The Esperanto collection at Davidson College is the largest in North Carolina. Those who learned the language in the early years began calling it simply, Esperanto. Zamenhof intended the language to be used for facilitating communication among peoples and nations of different language backgrounds. Most of all, he wanted Esperanto to be a linguistic platform where people of different native languages could meet on a level playing field. When two people from different language backgrounds must communicate, one usually uses the other's language.
Ethnic languages have different status and power.
Native speakers of languages of greater status have a clear advantage in communicating, making business deals, etc. Since it is a planned language, Esperanto is quite regular. Learning any language takes considerable work, but a student of Esperanto can begin meaningful communication in the language rather quickly. Esperanto is very much alive today. A young speaker of Esperanto can take advantage of the Pasporta Servo, a service with participants in 80 countries who lodge and feed young people free of charge for a few days, IF they speak Esperanto.