Should we learn to speak Esperanto?

I assume they mean colonialist implications behind the spread of the language and adoption of it as a widespread language. However this is true of basically any widespread world language - Spanish, Portuguese, English, Arabic, even historically Latin, Sanskrit etc all were a result of that.

OP has sort of missed that almost necessarily imposing any language upon other groups itself does have colonialist implications - invariably it benefits one group to have everyone speaking the same language more than another (also in this case, Esperanto being almost purely constructed on the basis of European language forms, very much just continues that programme).

The only way to avoid that would be to encourage purely native/indigenous languages/dialects, but that then runs contrary to the aim of trying to create any kind of universal language, and even having mutually intelligible indigenous languages/dialects in a region isn't always likely!

The thing is, not all other scripts are alphabets - Sanskrit for example has a syllabary - and also not all languages feature or distinguish between all phonetic values (which is why you have e.g. [L] and [R] being confused by many Japanese native speakers when learning English, because the two sounds are not well distinguished in Japanese). Also in the case of Japanese and Chinese (maybe also Korean) logographic scripts where a single character can be a syllable (as with Sanskrit) or even multiple syllables in some cases. Also fundamentally script =/= language. Sanskrit is written typically (historically) in Devanagari script, but that script can also be used to write e.g. Pali or Hindi, and Sanskrit can also be (and was) written in other scripts (particularly in South East Asia, and possibly Central Asia).

Of course one can, in theory, write any language in any given script provided you have a suitable transliteration system set up - you can write Sanskrit in Roman script (i.e. "English" script) using one of several different transliteration formats. However not all scripts will "natively" have ways to represent all phonetic values in a given language - Roman script can compensate for this in some respects with diacritics that aren't normally used in many/any of the languages that normally use that script, other scripts may or may not be able to do that.

So it's important to understand the difference between language and writing, and that written language and spoken language are different in some respects (usually linguists consider spoken language to have primacy over written language, although I think some historical linguists have argued against that as a purely descriptivist approach to spoken language may not always capture certain features of the language which are still considered important in written form?).

Also even that aside, it's not just about the phonetic inventory of Esperanto vs other languages - the fundamental grammar of the languages may be very different and one or the other may have grammatical features not present in others. Esperanto is I gather mildly inflected - some languages are heavily inflected while others are purely synthetic. While in the European language regime the more synthetic languages like English and French may be able to "compensate" by having shared vocabulary and other grammatical features, other world languages don't have that luxury necessarily!

I wasn’t hoping to impose, more debate whether or not it should be a universal language. Forcing a language onto others unnecessarily erases these people’s national identity and is therefore immoral. This is why I hoped as a second language native/indigenous people would learn their own languages first and then Esperanto second should they choose to.

Would I be right in assuming you’d prefer sanskrit become a universal language, if so why?

Also could for languages where a phonetic translation isn’t possible, could they learn how to speak Esperanto but not write by for example hearing “door” in their language sounds like this, “door” in Esperanto sounds like this. Then memorising that?

In a way Esperanto does have a history and it’s own culture because it’s Lexicon is borrowed from multiple different languages with their own histories and cultures.

A language has to be constantly spoken to be maintained. Given there are no significant groups of Esperanto speakers, you’d learn it and then just forget it if you weren’t practising it all the time. And unlike existing languages which people may learn because they love the history and culture of where it’s come from/spoken, Esperanto has no country of origin and no real culture of any kind surrounding it, which makes many people view it as “dead” and artificial.

Poland is Esperanto’s country of origin because it was invented there. Also Esperanto comes from multiple different languages because it’s lexicon is made up of many languages with their own history and culture. If it were to become a universal language then quite a lot of the world would speak it making it hard to forget.

I mean for Sanskrit it's just because it's what I'm familiar with after studying it with a while It is a pretty great language though, even aside from the interesting cultural aspects the fundamental grammar and how that was codified and passed down is very interesting and it's really like...if you were designing a language you would probably want to do it the same way Sanskrit is. So why not just use Sanskrit?

With your second point I would contend then you're creating a two sided system where some are more privileged in being able to "easily" learn Esperanto, and others aren't. Which begs the question, why not use a con lang based on e.g. Sinitic languages and scripts, rather than European ones? This also then relates to my point about colonialism - at some point you start baking in aspects of one cultural group no matter what!

Also the thing is having words based on other languages does not itself give that language a culture - it has a limited range of texts of its own is my point. You could just as well then e.g. focus on Spanish or French or German rather than Esperanto, get the language AND get a much longer history of textual and oral cultural material.

Note I've really no horse in this race - I just think it's an interesting thing to think about I'm not saying Esperanto should or shouldn't be learnt, just pointing out potential caveats, alternatives etc

That’s fair enough, I’m also very interested in debating this. I’m having a little difficulty understanding how imposing Esperanto would have colonising aspects but imposing Sanskrit won’t, would you mind explaining this to me?

I see. So you want to get everyone to learn another language that is derived mainly from Latin and Germanic languages, and is spoken almost exclusively by white Europeans, because you think that English has colonial baggage?

This truly must be the EU-Globalists wet dream.

Makes sense. If you want to learn Esperanto, no one is stopping you.

That’s not really a country of origin in the way it’s meant with natural languages. It isn’t a Polish language with a genuine geographic location. It’s all very well saying that we’d all understand it if it were a universal language but you’re ignoring the mechanism of how it would become one in the first place precisely because it doesn’t really come from anywhere and there is no pressing motivation or urgency to learn it. Whether you like it or not, mighty world languages always arise because of empires and/or the economic power and wealth of a country or group of countries that speak it. Given the age of empires is over I can see no real way in somehow imposing Esperanto globally.

Oh, Sanskrit absolutely would, and did - it was quite widespread as a prestige language in the "Sanskrit cosmopolis" in historical South/South East Asia. However this was absolutely due to imperialistic and colonialist expansions of various kingships, and often Sanskrit was used as a conveyor of religious beliefs and ideologies that may not have been present before - sometimes with violence!

But if we accept that trying to create any kind of universal language necessarily implies some kind of colonialist mindset, then if we can accept that (I'm not saying that we can either!) then it comes down to which language, and there's lots of options to consider there. And while I've suggested Sanskrit that is still an Indo-European language. There may well be justification for using a Sinitic or Semitic language for example, or any of the wide range of Austronesian languages.

Would it be less colonising if we make up a language completely, with no historical or cultural roots? Then spread it by letting students across the world choose to learn it as a MFL (modern foreign language instead of using empires?