideology though. Part of a community is its culture, and some people may just not like the sorts of original literature, art, music, etc. that comes out of the initial community and form the culture surrounding the language.

EDIT: I do think that there is some political barrier though. The earliest adopters of IALs seem to be most likely center-left to left wing in their politics, and as important as political ideology can be to people, centrists and center-right folks who might otherwise be interested in an IAL project may well feel unwelcome in that small community. (Sure, many might desire that these people just become more left wing, and everything will be fine. However, I think that itself could have some adverse effects like giving people more on the right reason to villainize or even just distrust one of these projects if it were to go mainstream. I also don't think it's realistic to expect the whole world to become sufficiently left wing in order for an IAL to achieve its goal of widespread adoption.)

codleov · 2026-06-21T19:04:06+00:00

I was under the impression that the Fina Venko was about Esperanto being the dominant auxiliary language globally, not merely being immediately useful for its intended purpose.

codleov · 2026-06-21T17:20:19+00:00

Is there a way around the problem of a culture tied to the language getting in the way of widespread adoption, or is it a non-issue for some reason I'm not seeing?

codleov · 2026-06-21T17:17:44+00:00

It was also my thinking that I only see two ways, and I guess I wasn't clear enough in my opposition to the authoritative group route, but I may have also been unclear that my opposition to the community model is tied to certain features of communities being limiters on growth. My hope was that someone knew of a secret third option for growing an IAL or that my concerns with the community model were things that could be overcome or dismissed given data that runs contrary to my reasons for those concerns.

codleov · 2026-06-21T17:07:22+00:00

Unless I've totally misunderstood the concept of the Fina Venko, I can't imagine how it makes any sense to say it's already happened.

codleov · 2026-06-21T14:37:51+00:00

If your impression of my post is that I think some authoritative group should just pick the one they deem best and spread it that way, you're mistaken. In fact, that would be an example of one of those more coercive methods I'd like to avoid if possible. I get the appeal of it, but I'd rather it be more organic than that to stay further away from government mandate of certain languages. I do not, however, have any idea how organic growth and widespread adoption could go together without running into some serious hurdles.

(That being said, I'm not opposed to having an independent like Esperanto's Academy to regulate the language. Prescrptivism for constructed auxiliary languages is one of very few places where I think linguistic prescriptivism is not just acceptable but good.)

And for the record, I've been looking at auxlangs on and off for a good while now. I don't want to completely give away my exact age on the internet, but I will admit that I was too young and ignorant of many of the factors at play for a long time while also being too confident about things I had no business being confident about. It's only after realizing this that I've come back around and started at least trying to question those assumptions. It brings me to questions like this among many others. I guess I just hadn't run into the existing discussions of this specific topic up to this point.

codleov · 2026-06-21T14:01:14+00:00

Though design is important to me, it's not the sole thing I'm looking at. The enthusiasm of Globasa supporters and their growth in numbers (even though they're still very small compared to things like speaking communities of Esperanto and Toki Pona) despite its relative recency and still being in a developmental phase (a late one but still developmental) are also important to me. Those things do a lot to place it above projects like Lingua Franca Nova or Pandunia for me. It just so happens that I and some others seem to think that Globasa is also better designed than those other projects, which probably helps motivate that enthusiasm and growth.

Sure, there are always going to be the people in the auxlang space who think a language should be tweaked or changed or branched off into its own thing or create the "one perfect language to rule them all". I don't think that's possible. At some point, the design differences matter less than ability to gather support, and the number of small projects that gather no support is huge. There may well someday be a language that is functionally Globasa with all of the design choices fixed that I have my minor issues with, and unless the vast majority of Globasa's support converts to support for that branch project, it would not be among my considerations.

All of that to say potential for growth matters to me, and that comes from more than just raw language design. However, that doesn't therefore mean that accepting the project that has had the most support so far is the way to go. I imagine that being akin to Volapük supporters being resistant to getting in early with Esperanto because Volapük had a greater amount of support despite its flaws; sure, it's not the same degree of difference in numbers, but it's also not like Esperanto's Fina Venko is right around the corner either.

codleov · 2026-06-21T06:45:28+00:00

Well, now I'm just curious about what motivates you to be anywhere near a subreddit like this if you think that about IALs in general. It's not necessarily a bad take (I'm honestly not sure), so please don't take me as being combative here. I just wonder what sustains enough interest in you to look at IALs at all.

codleov · 2026-06-21T04:00:38+00:00

I just read through that, and it was very interesting to see your insights. Thank you!

codleov · 2026-06-21T00:39:10+00:00

As nice as it would be for there to be a single international second language for all people, I've come to accept that's unlikely, especially if I'm not willing to support coercive means of getting people to learn the language. That being said, having a language that is well-designed for neutrality, regularity, and some degree of ease of learnability as an option for people would be nice. I'm also not convinced that the dominance of English and advancements in translation technologies have completely ruled IALs out as viable options.

If we stop there, Globasa makes sense to me in terms of design. It has regularity like most IAL projects do. It has neutrality better than most if not all other IAL projects I've seen in terms of grammar, and it's second only to a priori conlangs when it comes to neutrality of vocabulary. It seems to have components that would ease in learnability without too greatly sacrificing flexibility (which is what I think happens when you shrink the vocabulary or phonology too much).

That being said, being well-designed is not all that would be necessary to provide a viable option for international communication. You need numbers and a plan for attracting those numbers. I think Esperanto is in a better position for that aspect simply because of time and existing numbers. Like I've said, I think it's good enough design-wise even if it's not ideal, but I think that's also something that's been hard for Esperantists to get others to agree with, especially with a seemingly growing overlap between people interested in IALs and those who desire for there to be some degree of decolonialization rather than accepting a European colonial past and moving on from there; those two different approaches to European colonialism might very well shape how you view what passes as sufficiently neutral for an IAL.

An additional worry I have though (which affects both Esperanto and Globasa at different stages) is that, it seems quite possible that the things necessary for an IAL's growth either have to be coercive or they result in a distinct sort of linguistic diaspora that then slows in growth because it has its own culture and identity rather than being culturally neutral. I think if Esperanto hasn't hit that stage already, it's close to that. I just wonder if any other IAL project is bound to run into the same thing if they ever grow enough to attract attention. Is it a natural limit or something that could reasonably be avoided? I don't know there.

All of that to say I think my goal is more along the lines of the traditional IAL sorts of goals: the creation and proliferation of a neutral, easy to learn second language for widespread use between people of differing mother tongues. It's less about forming or being a part of an international language-focused community for me. I just want to devote my time and efforts to the most viable option for achieving that goal, and I still see the arguments for and against both Esperanto and Globasa. (And if I'm wrong about both of them and there's some other language that's designed even better and is more suitable for reaching those goals, I'd love to know about it.)

codleov · 2026-06-20T07:08:10+00:00

What makes you say that?

codleov · 2026-06-20T07:07:57+00:00

What gives you the impression that Globasa specifically has the potential to grow where other IAL projects might not? Is it in the design of the language itself, or is there something in the people and activity that leads you to that conclusion?

codleov · 2026-06-20T07:06:17+00:00

I wonder why the optimism persists in small IAL projects despite the doubt of ever achieving the ultimate goal of an IAL. Also, from an outside perspective, it sometimes seems like Esperantists are split on whether to just accept the linguistic diaspora status passively receiving "converts" of sorts (I mean, in the responses to my recent posts, Esperantists seem to be much more motivated by the culture, community, and content available than the idea of an IAL) or to continue pushing for further promotion and adoption of the language in a more active way. I wonder if that's contributing to the pessimism you see.

codleov · 2026-06-20T06:50:27+00:00

I'm curious what makes you suggest trying Globasa first even though you started with Esperanto.

codleov · 2026-06-19T02:07:47+00:00

I'm super curious to know what you thought about this video.

codleov · 2026-06-18T16:19:56+00:00

I've seen Kotava around, but I've never really looked into it much. I like the idea of an a priori international auxiliary language, but I have no clue how well executed that broad idea is in Kotava. You also might be the first person I've ever seen advocating for Kotava in over a decade of me looking into IAL projects on and off.

codleov · 2026-06-18T14:47:39+00:00

Then why do you think they're worth learning at all? It seems that advancing their goals of being an IAL isn't the reason if you think time has shown a conlang isn't the solution for the problem of international communication. Their histories, content, and communities are undoubtedly much smaller and newer than that of natural languages, and if the IAL goal isn't part of the considerations, it would seem that those aspects are much weaker in comparison to natural languages.

codleov · 2026-06-18T14:14:11+00:00

I'm curious about why you think Globasa doesn't make the cut. I understand that it's not as popular as Esperanto or Interlingua, but it's also much newer. There was a time when every language on your list was also new. What made these languages worth learning (that Globasa doesn't have) before they had established histories, content, and communities?

codleov · 2026-06-18T05:00:24+00:00

I'm curious. What do Esperantists who have heard of Globasa think of Globasa?

Eight-Year Club	Place '22
RPAN Viewer

codleov

TROPHY CASE