Esperanto

## Overview

**Esperanto** (/ˌɛspəˈrɑːntoʊ, -ˈræn-/)is the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. L. L. Zamenhof, a Polish-Jewish ophthalmologist, created Esperanto in the late 19th century and published the first book detailing it, *Unua Libro*, in 1887 under the pseudonym Dr. Esperanto, *Esperanto* translating as "one who hopes". Zamenhof's goal was to create an easy and flexible language that would serve as a universal second language to foster peace and international understanding. His original title for the language was simply the **international language** (*lingvo internacia*), but early speakers grew fond of the name *Esperanto* and began to use it as the name for the language in 1889; the name quickly gained prominence and has been used as an official name ever since.

In 1905, Zamenhof published *Fundamento de Esperanto* as a definitive guide to the language. Later that year, he organized the first World Esperanto Congress, an ongoing annual conference, in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France. The first congress ratified the Declaration of Boulogne, which established several foundational premises for the Esperanto movement. One of its pronouncements is that *Fundamento de Esperanto* is the only obligatory authority over the language. Another is that the Esperanto movement is exclusively a linguistic movement and that no further meaning can ever be ascribed to it. Zamenhof also proposed to the first congress that an independent body of linguistic scholars should steward the future evolution of Esperanto, foreshadowing the founding of the Akademio de Esperanto, in part modeled after the Académie française, which was established soon thereafter. Since 1905, congresses have been held in various countries every year, with the exceptions of years during the World Wars. In 1908, a group of young Esperanto speakers led by Hector Hodler established the Universal Esperanto Association, in order to provide a central organization for the global Esperanto community.

Esperanto grew throughout the 20th century, both as a language and as a linguistic community. Despite speakers facing persecution in regimes such as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union under Stalin, Esperanto speakers continued to establish organizations and publish periodicals tailored to specific regions and interests. In 1954, the United Nations granted official support to Esperanto as an international auxiliary language in the Montevideo Resolution. Several writers have contributed to the growing body of Esperanto literature, including William Auld, who received the first nomination for the Nobel Prize in Literature for a literary work in Esperanto in 1999, followed by two more in 2004 and 2006. Esperanto-language writers are also officially represented in PEN International, the worldwide writers association, through Esperanto PEN Centro.

Esperanto has continued to develop in the 21st century. The advent of the Internet has had a significant impact on the language, as learning it has become increasingly accessible on platforms such as Duolingo and as speakers have increasingly networked on platforms such as Amikumu. With approximately two million speakers, a small portion of whom are native speakers, it is the most widely spoken constructed language in the world. Although no country has adopted Esperanto officially, Esperantujo is the collective name given to places where it is spoken, and the language is widely employed in world travel, correspondence, cultural exchange, conventions, literature, language instruction, television and radio broadcasting.

While many continue to hope for the day that Esperanto becomes officially recognized as the international auxiliary language, an increasing number have stopped focusing on this goal and instead view the Esperanto community as a "stateless diasporic linguistic minority" based on freedom of association, with a culture worthy of preservation based on its own merit. Some have also chosen to learn Esperanto due to its purported help in third language acquisition.

## History

### Creation

Esperanto was created in the late 1870s and early 1880s by L. L. Zamenhof, a Polish-Jewish ophthalmologist from Białystok, then part of the Russian Empire, but now part of Poland. He lived on Dzika Street, No. 9. According to Zamenhof, he created the language to reduce the "time and labour we spend in learning foreign tongues" and to foster harmony between people from different countries: "Were there but an international language, all translations would be made into it alone ... and all nations would be united in a common brotherhood."

About his goals Zamenhof wrote that he wants mankind to "learn and use", "en masse", "the proposed language as a living one".The goal for Esperanto to become a general world language was not the only goal of Zamenhof; he also wanted to "enable the learner to make direct use of his knowledge with persons of any nationality, whether the language be universally accepted or not; in other words, the language is to be directly a means of international communication."

After some ten years of development, which Zamenhof spent translating literature into Esperanto as well as writing original prose and verse, the first book of Esperanto grammarwas published in Warsaw on 26 July 1887. The number of speakers grew rapidly over the next few decades, at first primarily in the Russian Empire and Central Europe, then in other parts of Europe, the Americas, China, and Japan. In the early years, speakers of Esperanto kept in contact primarily through correspondence and periodicals, but in 1905 the first world congress of Esperanto speakers was held in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France. Since then world congresses have been held in different countries every year, except during the two World Wars. Since the Second World War, they have been attended by an average of more than 2000 people and up to 6000 people.

Zamenhof's name for the language was simply *Internacia Lingvo* ("International Language").

### Later History

The autonomous territory of Neutral Moresnet, between what is today Belgium and Germany, had a sizable proportion of Esperanto-speakers among its small and multi-ethnic population. There was a proposal to make Esperanto its official language.

However, neither Belgium nor Prussia (now within Germany) had ever surrendered its original claim to it. Around 1900, Germany in particular was taking a more aggressive stance towards the territory and was accused of sabotage and of obstructing the administrative process in order to force the issue. It was the First World War, however, that was the catalyst that brought about the end of neutrality. On 4 August 1914, Germany invaded Belgium, leaving Moresnet at first "an oasis in a desert of destruction". In 1915, the territory was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia, without international recognition.

After the Great War, 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 the League of Nations during the 13th World Congress of Esperanto in Prague.Ten delegates accepted the proposal with only one voice against, the French delegate, Gabriel Hanotaux. Hanotaux did not like how the French language was losing its position as the international language and saw Esperanto as a threat, effectively wielding his veto power to block the decision. However, two years later, the League recommended that its member states include Esperanto in their educational curricula. For this reason, many people see the 1920s as the heyday of the Esperanto movement. Anarchism as a political movement was very supportive during this time of anationalism as well as of the Esperanto language.

Esperanto attracted the suspicion of many states. The situation was especially pronounced in Nazi Germany, Francoist Spain up until the 1950s, and in the Soviet Union from 1937 to 1956.

In Nazi Germany, there was a motivation to forbid Esperanto because Zamenhof was Jewish, and due to the internationalist nature of Esperanto, which was perceived as "Bolshevist". In his work, *Mein Kampf*, Adolf Hitler specifically mentioned Esperanto as an example of a language that could be used by an international Jewish conspiracy once they achieved world domination. Esperantists were killed during the Holocaust, with Zamenhof's family in particular singled out for being killed.The efforts of a minority of Esperantists to expel Jewish colleagues and align themselves with the Reich were futile and Esperanto was legally forbidden in 1935. Esperantists in German concentration camps taught the language to fellow prisoners, telling guards they were teaching Italian, the language of one of Germany's Axis allies.

In Imperial Japan, the left-wing of the Japanese Esperanto movement was forbidden, but its leaders were careful enough not to give the impression to the government that the Esperantists were socialist revolutionaries, which proved a successful strategy.

After the October Revolution of 1917, Esperanto was given a measure of government support by the new workers' states in the former Russian Empire and later by the Soviet Union government, with the Soviet Esperanto Association being established as an officially recognized organization. In his biography on Joseph Stalin, Leon Trotsky mentions that Stalin had studied Esperanto. However, in 1937, at the height of the Great Purge, Stalin completely reversed the Soviet government's policies on Esperanto; many Esperanto speakers were executed, exiled or held in captivity in the Gulag labour camps. Quite often the accusation was: "You are an active member of an international spy organisation which hides itself under the name of 'Association of Soviet Esperantists' on the territory of the Soviet Union." Until the end of the Stalin era, it was dangerous to use Esperanto in the Soviet Union, despite the fact that it was never officially forbidden to speak Esperanto.

Fascist Italy allowed the use of Esperanto, finding its phonology similar to that of Italian and publishing some tourist material in the language.

During and after the Spanish Civil War, Francoist Spain forbade anarchists, socialists and Catalan nationalists for many years, among whom the use of Esperanto was extensive, but in the 1950s the Esperanto movement was again tolerated.

## Official Use

Esperanto has not been a secondary official language of any recognized country, but it entered the education system of several countries such as Hungary and China.

The Chinese government has used Esperanto since 2001 for daily news on china.org.cn. China also uses Esperanto in China Radio International and for the internet magazine *El Popola Ĉinio*.

The Vatican Radio has an Esperanto version of its website.

The US Army has published military phrase books in Esperanto, to be used from the 1950s until the 1970s in war games by mock enemy forces.

Esperanto is the working language of several non-profit international organizations such as the *Sennacieca Asocio Tutmonda*, a left-wing cultural association which has members in over 85 countries. There is also Education@Internet, which has developed from an Esperanto organization; most others are specifically Esperanto organizations. The largest of these, the Universal Esperanto Association, has an official consultative relationship with the United Nations and UNESCO, which recognized Esperanto as a medium for international understanding in 1954. The World Esperanto Association collaborated in 2017 with UNESCO to deliver an Esperanto translation of its magazine *UNESCO Courier* (*Unesko Kuriero en Esperanto*).

Esperanto is also the first language of teaching and administration of one university, the International Academy of Sciences San Marino.

In the summer of 1924, the American Radio Relay League adopted Esperanto as its official international auxiliary language, and hoped that the language would be used by radio amateurs in international communications, but its actual use for radio communications was negligible.

All the personal documents sold by the World Service Authority, including the World Passport, are written in Esperanto, together with English, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, and Chinese.

## Speakers

### Number of Speakers

An estimate of the number of Esperanto speakers was made by Sidney S. Culbert, a retired psychology professor at the University of Washington and a longtime Esperantist, who tracked down and tested Esperanto speakers in sample areas in dozens of countries over a period of twenty years. Culbert concluded that between one and two million people speak Esperanto at Foreign Service Level 3, "professionally proficient" (able to communicate moderately complex ideas without hesitation, and to follow speeches, radio broadcasts, etc.). Culbert's estimate was not made for Esperanto alone, but formed part of his listing of estimates for all languages of more than one million speakers, published annually in the World Almanac and Book of Facts. Culbert's most detailed account of his methodology is found in a 1989 letter to David Wolff. Since Culbert never published detailed intermediate results for particular countries and regions, it is difficult to independently gauge the accuracy of his results.

In the Almanac, his estimates for numbers of language speakers were rounded to the nearest million, thus the number for Esperanto speakers is shown as two million. This latter figure appears in *Ethnologue*. Assuming that this figure is accurate, that means that about 0.03% of the world's population speak the language. Although it is not Zamenhof's goal of a universal language, it still represents a level of popularity unmatched by any other constructed language.

Marcus Sikosek (now Ziko van Dijk) has challenged this figure of 1.6 million as exaggerated. He estimated that even if Esperanto speakers were evenly distributed, assuming one million Esperanto speakers worldwide would lead one to expect about 180 in the city of Cologne. Van Dijk finds only 30 fluent speakers in that city, and similarly smaller-than-expected figures in several other places thought to have a larger-than-average concentration of Esperanto speakers. He also notes that there are a total of about 20,000 members of the various Esperanto organizations (other estimates are higher). Though there are undoubtedly many Esperanto speakers who are not members of any Esperanto organization, he thinks it unlikely that there are fifty times more speakers than organization members.

Finnish linguist Jouko Lindstedt, an expert on native-born Esperanto speakers, presented the following scheme to show the overall proportions of language capabilities within the Esperanto community:

* 1,000 have Esperanto as their native language.
* 10,000 speak it fluently.
* 100,000 can use it actively.
* One million understand a large amount passively.
* Ten million have studied it to some extent at some time.

In 2017, doctoral student Svend Nielsen estimated around 63,000 Esperanto speakers worldwide, taking into account association memberships, user-generated data from Esperanto websites and census statistics. This number, however, was disputed by statistician Sten Johansson, who questioned the reliability of the source data and highlighted a wide margin of error, the latter point with which Nielsen agrees. Both have stated, however, that this new number is likely more realistic than some earlier projections.

In the absence of Dr. Culbert's detailed sampling data, or any other census data, it is impossible to state the number of speakers with certainty. According to the website of the World Esperanto Association:

Numbers of textbooks sold and membership of local societies put "the number of people with some knowledge of the language in the hundreds of thousands and possibly millions".
### Native Speakers

Native Esperanto speakers, 'denaskuloj*,* have learned the language from birth from Esperanto-speaking parents. This usually happens when Esperanto is the chief or only common language in an international family, but sometimes occurs in a family of Esperanto speakers who often use the language. The 15th edition of *Ethnologue* cited estimates that there were 200 to 2000 native speakers in 1996, but these figures were removed from the 16th and 17th editions. The current online version of *Ethnologue*gives "L1 users: 1,000 (Corsetti et al 2004)". As of 1996, there were approximately 350 attested cases of families with native Esperanto speakers (which means there were around 700 Esperanto speaking natives in these families, not calculating older native speakers).

## Esperanto excerpt from Wikipedia article "Esperanto"

### Unuaj ŝanĝprovoj

Zamenhofo ricevadis leterojn, kiuj ofte enhavis proponojn pri ŝanĝoj al la lingvo. Ĉiujn sugestojn li registris kaj pli malfrue komencis publikigi en la ĵurnalo *La Esperantisto*, eldonata tiam en Nurenbergo. En la sama periodaĵo li dufoje balotigis la legantojn pri la ŝanĝoj, la plejmulto tamen malkonsentis. Post tiuj voĉdonadoj por certa tempo iomete silentiĝis voĉoj dezirantaj reformojn kaj la lingvo ekdisvastiĝadis iom post iom. Plej multajn abonantojn la ĵurnalo havis en tiama Rusujo. Grandan baton ĝi tial suferis, kiam la cara cenzuro malpermesis ĝian disvastigon pro artikolo de Lev Nikolajeviĉ Tolstoj. La ĵurnalo devis esti malestigita, sed post nelonge ĝin anstataŭis nova, nomata *Lingvo Internacia*. Ĝi unue estis eldonata en sveda Upsalo, poste en Hungarujo kaj fine en Parizo, kie la eldonadon finis la unua mondmilito.

### Disvastiĝo de la lingvokomunumo

La novan internacian lingvon ĝiaj uzantoj komencis uzi ankaŭ por organizi fakajn kaj ŝatokupajn aktivadojn internacinivele. Dum la unuaj jardekoj la komunikado en Esperanto realiĝis preskaŭ nur skribe, sed post nesupozite sukcesa Universala Kongreso, okazinta 1905 en franca Boulogne-sur-Mer, kie pruviĝis ebloj uzi la internacian lingvon eĉ parolforme, komencis rapide kreski ankaŭ personaj kontaktoj kaj renkontiĝoj inter Esperantistoj.

Jam dum la Universala Kongreso en Barcelono jare 1909 realiĝis kelkaj renkontiĝoj de ĉeestantaj katolikoj, kiuj fine decidis organizi venontjare, do en 1910, apartan kongreson de katolikaj Esperantistoj. Dum ĝi estis fondita la Internacia Katolika Unuiĝo Esperantista (IKUE), kies ĉefa organo, la ĵurnalo Espero Katolika, tamen estis eldonata jam ekde 1903 kaj nun do temas pri la plej malnova ĝis nun aperanta Esperanta periodaĵo.

En la jaro 1912 Zamenhof dum solena sermono enkadre de la 8-a UK en Krakovo rezignis sian oficialan rolon en la movado. La deka Universala Kongreso estis okazonta en Parizo jare 1914, aliĝis tien preskaŭ 4000 homoj, sed komenciĝanta milito malebligis ĝin kaj Zamenhof povis reveturi hejmen nur tra la Skandinavaj ŝtatoj.

La sopiro pri paco kaj harmonio post la Unua Mondmilito vekis novajn esperojn, danke kion Esperanto estis rapide disvastiĝanta. La unua Universala Kongreso post la milito okazis jare 1920 en Hago, la 13-a UK jare 1921 en Prago. En 1927 en la Viena kastelo Hofburg estis fondita la memstara Esperantomuzeo kaj Kolekto por Planlingvoj, kiu en 1929 alkroĉiĝis al la Aŭstruja Nacia Biblioteko kaj hodiaŭ rezidas en aparta konstruaĵo.

En la intermilita periodo kaj la dum la Dua Mondmilito, okazis persekutado kontraŭ esperantistoj, inter alie en Germanio sub naziismo kaj en Sovetunio sub stalinismo.