Esperanto lexicographers are individuals or groups, whether enthusiastic amateurs or trained linguists, who have produced single-language or bilingual dictionaries of Esperanto.
More than 130 Esperantists, working singly or collectively, have published such dictionaries; several of these authors are listed in the "Esperanto lexicographers" category.
In the specific case of Esperanto, most dictionary authors historically were and today still are non-specialists in the field of lexicography. A notable exception is Erich-Dieter Krause, a German professor of Indonesian, who wrote comprehensive dictionaries, both German–Esperanto (2007) and Esperanto-German (1999).
Lexicography is divided into two separate but equally important groups:
Indonesian is the official language of Indonesia. It is a standardized register of Malay, an Austronesian language that has been used as a lingua franca in the multilingual Indonesian archipelago for centuries. Indonesia is the fourth most populous nation in the world. Of its large population, the majority speak Indonesian, making it one of the most widely spoken languages in the world.
German is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol in Italy, the German-speaking Community of Belgium and Liechtenstein. It is one of the three official languages of Luxembourg and a co-official language in the Opole Voivodeship in Poland. The languages that are most similar to German are the other members of the West Germanic language branch, including Afrikaans, Dutch, English, the Frisian languages, Low German/Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, and Yiddish. There are strong similarities in vocabulary with Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, although those belong to the North Germanic group. German is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, after English.
Though most Esperanto dictionary compilers have been men, notable female Esperanto lexicographers include Adriana J. Middelkoop, who wrote Dutch–Esperanto and Esperanto–Dutch dictionaries (1971) and Ilona Koutny, chief editor of a Hungarian–Esperanto dictionary, 1996).
Dutch(Nederlands) is a West Germanic language spoken by around 24 million people as a first language and 5 million people as a second language, constituting the majority of people in the Netherlands and Belgium. It is the third-most-widely spoken Germanic language, after its close relatives English and German.
Hungarian is a Uralic language of the Ugric branch spoken in Hungary and parts of several neighbouring countries. It is the official language of Hungary and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union. Outside Hungary it is also spoken by communities of Hungarians in the countries that today make up Slovakia, western Ukraine (Subcarpathia), central and western Romania (Transylvania), northern Serbia (Vojvodina), northern Croatia and northern Slovenia.
Because compiling a dictionary demands great linguistic expertise and may be the labour of many years, most dictionary writers were only able to accomplish the feat in their elder years; however, the AustrianEugen Wüster wrote the core of his encyclopedic Esperanto–German dictionary, published in 1923, as an early-20s university student. The German Eckhard Bick, having emigrated to Denmark, published his Danish dictionary at 32.
Austria, officially the Republic of Austria, is a land-locked country in Central Europe composed of nine federated states (Bundesländer), one of which is Vienna, Austria's capital and its largest city. Austria occupies an area of 83,879 km2 (32,386 sq mi) and has a population of nearly 9 million people. It is bordered by Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. While German is the country's official language, many Austrians communicate informally in a variety of Bavarian dialects.
Eugen Wüster was an industrialist and terminologist.
Eckhard Bick is a German-born Esperantist who studied medicine in Bonn but now works as a researcher in computational linguistics. He was active in an Esperanto youth group in Bonn and in the Germana Esperanto-Junularo, a nationwide Esperanto youth federation. Since his marriage to a Danish woman he and his family live in Denmark.
Boris Grigorevich Kolker is a language teacher, translator and advocate of the international language Esperanto. He was until 1993 a Soviet and Russian citizen and since then has been a resident and citizen of the United States residing in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1985 he was awarded a Ph.D. in linguistics from the Institute of Linguistics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in Moscow.
Jan Filip was a Czech priest, doctor of theology, professor, writer, Esperantist, and lexicographer.
Gaston Waringhien was a French linguist, lexicographer, and Esperantist. He wrote poems as well as essays and books on linguistics. He was chairman of the Akademio de Esperanto.
Sometimes, too, a collective has compiled a dictionary. An example is the editorial committee of the Japanese Esperanto Institute, under the guidance of Konisi Gaku and Gotoo Hitosi. Founded in 1990, the committee eventually published its Esperanto–Japanese dictionary in 2006.
Related Research Articles
Esperanto is the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. It was created by L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, when he published a book detailing the language, Unua Libro, under the pseudonym "Dr. Esperanto". The word esperanto translates into English as "one who hopes".
L. L. Zamenhof developed Esperanto in the 1870s and 80s and published the first publication about it, Unua Libro, in 1887. The number of Esperanto speakers has grown gradually since then, although it has not had much support from governments and international organizations and has sometimes been outlawed or otherwise suppressed.
Esperanto culture refers to the shared cultural experience of the Esperantujo, or Esperanto-speaking community. Despite being a constructed language, Esperanto has a history dating back to the late 19th century, and shared cultural social mores have developed among its speakers. Some of these can be traced back to the initial ideas of the language's creator, Ludwig Zamenhof, including the theory that a global second language would foster international communication. Others have developed over time, as the language has allowed different national and linguistic cultures to blend together.
Ido is a constructed language, derived from Reformed Esperanto, created to be a universal second language for speakers of diverse backgrounds. Ido was specifically designed to be grammatically, orthographically, and lexicographically regular, and above all easy to learn and use. In this sense, Ido is classified as a constructed international auxiliary language. It is the most successful of many Esperanto derivatives, called Esperantidos.
Dr. Esperanto's International Language, commonly referred to as Unua Libro, is an 1887 book by L. L. Zamenhof, in which the author first introduced and described the constructed language Esperanto. First published in Russian on July 26 [O.S. July 14] 1887, the publication of Unua Libro marks the formal beginning of the Esperanto movement.
Volapük is a constructed language, created in 1879 and 1880 by Johann Martin Schleyer, a Roman Catholic priest in Baden, Germany. Schleyer felt that God had told him in a dream to create an international language. Volapük conventions took place in 1884 (Friedrichshafen), 1887 (Munich) and 1889 (Paris). The first two conventions used German, and the last conference used only Volapük. In 1889, there were an estimated 283 clubs, 25 periodicals in or about Volapük, and 316 textbooks in 25 languages; at that time the language claimed nearly a million adherents. Volapük was largely displaced in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Esperanto.
Sir James Augustus Henry Murray, FBA was a Scottish lexicographer and philologist. He was the primary editor of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) from 1879 until his death.
Norvega Esperantista Ligo was founded in 1911. As the Norwegian arm of the Esperanto movement, its aim is to spread knowledge and use of the international language Esperanto. The league has a modest size of a couple of hundred members, and work done within NEL is mostly voluntary. The youth wing of NEL is Norvega Junularo Esperantista.
The word base of Esperanto was originally defined in Unua Libro, published by L. L. Zamenhof in 1887. It contained around 900 root words. The rules of the language allow speakers to borrow words as needed, recommending only that they look for the most international words, and that they borrow one basic word and derive others from it, rather than borrowing many words with related meanings. In 1894, Zamenhof published the first Esperanto dictionary, Universala vortaro, which was written in five languages and supplied a larger set of root words.
Ido, like Esperanto, is a constructed international auxiliary language.
Hindrik Jan Bulthuis was a Dutch customs official, author, and translator of more than thirty works into Esperanto. One of his novels, Idoj de Orfejo is listed in William Auld's Basic Esperanto Reading List.
Katherine, Catherine, and other variations are feminine names. They are popular in Christian countries because of their derivation from the name of one of the first Christian saints, Catherine of Alexandria.
The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien, written originally in English, has since been translated, with varying degrees of success, into dozens of other languages. Tolkien, an expert in Germanic philology, scrutinized those that were under preparation during his lifetime, and had comments that reflect both the translation process and his work. To aid translators, and because he was unhappy with some choices made by early translators such as Åke Ohlmarks, Tolkien wrote his Guide to the Names in The Lord of the Rings in 1967.
Montagu Christie Butler was a British academic, librarian, lexicographer, musician, and Esperantist. A winner of several prizes at the Royal Academy of Music in London, he was a harpist and a versatile music teacher skilled in playing various musical instruments, as well as a teacher of voice and of musical composition.
Michel Duc Goninaz was a French Esperantist known worldwide for his 2002 revision of La Plena Ilustrita Vortaro de Esperanto.
Gaku Konishi was a Japanese physics professor at Kwansei Gakuin University and Esperantist.
The initiator of Esperanto, L. L. Zamenhof, translated the entire Hebrew Bible into Esperanto. His translation has been much admired by Esperantists and is widely held up as a model or exemplar for other Esperanto authors and translators. Other translators have also edited and published Esperanto versions of the New Testament and Apocrypha.
Árni Böðvarsson was an Icelandic educator, grammarian, and dictionary editor. He edited the first standard dictionary of Icelandic, co-edited a Russian-Icelandic dictionary, and was also an Esperantist, editor of an Icelandic-Esperanto dictionary, a long-time member of the Universal Esperanto Association (UEA), co-founder of the Reykjavík Esperanto society, and secretary of the Icelandic Esperanto Association.
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