Esperanto

**Esperanto** is a constructed auxiliary language. Its creator was L. L. Zamenhof, a Polish eye doctor. He created the language to make international communication easier. His goal was to design Esperanto in such a way that people can learn it much more easily than any other national language.

At first, Zamenhof called the language '**, which means "The International Language" in Esperanto. Soon, people began calling it by the simpler name **', which means "one who hopes". That name comes from '''' ("A doctor who hopes"), which is what Zamenhof called himself in his first book about Esperanto.

There are people who speak Esperanto in many countries and in all the major continents. No one knows exactly how many people now speak Esperanto in the world. Most sources say that there are between several hundred thousand and two million Esperanto speakers. Therefore, Esperanto is the most-used constructed language in the world.

A person who speaks or supports Esperanto is often called an "Esperantist".

## History 
### Zamenhof's childhood 
L. L. Zamenhof created Esperanto. He grew up in Białystok, a town that was in the Russian Empire,  but is now in Poland. People in Białystok spoke many languages. Zamenhof saw conflicts between individual ethnic groups living there (Russians, Poles, Germans and Jews). He thought that lack of a common language caused these conflicts, so he began creating a language people could share and use internationally. He thought this language should be different from national languages. He wanted it to be culturally neutral and easy-to-learn. He thought people should learn it along with national languages and use Esperanto for communication between people with different native languages.

### First attempts 
First, Zamenhof thought about bringing Latin back into use. Although he learned it in school, he realized it was too difficult for normal use. He also studied English and understood that languages did not need to conjugate verbs by person or number. Once he saw two Russian words: *швейцарская* (, derived from *швейцар* - ) and *кондитерская* (, derived from *кондитер* - ). These words with the same ending gave him an idea. He decided that regular prefixes and suffixes could decrease the number of word roots, which one would need for a communication. Zamenhof wanted the root words to be neutral, so he decided to use word roots from Romance and Germanic languages. Those languages were taught in many schools in many places around the world at that time.

### Creation of the final version 
.]]
Zamenhof did his first project *Lingwe uniwersala* (Universal Language) in 1878. But his father, a language teacher,  his son's work as . So, he destroyed the original work. Between 1879 and 1885 Zamenhof studied medicine in Moscow and Warsaw. In these days he again worked on an international language. In 1887 he published his first textbook '''' ("The International Language"). According to Zamenhof's pen-name ''* ("Doctor who hopes"), many people started calling the language as *Esperanto*.

### First attempts to change 
Zamenhof received a lot of  letters. In the letters, people wrote their suggestions for changes to the language. He noted all of the suggestions. He published them in the magazine *La Esperantisto*. In this magazine, Esperanto speakers could vote about the changes. They did not accept them. The magazine had many subscribers in Russia. It was eventually banned (stopped) there because of an article about Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy. Publishing of the magazine ended after that. The new magazine *Lingvo Internacia'' replaced it.

### Progress of the community 
In the first years of Esperanto's life, people used it only in written form, but in 1905 they organized the first (1st) World Congress of Esperanto in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France. This was the first notable use of Esperanto in international communication. Because of the success of the congress, it is organized each year (except years of the World Wars) to this day.

In 1912 Zamenhof resigned his leading position in the movement during the eighth (8th) World Congress of Esperanto in Kraków, Poland. The tenth (10th) World Congress of Esperanto in Paris, France, did not take place because of the start of World War I. Nearly 4000 people signed up for this congress.

### Times of the World Wars 
During World War I the World Esperanto Association had its main office in Switzerland, which was neutral in the war. Hector Hodler's group of volunteers with support of Romain Rolland helped send letters between the enemy countries through Switzerland. In total, they helped with 200,000 cases.

### After the wars 
 (Germany) in 2006.]]
After World War II many people supported Esperanto. 80 million people signed a petition supporting Esperanto for use in the United Nations.

Every year they organize big Esperanto meetings such as the World Congress of Esperanto, International Youth Congress of Esperanto and SAT-Congress (meeting of *Sennacieca Asocio Tutmonda* - World Non-national Association).

In 1990, the Holy See published the document *Norme per la celebrazione della Messa in esperanto*, allowing the use of Esperanto in Masses without special permission. Esperanto is the only constructed language which received a permission like this one from the Roman Catholic Church.

Esperanto has many web pages, blogs, podcasts, and videos. People also use Esperanto in social media and online discussions and in their private communication through e-mail and instant messaging. Several (especially open source and free software) programmes have their own language version in Esperanto. Internet radio station *Muzaiko* has been broadcasting 24&nbsp;hours a day in Esperanto since 2011.

## Goals of the Esperanto movement 
 takes over the Esperanto Missal and Lectionary from the organisation of Esperanto Catholics.]]
 Plan of Salvation in Esperanto.]]
Zamenhof wanted to make an easy language to increase international understanding. He wanted Esperanto to be a universal second language. In other words, although he did not want Esperanto to replace national languages, he wanted a majority of people around the world to speak Esperanto. Many Esperantists initially shared this goal. General Assembly of UNESCO recognized Esperanto in 1954. Since then World Esperanto Association has got official relations with UNESCO. However, Esperanto was never chosen by the United Nations or other international organizations and it has not become a widely accepted second language.

Some Esperanto speakers like Esperanto for reasons other than its use as a universal second language. They like the Esperanto community and culture. Developing the Esperanto culture is a goal for that people.

People who care more about Esperanto's current value than about its potential for universal use are sometimes called *raŭmistoj* in Esperanto. The ideas of these people can together be called '''', or "Raumism" in English. The names come from the name of the town of Rauma, in Finland. The International Youth Congress of Esperanto met there in 1980 and made a big statement. They said that making Esperanto a universal second language was not their main goal.

People who have goals for Esperanto that are more similar to Zamenhof's are sometimes called '** in Esperanto. The name comes from **', an Esperanto phrase which means "final victory". It refers to a theoretical future in which nearly everyone on Earth speaks Esperanto as a second language.

The Prague Manifesto (1996) states the ideas of the ordinary people of the Esperanto movement and of its main organization, the World Esperanto Association (UEA).

German town Herzberg am Harz uses nickname *die Esperanto-Stadt/la Esperanto-urbo* ("the Esperanto town") since July 12, 2006. They also teach the language in elementary schools and do some other cultural and educational events using the Esperanto language together with the Polish twin town Góra.

Esperanto is the only constructed language that the Roman Catholic Church recognises as a liturgical language. They allow Masses in the language and Vatican Radio broadcasts in Esperanto every week.

### Music 
There is music of different genres in Esperanto, including folk songs, rock music, cabaret, songs for solo singers, choirs and opera. Among active Esperanto musicians is for example Swedish socio-critical music group *La Perdita Generacio*, Occitan singer *JoMo*, the Finnish group *Dolchamar*, Brazilian group *Supernova*, Frisian group *Kajto* or Polish singer-songwriter Georgo Handzlik. Also some popular music writers and artists, including Elvis Costello and American singer Michael Jackson recorded songs in Esperanto, composed songs inspired by the language or used it in their promotional materials. Some songs from the album Esperanto from Warner Bros., which released - all in Esperanto - in Spain, in November 1996, reached a high position in the Spanish record charts; similarly, in 1999, in Germany, hip-hop music group *Freundeskreis* became famous with their single *Esperanto*. Classical works for orchestra and choir with texts in Esperanto are *La Koro Sutro* by Lou Harrison and *The First Symphony* by David Gaines. In Toulouse, France, there is Vinilkosmo, which produces Esperanto music. The main internet Esperanto songbook KantarViki has got 3,000 songs in May 2013, both original and translated.

### Theatre and movies 
 (Czech Republic) played in 2012 the drama *R.U.R.* by Karel Čapek in Esperanto.]]
They play dramas from different writers such as Carlo Goldoni, Eugène Ionesco and William Shakespeare also in Esperanto. Filmmakers sometimes use Esperanto in the background of films, for example in *The Great Dictator* by Charlie Chaplin, in the action film *Blade: Trinity* or in comedy sci-fi television series *Red Dwarf*. Feature films in Esperanto are not very common, but there are about 15 feature films, which have Esperanto themes.

The 1966 film *Incubus* is notable because its dialogues are in Esperanto only. Today some people translate subtitles of different films to Esperanto. The website *Verda Filmejo* collects these subtitles.

### Radio and television 
Radio stations in Brazil, China, Cuba and Vatican broadcast regular programmes in Esperanto. Some other radio programmes and podcasts are available on the Internet. Internet radio station *Muzaiko* broadcasts Esperanto programmes on the Internet 24&nbsp;hours a day since July 2011.

### Internet 
On the Internet there are many online discussions in Esperanto about different topics. There are many websites, blogs, podcasts, videos, television, and radio stations in Esperanto (see above). Google Translate supports translations from and into Esperanto since February 22, 2012 as its 64th language.

Apart from websites and blogs of esperantists and Esperanto organizations, there is also an Esperanto Wikipedia (Vikipedio) and other projects of Wikimedia Foundation which has also got their Esperanto language version or they use Esperanto (Wikibooks, Wikisource, Wikinews, Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata). People can also use an Esperanto version of social networks, for example Facebook, Diaspora and other websites.

Several computer programmes also have an Esperanto version, such as web browser Firefox and office suite (set of programmes for use in an office) *LibreOffice*.

## The language 
Esperanto uses grammar and words from many natural languages, such as Latin, Russian, and French. Morphemes in Esperanto (the smallest parts of a word that can have a meaning) cannot be changed and people can combine them into many different words. The language has got common attributes with isolating languages (they use word order to change the meaning of a sentence) such as Chinese, while the inner structure of Esperanto words has got common attributes with agglutinative languages (they use affixes to change the meaning of a word), such as Turkish, Swahili and Japanese.

Esperanto's grammar (rules of language) is meant to be simple. The rules in Esperanto never change and can always be applied in the same way

### Alphabet 
The Esperanto alphabet is based on the Latin script. It has six letters with diacritics: ĉ, ĝ, ĥ, ĵ, ŝ (with circumflex), and ŭ (with breve). The alphabet does not have the letters *q, w, x,* or *y*.

The 28-letter alphabet is:

* **A** is like **a** in **father**
* **B** is like **b** in **boy**
* **C** is like **zz** in **pizza**
* **Ĉ** is like **ch** in **chair**
* **D** is like **d** in **dog**
* **E** is like **e** in **egg**
* **F** is like **f** in **flower**
* **G** is like **g** in **go**
* **Ĝ** is like **j** in **jam**
* **H** is like **h** in **honey**
* **Ĥ** is like **ch** in Scottish **loch**
* **I** is like **i** in **it** or **ee** in **feed**
* **J** is like **y** in **yes**
* **Ĵ** is like **s** in **measure**
* **K** is like **k** in **king**
* **L** is like **l** in **look**
* **M** is like **m** in **man**
* **N** is like **n** in **no**
* **O** is like **o** in **open**
* **P** is like **p** in **pie**
* **R** is like **r** in **road** but is rolled (trilled, as in Spanish, Italian, Arabic, Russian)
* **S** is like **s** in **simple**
* **Ŝ** is like **sh** in **sheep**
* **T** is like **t** in **tree**
* **U** is like **u** in **bull** or **oo** in **food**
* **Ŭ** is like **w** in **well**
* **V** is like **v** in **cave**
* **Z** is like **s** in **his**.
#### Writing diacritics 
Even though the world uses Unicode, the letters with diacritics (found in the "Latin-Extended A" section of the Unicode Standard) can cause problems with printing and computing, because they are not found on the keyboards we use.

There are two  of this problem, both of which use digraphs for the letters with diacritics. Zamenhof, the inventor of Esperanto, devised an "h-system", which replaces *ĉ, ĝ, ĥ, ĵ, ŝ,* and *ŭ* with *ch, gh, hh, jh, sh,* and *u,* respectively. A more recent "x-system" has also been used, which replaces *ĉ, ĝ, ĥ, ĵ, ŝ,* and *ŭ* with *cx, gx, hx, jx, sx,* and *ux,* respectively.

There are computer keyboard layouts that support the Esperanto alphabet, for example,  for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux,  for Windows Phone, and Gboard & AnySoftKeyboard for Android.

### Examples of words 
.]]
* **from Romance languages**
** **from Latin:** *abio* (fir), *sed* (but), *okulo* (eye), *akvo* (water)
** **from French:** *dimanĉo* (Sunday), *frapi* (to knock), *ĉevalo* (horse)
** **from Italian:** *ĉielo* (sky), *fari* (to do), *voĉo* (voice)
** **from more Romance languages:** *facila* (easy, simple), *fero* (iron), *tra* (through), *verda* (green)
* **from Germanic languages**
** **from German:** *baldaŭ* (in a short time), *bedaŭri* (to regret), *jaro* (year), *nur* (only)
** **from English:** *birdo* (bird), *ŝarko* (shark), *jes* (yes)
** **from more Germanic languages:** *fiŝo* (fish), *fremda* (foreign), *ofta* (frequent)
* **from Slavic languages**
** **from Polish:** *ĉu* (word for yes/no questions)
** **from Russian:** *barakti* (to fight), *vosto* (tail)
** **from Czech:** *ne* (no, not), *roboto* (robot), *ĉerpi* (to pump)
** **from more Slavic Languages:** *krom* (except), *celo* (finish, goal, target)
* **from other Indo-European languages**
** **from Greek:** *hepato* (liver), *kaj* (and), *biologio* (biology), *politiko* (politics)
** **from Lithuanian:** *du* (two), *tuj* (at once)
** **from Sanskrit:** *budho* (buddha), *nirvano* (Nirvana), *pado* (path, way)
* **from Finno-Ugric languages**
** **from Finnish:** *saŭno* (sauna)
** **from Hungarian:** *ĉardaŝo* (Csárdás - Hungarian national dance), *ĉuro* (semen)
* **from Semitic languages**
** **from Hebrew:** *kabalo* (Kabbalah)
** **from Arabic:** *aŭ* (or)
* **from other languages**
** **from Japanese:** *cunamo* (tsunami), *zeno* (Zen)
** **from Chinese:** *tofuo* (tofu), *teo* (tea)
** **from Hawaiian:** *vikio* (wiki)

## Criticism 
Some of the criticism of Esperanto is common for any project of constructed international language: a new language has little chance to replace today's international languages like English, Arabic and others.

The criticism, which is specific for Esperanto, targets various parts of the language itself (the special Esperanto letters, the *-n* ending, sound of the language, and so on).

Some people say that use of the diacritics (the letters ĉ, ĝ, ĥ, ĵ, ŝ, ŭ) make the language less neutral than it would be using only the basic letters of Latin alphabet. No other language uses the letters ĉ, ĥ and ĵ. The letter ĥ is the least used letter in Esperanto and ĵ is not used frequently either, leading people to question how necessary they are.

Critics of Esperanto also say that the same ending of an adjective and a noun (such as "", "", "") is unnecessary. English, for example, does not have the requirement that an adjective and noun must agree in tense, and has no indicator for accusative cases.

They also criticize the fact that most of the words in Esperanto come from Indo-European languages, which makes the language less neutral.

One of the common criticisms from both non-Esperanto-speakers and those who speak Esperanto, is that there is language sexism in Esperanto. Some words by default refer to males, and the feminine counterparts have to be constructed by adding the *-in-* suffix to the masculine root. Such a words are words like '** (father) and **' (mother), '** (son) and **' (daughter), '** (uncle) and **' (aunt), and so on. The majority of all Esperanto words have no specific meaning on the basis of sex. Some people proposed the suffix *-iĉ-* with male meaning in order to make the meaning of the basic word neutral. Similarly, they call the font *Noto* "the Esperanto of fonts" because it tries to work well for every culture's writing.

## References 
## Other websites 
* Esperanto on Citizendium
* *Lernu!* A popular website to learn Esperanto.
* Plena Manlibro de Esperanta Gramatiko
* Music videos in Esperanto from Mauritius and Madagascar 
* Learn Not To Speak Esperanto , a piece criticizing Esperanto's problems; and Why not to learn Esperanto, Claude Piron's answer to it.