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