Kiu estas la plejbona lingvo por lernos?

Tiu mesaĝo aperas ĉe "More Intelligent Life" retpaĝo (The Economist), en ĝi vi povas elekti kiu estas via preferita stranga lingvo, tie estas multe da elektoj kaj unu el ili estas Esperanto, do, iru tien kaj elektu kiu estas via preferita stranga lingvo, mi, kompreneble, elektas Esperanto, ĉar fakte, nuntempe, Esperanto estas mia preferita "stranga" lingvo, portugala de Brasilo estas mia denaska, kaj mi ankaŭ studas japanan, hispanan kaj la anglan.

In the fourth in our series of Big Questions, we invited six writers to make the case for the language they thought most worth learning. The Economist's Robert Lane Greene introduces the series. He's well qualified to do so. Our editor asked him how many languages he spoke. "Six," he said, "and I'm conversant with another three." As he points out, if you've read this far, you already know the most useful global language. If you were to learn one other, he recommends French.

Over the next couple of weeks we will be publishing online the arguments made by the other five contributors. But voting starts now. Perhaps you will agree with Daniel Franklin, The Economist's executive and business editor, that after English, Spanish is the most-used international language, or with Simon Long, The Economist's Banyan columnist, that learning Chinese makes the best economic and political sense. Or maybe you will be persuaded by Josie Delap, who is Middle East and Africa editor for The Economist online, of the beauties of Arabic. Helen Joyce, the magazine's São Paulo correspondent, argues that Brazilian Portuguese is the one rational choice and our own editor, Tim de Lisle, says Latin should win out because it has been indirectly useful every day of his career.

Have your say by voting in the poll below. Or if you think there's a case to be made for Urdu, Danish, Swahili, Italian, Russian or any of the other 6,900 languages in the world, please tell us why.

El More intelligent Life