Editing Esperanto (section)

=== Geography and demography ===
[[File:PS mapo 2015.png|thumb|upright=1.5|Location map of hosts of {{lang|eo|[[Pasporta Servo]]}}, the Esperanto [[homestay]] community, by 2015]]
Esperanto is by far the most widely spoken [[constructed language]] in the world.<ref>{{cite book|last=Byram |first=Michael |title=Routledge Encyclopedia of Language Teaching and Learning |year=2001 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=0-415-33286-9 |page=464 }}</ref> Speakers are most numerous in Europe and East Asia, especially in urban areas, where they often form [[Esperanto club]]s.<ref name=Sikosek_2003>{{Cite book|last=Sikosek|first=Ziko M.|title=Esperanto Sen Mitoj|trans-title=Esperanto without Myths|edition=2nd|place=Antwerp|publisher=Flandra Esperanto-Ligo|date=2003|lang=eo}}</ref> Esperanto is particularly prevalent in the northern and central countries of Europe; in China, [[Korea]], Japan, and [[Iran]] within Asia;<ref name="Esperanto as language and idea in China and Japan"/> in [[Brazil]], and the [[United States]] in the Americas;<ref name="e25">{{e25|epo}}</ref> and in [[Togo]] in Africa.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://pagesperso-orange.fr/eric.coffinet/Afrika_Agado.html |title=Afrika Agado |language=eo|publisher=Pagesperso-orange.fr |access-date=December 5, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090109212420/http://pagesperso-orange.fr/eric.coffinet/Afrika_Agado.html |archive-date=January 9, 2009}}</ref>

Countering a common criticism against Esperanto, the [[statistician]] Svend Nielsen has found no significant correlation between the number of Esperanto speakers and the similarity of a given national native language to Esperanto. He concludes that Esperanto tends to be more popular in rich countries with widespread Internet access and a tendency to contribute more to science and culture. Linguistic diversity within a country was found to have no, or perhaps a slightly reductive, correlation with Esperanto popularity.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://svendvnielsen.wordpress.com/2017/09/24/explaining-the-density-of-esperanto-speakers-with-language-and-politics/|title=Explaining the density of Esperanto speakers with language and politics|author=Svend Vendelbo Nielsen|publisher=Kalkulinda|date=September 24, 2017|access-date=October 7, 2017|archive-date=October 7, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171007173441/https://svendvnielsen.wordpress.com/2017/09/24/explaining-the-density-of-esperanto-speakers-with-language-and-politics/|url-status=live}}</ref>

==== Number of speakers ====
An estimate of the number of Esperanto speakers was made by [[Sidney S. Culbert]], a retired [[psychology]] professor at the [[University of Washington]] and a longtime [[List of Esperanto speakers|Esperantist]], who tracked down and tested Esperanto speakers in sample areas in dozens of countries over a period of twenty years. Culbert concluded that between one and two million people speak Esperanto at [[ILR scale|Foreign Service Level 3]], "professionally proficient" (able to communicate moderately complex ideas without hesitation, and to follow speeches, radio broadcasts, etc.).<ref name=Culbert>Culbert, Sidney S. [http://www.panix.com/~dwolff/docs/ Three letters about his method for estimating the number of Esperanto speakers] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110514105444/http://www.panix.com/~dwolff/docs/ |date=May 14, 2011 }}, scanned and HTMLized by David Wolff</ref> Culbert's estimate was not made for Esperanto alone, but formed part of his listing of estimates for all languages of more than one million speakers, published annually in the [[World Almanac]] and Book of Facts. Culbert's most detailed account of his methodology is found in a 1989 letter to David Wolff.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.panix.com/~dwolff/docs/culbert-methods.html |title=Number of Esperantists (methods) |publisher=Panix.com |access-date=December 5, 2010 |archive-date=November 20, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101120200544/http://www.panix.com/~dwolff/docs/culbert-methods.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Since Culbert never published detailed intermediate results for particular countries and regions, it is difficult to independently gauge the accuracy of his results.

In the Almanac, his estimates for numbers of language speakers were rounded to the nearest million, thus the number of Esperanto speakers is shown as two million. This latter figure appears in ''[[Ethnologue]]''. Assuming that this figure is accurate, that means that about 0.03% of the world's population speaks the language. Although it does not meet Zamenhof's goal of a [[international auxiliary language|universal language]], it still represents a level of popularity unmatched by any other constructed language.

Marcus Sikosek (now [[Ziko van Dijk]]) has challenged this figure of 1.6&nbsp;million as exaggerated. He estimated that even if Esperanto speakers were evenly distributed, assuming one million Esperanto speakers worldwide would lead one to expect about 180 in the city of [[Cologne, Germany|Cologne]]. Van Dijk finds only 30 [[fluency|fluent]] speakers in that city, and similarly smaller-than-expected figures in several other places thought to have a larger-than-average concentration of Esperanto speakers. He also notes that there are a total of about 20,000 members of the various Esperanto organizations (other estimates are higher). Though there are undoubtedly many Esperanto speakers who are not members of any Esperanto organization, he thinks it unlikely that there are fifty times more speakers than organization members.<ref name=Sikosek_2003 />

In 1996, [[Finns|Finnish]] [[linguistics|linguist]] [[Jouko Lindstedt]], an expert on native-born Esperanto speakers, presented the following scheme<ref name=Lindstedt_1996>Lindstedt, Jouko. "Re: {{lang|eo|Kiom?}}" (posting). [http://www.helsinki.fi/~jslindst/denask-l.html DENASK-L@helsinki.fi] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110507110433/http://www.helsinki.fi/%7Ejslindst/denask-l.html |date=May 7, 2011 }}, April 22, 1996.</ref> to show the overall proportions of language capabilities within the Esperanto community:
* 1,000 have Esperanto as their native family language.
* 10,000 speak it fluently.
* 100,000 can use it actively.
* One million understand a large amount passively.
* Ten million have studied it to some extent at some time.

In 2017, doctoral student Svend Nielsen estimated around 63,000 Esperanto speakers worldwide, taking into account association memberships, user-generated data from Esperanto websites and census statistics. This number, however, was disputed by statistician Sten Johansson, who questioned the reliability of the source data and highlighted a wide margin of error, the latter point with which Nielsen agrees. Both have stated, however, that this new number is likely more realistic than some earlier projections.<ref name="svend"/>

In the absence of Culbert's detailed sampling data, or any other census data, it is impossible to state the number of speakers with certainty. According to the website of the [[Universal Esperanto Association]]:

<blockquote>Numbers of [[textbook]]s sold and membership of local societies put "the number of people with some knowledge of the language in the hundreds of thousands and possibly millions".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://uea.org/info/en/ghisdate_pri_esperanto |title=An Update on Esperanto |publisher=Universala Esperanto‑Asocio |archive-date=2016-12-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161209111559/http://uea.org/info/en/ghisdate_pri_esperanto |url-status=live |location=New York |quote=Based on the number of textbooks sold and membership&nbsp;..., the number of people with some knowledge of Esperanto is in the hundreds of thousands and possibly millions.&nbsp;... In 1954&nbsp;... UNESCO&nbsp;... recognised that the achievements of Esperanto match UNESCO's aims and ideals, and official relations were established between UNESCO and UEA. }}</ref></blockquote>

==== Native speakers ====
{{Main|Native Esperanto speakers}}

Native Esperanto speakers ({{Langx|eo|label=eo|text=denaskuloj|lit=person from/since birth}}) have learned the language from birth from Esperanto-speaking parents.<ref name="autogenerated3">{{cite web |url=http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=epo |title=Ethnologue report for language code:epo |publisher=Ethnologue.com |access-date=December 5, 2010 |archive-date=August 22, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090822095633/http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=epo |url-status=live }}</ref> This usually happens when Esperanto is the chief or only common language in an international family, but sometimes occurs in a family of Esperanto speakers who often use the language.<ref>{{cite journal
|author=Jouko Lindstedt
|title=Native Esperanto as a Test Case for Natural Language, as part of "A man of measure: Festschrift in honour of Fred Karlsson on his 60th birthday"
|publisher=[[University of Helsinki]]—Department of Slavonic and Baltic Languages and Literatures
|date=January 2006
|url=http://www.ling.helsinki.fi/sky/julkaisut/SKY2006_1/1FK60.1.5.LINDSTEDT.pdf
|journal=SKY Journal of Linguistics |volume=19
|access-date=May 4, 2007
|archive-date=July 16, 2011
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110716154438/http://www.ling.helsinki.fi/sky/julkaisut/SKY2006_1/1FK60.1.5.LINDSTEDT.pdf
|url-status=live
}}</ref> In 2004, an estimated 2,000 children in about a thousand families use Esperanto as one of their languages.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Corsetti |first1=Renato |authorlink=Renato Corsetti|last2= Pinto|first2=Maria A.|last3=Tolomeo|first3=Maria |date=2004 |title=Regularizing the regular: The phenomenon of overregularization in Esperanto-speaking children |url= https://unstable.nl/andreas/ai/psy/s3.pdf|journal=[[Language Problems & Language Planning]] |volume=28 |issue=3 |publisher=John Benjamins Publishing Company |pages=261-282 |doi=10.1075/lplp.28.3.04cor |access-date=}}</ref> Citing this research, the 2022 edition of ''[[Ethnologue]]'' gives 1,000 first language users.<ref name=e25/>

However, native speakers do not occupy an authoritative position in the Esperanto community, as they would in other language communities. This presents a challenge to linguists, whose usual source of grammaticality and meanings are native speakers.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Miner|first=Ken|date=2011-02-08|title=The impossibility of an Esperanto linguistics / La neebleco de priesperanta lingvoscienco|url=https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/inkoj/article/view/838|journal=InKoj. Interlingvistikaj Kajeroj |language=it|volume=2|issue=1|pages=26–51|doi=10.13130/2037-4550/838|issn=2037-4550|quote=The task of linguistics is to reveal the principles which relate sentences to meanings. One cannot work out these principles if one does not know (1) the grammatical sentences of the language and (2) their meanings. Due to absence of native speakers (the usual source of grammaticality and of meanings), sentence-meanings and grammaticality in Esperanto are radically imprecise in comparison with those of ethnic languages. Due to this imprecision it is not possible to construct linguistic arguments regarding Esperanto: esperantology [sic] is possible, but not a linguistics of Esperanto.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=Miner|first=Ken|date=2015-08-04|title=Esperanto: some observations of a speaker-linguist|url=https://hiphilangsci.net/2015/08/05/esperanto-some-observations-of-a-speaker-linguist/|access-date=2022-02-25|website=History and Philosophy of the Language Sciences|language=en}}</ref>