"A Handful of Kooks"

According to a feature for kids in the comics yesterday, there seem to be only two manufactured languages-Klingon and Esperanto. This "expert" said that Klingon was more widely spoken and the Esperanto has mostly died out and is only spoken by a handful of kooks.

I didn't write the feature. Any opinions on this topic or Klingon/Esperanto? I didn't know that Klingon was so widely spoken, for example. On the other hand, since the writer seemed unaware of other con-langs?, I can't be sure of his facts.

Well, I don't speak Esperanto, but I learned to read it (so I may qualify as one kook). I haven't checked lately, but the last I heard Esperanto was the most commonly spoken artificial international language.

Here's what Wikipedia says, "Esperanto has had continuous usage by a community estimated at between 100,000 and 2 million speakers for over a century, and approximately one thousand native speakers."

Of Klingon it says, "in 1996 it was considered the fastest-growing constructed language, ahead of other languages such as Tolkien's Elvish or Esperanto. While the language is widespread, mastery of the language is extremely uncommon; there are only around a dozen fluent speakers of the language."

Fastest-growing -- even if true -- isn't the same as having the most speakers.

Klingon? And people who learn Klingon aren't kooks? LOL! Who cares anyway, a handful of kooks or a truckful, they're kooks all the same. They're insignificant and irrelevant.

Um, there are one thousand people speaking a made-up language as their "native", meaning "first" language? Who are they speaking it to? They must have pretty small social circles!

Klingon?
Esperanto?

What are you, fucked?

Is anyone currently writing literature or publishing technical articles in Klingon? Is this language designed for ease of learning? Is anyone plannign to raise their kids as native Klingon speakers (presumably bilingual in something else)?