Esperantists often argue Esperanto as an ethnically neutral means of communication. However, it is often accused of being Eurocentric. This is most often noted in regard to the vocabulary, but applies equally to the orthography, phonology, grammar, and semantics, all of which are thoroughly European. The vocabulary, for example, is about two-thirds Romance and one-third Germanic; the syntax is Romance; and the phonology and semantics are Slavic. Critics argue that a truly neutral language would draw its vocabulary from a much wider variety of languages, so as not to give unfair advantage to speakers of any of them. Although a truly representative sampling of the world's thousands of languages would be unworkable, a derivation from, say, the Romance, Semitic, Indic, Bantu, and Chinese languages would strike many as being fairer than Esperanto-like solutions.[citation needed] See Color argument for more information.

There are two common defenses to this: One is to admit that Esperanto is not absolutely neutral in the sense that everyone can learn it with equal effort, but that nevertheless it is fairer than the current system, since everyone makes a step towards common ground, even if the steps are not equally sized.

Critics reply that the steps required vary substantially, and that Esperanto merely substitutes European-language speakers for English speakers as the advantaged group.

Another response is to point out similarities of Esperanto to non-European languages. Esperanto's agglutinative morphology in particular is said to make its grammar closer to many non-Indo-European languages, such as the Turkic and Bantu languages.

Critics reply that Esperanto is not truly agglutinative, since it forms only words by agglutination. The agglutinative languages form phrases and frequently even sentences in this way. In fact, Esperanto's morphology is much like heavily affixing European languages such as German, only more regular. The main non-Indo-European aspect is that the accusative plural inflection is formed by a sequence of the accusative and plural suffixes, rather than by using a separate portmanteau suffix, but this is a very minor part of what makes up a language. In other aspects, Esperanto is biased towards the European languages.

On the other hand Slovio doesn't claim to be ethnically neutral. In order to be comprehensible without learning to the maximum possible number of speakers, Slovio is intentionally biased towards a narrow group of languages, the Slavic group of languages which is the largest group of European languages. While Slovio is just as easy to learn for most inhabitants of the EArth as Esperanto, unlike Esperanto it is not isolated from reality but has a natural group of some 400 million people who understand it without learning.

So Slovio may be the ideal compromise between English, Chinese and Esperanto. As easy and as regular as Esperanto, yet having a huge 400 million base of passive speakers.

While Slovio is just as easy to learn for most inhabitants of the EArth as Esperanto

Slovio is more difficult than Esperanto. Esperanto has got just one set of suffixes, while Slovio always has at least two - to suit both consonant-ending and vowel-ending roots.

unlike Esperanto it is not isolated from reality but has a natural group of some 400 million people who understand it without learning

Both Slovio and Esperanto are not neutral, but Slovio breaks its neutrality much more than Esperanto by being understood by a privileged group of 400 million people. The goal of a fair international language, however, is to privilege no group of people - and although Esperanto fails to reach this goal too, it is closer to it at least.

So Slovio may be the ideal compromise between English, Chinese and Esperanto.

Yes, an ideal compromise between English speakers, Chinese speakers and Esperanto speakers - to be all ruled by Slavs. Right?

As easy and as regular as Esperanto, yet having a huge 400 million base of passive speakers.

So to sum up, Slovio is less easy, less regular and less neutral than Esperanto.

The only practical application of neutrality in linguistics can be creation of an equally useless language.

Or an equally fair one. The practical application of worldwide peace is also zero today - yet it doesn't imply we should give up this idea.

Equality by means of suppression of natural advantages is not democracy, it is bolshevism -- and this idea should be condemned.

An equally fair international language wouldn't suppress the advantages of natural languages. Natural languages would continue to be used - among their respective native speakers. An equally fair international language would just not allow to use some unlearnable advantages of natural langauges as a tool for suppression of non-native speakers.

There is no more widely known word for girl than "girl".
There is no more widely known word for gold than "gold".
There is no more widely known word for dog than "dog".
There is no more widely known word for god than "god".
There is no more widely known word for smile than "smile".
There are no more widely known words for one, two, and three than "one", "two", and "three".
etc.

If a universal auxlang abandons these words in favor of less widely known just because they give somebody natural advantage, then authors of this language was created by chauvinists.

There is no more widely known word for girl than "girl".

There is one: "nu hai"

There is no more widely known word for gold than "gold".

There is one: "jin"

There is no more widely known word for dog than "dog".

There is one: "quan"

There is no more widely known word for god than "god".

There is one: "shen"

There is no more widely known word for smile than "smile".

There is one: "wan"

There are no more widely known words for one, two, and three than "one", "two", and "three".

There are some: "yi", "er", "san"

---

Or maybe my statements given above are not true. Who knows? Even the estimators of numbers of speakers don't. Anyway, the English words are not universal so obviously that it would be chauvinistic not to use them in an international language. It would be chauvinistic not to use a feature that is used by more than 50% of the mankind, but in most cases, the world's natural languages are just completely different from each other.

Totally independent and neutral language would be of such vocabulary and grammar construction that its words and grammar would have no likeness with any of existing language in the world.

How many combinations we could do with alphabet consisting of, say, 25, or 26 letters (or more if it's needed) ?

INSIYD ER-PLEYN.

-Wot du yu wont iit? Nuambr wuan or nuambr tu?
-Wot iz nuambr wuan?
-Nuambr wuan iz biif widx pteytq qnd piiz.
-Wot iz nuambr tu?
-Nuambr tu iz cxikn widx tmeytq sohs qnd riys.
-Pliiz giv mii nuambr tu.
-Wot du yu wont drink? Tii or kofi?
-Kofi pliiz. Blaek. No milk, no sxugr.
-Iz dxaet ohl?
-Pliiz giv mii olsoe mor buatr.
-------------------------------
-Wiy duaz er-pleyn sxeyk?
-Uwtsiyd iz muacx wind.
-Wot kuantri iz uandr uwq er-pleyn?
-Dxaet iz Qmerikq.
-Wot iz neym dxaet big siti uandr er-pleyn?
-Dxaet iz Nu York.
-Wen wil wii laend?
-Wii wil laend fifti minit from nuw. (=Wii wil laend in fifti minit.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HOTEL.

-Wii lukfor ruum. Du yu haev wuan empti ruum pliiz? (=Du yu haev eni empti ruum? =Du yu haev ruum?)
-Yes Iy du. (=Yes, Iy du haev ruum). Huw meni piipl? (= Huwmuacx piipl? = Wot nuambr piipl?)
-Fohr piipl. Miy wumn, Iy, qnd uwq tu cxiyld.
-Iy du haev txri ruum. Tu ruum aar uap-sterz, qnd wuan ruum iz duwn-sterz.
(uap-sterz = qbuav gruwnd flor; duwn-sterz = on gruwnd flor or uandr gruwnd flor).
-Duaz duwn-sterz ruum haev windoe?
-Yes it duaz haev windoe, buat it iz oenli veri smohl windoe.
-Wot kaen wii sii txru windoe?
-Yu kaen sii no txing txru dxaet windoe.
-Wii du not wont duwn-sterz ruum. Huw meni piipl kaen sliip insiyd uap-sterz ruum?
-Wuan ruum duaz haev tu smohl bed. Uadxr ruum duaz haev wuan laarj bed for tu piipl.
-Du yu haev hot sxuwr? (=Iz dxer hot sxuwr?)
-Yes dxer iz hot sxuwr, buat it iz not insiyd ruum. Sxuwr iz insiyd hohl.
-Huwmuacx muani iz it for wuan niyt?
-Fiftiin dolr for wuan ruum for wuan niyt. Txrrti dolr for tu ruum.
-Wil yu giv uas olsoe kliin tuwl qnd soep?
-Iy wil giv yu soep, buat yu haevtq pey wuan dolr mor for evri tuwl.
-Kaen wii sii uap-sterz ruum? (=Wii wont sii ruum! Kaen wii sii? Wii wont luk.)
-Oekey. Kuam widx mii!

DXEY GOE UAP-STERZ. RUUM IZ VERI DRRTI. SXIIT IZ DRRTI. INSIYD RUUM AAR MENI BUAG.

-Txaenk yu, buat wii du not wont dxis ruum. It iz drrti. Wii wil luk insiyd uadxr hotel. Biybiy!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gosh, I did not know that Mark Hucko was corrupting English as well. "Earth" is Qrrtx in it! We should acknowledge that he was relatively delicate with Slavic languages.

China alone has as many English speakers as all the United States together. Of course they are terrible English speakers, but obviously they know words like "girl", "gold" etc.

We can be sure that these words would be universally understood in all the countries of Europe, both Americas, Greater India, Japan, half of Africa etc. I would estimate the number "recognizers" for these words as about 75% percent of the Earth's population. They have no serious rivals. Every year the number of English speakers and the quality of their language becomes higher.

How many combinations we could do with alphabet consisting of, say, 25, or 26 letters (or more if it's needed) ?

You don't have to be fixed on letters. There already was created "binary Esperanto". It's very neutral.

I would say the most spread words in the world come from russian :

- who doesn't know the words : vodka, KGB, kalashnikov, etc.

They are more spread round the world than "girl" or "gold", or "dog" ....

You think a Cantonese or Shanghainese speaker understands "jin" and "quan"? The words in those languages are completely different, even though etymologically related.

China alone has as many English speakers as all the United States together.

I would estimate the number "recognizers" for these words as about 75% percent of the Earth's population.

What an imagination you have! Any other dreams last night?

I agree with iopq. The Chinese "dialects" aren't mutually intelligible. Sure, even without the southern dialects the Mandarin Chinese remains one of the most spoken languages, but still it's interesting to note that it didn't manage to become dominant within the very China even. Chinese hardly can be considered widely spoken language.

In fact it's possible that with impoving of public education in China the English language will become its lingua franca. In the Netherlands English already is more widely understood than Dutch, and in the future many other countries will have this situation. Actually the only country where English seems to lose popularity is the United States.

who doesn't know the words : vodka, KGB, kalashnikov, etc.

The Poles won't agree with you about vodka. And I rather tend to share this opinion. It's more likely that vodka comes from Polish wódić (to burn), than from voda. Compare with Ukrainian horylka, English brandy, 'Indian' firewater.

I remember I was reading one book about the English language published in the USSR in the 1970's. It was said there that due to the recent stupendous achievements of the Soviet science, the English language had got lately many borrowings from Russian. Among such borrowing it listed the word synchrophasotron. Personally I think it's the best universally understood Russian word

Vasmer disagrees, he has vodka coming from voda

.... and grain as well.