Daniel Pink responds to a reader's suggestion that schools teach Esperanto to fight American monolingualism. While Esperanto is easy to learn, Pink doubts it's the best approach and invites disagreement on whether it would actually boost multilingualism in the U.S.
Hey, this is Daniel Pink. I write the Why Not column for The Washington Post, where we propose bold, unconventional ideas for remaking our country, our organizations, and our lives. We've gotten thousands of ideas from readers all over America. Here's one from a reader in Cleveland who asks, why not teach the construct— the constructed language Esperanto in our schools? Esperanto is easy to learn and can be a bridge to other languages and help break America's monolingüistic habit. All right, I am all for Crushing America's monolinguistic habit. Reader from Cleveland. I'm not sure if Esperanto is the way to do that. I think there might be other ways to encourage multilingualism in America. So I'm going to have to actually give the thumbs down, or whatever the thumbs down is in Esperanto, to this idea. But you might disagree out there. Tell us what you think below.
