Economics of Language Choice and Conlangs

Back in 1998 Abram de Swaan wrote a fascinating two-piece article for the journal Language Problems and Language Planning called  "A Political Sociology of the World Language System (1): The Dynamics of Language Spread" and "A Political Sociology of the World Language System (2): The Unequal Exchange of Texts".

The central argument of these articles is that people choose what second language to learn based on similar "economic" considerations that they would use to choose what telecommunications network to join (or, in modern terms, what operating system to throw themselves into).

He talked about languages having a Q-value, which is the desirability of the language based on the number of native speakers and the number of people who already speak it as a second language.  When choosing a second language to learn, most people go for one that will give them the most communicative bang for their buck, in other words.

If you lived in an area where most people spoke their own indigenous language or Dutch, you would see Dutch as being an attractive option, because it would give you a greater number of other people to communicate with.  Dutch is the center of a language constellation in that region, and has a high Q-value.  However, Dutch is but a planet circling the sun in the larger constellation where the big shiny language is German.  You might decide that German is therefore more attractive.

The biggest and shiniest language of them all is, of course, English - if for no other reason than the sheer numbers of people who speak it as a second language.  However, your personal needs in your local area might lead you to choose the big, shiny language in your smaller constellation, simply because you think you, personally, will speak to more people and have a greater supply of texts in that way.

Basically, de Swaan argues that people want consumer confidence in whatever language they choose to learn in addition to their own.

The thing that struck me about his argument, although it seemed to slip de Swaan's attention completely, is how this applies to constructed or planned languages.  He did give them a passing glance, but only to point out that artificial languages to exist, not to note that the consumer argument that he had observed for natural languages applied even more-so to those that have been constructed.

How many constructed/auxiliary languages have come and gone over the years?  The big winners in the game are the ones that look like they have legs - if you know what I mean.  Klingon has an army of geeks making sure it survives, and Esperanto has numbers.  The numbers make it more attractive to anyone who might be thinking of taking up an auxiliary language instead of, say, French or Spanish.

There was, at some point, a bit of a Betamax vs VHS thing happening between Volapük and Esperanto.  Esperanto won that consumer battle.  Now people learning an auxiliary language can choose between Esperanto, Ido and Interlingua if they want an IAL spoken by more than four people - and even then, Esperanto has the numbers.

I know one of the reasons why I'm learning Esperanto* is consumer confidence.  There are, depending on your sources, somewhere between 50,000 and 2 million speakers, and the language has been around for 125 years.  I have previously suggested that it was only mildly more useful, as a second language, than Welsh - but I've changed my mind on that point.  I have some faith that learning Esperanto is not going to be a complete waste of time.  I can't say I would feel the same about the other conlangs and IALs.

The consumer confidence element of language choice applies so very clearly to constructed and auxiliary languages it's staggering.  I'll have to see if someone has written a paper about it - I'd be very surprised if they haven't, but I have a strange feeling such a paper would probably be written in either Esperanto or Interlingua...



*I am learning Esperanto, but I'm doing it very slowly.  Don't expect posts in Esperanto any time soon.