Some points I had forgotten...
>According to my Esperanto teacher (no, I didn't learn it well enough to speak it), Esperanto can be learned in 1/5th. of the time it takes to learn the average European language (including English, of course).
This makes sense, if you consider that there is a single way to conjugate verbs, a single way to change masculine into femenine, etc. - language irregularities are systematically eliminated. A large amount of prefixes and suffixes make it easy to form new words (for instance, the student doesn't have to learn two separate words for "father" and "mother", or for "brother" and "sister" - the feminine form is derived from the masculine form, as with any other noun).
>While I find this interesting, I would be content with
any language being used as an official World language...
Like English. While for many practical purposes it is
the World language, many schools don't teach it well enough for people to communicate well.
Difference in opinions hath cost many millions of lives: for instance, whether flesh be bread, or bread be flesh; whether whistling be a vice or a virtue; whether it be better to kiss a post, or throw it into the fire... (from Gulliver's Travels)
