A universal language exists, so why don't we all speak it?

Misinformation like this is the reason Esperanto has a hard time succeeding. So many people are turned off to the idea by lies or the “fact” that esperanto already came and went. Who said Esperanto was dead or a thing of the past? There’s more speakers now than ever before and it’s still growing.

The fact that Esperanto is a language that works extremely well, even though it is not spoken by everyone, proves that this statement is nonsense ""Languages have to grow from the ground up. You can't kind of build them like a house, they actually have to grow naturally or organically out of the ground." You can well start a language like Zamenhof did and then it grows naturally. Works extremely well, better than languages that have a long history. Look at English spelling for example. Is it really an advantage to have a crazy spelling due to historical factors?

This makes me wonder about Business Insider UK's commitment to fact checking.

Oh what a nonsense. I myself use Esperanto active and often since more than 30 years. You can pass the official european examination of languages (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, CEFR) at C1 level.

In the politest way possible I wanted to point out that with the advent of the internet Esperanto has grown and not fade. It is very much alive and well.

"I think towards the end of the 19th century "- Can't he even google it up before pontificating about something he does not have any real life experience about?

Esperanto estas mia ĉiutaga familia lingvo de 25 jaroj!

Mr Gooden should study what he talks about before. Esperanto is a big success. Created by only one man, it's spoken by millions of people all around the world. It's the only constructed language that is in Google Translation, a major language in Wikipedia, has its own music label, thousands of web sites, dozens of musical artists, films, books,  universal and youth congress every year (this year in Africa for the fisrt time !!!).Said by a english speaker, it sounds like language supremacy.

Comments here about Esperanto are wilfully wrong. It does not take much time using the internet or using a serious library or talking to people who are well informed to see Mr Gooden's errors. I see Esperanto as a remarkable success story, by far the most successful auxiliary language. It has survived wars and revolutions and economic crises and continues to attract people to learn and speak it. Over a million people have signed up to the Duolingo Esperanto course in the last two years. Esperanto works. I’ve used it in about twenty countries over recent years. I recommend it to anyone, as a way of making friendly local contacts in other countries.

Esperanto is alive and well; I know because I had 4 books published in it.

Gee, I guess the dozens of times I've stayed with Esperanto speakers around the world, talking about politics, religion, local culture, science, movies, etc., and enjoying free hospitality, doesn't count as a success to Gooden. But to me, I feel like these Esperanto experiences have enriched my life immeasurably. Learning Esperanto was no doubt one of the best moves I've made in my life.

What a bizarre video to post. Philip Gooden knows plenty about English and its interactions with other languages of the world (I'd recommend his books!) but... WHY pontificate about another language when one's expertise is lacking? Why post a series of sweeping statements that are at best misleading when they're not plain wrong? Arika Okrent, when writing her book "In the Land of Invented Languages", made the effort to go and attend events where Esperanto was being used, to meet hundreds of Esperanto speakers and to interview dozens of them, and she wrote an honest, informative and entertaining — and informed — account in her book. I'm sure it's an honest mistake on the part of Mr Gooden rather than wishing ill will on anyone, but it's a surprising error from someone so well informed about English and about languages in general.

There is so much information on the web about Esperanto and Mr. Gooden did not use it. I wish he would really try to get in contact with Esperanto speakers so he could see that he is completely wrong.

Esperanto once was a project of construied language, but now is a living language with native speakers and a great community that makes the language very rich and in constant evolution.

Good research and fact checking are the cornerstone of authority, since this video contains neither I advise interested people to go elsewhere if they want to find out about Esperanto. They will not only get the real facts about it's origins but also about its aims as an auxiliary language that is deliberately entirely regular and so very quick and very easy to learn, it takes words from many languages, usually choosing the word that is found most often in other source languages (letting the most people have something vaguely familiar and so easy to remember) and that far from being dead it is enjoying a massive resurgence, with over a million people having started learning it on the internet over the last eighteen months alone.

My 2-year old daughter speaks Esperanto!!! Since when has doing some basic research become obsolete??

Philip Gooden states that he writes both fiction and non-fictipn; this article seems firmly in the former category... More seriously, I'm unsure what Gooden's criteria for success, but there are probably more people speaking Esperanto today than at any point in the past. It is also being used on an unprecedented scale to allow millions of people across the world to share ideas on everything from science to religion, politics to cookery, on a basis of equality. Sounds like a success to me!

It always amazes me that people make wild assertions about Esperanto without first bothering to research the topic. Although it has not become THE international language, it is used all over the world and seems to be becoming increasingly popular. In the last couple of years more than 1,000,000 have registered to learn it in Duolingo. At least 30 of them a day finish the course. I have met some of them and can vouch for their Esperanto language skills.

People should research a bit (hello wikipedia!) before talking.

"I think towards the end of the 19th century'... it is correct but it the 'I think' shows you have looked up nothing, not even the year of publication.