ESPERANTO

Esperanto is until now the most widely spoken and successful constructed international auxiliary language of the world. According to the web page http://esperanto.org/us/USEJ/world/index.html#kio “Esperanto was created in 1887 by Dr. Ludwig Lazarus Zamenhof to be a second language that would allow people who speak different native languages to communicate, yet at the same time to retain their own languages and cultural identities”.

Originally, Zamenhof wished to call his creation “Internacia Lingvo” (International Language). The first book published by Dr. Zamenhof where this language was explained, was signed with the Pseudonym “Doktoro Esperanto” or doctor Esperanto, where Esperanto means “One who hopes”. People started to relate this language with Esperanto and thus this name was adopted.  

After almost 130 years, there are approx 2 million speakers of Esperanto, including more than 1000 native speakers who learnt mostly from their both esperantist parents (numbers explained in http://www.esperanto.net/veb/faq-5.html).  Most of the speakers live in Eastern Europe and in China. There are different publications in Esperanto including books, magazines and songs; there are even literary works written originally in this language. Most of the greatest books and Best Sellers are already translated to Esperanto. Zamenhof himself translated the Bible into Esperanto.  There are also radio stations that regularly broadcast in Esperanto.

Esperanto is not official language in any country. However, it exists in the education system of countries like Hungary and China. The International Academy of Science of San Marino http://www.ais-sanmarino.org/ uses Esperanto as its main language for work and for lectures. Chinese government uses Esperanto for daily news through internet sites like the Magazine “El Popola Ĉinio” http://www.espero.com.cn/ , and the News site http://esperanto.china.org.cn/. China Radio International has regular programs in Esperanto.

Among the books written in Esperanto: “Gerda Malaperis!” (Gerda disappeared!) a novella written by Claude Piron, “Abismoj” (Abysses) by Jean Forge, “Kredu Min Sinjorino!” (Believe me Madam!) by Cezaro Rossetti, “Kumeŭaŭa, la filo de la ĝangalo” (Kumewawa, the son of the Jungle) by Tibor Sekelj. Poetry in Esperanto started with Zamenhof himself. The list of poets is very long, but we can make a special mention of the Scottish writer William Auld, who was nominated for the Nobel Price of Literature for his work in “La Infana Raso” (The children’s race). Those who have interest to know more about this topic can read Wikipedia, by the way, its page in Esperanto is https://eo.wikipedia.org which has more than 235.000 articles.

Some famous people who also speak / spoke Esperanto are: Leon Tolstoy, Russian writer; Susan Polgár, Hungarian American Chess Grandmaster ; Farkas Bertalan, First Hungarian Cosmonaut;  Daniel Bovet, Swiss – Italian Pharmacologist  who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine, and also a Native Esperanto speaker; Reinhard Selten, German Economist who won the Nobel Prize in Economic Science; Franz Jonas, President of Austria between 1965 and 1974; John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, English Writer, author of “The Lord of the Rings”. It is known that Pope John Paul II did know Esperanto. During his time, Esperanto was used in his multilingual “urbi et Orbi” blessings and Vatican Radio started to broadcast regularly in Esperanto. More can be read in http://eo.radiovaticana.va/. Not many people know that the Hungarian – American Business Magnate, George Soros, not only learnt Esperanto in his Childhood from his father, but his own Family name is in Esperanto (Soros means “Will Soar”).

Esperanto is a very regular language. Its grammar is based in 16 key rules that apply without exceptions. To summarize them I will use the description in www.proel.org. All the names in Esperanto finish in -o, adjectives finish in –a, adverbs in –e and infinitive verbs in –i. the letter –j is added to form the plural. The present tense of verbs is formed adding –as, the past tense adds –is, the future tense is formed adding –os, and –us is for conditionals. Imperatives finish in –u. There are no changes for Person or number. The definite article is “la” and applies for all genders and numbers. Genders can be Masculine, Feminine and Neuter.  Numbers can be singular and plural. There is no indefinite article. Vocabulary comes mostly from Latin languages, but there is also some influence from German, Slavic languages and from Greek. With a few words it is possible to build more vocabulary adding suffixes and Prefixes.   

Today, we can find enthusiastic Esperantists who love this language and keeps it throughout different activities, like annual congresses, writing in magazines, meeting and having fun, travelling and having discussions about interesting topics using this language.  There are yet many people who do not know this language exist, or even they know that there is something called “Esperanto”, but are unable to describe it properly. And there are also those who know something about this language, but are convinced that this idea very nice at a time, already failed to achieve its goal and it will disappear soon or will always be kept by small groups of Esperantists. It is not a secret that Esperanto enjoyed great support in Eastern European countries, and the fall of the ideologies affected the support for Esperanto as alternative language, a point held by those who feel Esperanto has failed. In my opinion, Esperanto is a language that can have a “normal” life like any other language. Languages are living beings; they are born, live, grow, reproduce in other languages and dialects and eventually will die one day. Languages need people who speak them in order to live and go through their life cycle, and Esperanto has many Esperantists who are doing a good job, that is not always perceived from outside, to keep their language alive. We may believe that there is very little interest in Esperanto among non speakers, but according to https://incubator.duolingo.com/courses/eo/en/status  the number of students who enrolled for Esperanto courses online was already 400.000 six months ago, with an average of 30 people daily completing the course. Recently, this platform made available an Esperanto course for Spanish speakers. Esperanto may enjoy little support from governments in Europe and America, but enjoys a very special status and support from Chinese government who has been active promoting its use for education and information purposes. In other hand, the existence of thousands of topics in Internet written in Esperanto may be an indication that Esperantists are ready to use the World Wide Web and the new technologies. On December 15^th Esperantists from all over the world celebrate the birthday of Zamenhof.or “Zamenhof day”. This is an example of something not many people perceive, and is the existence of a culture related with Esperanto. Whether they gather to celebrate the “Zamenhofa Tago” (Day of Zamenhof) or “Zamenhofa Vespero”  (Zamenhof’s evening), this day Esperantists will meet to have a nice time in honour the legacy of Ludwig Zamenhof, a legacy that survives with Esperanto and also, you may not believe it, in those souls who refuse to accept, learn and speak a major language who imposes its supremacy over other minority languages.   

If you want to see how this article does look in Esperanto, please check the next article!