Do You Speak Esperanto?

Ever have a desire to learn and speak a totally made-up language?

Me neither.

But — amazingly — there are thousands of people across the globe who DO speak Esperanto and still believe it could bring people together if they’d just give it a chance.

Esperanto was created in 1887 by L.L. Zamenhoff, a Polish ophthalmologist who believed that language differences were a big reason for mistrust and demonizing among different-speaking peoples.

Zamenhoff mostly based Esperanto on the Romance languages (Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian and Romanian) and Germanic and Slavic tongues.

Obviously a cock-eyed optimist, Zamenhoff said he wished to give the world a universal language that “all nations would be united in a common brotherhood.”

Zamenhoff’s idea slowly spread across Europe and elsewhere into the 20th century, but it was fiercely resisted by totalitarian countries including Hitler’s Germany, Franco’s Spain and Stalin’s Soviet Union.

Perhaps the death knell for Esperanto being embraced as a universal language was the United Nation’s early resistance to implementing it.

But in spite of its constant uphill battle, Esperanto has had some success in the 21st century. In 2012, Google Translate added it as its 64th language.

And today, Esperanto Wikipedia has about 100,000-150,000 regular users.

While Esperanto has not lived up to Zamenhoff’s pipe dream of a universal language, many would say that English has taken on that mantle.

Language scholars say English got its start as a world language during the British colonial era, when English was transplanted across the planet.

Because of the dominance of English-speaking, economic powerhouse nations on the world stage — Great Britain, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and most of Canada — many countries with another native language have adopted English as a second language.

Why? Because English has become the international language of business and commerce and travel. Did you know that every pilot that flies a commercial airliner internationally has to speak English to communicate with control towers virtually everywhere?

Of course, this is great for us lazy Americans, who are mostly reluctant to learn a second language and really expect the rest of the world to speak “American,” that is, uh, English.

So: “Cu vi paroles Esperanto?” Translation: “Do you speak Esperanto?”

Probably not. And you -- and me -- probably never will.

Sorry, Mister Zamenhoff. Your heart was in the right place.