Arizona republican., 1907-10-05
HISTORY OF ESPERANTO.
How a Universal Language Was in-
 vented by rr. Zamenhof. of Warsaw


 saw. is likely to go down to posterity as one of the greatest of the worlds benefactors: for to him belongs the credit of inventing Esperanto. a lan- guage by which men of all nations can converse together. says a writer in Tit Bits. We wish to create com mon ground on which the various races of mankind can peacefully and frater- nally mingle. without intruding racial differences in any way" the doctor re- marked in his inaugural address at the conference of Esperantists, at Cambridge And. judging by the en- thusiastic assembly at the conference, that wish is rapidly being realized.
 Delegates from twenty-five different nations. representing half a million Es- perantists. conversed with each other in the easiest and freest manner. And if further testimony be needed as to the merits and uses of this twenty year-old language. il can be found In the fact that it has been included in the curriculum of English and French schools. Educationalists, scientists. tourists, commercial men. etc. are rap idly recognizing the practical and val uable nature of Esperanto.
 Yet it was not so f6ng ago that pr. Zamenhof was regarded by many peo- pie as a crank. Few took him seriously when. in 1887. he published his broch- ure. An International Language, by pr. Esperanto" and for ten years he labored hard to get the merits of his linguistic invention recognized. Then the world suddenly awoke to the knowledge of Zamenhofs genius. and began to learn Esperanto with avidity.
 Curiously enough. it was not Dr. Zamenhofs intention, when he first conceived the idea of inventing an auxiliary language-for that is the cor rect description of Esperanto, seeing that it is an adaptation from all lan- guages and a rival to none-to invite universal use, as the stor.' of its origin shows.
 As a boy Dr. Zamenhof lived in the little town of Bielstok, on the frontier of Russia and Germany. The inhabi- tants were of four different nationali- ties-Russians, Poles. Jews and Ger mans - each speaking its own lan- guage. and on bad terms with the Oth-
 
 reached his teens he grieved over this, and rightly concluded that the main cause was the misunderstanding due to diversity of language, and determined some day to invent a language which they could all understand.
 With this object in view he acquired a knowledge of Greek. Latin. French. English. Yiddish, Russian and Polish. and thus equipped himself well for the task. Esperanto was the result of twelve years study, and may be said to be built up from those words which are already known to the greatest num- Der of persons of average education. Thus from an ordinary page of Esper anto text an Englishman recognizes 70 per cent of the words, an Italian 60 per cent. Spaniard 40 per cent. French man so per cent and a German 40 per cent.
 As an illustration of the simplicity Of the new language. it might be men, tioned that a booklet of twenty pages is sold at one penny for the use of be- ginners, entitled "The Whole of Esper- anto," and whoever learns the contents of this booklet will know the greater part of Esperanto.
 An example of the word building which forms the basis of the new lan- guage will illustrate it's comprehensive ness. "Patro" is father: ''patra," fath- erly or paternal; ''patre." in fatherly manner: ''patrino," mother. The nouns end in O." adjectives in a. adverbs in "e" Every word of more than one syllable is accented on the last syllable but one. Theoretically. grammatically, and structurally. Esperanto is thus ex- tremely simple.
 Naturally. pr. Zamenhof is not lit- tie proud of his achievement. and grat- flied on account of the manner in which Esperanto has at last been rec ognized At the same time he thinks more of the advantages which the world will derive from his Invention than of personal benefits. For. in the words of one who knows him, Dr. Zamenhof is humble, unassuming genial and modest-an absent minded professor of the old German type" He is none the less genius for all tbat. -C-
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