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There are already works in several academic fields written in Esperanto. Is it destined to become the new academic language, replacing English?

Esperanto is a constructed language that is easier to learn than English.

Geremia
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    What do you mean by easier to 'learn'? English is a very relaxed language, making it easy to put your point across but hard to understand what someone else says. – Jessica B Jul 07 '17 at 21:25
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    There are already works in several academic fields written in German. Is it destined to become the new academic language, replacing English? German is a natural language that is easier to learn than English. – sgf Jul 08 '17 at 01:04
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    There are already works in several academic fields written about Toki pona. Is it destined to become the new academic language, replacing English?

    Toki pona is a constructed language that is easier to learn than Esperanto.

     – Frames Catherine White Jul 08 '17 at 01:21
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    Linguist here. Esperanto is more regular than English, but it is a native language for almost no one, and the number of speakers is limited. And whether it is easy to learn depends, to some extent, on the learner's native language(s). No particular reason at the moment to expect it to catch on, particularly in academia (which tends to be fond of tradition). Nonetheless, Esperanto is a fascinating case-study and I will very happily refer any interested reader to Arika Okrent's In the Land of Invented Languages (2009) if they want to learn more about it and other constructed languages. – trikeprof Jul 08 '17 at 03:28
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    A couple of data points: In mathematics, there is, as far as I know, just one journal with a title in Esperanto, namely "Funkcialaj Ekvacioj." I just visited its web site and, on a quick look, found nothing in Esperanto beyond the title. I am also aware of one article written in French but with an abstract in Esperanto. The author, Bruno Poizat, is known for (among other things) his strong disapproval of English hegemony in academia. – Andreas Blass Jul 08 '17 at 03:59
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    I did take a look at the Wiki page provided below and some other references. I can tell this: For me, a native Chinese speaker, Esperanto is much much much much harder to learn than English. This is one data point. – Nobody Jul 08 '17 at 05:27
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    @trikeprof Would you teach me something here? From linguist's point of view, is Lojban easier to learn (by Latin/Roman language speaker) than Esperanto? Just for my curiosity. If it's a hard question, please forget I asked. – Nobody Jul 08 '17 at 07:00
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    @scaaahu No problem whatsoever! If you're starting from Latin or a Romance language, then Esperanto is going to look familiar because a lot of the vocabulary/grammar is very Romance-y. You can probably look at the name of the language and work out that it has something to do with 'hope', for instance. Lojban is probably going to be less immediately intuitive. I know less about Lojban than about Esperanto, though, so it's possible I'm off-target here. – trikeprof Jul 10 '17 at 22:44
  • It would have a shot... if we didn't already speak English so widely. It's not the first time our "Lingua Franca" has changed but I wouldn't count on it happening any time soon. – Tom Kelly Nov 18 '18 at 01:57
  • It is far easier and intuitive than english. It would have a chance when schools start teaching it. You can't count on adults learning it in their spare time. – user5402 Mar 29 '19 at 15:52

2 Answers2

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According to Wikipedia, Esperanto is spoken by:

Native: Around 1,000 families involving around 2,000 children (2004)[1] L2 users: estimates range from 100,000 total (1999)[2][not in citation given] to 10 million total (1996)[3]

At best, those seem to be some generous numbers.

Given the language has been around since the late 1800s, unless there is some dramatic shift in rate in which people acquire proficiency in the language, the simple answer is "no."

Bryan Krause
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Given that German, French and Russian are becoming extinct as academic languages except for niche disciplines, given that the Chinese have significant incentives to publish in English, the trend is clear: there is (regrettably?) little to no incentive for most academic to publish in languages other than English if they want their work to be recognized.