An Esperanto speaker, recorded in the United States.
L. L. Zamenhof developed Esperanto in the 1870s and '80s. Unua Libro, the first print discussion of the language, appeared in 1887. The number of Esperanto speakers have increased gradually since then, without much support from governments and international organizations. Its use has, in some instances, been outlawed or otherwise suppressed.
Around 1880, while in Moscow and approximately simultaneously with working on Esperanto, Zamenhof made an aborted attempt to standardize Yiddish, based on his native Bialystok (Northeastern) dialect, as a unifying language for the Jews of the Russian Empire. He even used a Latin alphabet, with the letters ć, h́, ś, ź (the same as in early drafts of Esperanto, later ĉ, ĥ, ŝ, ĵ) and ě for schwa. However, he concluded there was no future for such a project, and abandoned it, dedicating himself to Esperanto as a unifying language for all humankind.[1]Paul Wexler proposed that Esperanto was not an arbitrary pastiche of major European languages but a Latinate relexification of Yiddish, a native language of its founder.[2] This model is generally unsupported by mainstream linguists.[3]
Zamenhof would later say that he had dreamed of a world language since he was a child. At first he considered a revival of Latin, but after learning it in school he decided it was too complicated to be a common means of international communication. When he learned English, he realised that verb conjugations were unnecessary, and that grammatical systems could be much simpler than he had expected. He still had the problem of memorising a large vocabulary, until he noticed two Russian signs labelled Швейцарская (švejtsarskaja, a porter's lodge – from швейцарšvejtsar, a porter) and Кондитерская (konditerskaja, a confectioner's shop – from кондитерkonditer, a confectioner). He then realised that a judicious use of affixes could greatly decrease the number of root words needed for communication. He chose to take his vocabulary from Romance and Germanic, the languages that were most widely taught in schools around the world and would therefore be recognisable to the largest number of people.
Zamenhof taught an early version of the language to his high-school classmates. Then, for several years, he worked on translations and poetry to refine his creation. In 1895 he wrote, "I worked for six years perfecting and testing the language, even though it had seemed to me in 1878 that it was already completely ready." When he was ready to publish, the Czarist censors would not allow it. Stymied, he spent his time in translating works such as the Bible and Shakespeare. This enforced delay led to continued improvement. In July 1887 he published his Unua Libro (First Book), a basic introduction to the language. This was essentially the language spoken today.
Unua Libro to Declaration of Boulogne (1887–1905)
Unua Libro was published in 1887. At first the movement grew most in the Russian empire and eastern Europe, but soon spread to western Europe and beyond: to Argentina in 1889; to Canada in 1901; to Algeria, Chile, Japan, Mexico, and Peru in 1903; to Tunisia in 1904; and to Australia, the United States, Guinea, Indochina, New Zealand, Tonkin, and Uruguay in 1905.
In its first years Esperanto was used mainly in publications by Zamenhof and early adopters like Antoni Grabowski, in extensive correspondence (mostly now lost), in the magazine La Esperantisto, published from 1889 to 1895 and only occasionally in personal encounters.
In 1894, under pressure from Wilhelm Trompeter, the publisher of the magazine La Esperantisto, and some other leading users, Zamenhof reluctantly put forward a radical reform to be voted on by readers. He proposed the reduction of the alphabet to 22 letters (by eliminating the accented letters and most of their sounds), the change of the plural to -i, the use of a positional accusative instead of the ending -n, the removal of the distinction between adjectives and adverbs, the reduction of the number of participles from six to two, and the replacement of the table of correlatives with more Latinate words or phrases. These reforms were overwhelmingly rejected, but some were picked up in subsequent reforms (such as Ido) and criticisms of the language. In the following decade Esperanto spread into western Europe, especially France. By 1905 there were already 27 magazines being published (Auld 1988).
A small international conference was held in 1904, leading to the first world congress in August 1905 in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France. There were 688 Esperanto speakers present from 20 nationalities. At this congress, Zamenhof officially resigned his leadership of the Esperanto movement, as he did not want personal prejudice against himself (or anti-Semitism) to hinder the progress of the language. He proposed a declaration on founding principles of the Esperanto movement, which the attendees of the congress endorsed.
Declaration of Boulogne to present (1905–present)
World congresses have been held every year since 1905, except during the two World Wars.
The autonomous territory of Neutral Moresnet, between Belgium and Germany, had a sizable proportion of Esperanto-speakers among its small and multiethnic population. There was a proposal to make Esperanto its official language. In 1908, it was eventually accepted alongside Dutch, German, and French.[citation needed] There was also a large Esperanto group led by Anna Tuschinski in the Free City of Danzig.[4][5]
In the early 1920s, a great opportunity seemed to arise for Esperanto when the Iranian delegation to the League of Nations proposed that it be adopted for use in international relations, following a report by Nitobe Inazō, an official delegate of League of Nations during the 13th World Congress of Esperanto in Prague.[6] Ten delegates accepted the proposal with only one voice against, the French delegate, Gabriel Hanotaux, who employed France's Council veto privilege to squash all League attempts at the recognition of Esperanto, starting on the first vote on 18 December 1920 and continuing through the next three years.[citation needed] Hanotaux did not like how the French language was losing its position as the international language and saw Esperanto as a threat. However, two years later the League recommended that its member states include Esperanto in their educational curricula. The French retaliated by banning all instruction in Esperanto in French schools and universities.[citation needed] The French Ministry of Instruction said that acceptance of Esperanto would mean that "French and English would perish and that the literary standard of the world would be debased".[citation needed] Nonetheless, many people see the 1920s as the heyday of the Esperanto movement.
In 1941, the Soviet Union started performing mass arrests, deportations, and killings of many Esperantists and their relatives for fear of an anti-nationalistic movement, but it was interrupted by the Nazi invasion.[7]
Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf[8] that Esperanto was created as a universal language to unite the Jewish diaspora.
The creation of a Jew-freeNational German Esperanto League was not enough to placate the Nazis. The teaching of Esperanto was not allowed in German prisoner-of-war camps during World War II. Esperantists sometimes were able to get around the ban by convincing guards that they were teaching Italian, the language of Germany's closest ally.
A Soviet calendar page for 22 October 1935 including the Esperanto oktobro among other translations.
In the early years of the Soviet Union, Esperanto was given a measure of government support, and an officially recognized Soviet Esperanto Association came into being.[9] However, in 1937, Stalin reversed this policy and the use of Esperanto was effectively banned until 1956.[9] While Esperanto itself was not enough cause for execution, its use was extended among Jews or trade unionists and encouraged contacts with foreigners.[citation needed]
Fascist Italy, on the other hand, made some efforts of promoting tourism in Italy through Esperanto leaflets and appreciated the similarities of Italian and Esperanto.
The Cold War, especially in the 1950s and 1960s, put a damper on the Esperanto movement as well, as there were fears on both sides that Esperanto could be used for enemy propaganda. However, the language experienced something of a renaissance in the 1970s and spread to new parts of the world, such as its veritable explosion in popularity in Iran in 1975. By 1991 there were enough African Esperantists to warrant a pan-African congress. The language continues to spread, although it is not officially recognised by any country, and is part of the state educational curriculum of only a few.
In 2022 an Esperanto club was founded on the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station making Antarctica the last continent with organized Esperantists.[11]
The Declaration of Boulogne (1905) limited changes to Esperanto. That declaration stated, among other things, that the basis of the language should remain the Fundamento de Esperanto ("Foundation of Esperanto", a group of early works by Zamenhof), which is to be binding forever: nobody has the right to make changes to it. The declaration also permits new concepts to be expressed as the speaker sees fit, but it recommends doing so in accordance with the original style.
Many Esperantists believe this declaration stabilising the language is a major reason why the Esperanto speaker community grew beyond the levels attained by other constructed languages and has developed a flourishing culture. Other constructed languages have been hindered from developing a stable speaking community by continual tinkering. Also, many developers of constructed languages have been possessive of their creation and have worked to prevent others from contributing to the language. One such ultimately disastrous case was Schleyer's Volapük. In contrast, Zamenhof declared that "Esperanto belongs to the Esperantists", and moved to the background once the language was published, allowing others to share in the early development of the language.
The grammatical description in the earliest books was somewhat vague, so a consensus on usage (influenced by Zamenhof's answers to some questions) developed over time within boundaries set by the initial outline (Auld 1988). Even before the Declaration of Boulogne, the language was remarkably stable; only one set of lexical changes were made in the first year after publication, namely changing "when", "then", "never", "sometimes", "always" from kian, tian, nenian, ian, ĉian to kiam, tiam, neniam etc., to avoid confusion with the accusative forms of kia "what sort of", tia "that sort of", etc. Thus Esperanto achieved a stability of structure and grammar similar to that which natural languages enjoy by virtue of their native speakers and established bodies of literature. One could learn Esperanto without having it move from underfoot. Changes could and did occur in the language, but only by acquiring widespread popular support; there was no central authority making arbitrary changes, as happened with Volapük and some other languages.
Modern Esperanto usage may in fact depart from that originally described in the Fundamento, though the differences are largely semantic (involving changed meaning of words) rather than grammatical or phonological. The translation given for "I like this one", in the sample phrases in the main Esperanto article, offers a significant example. According to the Fundamento, Mi ŝatas ĉi tiun would in fact have meant "I esteem this one". The traditional usage is Tiu ĉi plaĉas al mi (literally, "this one is pleasing to me"), which reflects the phrasing of most European languages (French celui-ci me plaît, Spanish éste me gusta, Russian это мне нравится [eto mnye nravitsya], German Das gefällt mir, Italian mi piace). However, the original Ĉi tiu plaĉas al mi continues to be commonly used.
Esperanto has not fragmented into regional dialects through natural language use. This may be because it is the language of daily communication for only a small minority of its speakers. However at least three other factors work against dialects, namely the centripetal force of the Fundamento, the unifying influence of the Plena Vortaro and its successors, which exemplified usage from the works of Zamenhof and leading writers, and the transnational ambitions of the speech community itself. Slang and jargon have developed to some extent, but such features interfere with universal communication – the whole point of Esperanto – and so have generally been avoided.
However, in the early twentieth century numerous reform projects were proposed. Almost all of these Esperantidos were stillborn, but the very first, Ido ("offspring"), had significant success for several years. Ido was proposed by the Delegation for the Adoption of an International Auxiliary Language in Paris in October 1907. Its main reforms were in bringing the alphabet, semantics, and some grammatical features into closer alignment with the Romance languages, as well as removal of adjectival agreement and the accusative case except when necessary. At first, a number of leading Esperantists put their support behind the Ido project, but the movement stagnated and declined, first with the accidental death of one of its main proponents and later as people proposed further changes, and the number of current speakers is estimated at between 250 and 5,000. However, Ido has proven to be a rich source of Esperanto vocabulary.
Some more focused reform projects, affecting only a particular feature of the language, have gained a few adherents. One of these is riism, which modifies the language to incorporate non-sexist language and gender-neutral pronouns. However, most of these projects are specific to individual nationalities (riism from English speakers, for example), and the only changes that have gained acceptance in the Esperanto community have been the minor and gradual bottom-up reforms discussed in the last section.
Esperanto is credited with influencing or inspiring several later competing language projects, such as Occidental (1922) and Novial (1928). These always lagged far behind Esperanto in their popularity. By contrast, Interlingua (1951) has greatly surpassed Ido in terms of popularity. It shows little or no Esperanto influence, however.[12]
1878: Zamenhof celebrates the completion of his universal language project, Lingwe Uniwersala, with high school friends.
1879: Zamenhof attends medical school in Moscow. His father burns his language project while he's away. Meanwhile Schleyer publishes a sketch of Volapük, the first constructed international auxiliary language to acquire a number of speakers. Many Volapük clubs will later switch to Esperanto.
1881: Zamenhof returns to Warsaw to continue medical school, and starts to recreate his project.
1887: Zamenhof marries. In July, with his wife's financial help, he publishes Unua Libro, the first publication introducing Esperanto, in Russian. Polish, German, and French translations are published later that year.
1888: Leo Tolstoy becomes an early supporter. Zamenhof publishes Dua Libro, as well as the first English-language edition of Unua Libro, which proved to be filled with errors.
1889: The second English-language edition of Unua Libro is published in January, translated by Richard H. Geoghegan, and becomes the standard English translation. Henry Phillips Jr., of the American Philosophical Society, also translates Unua Libro into English. The first volume of La Esperantisto is published in September. The language begins to be called Esperanto.
1894: Zamenhof, reacting to pressure, puts a radical reform to a vote, but it is overwhelmingly rejected. That version of Esperanto is often referred to as Esperanto 1894.
1895: La Esperantisto ceases publication. Lingvo Internacia begins publication in December.
1907: Twelve members of the British parliament nominate Zamenhof for the Nobel Peace Prize. The Ĉekbanko Esperantista (Esperantist Checking Bank) is founded in London, using the spesmilo, an auxiliary Esperanto currency based on the gold standard. A committee organised by Louis Couturat in Paris proposes the Ido reform project, which provides significant competition for Esperanto until the First World War.
1924: The League of Nations recommends that member states implement Esperanto as an auxiliary language.
1920s: Offices of the Brazilian Ministry of Education use Esperanto for their international correspondence. Lu Xun, the founder of modern Chinese literature, becomes a supporter of Esperanto. Montagu C. Butler is the first to raise Esperanto-speaking children.
1933/34: Reorganisation of the international (neutral) Esperanto movement, under the name UEA.
1935: Kalocsay and Waringhien publish the influential Plena Gramatiko de Esperanto (Complete Grammar of Esperanto). Esperanto and other planned languages de facto prohibited in Nazi Germany[13] in May.
1936: All Esperanto organisations in Nazi Germany prohibited in June through the prohibition of the UEA and SAT in June by Heinrich Himmler.
1937: Leaders of the Esperanto organisation in the Soviet Union arrested; Esperanto activities made impossible.
1938: The World Esperanto Youth Organisation TEJO is founded.
1939–1945: In World War II many countries are occupied by Germany and the Soviet Union, where Esperanto organisations often were prohibited or Esperanto activities were limited in other ways.
1948: The railway workers' association is refounded as IFEF, the Internacia Fervojista Esperanto-Federacio (International Railway Workers' Esperanto Federation) to foster the use of Esperanto in the administration of the railroads of the world (so far, of Eurasia).
1966: The precursor to Pasporta Servo is launched in Argentina. Pasporta Servo is a global network of Esperanto speakers who host Esperantists traveling through their countries.
1967: István Nemere founds the Renkontiĝo de Esperanto-Familioj, the first organisation for Esperanto-speaking families.
1975: The Esperanto movement spreads to Iran, with three thousand learning the language in Tehran.
1980: The Internacia Junulara Kongreso (International Youth Congress) in Rauma, Finland ratify the Manifesto of Rauma, articulating the view of many in the Esperanto movement that Esperanto is a goal in itself.
1985: UNESCO encourages UN member states to add Esperanto to their school curricula.
2001: The Vikipedio project (Esperanto Wikipedia) is launched, resulting in the first general encyclopedia written in a constructed language. It is now one of the most popular websites in Esperanto.
2007: Israel issues a stamp to commemorate 120 years of Esperanto (1887–2007). An image of Zamenhof is designed in a text describing his life, reproduced from the Wikipedia article on Esperanto. The corner of the tab shows the flag of the Esperanto movement.
2017: Amikumu is launched, an app connecting Esperantists with other local Esperantists throughout the world.
Related Research Articles
Esperanto is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it is intended to be a universal second language for international communication, or "the international language". Zamenhof first described the language in Dr. Esperanto's International Language, which he published under the pseudonym Doktoro Esperanto. Early adopters of the language liked the name Esperanto and soon used it to describe his language. The word esperanto translates into English as "one who hopes".
Esperantujo or Esperantio is the community of speakers of the Esperanto language and their culture, as well as the places and institutions where the language is used. The term is used "as if it were a country."
L. L. Zamenhof was the creator of Esperanto, the most widely used constructed international auxiliary language.
Dr. Esperanto's International Language, commonly referred to as Unua Libro, is an 1887 book by Polish ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof, in which he 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.
The Universal Esperanto Association, also known as the World Esperanto Association, is the largest international organization of Esperanto speakers, with 5,501 individual members in 121 countries and 9,215 through national associations in 214 countries. In addition to individual members, 70 national Esperanto organizations are affiliated with UEA. Its current president is Prof. Duncan Charters. The magazine Esperanto is the main publication to inform UEA members about everything happening in the Esperanto community.
The Declaration on the Essence of Esperantism, commonly referred to as the Declaration of Boulogne, is a historic document that establishes several important premises for the Esperanto movement. The Declaration was written by L. L. Zamenhof and ratified in 1905 by the attendees of the first World Esperanto Congress, held in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France.
Esperanto and Ido are constructed international auxiliary languages, with Ido being an Esperantido derived from Esperanto and Reformed Esperanto. The number of speakers is estimated at 100 thousand to 2 million for Esperanto, whereas Ido is much fewer at 100 to 1 thousand.
Fundamento de Esperanto is a 1905 book by L. L. Zamenhof, in which the author explains the basic grammar rules and vocabulary that constitute the basis of the constructed language Esperanto. On August 9, 1905, it was made the only obligatory authority over the language by the Declaration of Boulogne at the first World Esperanto Congress. Much of the content of the book is a reproduction of content from Zamenhof's earlier works, particularly Unua Libro.
Dua Libro de l' Lingvo Internacia, usually referred to simply as Dua Libro, is an 1888 book by L. L. Zamenhof. It is the second book in which Zamenhof wrote about the constructed language Esperanto, following Unua Libro in 1887, and the first book to be written entirely in the language.
Edmond Privat was a Francophone Swiss Esperantist. A historian, university professor, author, journalist and peace activist, he was a graduate of the University of Geneva and a lecturer for the World Peace Foundation. His collective works consist of original dramas, poems, stories, textbooks and books about the Esperanto movement.
Vladimír von Szmurlo was a Russian Esperantist and railway engineer.
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.
Petro Evstaf'evic Stojan was a Russian esperantist, bibliographer and lexicographer and a member of the Esperanto Language Committee from 1914.
Leopold Einstein was a Jewish teacher, vendor, and writer. He was one of the early proponents of Esperanto.
The World Esperantist Vegetarian Association is a voluntary association of Esperanto-speaking vegetarians. Founded in 1908, the group's working language is Esperanto, and it is the oldest international organization of vegetarians that is currently active. TEVA published a journal, Vegetarano ("Vegetarian") from 1914 to 1932, revived in 2009 as Esperantista Vegetarano, and has also operated a spirited Internet mailing list through Yahoo! Groups since 2005.
Medicina Internacia Revuo is the official organ of Universala Medicina Esperanto Asocio, an organization that gathers physicians, pharmacists, and other medical professionals who have a working knowledge of Esperanto. The twice-yearly journal publishes articles that have undergone peer review and that are written in various languages, including English and Polish; abstracts are provided in English and Esperanto. The journal publishes broadly within the medical sciences, has an internationally renowned board of editors, and is included in the Index Copernicus database. The journal is available gold open access, but no author fees are charged.
La Esperantisto, stylised as La Esperantisto., was the first Esperanto periodical, published from 1889 to 1895. L. L. Zamenhof started it in order to provide reading material for the then-nascent Esperanto community.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Esperanto:
Abram Antoni Kofman, also known as Abraham S. Kofman, was a Russian-Jewish accountant, and poet and translator in several constructed languages. From Odesa, Russian Empire, Kofman learned Esperanto in 1889 and was an early supporter of the language's adoption. He was one of the first Russian Jews to write poetry in Esperanto and has been described by several as a "pioneer". His work appeared in several Esperanto-language magazines and early anthologies, including the Fundamenta Krestomatio. He was the translator of several sections of the Hebrew Bible in both Esperanto and its daughter language, Ido. He was the first Ancient Greek–Esperanto translator, producing a rendition of parts of the Iliad starting in 1895.
↑ Wexler, Paul (2002). Two-Tiered Relexification in Yiddish: Jews, Sorbs, Khazars, and the Kiev-Polessian Dialect. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN3-11-017258-5.
↑ "Anna Eliza Tuschinski (1841–1939)". Committee for Celebrating the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation in Pomerania (in Polish). 26 March 2021. Retrieved 2 June 2023.
↑ Daniluk, Jan (13 August 2017). "90 lat od spotkania esperantystów w Gdańsku"[90 Years Since the Meeting of Esperanto Speakers in Gdańsk]. Trojmiasto.pl (in Polish). Retrieved 2 June 2023.
↑ Zaft, Sylvan (2002). "Chapter Two: From a Dream to a Reality". Esperanto: A Language for the Global Village. Calgary: Esperanto Antauen Publishing. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015 – via Website of the Esperanto Association of Ireland.
↑ Sutton, Geoffrey (2008). Concise Encyclopedia of the Original Literature of Esperanto 1887–2007. New York: Mondial. p.162. ISBN978-1-59569-090-6.
↑ Sadler, Victor; Lins, Ulrich (1972). "Regardless of Frontiers: A Case Study in Linguistic Persecution". In Ghosh, S. K. (ed.). Man, Language and Society: Contributions to the Sociology of Language. The Hague: Mouton. p.209.
↑ "PLS 27/2008". Senado Federal (in Portuguese). Retrieved 18 April 2022.
↑ "PL-6162/2009". Portal da Câmara dos Deputados (in Portuguese). Retrieved 18 April 2022.
König, Malte. Esperanto. In: 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War, ed. by Ute Daniel, Peter Gatrell, Oliver Janz, Heather Jones, Jennifer Keene, Alan Kramer, and Bill Nasson, issued by Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin 2024-02-05.
Korĵenkov, Aleksander. Historio de Esperanto. Kaliningrad 2005.
Lins, Ulrich. La Danĝera Lingvo. Gerlingen, Germany: Bleicher Eldonejo, 1988. (Also available in Polish Archived 29 October 2008 at the Wayback Machine )
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