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Some people are wondering why we didn’t choose a more “politically neutral” language, such as Loglan or Lojban.

To answer that question, we must define what “politically neutral” means.

Politically neutral supposed to mean that something is free of political bias. However, there is no real way of measuring such criteria, because it falls into the realm of subjective factors. After all, a Chinese or Japanese person may not object to a Euro-centric auxlang, because personally they don’t have anything against the concept.

Once again, we have to look at this objectively, and what we’ll find is that (with regards to auxiliary languages) what people refer to, is the VOCABULARY not being neutral, not the entire langauge. No one can take issue with Ido’s or Interlingua’s grammatic structure, because that just wouldn’t make any sense. The fact that both of these languages use common grammatical forms that are present in most, if not all, of the control languages they are based on, is a testament to their neutrality.

So, the next question we have to ask is “Are auxiliary languages, that are based on Euro-centric vocabularies, neutral enough for the rest of the world?”

We happen to think that the answer is yes, and here is why…

Both, Ido and Interlingua vocabulary (and to a certain extent Esperanto) are based on Latin and Greek roots, which happen to be the foundation of science in the modern world. Speakers of non-European languages the world over are learning and using these scientific terms. When a speaker of non-European languages acquires this vocabulary, they automatically enter the same exact playing field speakers of European languages operate in.

Since grammar cannot possess political bias, and since everyone in the world is acquiring the same Greco-Latin vocabulary anyway, that means that Euro-centric auxiliary languages ARE in fact politically neutral, although they maybe not be as neutral as they could be.

Unless we erase all prior scientific knowledge, by erasing all related words that originate from Greco-Latin roots, there is no way for us to be politically neutral.

Except…

Except if we consider creating a language based on pure logic, in which case we would end up with something like Loglan or Lojban. These languages are definitely logical and are probably more neutral then the Euro-centric auxlangs, but their vocabularies still contain respelled versions of many Euro-centric root words.

It is true that the vocabulary of Loglan and Lojban are drawn from languages with the statistically highest number of speakers, like Chinese and Urdu, but this list also includes languages, like Russian, Spanish and English which Ido and Interlingua are also based on. Additionally, Loglan and Lojban are admittedly more of an experiment for scientists and linguists, then a desirable communication medium, despite the fact that they are usable for that purpose.

So, there you have it.

Loglan or Lojban might be useful if some major country, like China, would object to using a Euro-centric auxlang for international communication, but if the fact that Esperanto has penetrated Asian countries is any indication, we already know the answer to that.

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