Within the range of constructed languages, Esperanto occupies a middle ground between "naturalistic" (imitating existing natural languages) anda priori (where features are not based on existing languages). Esperanto'svocabulary,syntax andsemantics derive predominantly from languages of theIndo-European group. A substantial majority of its vocabulary (approximately 80%) derives fromRomance languages, but it also contains elements derived fromGermanic,Greek, andSlavic languages.[10] One of the language's most notable features is itsextensive system of derivation, where prefixes and suffixes may be freely combined with roots to generate words, making it possible to communicate effectively with a smaller set of words.
Esperanto is the most successful constructed international auxiliary language, andthe only such language with a sizeable population ofnative speakers, of which there are perhaps several thousand.[3] Usage estimates are difficult, but two estimates put the number of people who know how to speak Esperanto at around 100,000,[4] while the number of learners in the last decade certainly amount to several million due to its availability onDuolingo.[11][12] Concentration of speakers is highest in Europe, East Asia, and South America. Although no country has adopted Esperanto officially,Esperantujo ('Esperanto land') is used as a name for the collection of places where it is spoken. The language has also gained a noticeable presence on the internet, as it is becoming increasingly accessible on platforms such asWikipedia,Amikumu,Google Translate and Duolingo.[13][14] Esperanto speakers are often called Esperantists (Esperantistoj). A number of reforms, known asEsperantidos, have been proposed over the years.
The first Esperanto book by L. L. Zamenhof, published in 1887 inRussian. The title translates to:International Language: Preface and Complete Tutorial.
According to Zamenhof, he created the language to reduce the "time and labor 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."[15] His feelings and the situation in Białystok may be gleaned from an extract from his letter to Nikolai Borovko:[16]
The place where I was born and spent my childhood gave direction to all my future struggles. In Białystok the inhabitants were divided into four distinct elements: Russians, Poles, Germans, and Jews; each of these spoke their own language and looked on all the others as enemies. In such a town a sensitive nature feels more acutely than elsewhere the misery caused by language division and sees at every step that the diversity of languages is the first, or at least the most influential, basis for the separation of the human family into groups of enemies. I was brought up as an idealist; I was taught that all people were brothers, while outside in the street at every step I felt that there were no people, only Russians, Poles, Germans, Jews, and so on. This was always a great torment to my infant mind, although many people may smile at such an 'anguish for the world' in a child. Since at that time I thought that 'grown-ups' were omnipotent, I often said to myself that when I grew up I would certainly destroy this evil.
— L. L. Zamenhof, in a letter to Nikolai Borovko, c. 1895
It was invented in 1887 and designed so that anyone could learn it in a few short months. Dr. Zamenhof lived on Dzika Street, No. 9, which was just around the corner from the street on which we lived. Brother Afrum was so impressed with that idea that he learned Esperanto in a very short time at home from a little book. He then bought many dozens of them and gave them out to relatives, friends, just anyone he could, to support that magnificent idea for he felt that this would be a common bond to promote relationships with fellow men in the world. A group of people had organized and sent letters to the government asking to change the name of the street where Dr. Zamenhof lived for many years when he invented Esperanto, from Dzika to Zamenhofa. They were told that a petition with a large number of signatures would be needed. That took time so they organized demonstrations carrying large posters encouraging people to learn the universal language and to sign the petitions... About the same time, in the middle of the block marched a huge demonstration of people holding posters reading "Learn Esperanto", "Support the Universal language", "Esperanto the language of hope and expectation", "Esperanto the bond for international communication" and so on, and many "Sign the petitions". I will never forget that rich-poor, sad-glad parade and among all these people stood two fiery red tramway cars waiting on their opposite lanes and also a fewdorożkas with their horses squeezed in between. Such a sight it was. Later a few blocks were changed from Dzika Street to Dr. Zamenhofa Street and a nice monument was erected there with his name and his invention inscribed on it, to honor his memory.
— Autobiography of Tema Kipnis, Jewish refugee from Poland
Zamenhof's goal was to create an easy and flexible language that would serve as a universalsecond language, to fosterworld peace and international understanding, and to build a "community of speakers".[17]
His original title for the language was simply "the international language" (la lingvo internacia), but early speakers grew fond of the nameEsperanto, and began to use it as the name for the language just two years after its creation. The name quickly gained prominence, and has been used as an official name ever since.[18]
In 1905, Zamenhof published theFundamento de Esperanto as a definitive guide to the language. Later that year, French Esperantists organized with his participation the firstWorld Esperanto Congress, an ongoing annual conference, inBoulogne-sur-Mer, France. 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 theAkademio de Esperanto (in part modeled after theAcadémie française), which was established soon thereafter. Since then, world congresses have been held in different countries every year, except during the two World Wars, and the 2020COVID-19 pandemic (when it was moved to an online-only event). Since theSecond World War, they have been attended by an average of more than 2,000 people, and up to 6,000 people at the most.
Zamenhof wrote that he wanted mankind to "learn and use ... en masse ... the proposed language as a living one".[15] The goal for Esperanto to become aglobal auxiliary language was not Zamenhof's only goal; 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".[15]
After some ten years of development, which Zamenhof spent translating literature into Esperanto, as well as writing original prose and verse, thefirst book of Esperanto grammar was published inWarsaw on July 26, 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 before the world congresses, speakers of Esperanto kept in contact primarily through correspondence and periodicals.
Zamenhof's name for the language was simplyInternacia Lingvo ("International Language").[19] December 15, Zamenhof's birthday, is now regarded asZamenhof Day or Esperanto Book Day.[20]
The autonomous territory ofNeutral Moresnet, between what is today Belgium and Germany, had a sizable proportion of Esperanto-speaking citizens among its small, diverse population. There was a proposal to make Esperanto its official language.
However, neither Belgium nor Germany had surrendered their claims to the region, with the latter having adopted a more aggressive stance towards pursuing its claim around the turn of the century, even being accused of sabotage and administrative obstruction to force the issue. The outbreak of World War I would bring about the end of neutrality, with Moresnet initially left as "an oasis in a desert of destruction" following the German invasion of Belgium.[21] The territory was formally annexed by Prussia in 1915, though without international recognition.
After the war, a great opportunity for Esperanto seemingly presented itself, when the Iranian delegation to theLeague of Nations proposed that the language be adopted for use in international relations following a report by a Japanese delegate to the League namedNitobe Inazō, in the context of the 13th World Congress of Esperanto, held inPrague.[22] Ten delegates accepted the proposal with only one voice against, the French delegate,Gabriel Hanotaux. Hanotaux opposed all recognition of Esperanto at the League, from the first resolution on December 18, 1920, and subsequently through all efforts during the next three years.[23] However, two years later, the League recommended that its member states include Esperanto in their educational curricula. The French government retaliated by banning all instruction in Esperanto in France's schools and universities.[24][25] The French Ministry of Public Instruction said that "French and English would perish and the literary standard of the world would be debased".[25] Nonetheless, many people see the 1920s as the heyday of the Esperanto movement. During this time,anarchism as a political movement was very supportive of bothanationalism and the Esperanto language.[26]
Fran Novljan was one of the chief promoters of Esperanto in the formerKingdom of Yugoslavia. He was among the founders of the CroatianProsvjetni savez (Educational Alliance), of which he was the first secretary, and organized Esperanto institutions inZagreb. Novljan collaborated with Esperanto newspapers and magazines, and was the author of the Esperanto textbookInternacia lingvo esperanto i Esperanto en tridek lecionoj.[27][28]
In 1920sKorea, socialist thinkers pushed for the use of Esperanto through a series of columns inThe Dong-a Ilbo as resistance to bothJapanese occupation as well as a counter to the growing nationalist movement for Korean language standardization. This lasted until theMukden Incident in 1931, when changing colonial policy led to an outright ban onEsperanto education in Korea.[29]
In Nazi Germany, there was a motivation to ban Esperanto because Zamenhof was Jewish, and due to the internationalist nature of Esperanto, which was perceived as "Bolshevist". In his workMein Kampf,Adolf Hitler specifically mentions Esperanto as an example of a language that could be used by an international Jewish conspiracy once they achieved world domination.[30]Esperantists were killed during theHolocaust, with Zamenhof's family in particular singled out to be killed.[31] The efforts of a minority of German Esperantists toexpel their Jewish colleagues and overtly align themselves with the Reich were futile, and Esperanto was legally forbidden in 1935. Esperantists in German concentration camps did, however, teach Esperanto to fellow prisoners, telling guards they were teaching Italian, the language of one of Germany'sAxis allies.[32]
InImperial 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.[33]
After theOctober Revolution of 1917, Esperanto was given a measure of government support by the new communist states in theformer Russian Empire and later by theSoviet Union government, with theSoviet Esperantist Union being established as an organization that, temporarily, was officially recognized.[34] In his biography onJoseph Stalin,Leon Trotsky mentions that Stalin had studied Esperanto.[35] However, in 1937, at the height of theGreat Purge, Stalin completely reversed the Soviet government's policies on Esperanto; many Esperanto speakers were executed, exiled or held in captivity in theGulag labour camps. Quite often the accusation was: "You are an active member of an international spy organization 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, even though it was never officially forbidden to speak Esperanto.[36]
Fascist Italy allowed the use of Esperanto, finding its phonology similar to that of Italian and publishing some tourist material in the language.[37][38]
During and after theSpanish Civil War, Francoist Spain suppressedanarchists, socialists andCatalan nationalists for many years, among whom the use of Esperanto was extensive,[39] but in the 1950s the Esperanto movement was again tolerated.[40]
The development of Esperanto has continued unabated into the 21st century.[43] The advent of theInternet has had a significant impact on the language, as learning it has become increasingly accessible on platforms such asDuolingo, and as speakers have increasingly networked on platforms such asAmikumu.[13] With up to two million speakers, it is the most widely spoken constructed language in the world.[44] Although no country has adopted Esperanto officially,Esperantujo ("Esperanto-land") is the name given to the collection of places where it is spoken.[45][46]
Esperanto is the working language of several non-profit international organizations such as theSennacieca Asocio Tutmonda, a left-wing cultural association which had 724 members in over 85 countries in 2006.[47] There is also Education@Internet, which has developed from an Esperanto organization; most others are specifically Esperanto organizations. The largest of these, theUniversal Esperanto Association, has an official consultative relationship with the United Nations andUNESCO, which recognized Esperanto as a medium for international understanding in 1954.[20][48] The Universal Esperanto Association collaborated in 2017 with UNESCO to deliver an Esperanto translation[49] of its magazineUNESCO Courier (Esperanto:Unesko Kuriero en Esperanto). TheWorld Health Organization offers an Esperanto version of theCOVID-19 pandemic (Esperanto:pandemio KOVIM-19)occupational safety and health education course.[50]All personal documents sold by theWorld Service Authority, including theWorld Passport, are written in Esperanto, together with the official languages of theUnited Nations:English,French,Spanish,Russian,Arabic, andChinese.[51]
Esperanto has not been a secondary official language of any recognized country. However, it has entered the education systems of several countries, including Hungary[52] and China.[53]
TheLeague of Nations made attempts to promote the teaching of Esperanto in its member countries, but the resolutions were defeated (mainly by French delegates, who did not feel there was a need for it).[55]
TheVatican Radio has an Esperanto version of its podcasts and its website.[57]
In the summer of 1924, theAmerican Radio Relay League adopted Esperanto as its official international auxiliary language,[58] and hoped that the language would be used by radio amateurs in international communications, but its actual use for radio communications was negligible.[59]
TheUnited States Army has published military phrase books in Esperanto,[60] to be used from the 1950s until the 1970s in war games by mockenemy forces. A field reference manual, FM 30-101-1 Feb. 1962,[61] contained the grammar, English-Esperanto-English dictionary, and common phrases. In the 1970s Esperanto was used as the basis for Defense Language Aptitude Tests.
Beginning in 1908, there were efforts to establish the world's first Esperanto state inNeutral Moresnet, which at the time was aBelgian–Prussiancondominium in central-western Europe. Any such efforts came to an end with the beginning ofWorld War I and theGerman invasion of Belgium, voiding the treaty which established joint sovereignty over the territory. TheTreaty of Versailles subsequently awarded the disputed territory to Belgium, effective January 10, 1920.[62]
On May 28, 2015, the language learning platformDuolingo launched a free Esperanto course for English speakers.[64] On March 25, 2016, when the first Duolingo Esperanto course completed its beta-testing phase, that course had 350,000 people registered to learn Esperanto through the medium of English. By July 2018, the number of learners had risen to 1.36 million. On July 20, 2018, Duolingo changed from recording users cumulatively to reporting only the number of "active learners" (i.e., those who are studying at the time and have not yet completed the course),[citation needed] which as of October 2022 stands at 299,000 learners.[65][non-primary source needed]
On October 26, 2016, a second Duolingo Esperanto course, for which the language of instruction is Spanish, appeared on the same platform[66] and which as of April 2021 had a further 176,000 students.[67] A third Esperanto course, taught in Brazilian Portuguese, began its beta-testing phase on May 14, 2018, and was in use by 220,000 people in April 2021,[68] and 155,000 people in May 2022.[69] A fourth Esperanto course, taught in French, began its beta-testing phase in July 2020,[70] and had 72,500 students in March 2021,[71] and 101,000 students in May 2022.[72] As of early 2023, Duolingo has removed these courses.[citation needed]
As of October 2018,Lernu!, another online learning platform for Esperanto, had 320,000 registered users, and nearly 75,000 monthly visits.[73] 50,000 users possess at least a basic understanding of Esperanto.[citation needed]
The language-learning platformsDrops,Memrise and LingQ also have materials for Esperanto.[74]
Variant logo for the Esperanto Wikipedia's 200,000-article milestone
As of January 2025,Esperanto Wikipedia (Vikipedio) contains about 368,000 articles, making it the 37th-largest Wikipedia, as measured by the number of articles,[77] and is the largest Wikipedia in a constructed language.[78][79] About 150,000 users consult the Vikipedio regularly, as attested by Wikipedia's automatically aggregated log-in data, which showed that in October 2019 the website has 117,366 unique individual visitors per month, plus 33,572 who view the site on a mobile device instead.[80]
Esperanto'sphonology,grammar,vocabulary, andsemantics are based on theIndo-European languages spoken in Europe. Beside his native Yiddish and (Belo)Russian, Zamenhof studied German, Hebrew, Latin, English, Spanish, Lithuanian, Italian, French, Aramaic andVolapük, knowing altogether something of 13 different languages, which had an influence on Esperanto's linguistic properties.[84][85] Esperantist and linguistIlona Koutny notes that Esperanto's vocabulary, phrase structure, agreement systems, and semantic typology are similar to those of Indo-European languages spoken in Europe. However, Koutny and EsperantistHumphrey Tonkin also note that Esperanto has features that are atypical of Indo-European languages spoken in Europe, such as its agglutinative morphology.[82][83] Claude Piron argued that Esperanto word-formation has more in common with that of Chinese than withtypical European languages, and that the number of Esperanto features shared with Slavic languages warrants the identification of a Slavic-derived stratum of language structure that he calls the "Middle Plane".[86]
Esperanto typically has 22 to 24 consonants (depending on the phonemic analysis and individual speaker), five vowels, and twosemivowels that combine with the vowels to form sixdiphthongs. (The consonant/j/ and semivowel/i̯/ are both written ⟨j⟩, and the uncommon consonant/dz/ is written with the digraph ⟨dz⟩,[87] which is the only consonant that does not have its own letter.)Tone is not used to distinguish meanings of words.Stress is always on the second-to-last vowel in proper Esperanto words, unless a final vowelo iselided, a phenomenon mostly occurring in poetry. For example,familio "family" is[fa.mi.ˈli.o], with the stress on the secondi, but when the word is used without the finalo (famili’), the stress remains on the secondi:[fa.mi.ˈli].
The/v/ is normally pronounced like Englishv, but may be pronounced[ʋ] (between Englishv andw) or[w], depending on the language background of the speaker.
A semivowel/u̯/ normally occurs only indiphthongs after the vowels/a/ and/e/, not as a consonant/w/.
Common, if debated,assimilation includes the pronunciation ofnk as[ŋk] andkz as[ɡz].
A large number of consonant clusters can occur, up to three in initial position (as instranga, "strange") and five in medial position (as inekssklavo, "former slave"). Final clusters are uncommon except in unassimilated names, poetic elision of finalo, and a very few basic words such ascent "hundred" andpost "after".
Since there are only five vowels, a good deal of variation in pronunciation is tolerated. For instance,e commonly ranges from[e] (Frenché) to[ɛ] (Frenchè). These details often depend on the speaker's native language. Aglottal stop may occur between adjacent vowels in some people's speech, especially when the two vowels are the same, as inheroo "hero" ([he.ˈro.o] or[he.ˈro.ʔo]) andpraavo "great-grandfather" ([pra.ˈa.vo] or[pra.ˈʔa.vo]).
The Esperanto alphabet is based on theLatin script, using a one-sound-one-letter principle, with the exception of [d͡z]. It includes sixletters withdiacritics: five with circumflexes (⟨ĉ⟩, ⟨ĝ⟩, ⟨ĥ⟩, ⟨ĵ⟩, and ⟨ŝ⟩), and one with abreve (⟨ŭ⟩). The alphabet does not include the letters ⟨q⟩, ⟨w⟩, ⟨x⟩, or ⟨y⟩, which are only used in the writing of proper names and unassimilated borrowings.
All letters lacking diacritics are pronounced approximately as their respectiveIPA symbols, with the exception of ⟨c⟩.
The letters ⟨j⟩ and ⟨c⟩ are used in a way that is familiar to speakers of many Central and Eastern European languages, but may be unfamiliar to English speakers. ⟨j⟩ has the sound of English ⟨y⟩, as inyellow andboy (Esperantojes has the same pronunciation as its English cognateyes), and ⟨c⟩ has a "ts" sound, as inhits or the ⟨zz⟩ inpizza. In addition, the ⟨g⟩ in Esperanto is always 'hard', as ingift. Esperanto makes use of the five-vowel system, essentially identical to the vowels of Spanish and Modern Greek.
The accented letters are:
⟨ĉ⟩ is pronounced like Englishch inchatting
⟨ĝ⟩ is pronounced like Englishg ingem
⟨ĥ⟩ is pronounced like thech in GermanBach or Scottish Englishloch.
⟨ĵ⟩ is pronounced like thes in Englishfusion or thej in FrenchJacques
⟨ŝ⟩ is pronounced like Englishsh.
⟨ŭ⟩ in ⟨aŭ⟩ is pronounced like Englishow incow.
According to one of Zamenhof's entries in theLingvaj respondoj, the letter ⟨n⟩ ought to be pronounced as [n] in all cases, but a rendering as [ŋ] is admissible before ⟨g⟩, ⟨k⟩, and ⟨ĥ⟩.
Even with the widespread adoption ofUnicode, the letters with diacritics (found in the "Latin-Extended A" section of theUnicode Standard) can cause problems with printing and computing, because they are not found on most physical keyboards and are left out of certain fonts.
There are two principal workarounds to this problem, which substitutedigraphs for the accented letters. Zamenhof, the inventor of Esperanto, created an "h-convention", which replaces ⟨ĉ⟩, ⟨ĝ⟩, ⟨ĥ⟩, ⟨ĵ⟩, ⟨ŝ⟩, and ⟨ŭ⟩ with ⟨ch⟩, ⟨gh⟩, ⟨hh⟩, ⟨jh⟩, ⟨sh⟩, and ⟨u⟩, respectively.[91] The main issue with this convention is its ambiguity: If used in a database, a program could not easily determine whether to render, for example, ⟨ch⟩ as /c/ followed by /h/ or as /ĉ/. Such words do exist in Esperanto:senchava could not be rendered unambiguously, unless its component parts were intentionally separated, as insenc·hava. A more recent "x-convention" has also gained prominence with the advent of computing, utilizing an otherwise absent ⟨x⟩ to produce the digraphs ⟨cx⟩, ⟨gx⟩, ⟨hx⟩, ⟨jx⟩, ⟨sx⟩, and ⟨ux⟩; this has the incidental advantage of alphabetizing correctly in most cases, since the only letter after ⟨x⟩ is ⟨z⟩.
The core vocabulary of Esperanto was defined byLingvo internacia, published by Zamenhof in 1887. This book listed 917 roots; these could be expanded into tens of thousands of words using prefixes, suffixes, and compounding. In 1894, Zamenhof published the first Esperantodictionary,Universala Vortaro, which had a larger set of roots. The rules of the language allowed speakers to borrow new roots as needed; it was recommended, however, that speakers use most international forms and then derive related meanings from these.
Since then, many words have been borrowed, primarily (but not solely) from the European languages. Not all proposed borrowings become widespread, but many do, especiallytechnical andscientific terms. Terms for everyday use, on the other hand, are more likely to be derived from existing roots;komputilo "computer", for instance, is formed from the verbkomputi "compute" and the suffix-ilo "tool". Words are alsocalqued; that is, words acquire new meanings based on usage in other languages. For example, the wordmuso "mouse" has acquired the meaning of acomputer mouse from its usage in many languages (Englishmouse, Frenchsouris, Dutchmuis, Spanishratón, etc.). Esperanto speakers often debate about whether a particular borrowing is justified or whether meaning can be expressed by deriving from or extending the meaning of existing words.
Some compounds and formed words in Esperanto are not entirely straightforward; for example,eldoni, literally "give out", means "publish", paralleling the usage of certain European languages (such as Germanherausgeben, Dutchuitgeven, Russianиздать izdat'). In addition,the suffix-um- has no defined meaning; words using the suffix must be learned separately (such asdekstren "to the right" anddekstrumen "clockwise").
There are not many idiomatic or slang words in Esperanto, as these forms of speech tend to make international communication difficult—working against Esperanto's main goal.[citation needed] The language contains severalcalques of Polish expressions.[96]
Instead of derivations of Esperanto roots, new roots are taken from European languages in the endeavor to create an international language.[97]
Esperanto words are mostlyderived by stringing togetherroots, grammatical endings, and at timesprefixes andsuffixes. This process is regular so that people can create new words as they speak and be understood.Compound words are formed with a modifier-first,head-final order, as in English (compare "birdsong" and "songbird", and likewise,birdokanto andkantobirdo). Speakers may optionally insert ano between the words in a compound noun if placing them together directly without theo would make the resulting word hard to say or understand.
The differentparts of speech are marked by their own suffixes: allcommon nouns are marked with the suffix-o, alladjectives with-a, all derived adverbs with-e, and allverbs except thejussive (orimperative) andinfinitive end in-s, specifically in one of sixtense andmood suffixes, such as thepresent tense-as; the jussive mood, which is tenseless, ends in-u. Nouns and adjectives have two cases:nominative for grammatical subjects and in general, andaccusative for direct objects and (after a preposition) to indicate direction of movement.
Singular nouns used asgrammatical subjects end in-o,plural subject nouns in-oj (pronounced [oi̯] like English "oy"). Singulardirect object forms end in-on, and plural direct objects with the combination-ojn ([oi̯n]; rhymes with "coin"):-o indicates that the word is a noun,-j indicates the plural, and-n indicates theaccusative (direct object) case. Adjectivesagree with their nouns; their endings are singular subject-a ([a]; rhymes with "ha!"), plural subject-aj ([ai̯], pronounced "eye"), singular object-an, and plural object-ajn ([ai̯n]; rhymes with "fine").
The suffix-n, besides indicating the direct object, is used to indicate movement and a few other things as well.
The six verbinflections consist of three tenses and three moods. They arepresent tense-as,future tense-os,past tense-is,infinitive mood-i,conditional mood-us andjussive mood-u (used for wishes and commands). Verbs are not marked for person or number. Thus,kanti means "to sing",mi kantas means "I sing",vi kantas means "you sing", andili kantas means "they sing".
Word order is comparatively free. Adjectives may precede or follow nouns; subjects, verbs and objects may occur in any order. However, thearticlela "the",demonstratives such astiu "that" andprepositions (such asĉe "at") must come before their related nouns. Similarly, the negativene "not" andconjunctions such askaj "and" andke "that" must precede thephrase orclause that they introduce. Incopular (A = B) clauses, word order is just as important as in English: "people are animals" is distinguished from "animals are people".
Ĉiuj homoj estas denaske liberaj kaj egalaj laŭ digno kaj rajtoj. Ili posedas racion kaj konsciencon, kaj devus konduti unu al alia en spirito de frateco.
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
«En multaj lokoj de Ĉinio estis temploj de la drako-reĝo. Dum trosekeco oni preĝis en la temploj, ke la drako-reĝo donu pluvon al la homa mondo. Tiam drako estis simbolo de la supernatura estaĵo. Kaj pli poste, ĝi fariĝis prapatro de la plej altaj regantoj kaj simbolis la absolutan aŭtoritaton de la feŭda imperiestro. La imperiestro pretendis, ke li estas la filo de la drako. Ĉiuj liaj vivbezonaĵoj portis la nomon drako kaj estis ornamitaj per diversaj drakofiguroj. Nun ĉie en Ĉinio videblas drako-ornamentaĵoj, kaj cirkulas legendoj pri drakoj.»
English translation:
In many places in China, there were temples of the dragon-king. During times of drought, people would pray in the temples that the dragon-king would give rain to the human world. At that time the dragon was a symbol of the supernatural creature. Later on, it became the ancestor of the highest rulers and symbolized the absolute authority of a feudal emperor. The emperor claimed to be the son of the dragon. All of his personal possessions carried the name "dragon" and were decorated with various dragon figures. Now dragon decorations can be seen everywhere in China, and legends about dragons circulate.
This section needs to beupdated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(May 2022)
Esperanto speakers learn the language throughself-directed study, online tutorials, and correspondence courses taught by volunteers. More recently, free teaching websites likelernu! andDuolingo have become available.
Esperanto instruction is rarely available at schools, including four primary schools in a pilot project under the supervision of theUniversity of Manchester, and by one count at a few universities.[101] However, outside China andHungary, these mostly involve informal arrangements, rather than dedicated departments or state sponsorship.Eötvös Loránd University inBudapest had a department ofInterlinguistics and Esperanto from 1966 to 2004, after which time instruction moved tovocational colleges; there are state examinations for Esperanto instructors.[102][103] Additionally,Adam Mickiewicz University in Poland offers adiploma in Interlinguistics.[104] TheSenate of Brazil passed a bill in 2009 that would make Esperanto an optional part of the curriculum inpublic schools, although mandatory if there is demand for it. As of 2015[update], the bill is still under consideration by theChamber of Deputies.[105][106][107]
In the United States, Esperanto is notably offered as a weekly evening course atStanford University's Bechtel International Center.Conversational Esperanto, The International Language, is a free drop-in class that is open to Stanford students and the general public on campus during the academic year. With administrative permission, Stanford students can take the class for two credits a quarter through the Linguistics Department.[108]
Esperanto-USA suggests that Esperanto can be learned in, at most, one quarter of the amount of time required for other languages.[109]
The Zagreb method is an Esperanto teaching method that was developed in the city ofZagreb in the late 1970s to early 1980s as a response to the unsatisfactory learning outcomes of traditional natural-language teaching techniques when used for Esperanto. Its goal was to streamline the material in order to equip learners with practical knowledge that could be put to use in as short a time frame as possible. It is now implemented and available on some of the well-known learning websites in the community.[citation needed]
From 2006 to 2011, four primary schools inBritain, with 230 pupils, followed a course in "propaedeutic Esperanto"—that is, instruction in Esperanto to raise language awareness, and to accelerate subsequent learning of foreign languages—under the supervision of the University of Manchester. As they put it,
Many schools used to teach children therecorder, not to produce a nation of recorder players, but as a preparation for learning other instruments. [We teach] Esperanto, not to produce a nation of Esperanto-speakers, but as a preparation for learning other languages.[110]
The results showed that the pupils achieved enhanced metalinguistic awareness, though the study did not indicate whether a course in a language other than Esperanto would have led to similar results.[111] Similar studies have been conducted inNew Zealand,[112] the United States,[113][114] England,[115] and Germany.[116] Many of these experiments' findings were compromised by unclear objectives, brief or anecdotal reporting, and a lack of methodological rigor.[117] However, the results of these studies were consistently favorable, and suggested that studying Esperanto before another foreign language expedites the acquisition of the other, natural language.
Esperanto is by far the most widely spokenconstructed language in the world.[118] Speakers are most numerous in Europe and East Asia, especially in urban areas, where they often formEsperanto clubs.[119] Esperanto is particularly prevalent in the northern and central countries of Europe; in China,Korea, Japan, andIran within Asia;[33] inBrazil, and theUnited States in the Americas;[120] and inTogo in Africa.[121]
Countering a common criticism against Esperanto, thestatistician Svend Nielsen has found no significant correlation between the number of Esperanto speakers and the similarity of a given national native language to Esperanto. He concludes that Esperanto tends to be more popular in rich countries with widespread Internet access and a tendency to contribute more to science and culture. Linguistic diversity within a country was found to have no, or perhaps a slightly reductive, correlation with Esperanto popularity.[122]
An estimate of the number of Esperanto speakers was made bySidney S. Culbert, a retiredpsychology professor at theUniversity of Washington and a longtimeEsperantist, 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 atForeign Service Level 3, "professionally proficient" (able to communicate moderately complex ideas without hesitation, and to follow speeches, radio broadcasts, etc.).[123] 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 theWorld Almanac and Book of Facts. Culbert's most detailed account of his methodology is found in a 1989 letter to David Wolff.[124] 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 of Esperanto speakers is shown as two million. This latter figure appears inEthnologue. Assuming that this figure is accurate, that means that about 0.03% of the world's population speaks the language. Although it does not meet Zamenhof's goal of auniversal language, it still represents a level of popularity unmatched by any other constructed language.
Marcus Sikosek (nowZiko 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 ofCologne. Van Dijk finds only 30fluent 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.[119]
In 1996,FinnishlinguistJouko Lindstedt, an expert on native-born Esperanto speakers, presented the following scheme[125] to show the overall proportions of language capabilities within the Esperanto community:
1,000 have Esperanto as their native family 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.[4]
In the absence of 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 theUniversal Esperanto Association:
Numbers oftextbooks 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".[126]
Native Esperanto speakers, eo:denaskuloj,lit. 'person from/since birth', have learned the language from birth from Esperanto-speaking parents.[127] 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.[128] As of 1996, according to Corsetti, 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 accounting for older native speakers).[129] The 2022 edition ofEthnologue gives 1,000 L1 users citing Corsetti et al 2004.[120]
However, native speakers do not occupy an authoritative position in the Esperanto community, as they would in other language communities. This presents a challenge to linguists, whose usual source of grammaticality and meanings are native speakers.[130][131]
Esperantists participate in an international culture, including a large body of original as well as translatedliterature. There are more than 25,000 Esperanto books, both originals and translations, as well as several regularly distributedEsperanto magazines. In 2013, a museum about Esperanto opened in China.[132] Esperantists use the language for free accommodations with Esperantists in 92 countries using thePasporta Servo or to developpen pals throughEsperanto Koresponda Servo [eo].[133]
Historically, much music has been written in the language such asKaj Tiel Plu.[136] There is also a variety of classical and semi-classical choral music, both original and translated, as well as large ensemble music that includes voices singing Esperanto texts.Lou Harrison, who incorporated styles and instruments from many world cultures in his music, used Esperanto titles and/or texts in several of his works, most notablyLa Koro-Sutro (1973).David Gaines used Esperanto poems as well as an excerpt from a speech by Zamenhof for hisSymphony No. One (Esperanto) for mezzo-soprano and orchestra (1994–98). He wrote original Esperanto text for hisPovas plori mi ne plu (I Can Cry No Longer) for unaccompaniedSATB choir (1994).
There are also shared traditions, such asZamenhof Day, celebrated on December 15. Esperantists speak primarily in Esperanto at special conventions, including theWorld Esperanto Congress but also more local conventions, held for instance where three or more national languages meet.
Proponents of Esperanto, such asHumphrey Tonkin, a professor at theUniversity of Hartford, argue that Esperanto is "culturally neutral by design, as it was intended to be a facilitator between cultures, not to be the carrier of any one national culture". The late Scottish Esperanto authorWilliam Auld wrote extensively on the subject, arguing that Esperanto is "the expression of acommon human culture, unencumbered by national frontiers. Thus it is considered a culture on its own."[137] Critics have argued that the language iseurocentric, as it draws much of its vocabulary from European languages.[138]
Several Esperanto associations also advance Esperanto education, and aim to preserve its culture and heritage.[139] Poland added Esperanto to its list ofintangible cultural heritage in 2014.[140]
In the futuristic novelLord of the World by Robert Hugh Benson, Esperanto is presented as the predominant language of the world, much as Latin is the language of the Church.[141] A reference to Esperanto appears in the science-fiction storyWar with the Newts byKarel Čapek, published in 1936. As part of a passage on what language the salamander-looking creatures with human cognitive ability should learn, it is noted that "...in the Reform schools, Esperanto was taught as the medium of communication." (p. 206).[142]
Esperanto has been used in many films and novels. Typically, this is done either to add the exotic flavour of a foreign language without representing any particular ethnicity, or to avoid going to the trouble of inventing a new language.[citation needed] TheCharlie Chaplin filmThe Great Dictator (1940) showedJewish ghetto shop signs in Esperanto. Two full-length feature films have been produced withdialogue entirely in Esperanto:Angoroj, in 1964, andIncubus, a 1965B-movie horror film which is also notable for starringWilliam Shatner shortly before he began working onStar Trek. InCaptain Fantastic (2016) there is a dialogue in Esperanto. The 1994 filmStreet Fighter contains Esperanto dialogue spoken by the character Sagat. Finally, Mexican film directorAlfonso Cuarón has publicly shown his fascination for Esperanto,[143] going as far as naming his film production companyEsperanto Filmoj ("Esperanto Films").
Hungarian CosmonautBertalan Farkas, the first Esperantist in space
In 1921 theFrench Academy of Sciences recommended using Esperanto for international scientific communication.[144] A few scientists and mathematicians, such asMaurice Fréchet (mathematics),John C. Wells (linguistics),Helmar Frank (pedagogy and cybernetics), andNobel laureateReinhard Selten (economics) have published part of their work in Esperanto. Frank and Selten were among the founders of theInternational Academy of Sciences in San Marino, sometimes called the "Esperanto University", where Esperanto is the primary language of teaching and administration.[145][146]
Esperanto business groups have been active for many years. Research conducted in the 1920s by the French Chamber of Commerce and reported inThe New York Times suggested that Esperanto seemed to be the best business language.[147]
Zamenhof had three goals, as he wrote already in 1887: to create an easy language, to create a language ready to use "whether the language be universally accepted or not" and to find some means to get many people to learn the language.[15] So Zamenhof's intention was not only to create an easy-to-learn language to foster peace and international understanding as a general language, but also to create a language for immediate use by a (small) language community. Esperanto was to serve as an international auxiliary language, that is, as a universal second language, not to replace ethnic languages. This goal was shared by Zamenhof among Esperanto speakers at the beginning of the movement.[149] Later, Esperanto speakers began to see the language and the culture that had grown up around it as ends in themselves, even if Esperanto is never adopted by the United Nations or other international organizations.[144]
Esperanto speakers who want to see Esperanto adopted officially or on a large scale worldwide are commonly calledfinvenkistoj, fromfina venko, meaning "final victory".[150]There are two kinds offinvenkismo:desubismo aims to spread Esperanto between ordinary people (desube, from below) to form a steadily growing community of Esperanto speakers, whiledesuprismo aims to act from above (desupre), beginning with politicians.Zamenhof considered the first way more plausible, as "for such affairs as ours, governments come with their approval and help usually only when everything is completely ready".[151]
Those who focus on the intrinsic value of the language are commonly calledraŭmistoj, fromRauma, Finland, where a declaration on the short-term improbability of thefina venko and the value of Esperanto culture was made at the International Youth Congress in 1980.[152] However the "Manifesto de Raŭmo" clearly mentions the intention to further spread the language: "We want to spread Esperanto to put into effect its positive values more and more, step by step".[153]
In 1996 thePrague Manifesto was adopted at the annual congress of the Universal Esperanto Association (UEA); it was subscribed by individual participants and later by other Esperanto speakers. More recently, language-learning apps likeDuolingo andAmikumu have helped to increase the amount of fluent speakers of Esperanto, and find others in their area to speak the language with.
The earliest flag, and the one most commonly used today, features a green five-pointed star against a whitecanton, upon a field of green. It was proposed to Zamenhof byRichard Geoghegan, author of the first Esperanto textbook for English speakers, in 1887. The flag was approved in 1905 by delegates to the first conference of Esperantists at Boulogne-sur-Mer.
The green star on white (la verda stelo) is also used by itself as a round (buttonhole, etc.) emblem by many esperantists, among other reasons to enhance their visibility outside the Esperanto world.
In 1987, a second flag design was chosen in a contest organized by the UEA celebrating the first centennial of the language.It featured a white background with two stylised curved "E"s facing each other.Dubbed thejubilea simbolo (jubilee symbol),[155] it attracted criticism from some Esperantists, who dubbed it themelono (melon) for its elliptical shape.It is still in use, though to a lesser degree than the traditional symbol, known as theverda stelo (green star).[156]
Esperanto has been placed in many proposed political situations.The most popular of these is theEurope–Democracy–Esperanto, which aims to establish Esperanto as theofficial language of theEuropean Union.Grin's Report, published in 2005 byFrançois Grin, found that the use of English as thelingua franca within the European Union costs billions annually and significantly benefits English-speaking countries financially.[157]The report considered a scenario where Esperanto would be the lingua franca, and found that it would have many advantages, particularly economically speaking, as well as ideologically.
On February 12, 1913, ʻAbdu'l-Bahá gave a talk to the Paris Esperanto Society, stating:
Now, praise be to God that Dr. Zamenhof has invented the Esperanto language. It has all the potential qualities of becoming the international means of communication. All of us must be grateful and thankful to him for this noble effort; for in this way he has served his fellowmen well. With untiring effort and self-sacrifice on the part of its devotees Esperanto will become universal. Therefore every one of us must study this language and spread it as far as possible so that day by day it may receive a broader recognition, be accepted by all nations and governments of the world, and become a part of the curriculum in all the public schools. I hope that Esperanto will be adopted as the language of all the future international conferences and congresses, so that all people need acquire only two languages—one their own tongue and the other the international language. Then perfect union will be established between all the people of the world. Consider how difficult it is today to communicate with various nations. If one studies fifty languages one may yet travel through a country and not know the language. Therefore I hope that you will make the utmost effort, so that this language of Esperanto may be widely spread.[164]
Today there exists an active sub-community of Baháʼí Esperantists and various volumes ofBaháʼí literature have been translated into Esperanto. In 1973, theBaháʼí Esperanto-League for active Baháʼí supporters of Esperanto was founded.[163]
In 1908,spiritist Camilo Chaigneau wrote an article named "Spiritism and Esperanto" in the periodicLa Vie d'Outre-Tombe recommending the use of Esperanto in a "central magazine" for all spiritists and Esperantists. Esperanto then became actively promoted by spiritists, at least inBrazil, initially byIsmael Gomes Braga andFrantišek Lorenz; the latter is known in Brazil as Francisco Valdomiro Lorenz, and was a pioneer of both spiritist and Esperantist movements in this country.[167] The Brazilian Spiritist Federation publishes Esperanto coursebooks, translations ofSpiritism's basic books, and encourages Spiritists to become Esperantists.[168]
William T. Stead, a famous spiritualist and occultist in the United Kingdom, co-founded the first Esperanto club in the U.K.[169]: 113
The Teozofia Esperanta Ligo (Theosophical Esperantist League) was formed in 1911, and the organization's journal,Espero Teozofia, was published from 1913 to 1928.[169]: 113
The first translation of theBible into Esperanto was a translation of theTanakh (or Old Testament) done byL. L. Zamenhof. The translation was reviewed and compared with other languages' translations by a group of British clergy and scholars before its publication at theBritish and Foreign Bible Society in 1910. In 1926 this was published along with a New Testament translation, in an edition commonly called the "Londona Biblio". In the 1960s, theInternacia Asocio de Bibliistoj kaj Orientalistoj tried to organize a new, ecumenical Esperanto Bible version.[170] Since then, the DutchRemonstrant pastor Gerrit Berveling has translated theDeuterocanonical or apocryphal books, in addition to new translations of the Gospels, some of the New Testament epistles, and some books of the Tanakh. These have been published in various separate booklets, or serialized inDia Regno, but the Deuterocanonical books have appeared in recent editions of theLondona Biblio.
Mass in Esperanto during the 95th World Congress of Esperanto in Havana, 2010
Christian Esperanto organizations and publications include:
After a failed attempt to start a Catholic Esperanto organization, Emile Peltier, a parish priest nearTours, France, published the first issue ofEspero Katolika (Catholic Hope) in 1902. A year after Peltier's death, theInternational Union of Catholic Esperantists (Internacia Katolika Unuiĝo Esperantista,IKUE) was formed in 1910.[169] FatherMax Metzger founded the World Peace League of the White Cross in 1916 and theGerman Catholics' Peace Association in 1919, both of which used Esperanto as their working language.[171] Two Roman Catholic popes,John Paul II andBenedict XVI, have regularly used Esperanto in their multilingualurbi et orbi blessings at Easter and Christmas each year since Easter 1994.[172][173]
In 1911, TheInternational League of Christian Esperantists (Kristana Esperantista Ligo Internacia,KELI) was founded during the Universal Congress of Esperanto inAntwerp. The founder, Paul Hübner (1881-1970), was an early supporter of theNazi movement, a fact which disenfranchised liberal and Jewish members, thus severely limiting the growth of the KELI during the first half of the 20th century.[169] KELI's bimonthly interdenominational magazine,Dia Regno, continues to be published and is reportedly made available to readers in 48 countries.[174] They have also published several Esperanto hymnals including the 1971Adoru Kantante (Worship by Singing) andTero kaj Ĉielo Kantu (Earth and Heaven Sing).[174]
TheQuaker Esperanto Society (Kvakera Esperanto-Societo,KES) was established in 1921[175] and described in multiple issues of "The Friend"[176][177]Advices and Queries (Konsiloj kaj Demandoj) and several other Quaker texts have been translated.[178] Well-known Esperantists who were also Quakers include authors and historians,Edmond Privat andMontagu Christie Butler.
TheBook of Mormon has been partially translated into Esperanto, although the translation has not been officially endorsed bythe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.[182] There exists a group of Latter-day Saint Esperantists who distribute church literature in the language.[183]
There are instances ofChristian apologists and teachers using Esperanto as a medium. Nigerian pastor Bayo Afolaranmi's "Spirita nutraĵo"[184] ("spiritual food") Yahoo mailing list, for example, has hosted weekly messages since 2003.[185]
Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran called on Muslims to learn Esperanto and praised its use as a medium for better understanding among peoples of different religious backgrounds. After he suggested that Esperanto replace English as an internationallingua franca, it began to be used in the seminaries ofQom. An Esperanto translation of theQur'an was published by the state shortly thereafter.[186][187]
In modern times, conscious attempts have been made to eliminate perceived sexism in the language, such asRiism. Many words withĥ now have alternative spellings withk and occasionallyh, so thatarĥitekto may also be spelledarkitekto; seeEsperanto phonology for further details ofĥ replacement. Reforms aimed at altering country names have also resulted in a number of different options, either due to disputes over suffixes or Eurocentrism in naming various countries.[citation needed]
J. R. R. Tolkien wrote in support of the language in a 1932British Esperantist article, but criticised those whosought to adapt or "tinker" with the language, which, in his opinion, harmed unanimity and the goal of achieving wide acceptance.[189]
There have been numerous objections to Esperanto over the years. For example, there has been criticism that Esperanto is not neutral enough, but also that it should convey a specific culture, which would make it less neutral; that Esperanto does not draw on a wide enough selection of the world's languages, but also that it should be more narrowly European.[138][190]
Esperantists often argue for Esperanto as a culturally neutral means of communication. However, it is often accused of beingEurocentric.[138] This is most often noted in regard to thevocabulary. The vocabulary, for example, draws about three-quarters fromRomance languages, and the remainder primarily fromGerman,Greek andSlavic languages.[10] Speakers have argued that the agglutinative grammar and verb regularity of Esperanto have more in common with Asian languages than with European ones.[191][192] A 2010linguistic typological study concluded that "Esperanto is indeed somewhat European in character, but considerably less so than the European languages themselves."[193]
Esperanto is sometimes accused of being inherentlysexist, because the default form of some nouns is used for descriptions of men while a derived form is used for the women. This is said to retain traces of the male-dominated society of late 19th-century Europe of which Esperanto is a product.[194][195] These nouns are primarily titles, such asbaron/baroness, and kinship terms, such assinjoro "Mr, sir" vs.sinjorino "Ms, lady" andpatro "father" vs.patrino "mother". Before the movement toward equal rights for women, this also applied to professional roles assumed to be predominantly male, such asdoktoro, a holder of a doctorate (male or unspecified), versusdoktorino, a female doctorate-holder. This paralleled the contemporary situation with the English suffix-ess, as in the wordswaiter/waitress,actor/actress, etc.
On the other hand, the pronounĝi ("it") may be used generically to mean he/she/they; the pronounli ("he") is always masculine andŝi ("she") is always female, despite some authors' arguments.[196] A gender-neutral singular pronounri has gradually become more widely used in recent years, although it is minority usage.[197]The plural pronounili ("they") is always neutral, while nouns with the prefixge– specifically includes both sexes, for examplegesinjoroj (equivalent, depending on context, to eithersinjoro kaj sinjorino "Mr. and Ms." orsinjoroj kaj sinjorinoj "Ladies and Gentlemen"),gepatroj "parents" (equivalent topatro kaj patrino "mother and father").
Speakers of languages withoutgrammatical case oradjectival agreement frequently criticise these aspects of Esperanto. In addition, in the past some people found theClassical Greek forms of the plural (nouns in-oj, adjectives in-aj) to be awkward, proposing instead that Italian-i be used for nouns, and that no plural be used for adjectives. These suggestions were adopted by theIdo reform.[138][190] A reply to that criticism is that the presence of an accusative case allows much freedom in word order, e.g. for emphasis ("Johano batis Petron", John hit Peter; "Petron batis Johano", it is Peter whom John hit), that its absence in the "predicate of the object" avoids ambiguity ("Mi vidis la blankan domon", I saw the white house; "Mi vidis la domon blanka", the house seemed white to me) and that adjective agreement allows, among others, the use ofhyperbaton in poetry (as in Latin, cf. Virgil'sEclogue 1:1Tityre, tupatulæ recubans sub tegminefagi... where "patulæ" (spread out) is epithet to "fagi" (beech) and their agreement in the genitive feminine binds them notwithstanding their distance in the verse).
The Esperanto alphabet uses two diacritics: thecircumflex and thebreve. The alphabet was designed with a French typewriter in mind, and although modern computers support Unicode, entering the letters with diacritic marks can be more or less problematic with certain operating systems or hardware. One of the first reform proposals (forEsperanto 1894) sought to do away with these marks and the languageIdo went back to the basic Latin alphabet.
One common criticism is that Esperanto has failed to live up to the hopes of its creator, who dreamed of it becoming a universal second language.[198][199] Because people were reluctant to learn a new language which hardly anyone spoke, Zamenhof asked people to sign a promise to start learning Esperanto once ten million people made the same promise. He "was disappointed to receive only a thousand responses".[200]
However, Zamenhof had the goal to "enable the learner to make direct use of his knowledge with persons of any nationality, whether the language be universally accepted or not",[15] as he wrote in 1887. The language is currently[when?] spoken by people living in more than 100 countries; there are about 2,000 native Esperanto speakers and probably up to 100,000 people who use the language regularly.[citation needed]
In this regard, Zamenhof was well aware that it might take much time for Esperanto to achieve his desired goals. In his speech at the 1907World Esperanto Congress inCambridge he said, "we hope that earlier or later, maybe after many centuries, on a neutral language foundation, understanding one another, the nations will build ... a big family circle."[201]
The poetWisława Szymborska expressed doubt that Esperanto could "produce works of lasting value", saying it is "an artificial language without variety or dialects".[202] Esperantists[who?] have replied that "lasting value" is a statement of opinion, and that Esperanto grew "naturally" by the actions of its speakers on Zamenhof's intentionally elementaryFundamento.[citation needed]
^Zamenhof, Lazaro Ludoviko (1888). "Aldono al la Dua Libro de l' Lingvo Internacia".Dua Libro de l' Lingvo Internacia (in Esperanto) (2006 ed.). Project Gutenberg. RetrievedMarch 15, 2022.Rakontinte mallonge la tutan konstruon de l' "Lingvo internacia" kaj ĝian gramatikon,[...]
^abHarald Haarmann,Eta leksikono pri lingvoj, 2011, archive date March 4, 2016:Esperanto. ... estas lernata ankaŭ de pluraj miloj da homoj en la mondo kiel gepatra lingvo. ("Esperanto has also been learned by several thousand people in the world as a mother tongue.")
^abc63,000 −50%/+200%:"Nova takso: 60.000 parolas Esperanton" [New estimate: 60,000 speak Esperanto] (in Esperanto). Libera Folio. February 13, 2017.Archived from the original on February 13, 2017. RetrievedFebruary 13, 2017.
^Wandel, Amri (2014). "HOW MANY PEOPLE SPEAK ESPERANTO? OR: ESPERANTO ON THE WEB".Interdisciplinary Description of Complex Systems.A simple calculation accompanied by reasonable refinements leads to a number of approximately two million Esperanto users within the internet community alone, probably significantly more worldwide
^Jones, Daniel (2003) [1917], Peter Roach; James Hartmann; Jane Setter (eds.),English Pronouncing Dictionary, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,ISBN3-12-539683-2
^Wells, John C. (2008),Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (3rd ed.), Longman,ISBN978-1-4058-8118-0
^"Dr. Esperanto' International Language". L. Samenhof.Archived from the original on August 9, 2018. RetrievedApril 15, 2016. Facsimile of the title page of the First Book in English, 1889."Esperanto". Ling.ohio-state.edu. January 25, 2003. Archived fromthe original on June 22, 2011. RetrievedDecember 5, 2010.
^"Esperanto kaj anarkiismo".www.nodo50.org.Archived from the original on April 23, 2020.Anarkiistoj estis inter la pioniroj de la disvastigo de Esperanto. En 1905 fondiĝis en Stokholmo la unua anarkiisma Esperanto-grupo. Sekvis multaj aliaj: en Bulgario, Ĉinio kaj aliaj landoj. Anarkiistoj kaj anarki-sindikatistoj, kiuj antaŭ la Unua Mondmilito apartenis al la nombre plej granda grupo inter la proletaj esperantistoj, fondis en 1906 la internacian ligon Paco-Libereco, kiu eldonis la Internacian Socian Revuon. Paco-libereco unuiĝis en 1910 kun alia progresema asocio, Esperantista Laboristaro. La komuna organizaĵo nomiĝis Liberiga Stelo. Ĝis 1914 tiu organizaĵo eldonis multe da revolucia literaturo en Esperanto, interalie ankaŭ anarkiisma. Tial povis evolui en la jaroj antaŭ la Unua Mondmilito ekzemple vigla korespondado inter eŭropaj kaj japanaj anarkiistoj. En 1907 la Internacia Anarkiisma Kongreso en Amsterdamo faris rezolucion pri la afero de internacia lingvo, kaj venis dum la postaj jaroj similaj kongresaj rezolucioj. Esperantistoj, kiuj partoprenis tiujn kongresojn, okupiĝis precipe pri la internaciaj rilatoj de la anarkiistoj.
^Sutton, Geoffrey (2008).Concise Encyclopedia of the Original Literature of Esperanto, 1887–2007. Mondial. pp. 161–162.ISBN978-1-59569-090-6.Archived from the original on July 22, 2016. RetrievedFebruary 29, 2016.Hitler specifically attacked Esperanto as a threat in a speech in Munich (1922) and inMein Kampf itself (1925). The Nazi Minister for Education banned the teaching of Esperanto on May 17, 1935. [...] all Esperantists were essentially enemies of the state – serving, through their language, Jewish-internationalist aims.
^Ulrich Lins:Die gefährliche Sprache. Die Verfolgung der Esperantisten unter Hitler und Stalin. Bleicher: Gerlingen, 1988, p. 220 and elsewhereISBN978-3883500232; (English version:Dangerous Language — Esperanto under Hitler and Stalin. Palgrave Macmillan, 2017ISBN978-1137549167.)
^Nations, United."Official Languages".United Nations. RetrievedMay 14, 2022.There are six official languages of the UN. These are Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish.
^Zasky, Jason (July 20, 2009),"Discouraging Words",Failure Magazine, archived fromthe original on November 19, 2011,But in terms of invented languages, it's the most outlandishly successful invented language ever. It has thousands of speakers – even native speakers – and that's a major accomplishment as compared to the 900 or so other languages that have no speakers. – Arika Okrent
^Michael Byram and Adelheid Hu:Routledge Encyclopedia of Language Teaching and Learning. 2nd edition. Taylor and Francis, Hoboken 2013,ISBN978-1-136-23554-2, page 229.
^"What is Esperanto?".Republic of Molossia. Dayton, Nevada. Archived fromthe original on July 6, 2017. RetrievedAugust 4, 2017.Esperanto is the second language of the Republic of Molossia.
^Malheiro, Allan (December 23, 2023)."Esperanto: what future in Europe?".The New Federalist. Brussels, Belgium.Archived from the original on March 25, 2024. RetrievedMarch 26, 2024.It is now possible to learn Esperanto thanks to popular learning apps (where it has millions of learners) such as Duolingo, Drops, Memrise or LingQ [...]
^Gentry, Alex (June 7, 2017)."The Secret of International Auxiliary Languages".Medium. Circuit Youth Slavo. RetrievedMay 14, 2022.Volapük... at one time it surpassed the Esperanto Wikipedia in number of articles, though Esperanto now has the largest Wikipedia of any constructed language.
^Bonvenon al Vikipedia ("Welcome to Wikipedia"), main page of the Esperanto-language version of Wikipedia, October 4, 2019. Accessed October 4, 2019.
^Blanke, Detlev (1985). "Internationale Plansprachen. Eine Einführung" [International Planned Languages. An Introduction].Sammlung Akademie-Verlag. Akademie-Verlag.ISSN0138-550X.
^abIlona Koutny (2015). "A typological description of Esperanto as a natural language". In Ilona Koutny (ed.).Interlingwistyka i Esperantologia. Wydawnictwo Rys. pp. 43–62.ISBN978-83-63664-96-1.
^abTonkin, Humphrey (2010). "10. The semantics of invention: Translation into Esperanto".Studies in World Language Problems. Vol. 3. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. pp. 169–190.doi:10.1075/wlp.3.15ton.ISBN978-90-272-2834-5.
^Prace Komisji Spraw Europejskich PAU. Tom II, pp. 40-41. Ed. Andrzej Pelczar. Krak'ow: Polska Akademia Umiejętności, 2008, 79 pp.
^Devlin, Thomas Moore (April 25, 2019)."What Is Esperanto, And Who Speaks It?".Babbel Magazine. RetrievedMay 14, 2022.Evidence also shows that he learned Yiddish from his mother and that he studied German, English, Spanish, Lithuanian, Italian and French. In addition, Zamenhof learned the classical languages Hebrew, Latin and Aramaic in school. Esperanto was not even the first constructed language he'd dealt with. First, he learned a bit of Volapük, which was invented in Germany almost a decade before Esperanto. Having command of so many languages had a tremendous impact on his creation of Esperanto, which would be Zamenhof's 14th language.
^Report: Article inEnciklopedio de Esperanto, volume I, p.436, on the pedagogic value of Esperanto.
^Report: Edward Thorndike,Language Learning. Bureau of Publications of Teachers College, 1933.Interlingua.orgArchived August 20, 2008, at theWayback Machine
^Helen S. Eaton, "The Educational Value of an Artificial Language."The Modern Language Journal, No. 12, pp. 87–94 (1927).Blackwellpublishing.comArchived July 3, 2009, at theWayback Machine
^Williams, N. (1965) 'A language teaching experiment',Canadian Modern Language Review 22.1: 26–28
^Protocols of the annual November meetings in Paderborn "Laborkonferencoj: Interlingvistiko en Scienco kaj Klerigo" (Working conference: Interlinguistics in Science and Education), which can be obtained from the Institute of Pedagogic Cybernetics in Paderborn. Also in the works by Frank, Lobin, Geisler, and Meder.
^Tellier, Angela (2013).Esperanto as a starter language for child second-language learners in the primary school (second ed.). Great Britain: Esperanto UK. pp. 11–12.ISBN978-0-902756-35-9.
^Byram, Michael (2001).Routledge Encyclopedia of Language Teaching and Learning. Routledge. p. 464.ISBN0-415-33286-9.
^abSikosek, Ziko M.Esperanto Sen Mitoj ("Esperanto without Myths"). Second edition. Antwerp: Flandra Esperanto-Ligo, 2003.
^"An Update on Esperanto". New York: Universala Esperanto‑Asocio.Archived from the original on December 9, 2016.Based on the number of textbooks sold and membership ..., the number of people with some knowledge of Esperanto is in the hundreds of thousands and possibly millions. ... In 1954 ... UNESCO ... recognised that the achievements of Esperanto match UNESCO's aims and ideals, and official relations were established between UNESCO and UEA.
^Corsetti, Renato (1996). A mother tongue spoken mainly by fathers. Language Problems and Language Planning 20: 3, 263–73
^Miner, Ken (February 8, 2011)."The impossibility of an Esperanto linguistics / La neebleco de priesperanta lingvoscienco".InKoj. Interlingvistikaj Kajeroj (in Italian).2 (1):26–51.doi:10.13130/2037-4550/838.ISSN2037-4550.The task of linguistics is to reveal the principles which relate sentences to meanings. One cannot work out these principles if one does not know (1) the grammatical sentences of the language and (2) their meanings. Due to absence of native speakers (the usual source of grammaticality and of meanings), sentence-meanings and grammaticality in Esperanto are radically imprecise in comparison with those of ethnic languages. Due to this imprecision it is not possible to construct linguistic arguments regarding Esperanto: esperantology [sic] is possible, but not a linguistics of Esperanto.
^Ellemberg, Enrique (June 8, 2014) [1st pub. 1996]."Esperanto Koresponda Servo". Fremont, California: Esperanto Fremont.Archived from the original on January 11, 2016.
^Ziko van Dijk.Sed homoj kun homoj: Universalaj Kongresoj de Esperanto 1905–2005. Rotterdam: UEA, 2005.
^Frank, Helmar; Fössmeier, Reinhard (2000).AIS – La Akademio Internacia de la Sciencoj San Marino / Die Internationale Akademie der Wissenschaften San Marino. Institut für Kybernetik. p. 449.ISBN978-3-929853-12-4.
^Parolado antaŭ la Sesa Kongreso Esperantista en Washington en la 15a de aŭgusto 1910 (Speech before the Sixth Esperantist Congress in Washington, 15 August 1910): "La celo, por kiu ni laboras, povas esti atingita per du vojoj: aŭ per laborado de homoj privataj, t.e. de la popolaj amasoj, aŭ per dekreto de la registaroj. Plej kredeble nia afero estos atingita per la vojo unua, ĉar al tia afero, kiel nia, la registaroj venas kun sia sankcio kaj helpo ordinare nur tiam, kiam ĉio estas jam tute preta."Archived February 26, 2021, at theWayback Machine
^Silfer, Giorgio (1999)."Kion signifas Raŭmismo".La Ondo de Esperanto (in Esperanto). Kaliningrad, Russia.Archived from the original on May 30, 2002.
^abcdGarvía Soto, Roberto (2015).Esperanto and its rivals: the struggle for an international language. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.ISBN978-0812291278.
^Saul Levin, 1993. "Can an Artificial Language Be More than a Hobby? The Linguistic and Sociological Obstacles". In Ian Richmond (ed.)Aspects of internationalism: language & culture.
Fians, Guilherme, "Esperanto Revolutionaries and Geeks - Language Politics, Digital Media and the Making of an International Community", 2021, Palgrave Macmillan,ISBN978-3-030-84230-7 (e-book) andISBN978-3-030-84229-1 (hardcover).
Auld, William.La Fenomeno Esperanto ("The Esperanto Phenomenon"). Rotterdam: Universala Esperanto-Asocio, 1988.
Butler, Montagu C.Step by Step in Esperanto. ELNA 1965/1991.ISBN0-939785-01-3.
DeSoto, Clinton (1936).200 Meters and Down. West Hartford, Connecticut, US:American Radio Relay League, p. 92.
Esperanto LessonsArchived March 21, 2012, at theWayback Machine. LEARN101.ORG. Including the alphabet, adjectives, nouns, plural, gender, numbers, phrases, grammar, vocabulary, verbs, exam, audio, and translation.
Ludovikologia dokumentaro IArchived December 22, 2012, at theWayback Machine Tokyo: Ludovikito, 1991. Facsimile reprints of theUnua Libro in Russian, Polish, French, German, English and Swedish, with the earliest Esperanto dictionaries for those languages.
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