Esperanto is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was 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".
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 socio-cultural norms 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. Some Esperanto speakers have also researched the language's ideologies.
An international auxiliary language is a language meant for communication between people from all different nations, who do not share a common first language. An auxiliary language is primarily a foreign language and often a constructed language. The concept is related to but separate from the idea of a lingua franca that people must use to communicate.
Esperanto is written in a Latin-script alphabet of twenty-eight letters, with upper and lower case. This is supplemented by punctuation marks and by various logograms, such as the digits 0–9, currency signs such as $ € ¥ £ ₷, and mathematical symbols. The creator of Esperanto, L. L. Zamenhof, declared a principle of "one letter, one sound", though this is a general rather than strict guideline.
Literature in the Esperanto language began before the first official publication in Esperanto in 1887: the language's creator, L. L. Zamenhof, translated poetry and prose into the language as he was developing it as a test of its completeness and expressiveness, and published several translations and a short original poem as an appendix to the first book on the language, Unua Libro. Other early speakers wrote poetry, stories, and essays in the language; Henri Vallienne was the first to write novels in Esperanto. The first female Esperanto novelist was Edith Alleyne Sinnotte with her book Lilio published in 1918. Except for a handful of poems, most of the literature from Esperanto's first two decades is now regarded as of historical interest only.
Jorge Camacho Cordón is a writer in Esperanto and Spanish.
Ĉ or ĉ is a consonant in Esperanto orthography, representing the sound.
Ĥ or ĥ is a letter of some extended Latin alphabets, most prominently a consonant in Esperanto orthography, where it represents a voiceless velar fricative or voiceless uvular fricative. Its name in Esperanto is ĥo, or ĥi in the Kalocsay abecedary.
Ĵ or ĵ is a letter in Esperanto orthography representing the sound.
References to Esperanto, a constructed language, have been made in a number of films and novels. Typically, this is done either to add the exotic nature of a foreign language without representing any particular ethnicity, or to avoid going to the trouble of inventing a new language. In science fiction, Esperanto is sometimes used to represent a future in which there is a more universally spoken language than exists today.
The original word base of Esperanto contained around 900 root words and was defined in Unua Libro, published by L. L. Zamenhof in 1887. In 1894, Zamenhof published the first Esperanto dictionary, Universala vortaro, which was written in five languages and supplied a larger set of root words, adding 1740 new words.
Julio Baghy was a Hungarian actor and one of the leading authors of the Esperanto movement. He is the author of several famous novels but it is particularly in the field of poetry that he proved his mastery of Esperanto.
Metropoliteno is a partly autobiographical novel written in Esperanto by Vladimir Varankin about suppression by the state in Germany and the Soviet Union. It was published in Amsterdam in 1933, again in Denmark in 1977, and a third edition in Russia in 1992. There also exist translations in Russian and in English. It is listed in William Auld's Basic Esperanto reading List.
Mr. Tot aĉetas mil okulojn is the third novel originally written in Esperanto by Jean Forge. It appeared in 1931. It is a fantasy adventure novel. The author's previous excessive use of suffixes, most noticeable in his previous work Saltego trans Jarmiloj, disappears in this novel.
Abismoj is a 1923 novel written by Jean Forge, the first he wrote originally in Esperanto. It describes and profoundly analyzes conflicts in the soul. Already there appear the greatest strengths of Forge's work, the original form, the figures themselves speak about themselves and about their problems; the form and the inventive narration style give this work important significance in Esperanto literature.
The core of this novel is a daily repeating story, but Forge is able with his masterful pen to make it interesting to the last word ... Strikingly clear style, popularly deep psychology and in absolutely classical Esperanto..
Jan Fethke was a German-Polish film director and, under the pen name Jean Forge, a successful author. He also was a famous proponent of the language Esperanto.
Cezaro Rossetti was a Scottish Esperanto writer.
Anna Löwenstein is a British Esperantist. She worked for the World Esperanto Association 1977–1981. Under the name Anna Brennan she founded and was editor of the feminist magazine Sekso kaj Egaleco 1979–1988, and she edited the 'easy language' section of Kontakto 1983–1986. She has written some non-fiction, and two novels. Her historical novel The Stone City, was first published in English and Esperanto in 1999, and has since been translated into French (2010) and Hungarian (2014). Her second novel Morto de artisto (2008) was published in Esperanto. She is well known as a journalist, teacher and activist in the Esperanto movement, and has been a member of the Academy of Esperanto since 2001.
The Barsac Mission is a novel attributed to Jules Verne and written by his son Michel Verne. First serialized in 1914, it was published in book form by Hachette in 1919. An English adaptation by I. O. Evans was published in 1960 in two volumes, Into the Niger Bend and The City in the Sahara. It includes a hidden city, called in English "Blackland", in the Sahara Desert.
