- People that actively or passively use Esperanto at least 10 hours a year: between 30,000 and 2,000,000 (probably between 120,000 and 500,000)
- People that actively or passively use Esperanto at least 100 hours a year: between 3,000 and 200,000 (probably between 12,000 kajand 50,000)
- People that actively use Esperanto at least 10 hours a year: between 5,000 and 100,000 (probably between 15,000 kajand 35,000)
- People that actively use Esperanto at least 100 hours a year: between 1,000 and 20,000 (probably between 3,000 kajand 7,000)
- People that actively or passively use Esperanto at least 10 hours a year: between 30,000 and 2,000,000 (probably between 120,000 and 500,000)
- People that actively or passively use Esperanto at least 100 hours a year: between 3,000 and 200,000 (probably between 12,000 kaj 50,000)
- People that actively use Esperanto at least 10 hours a year: between 5,000 and 100,000 (probably between 15,000 kaj 35,000)
- People that actively use Esperanto at least 100 hours a year: between 1,000 and 20,000 (probably between 3,000 kaj 7,000)
- People that actively or passively use Esperanto at least 10 hours a year: between 30,000 and 2,000,000 (probably between 120,000 and 500,000)
- People that actively or passively use Esperanto at least 100 hours a year: between 3,000 and 200,000 (probably between 12,000 and 50,000)
- People that actively use Esperanto at least 10 hours a year: between 5,000 and 100,000 (probably between 15,000 and 35,000)
- People that actively use Esperanto at least 100 hours a year: between 1,000 and 20,000 (probably between 3,000 and 7,000)
- It is not clear what the definition of "Esperanto speaker" should be. Depending on the chosen definition, the number can be in a completely different order of magnitude.
- Even once a definition is fixed, it is very difficult to reasonablereasonably estimate the number of speakers, because speakers don't have to register anywhere, and they are such a small proportion of the world population that one can not meaningfully estimate their numbers through polls.
The use of powers of ten was intentional, so as to show that these are just rough estimates, not precise counts based on actual research. Nevertheless, I think that they are quite good estimates (probableprobably between double and half the real numbers, at least for some reasonable way of making his rather vague definitions more precise). Probably the number of 1,000 native speakers was a bit of an optimistic estimate in 1996, but in the meantime, the number of native speakers has probably increased, so it seems a more realistic estimate now (but again, "native speaker" would have to be defined more precisely; I know a number of Esperanto speakers who are borderline cases of what one might want to call "native speaker").
Some have suggested that the numbers have prbablyprobably increased since 1996. While I agree that it has increased for native speakers (though the 1996 estimate was probably too optimistic at the time), I doubt it has increased for the other categories. Probably the numbers of the last three categories have significantly increased in English-speaking countries since the launch of the Duolingo Esperanto course, but note that native English speakers are still a small minority in Esperantujo. In many countries the number of Esperanto speakers has been stagnant since 1996, and it has even decreased in some. The average number of participants of the main Esperanto congress UK has decreased since 1996, and this decrease is probably only partially explained by increased interest in smaller Esperanto events.
The numbers might seem a bit low compared to the numbers presented by Jouko Lindstedt, but keep in mind that active usage of Esperanto requires being among the around 100,000 speakers of Jouko Lindstedt's third category, but being among them doesn't guarantee that you actually use it a lot (many people use Esperanto actively for a short time, and then stop engaging with Esperanto, while theretheir knowledge of Esperanto only slowly evaporates; some of them come back many years later, but many don't).
- It is not clear what the definition of "Esperanto speaker" should be. Depending on the chosen definition, the number can be in a completely different order of magnitude.
- Even once a definition is fixed, it is very difficult to reasonable estimate the number of speakers, because speakers don't have to register anywhere, and they are such a small proportion of the world population that one can not meaningfully estimate their numbers through polls.
The use of powers of ten was intentional, so as to show that these are just rough estimates, not precise counts based on actual research. Nevertheless, I think that they are quite good estimates (probable between double and half the real numbers, at least for some reasonable way of making his rather vague definitions more precise). Probably the number of 1,000 native speakers was a bit of an optimistic estimate in 1996, but in the meantime, the number of native speakers has probably increased, so it seems a more realistic estimate now (but again, "native speaker" would have to be defined more precisely; I know a number of Esperanto speakers who are borderline cases of what one might want to call "native speaker").
Some have suggested that the numbers have prbably increased since 1996. While I agree that it has increased for native speakers (though the 1996 estimate was probably too optimistic at the time), I doubt it has increased for the other categories. Probably the numbers of the last three categories have significantly increased in English-speaking countries since the launch of the Duolingo Esperanto course, but note that native English speakers are still a small minority in Esperantujo. In many countries the number of Esperanto speakers has been stagnant since 1996, and it has even decreased in some. The average number of participants of the main Esperanto congress UK has decreased since 1996, and this decrease is probably only partially explained by increased interest in smaller Esperanto events.
The numbers might seem a bit low compared to the numbers presented by Jouko Lindstedt, but keep in mind that active usage of Esperanto requires being among the around 100,000 speakers of Jouko Lindstedt's third category, but being among them doesn't guarantee that you actually use it a lot (many people use Esperanto actively for a short time, and then stop engaging with Esperanto, while there knowledge of Esperanto only slowly evaporates; some of them come back many years later, but many don't).
- It is not clear what the definition of "Esperanto speaker" should be. Depending on the chosen definition, the number can be in a completely different order of magnitude.
- Even once a definition is fixed, it is very difficult to reasonably estimate the number of speakers, because speakers don't have to register anywhere, and they are such a small proportion of the world population that one can not meaningfully estimate their numbers through polls.
The use of powers of ten was intentional, so as to show that these are just rough estimates, not precise counts based on actual research. Nevertheless, I think that they are quite good estimates (probably between double and half the real numbers, at least for some reasonable way of making his rather vague definitions more precise). Probably the number of 1,000 native speakers was a bit of an optimistic estimate in 1996, but in the meantime, the number of native speakers has probably increased, so it seems a more realistic estimate now (but again, "native speaker" would have to be defined more precisely; I know a number of Esperanto speakers who are borderline cases of what one might want to call "native speaker").
Some have suggested that the numbers have probably increased since 1996. While I agree that it has increased for native speakers (though the 1996 estimate was probably too optimistic at the time), I doubt it has increased for the other categories. Probably the numbers of the last three categories have significantly increased in English-speaking countries since the launch of the Duolingo Esperanto course, but note that native English speakers are still a small minority in Esperantujo. In many countries the number of Esperanto speakers has been stagnant since 1996, and it has even decreased in some. The average number of participants of the main Esperanto congress UK has decreased since 1996, and this decrease is probably only partially explained by increased interest in smaller Esperanto events.
The numbers might seem a bit low compared to the numbers presented by Jouko Lindstedt, but keep in mind that active usage of Esperanto requires being among the around 100,000 speakers of Jouko Lindstedt's third category, but being among them doesn't guarantee that you actually use it a lot (many people use Esperanto actively for a short time, and then stop engaging with Esperanto, while their knowledge of Esperanto only slowly evaporates; some of them come back many years later, but many don't).
There are two problems with counting the number of Esperanto speakers:
- It is not clear what the definition of "Esperanto speaker" should be. Depending on the chosen definition, the number can be in a completely different order of magnitude.
- Even once a definition is fixed, it is very difficult to reasonable estimate the number of speakers, because speakers don't have to register anywhere, and they are such a small proportion of the world population that one can not meaningfully estimate their numbers through polls.
The number of speakers of other languages is usually estimated by concentrating on areas where they are spoken either by the majority or by a sizable minority, and using the population numbers for those areas. This approach doesn't work for Esperanto. (It also doesn't work for estimating the number of second and foreign language speakers of a language, which is why the estimates for these numbers vary much more than the estimated for native speakers in the case of widely spoken languages.)
The first problem mentioned above was illustrated well by the linguist Jouko Lindstedt, who published the following estimated for different definitions of "Esperanto speaker" in 1996:
- 1,000 have Esperanto as their native language.
- 10,000 speak it fluently.
- 100,000 can use it actively.
- 1,000,000 understand a large amount passively.
- 10,000,000 have studied it to some extent at some time.
The use of powers of ten was intentional, so as to show that these are just rough estimates, not precise counts based on actual research. Nevertheless, I think that they are quite good estimates (probable between double and half the real numbers, at least for some reasonable way of making his rather vague definitions more precise). Probably the number of 1,000 native speakers was a bit of an optimistic estimate in 1996, but in the meantime, the number of native speakers has probably increased, so it seems a more realistic estimate now (but again, "native speaker" would have to be defined more precisely; I know a number of Esperanto speakers who are borderline cases of what one might want to call "native speaker").
Some have suggested that the numbers have prbably increased since 1996. While I agree that it has increased for native speakers (though the 1996 estimate was probably too optimistic at the time), I doubt it has increased for the other categories. Probably the numbers of the last three categories have significantly increased in English-speaking countries since the launch of the Duolingo Esperanto course, but note that native English speakers are still a small minority in Esperantujo. In many countries the number of Esperanto speakers has been stagnant since 1996, and it has even decreased in some. The average number of participants of the main Esperanto congress UK has decreased since 1996, and this decrease is probably only partially explained by increased interest in smaller Esperanto events.
Despite the number of Esperanto speakers probably being stagnant, the usage of Esperanto has certainly increased a lot because of the advent of the Internet, which has made it easier for Esperanto speakers to actually use Esperanto. While Jouko Lindstedt's estimates were based on degree of knowledge of Esperanto, one can also make similar estimates for definitions of "Esperanto speaker" based on actual usage of Esperanto. Given that usage of Esperanto is more visible than knowledge of Esperanto, these estimates can be made with a bit more confidence.
Based on my knowledge of Esperantujo as a very active Esperanto speaker, based on considerations about the number of Esperanto speakers in my surroundings and about how Esperanto activity in my surroundings differs from the world average, and based on statistics about the listeners of the Esperanto internet radio station Muzaiko, I have made the following estimates of the number of actual users of Esperanto, based on four different definitions of "actual user":
- People that actively or passively use Esperanto at least 10 hours a year: between 30,000 and 2,000,000 (probably between 120,000 and 500,000)
- People that actively or passively use Esperanto at least 100 hours a year: between 3,000 and 200,000 (probably between 12,000 kaj 50,000)
- People that actively use Esperanto at least 10 hours a year: between 5,000 and 100,000 (probably between 15,000 kaj 35,000)
- People that actively use Esperanto at least 100 hours a year: between 1,000 and 20,000 (probably between 3,000 kaj 7,000)
The numbers might seem a bit low compared to the numbers presented by Jouko Lindstedt, but keep in mind that active usage of Esperanto requires being among the around 100,000 speakers of Jouko Lindstedt's third category, but being among them doesn't guarantee that you actually use it a lot (many people use Esperanto actively for a short time, and then stop engaging with Esperanto, while there knowledge of Esperanto only slowly evaporates; some of them come back many years later, but many don't).