Esperanto

Esperanto flag

Esperanto was created by Ludwig Lazarus Zamenhof (Doktoro Esperanto), a doctor and linguist from Warsaw (Poland).

Esperanto was born 1887 with the publishing of his book “Lignvo internacia”. By the twentieth century, the language has become well-known in Europe. It was even considered a threat by both Hitler and Stalin due to its internationalist and idealist values.

Data estimates that Esperanto speakers range from 100,000 to 2,000,000 fluent speakers across the world. A thousand of them are said to be native speakers. It is recognised as the most successful constructed language project on an international scale.

Esperanto is a real spoken and written language with grammar, and phonetic rules. It is mainly used by people who do not share a common language.

Nowadays, hundreds and thousands of people attend the World Esperanto Congress which is held each year. The Congress is even held in Esperanto!

The language is relatively easy to learn as it has no grammatical exceptions. Thus, Esperanto can be theoretically learnt three to ten times faster than ethnic or national languages as most of its vocabulary mirrors existing European words (see the table below).

English	Esperanto
Yes	Jes
No	Ne
Hello	Saluton
Goodbye	Gis revido
I don’t understand you	Mi ne komprenas vin
Excuse me	Pardonu min
Congratulations	Gratulon

Some critics oppose to this language as it does not have any cultural references. Other people, however, use the language as a preparation base for learning other languages as its vocabulary comes from Romance and Germanic languages and the phonology, from Slavic languages.

There are even learning platforms for the language: http://en.lernu.net/. This webpage in particular teaches Esperanto in 41 languages.

So... what do you think? Would you learn Esperanto? Does it really help you to learn other foreign languages?

All that’s left to say is: Gis revida kaj dankon!

Emma Milnthorpe

Is Latin a dead language?

Upon reading many articles on this topic, I have come to the conclusion that the existence of the Latin language is unclear.

Is Latin a dead language?

On one hand, many people consider it is a dead language because it no longer exists as the main language for any group of people. It also is a language which has not developed and therefore it cannot convey modern concepts of this day and age.

On the other hand, some people believe that it is a very much present language for us, as many languages emerged from Latin, such as Spanish, French, Romanian, Portuguese and Italian, not to mention hundreds of scientific words with Latin roots which are used in other languages in scientific, law, medicine and religious contexts.

The recently resigned Pope Benedict XVI attempted to breathe life into this language by launching a Papal Latin academy in order to promote the language. He also announced his farewell speech in Latin.

In fact, Latin is taught as a second language in 1,081 schools in the United Kingdom, and has experienced a 7.5 percent increase in student numbers. All of this data got me thinking about how Latin is infiltrated in popular culture. In J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books, the Hogwarts Motto is in fact in Latin, “Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus” (Never Tickle a Sleeping Dragon). Also, both spells and charms are in Latin. 

There are many common saying we use in English language which come from Latin: De Facto, Ad infinitum, et cetera, status quo, carpe diem, per se, vice versa...

After reading up on many articles which talk on this topic, I remain to have an unclear opinion on the existence of the Latin language. What do you think?