I thought even the AP story was funny
That said, I think it is unfortunate that someone's head is going to roll for what was, basically, a harmless joke.
It is interesting; even some linguists (such as my university's expert on syntax) feel that any man-made language is not a "real" language.
I personally think Esperanto is interesting for Linguists to study, since Esperanto was developed before modern understanding of syntax and phonology existed. For example we can look to see how this language has developed a syntax, even though Zamenhof did not really sepcify one in his language. For example, Esperanto is a SVO (generally head-final) language, something Zamenhof never specified.
Sorry I didn't see this earlier
All too much we become set in our thoughts. We have the same thoughts about the same topics from the same direction. This seems like it would be especially true in any totalitarian-like state. Azar Nifisi shows that we can wiggle some room into our views by extending outside of our usual repetoir of naratives. She chose books where the authors had no intention of applying to an Iranian theocratic regime. Yet, her and her students found great meaning to their daily lives and situations.
Nifisi chose books that represented a world of difference to her students. Ironically, we could probably not get the same depth from Gatsby or Daisy that these students did as we are well aware of a world of indulgences. Her group was able to see their own society from a view Fitzgerald unintentially created. It's this introspection that literature can cause in completely unintented ways that make it so valuable for some and so feared by others. If you read the interview you will see that the censors had a much different opinion of what shouldn't be read and what characters didn't fit with their culture. It wasn't the overtly sexual but the characters that thought and were individualistic.
They can see how Humbert's motives are similar to the mullahs. This isn't some surface analysis. It isn't like reading 1984 and trying to point out how the United States is like a Orwell's nightmare. Their analysis has an interesting depth to it that goes beyound the emotional surface. What books would we read to draw the same deep parallels?