Any day now I'm expecting my Esperanto League of North America (ELNA) membership kit to arrive in the mail. I'm actually a little embarrassed to say that, but I shouldn't be.
I originally joined the organization last year, and I just renewed my membership. I'm interested in languages, and Esperanto's particularly interesting because it's the most famous invented language.
I say I'm embarrassed to admit I'm a member of the organization because sometimes it still strikes me as too idealistic to advocate adoption of a made-up language as a common global second language, as opposed to a natural language like English which is already spoken by billions of people in every country of the world. Esperanto is easier to learn, and because it is not the language of any one nation, it is arguably more politically neutral a choice of second language than English is. But still, it seems farfetched.
But lately I haven't worried myself about that quite as much, because I've begun to realize that Esperanto has already accomplished part of its movement's primary aims. No, the EC hasn't adopted it as a trade language for Europe, it's not being taught in millions of schools across China, and it hasn't been adopted on the streets of culturally mixed border towns in the Southwestern US.
But there are an estimated two million people around the globe who can at least read the language, and there are probably hundreds of thousands who are fluent. They now have over 100 years of history of literature, music, and international gatherings and contacts behind them. They haven't captured the world's imagination but they hardly need to now; they have a respectable claim at having created a new international culture and language all their own, and they go on happily using it among themselves; the movement is healthy and growing, although slowly, and is certainly in no danger of dying out.
Some Esperantists are one-worlders who believe in the idea of a single world government; others prefer that power be kept decentralized. They actually tend not to share much politically. Maybe the only thing they really have in common, besides a language, is that they are less afraid of "foreigners" than most people -- after all, they have friends and associates in foreign countries that they can easily communicate with. And as the Internet makes it technically easier to send messages around the world, it can only help the Esperantists build their little global culture.
It does take some effort to learn Esperanto; it's easier than any natural language but learning any language takes time. It's a small effort on my part to send in some money to ELNA each year to support the idea of Esperanto, but I never have quite gotten around to studying the language as seriously as I'd like to. Someday I will get around to it, and doing so won't revolutionize the world -- it'll just let me participate in one particularly interesting and farsighted eddy in the world's vast cultural ocean.