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 have known a number of Don Juans who were good studs and who cavorted between the sheets without a psychiatrist to guide them. But most of the busy love-makers I knew were looking for masculinity rather than practicing it. They were fellows of dubious lust.”
—Ben Hecht (1893–1964)
“... [woman suffrage] has made little difference beyond doubling the number of voters. There is no woman’s vote as such. They divide up just about as men do.”
—Alice Roosevelt Longworth (1884–1980)
“All the great speakers were bad speakers at first. Stumping it through England for seven years made Cobden a consummate debater. Stumping it through New England for twice seven trained Wendell Phillips.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)