The challenge is getting the first hundred million speakers. People have been promoting Esperanto for more than a hundred years; maybe one million people speak it now. Those supporting the Promise Project don’t want to wait another hundred years. Many people around the world like the idea of an easy-to-learn, neutral, international language, but don’t want to waste time learning a language that hardly anyone speaks. So, instead of asking people to learn Esperanto now, when it’s usefulness is limited, we are asking people to promise that they will learn Esperanto after one hundred million people make the same promise. After we have collected 100 000 000 promises, we will contact everyone to tell them how they can join the many millions of people learning Esperanto at the same time. If 100 000 000 people are learning at the same time, nobody’s wasting their time.
In the language, the word “Esperanto” means “someone hoping”. With the strategy of first collecting promises, we think we have a good chance to turn the hope into reality.
Do you think this is a good strategy?