Esperanto III

Modern day Esperanto speakers have seized Zamnehof’s dream. On the 16^th of July 2013, a group of 1,000 campaigners gathered in Iceland to discuss how they could spread awareness and boost the reputation of Esperanto.

But, is Esperanto the future of international communications? If any language becomes universal, I believe that Esperanto is as good as any. I say this because it is very similar to a range of different languages and is very easy to learn because of its’ regularity. Also, Esperanto already has a great reputation as ‘the international language’, therefore everyone who believes in a global language will automatically turn to Esperanto.

I do not think that Esperanto should wipe out all minority languages or that Esperanto should become the only language since separate languages define our culture and history. But that in an ever changing world an international language would be helpful. It will allow people to travel all over the world without worrying about the language barriers and will aid both business and politics.

As quoted by James R. Piton, Brazil in a reply to a magazine:

'Learning any language improves one's career, as probably one can get more informed, get more skills in one's own language and so on. But reaching a deep knowledge of Esperanto is not as time consuming as for national languages, so the development of relationships to others in the same professional field is easier and more productive. I speak to my children only in Esperanto. They are six and four years old and bilingual in Portuguese and Esperanto. Our aim, for my Esperanto-speaking wife and me, is to give them some resources to easily learn more languages, but especially to become open-minded to cultural diversity in the world. That is commonly overridden by the international use of English. Esperanto is a sort of "linguistic handshaking", as some writer brightly defined it.'

 

Find more information at:

http://www.independent.co.uk/student/news/u-vi-parolas-esperanton-esperanto-speakers-launch-new-drive-to-gain-international-recognition-8732416.html?origin=internalSearch

http://www.icelandreview.com/icelandreview/daily_news/World_Esperanto_Congress_in_Reykjav%C3%ADk_Tomorrow_0_401646.news.aspx

http://cyrilgupta.com/?p=140

Esperanto II

As we saw yesterday, it was Zamenhof’s childhood dream for there to be an international common language. Therefore, he brought it upon himself to create one. This was an incredibly difficult task because it must be easy for children to learn as a second language, no matter what their mother tongue was.

He began to consider rejuvenating Latin and encouraging schools to teach it. But he found learning Latin very complicated. Therefore, he created a new language based on existing languages to form an orderly language system.

Phonetics

Esperanto has 28 letters in the alphabet:

However, if a computer is unable to put circumflexes or breves onto the letters, an ‘x’ is placed after the letter to signify the same thing. I.e. cx can be used to mean ĉ  

Stress is always placed on the second to last vowel, unless the last vowel is elided with the following word. In this case, the last vowel has the stress. Even though tone is important in Esperanto, like most language, words cannot normally be differentiated by the tone.

Vocabulary

Most vocabulary is based on Romance languages and therefore very similar to Latin, French and Spanish. For example, the word for house is ‘domo’ which is derived from the Latin ‘domus’ and the Italian ‘domestico’. This similarity is thought to be the reason why if school students are taught a year of Esperanto and then three of French, they will reach a much higher level of French than other students who spend 4 years learning French.

Words are formed by adding prefixes and suffixes to roots. For example the suffix -aĉ- can be added near the end of a root to form a pejorative (expresses negative opinion of an object). An example of this is ‘domaĉo’ which means a shack (instead of ‘domo’ – home).

Zamenhof published a dictionary in 1894 containing 9,000 roots. However, these could form hundreds of thousands when suffixes and prefixes are added.

Grammar

Since Esperanto was created by man, it is very regular and contains a simple grammar system. A similarity to Latin and German is that Esperanto has cases – but only the subject and object.

For example:

Nouns	Subject	Object
Singular	-o	-on
Plural	-oj	-ojn

Esperanto verbs can only exist in three different tenses: past, present and future. Verbs can also exist in three moods: infinitive, jussive and conditional. The verb does not show person or plurals. For example: the infinitive ‘kanti’ means to sing.

Esperanto	English
Mi kantas	I sing
Vi kantis	You sung
Illi kantos	They will sing

To conclude, although Esperanto was constructed and therefore is not genealogically related to any natural language, it is closely based on many different languages. The vocabulary and grammar is very regular and therefore as long as you learn vocabulary and the basic rules, Esperanto is very easy to learn as a second language.

Esperanto I

Language barriers have always restricted international communication. This was a huge problem in the 19^th century as globalisation began to occur and the public began to travel more frequently. Therefore Dr. Ludwig Lazarus Zamenhof designed a language in the 1880s.

As quoted by Zamenhof himself:

"The place where I was born and spent my childhood gave direction to all my future struggles. In Bialystok 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.”

(Zamenhof, 1895)

Therefore, he aimed that the language would be learned as a second language to allow people to communicate freely and to unite communities. Originally, he called this ‘La Internacia Lingvo’ (The international language) but users decided that ‘Esperanto (the one that hopes) was a more suitable title. However this language had many problems. For example, Zamenhof was targeted by Hitler as he was Jewish and therefore Nazi Germany wanted to eradicate the language.

Although, Esperanto was never officially proclaimed as a secondary language in any country, it had many plans in the 20^th century. For example, it was though that Neutral Moresnet would be the first official Esperanto state and Qian Xuantong, a Chinese linguist, proclaimed that Esperanto should be spoken instead of Chinese.

But Esperanto does have a place in modern society. Around 1,000 children are brought up with Esperanto by their parents, around 20,000 speak Esperanto as a second language and it is thought that over 10,000,000 people have studied that language at some time. Because of this popularity, magazines, books and songs are written in Esperanto and there is even a radio station broadcasted in the language! Also, in February 2013, a petition was created to make Esperanto one of the official languages of the European Union!  

Therefore I think to a certain extent, Zamenhof achieved his goals. He managed to construct a language which is now used all over the world. Esperanto is a common language for many people, giving them the opportunity to communicate to each other and break down the language barrier.

Tomorrow, I’m going to investigate the language itself – how was it formed? What is the language like? Is there a future for Esperanto?

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