Number of Speakers
Many Esperanto speakers assert that their language is the only constructed language during the last century to have more than some thousands of speakers. Only one other constructed language possibly passed this mark: Volapük, which allegedly had 200,000 speakers in 1890. Although no census has ever been undertaken, Esperanto speakers frequently place their numbers at somewhere between 100,000 to 3 million speakers. The number of Interlingua speakers is generally estimated between a few hundred and 1,500. It is worth noting that the actual number of speakers of a constructed language is very hard to measure, partly because they are not restricted to an area, which makes counting them virtually impossible, partly because it is hard to establish what precisely makes a person a speaker. Esperanto is the only constructed language with native speakers, numbering 200-2000 according to Ethnologue.
Read more about this topic: Comparison Between Esperanto And Interlingua
Famous quotes containing the words number of, number and/or speakers:
“I am walking over hot coals suspended over a deep pit at the bottom of which are a large number of vipers baring their fangs.”
—John Major (b. 1943)
“The said truth is that it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong.”
—Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832)
“What’s this, Aurora Leigh,
You write so of the poets and not laugh?
Those virtuous liars, dreamers after dark,
Exaggerators of the sun and moon,
And soothsayers in a tea-cup? I write so
Of the only truth-tellers, now left to God,—
The only speakers of essential truth,
Opposed to relative, comparative,
And temporal truths;...
The only teachers who instruct mankind,
From just a shadow on a charnel-wall.”
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)