Esperanto: History: Current Usage: Structure

Esperanto, the brain child of L.L. Zamenhof, did not achieve the intended success as an internationally spoken and understood artificial language. However, approx. 2 Mill. people use it and it certainly forms part of language culture heritage worth knowing about.

History

L.L. Zamenhof was a Jewish ophthalmologist from Bialystock which, at the time, formed part of the Russian Empire and is today situated in Poland. After 10 years of development and driven by a desire to create harmony and understanding between people of different countries and cultures, he published the first grammar of Esperanto ("one who hopes" in that language) under the pseudonym of Dotoro Esperanto in 1887.

Grammar and other Elements

As an artificial language, Esperanto has not grown ethnically but is a mixture of various linguistic elements and influences. Grammar, vocabulary and semantics are based on Indo European languages, whereas phonetics are basically Slavic. Much of the vocabulary derives from Roman languages and, to a certain extend, from German. It's written with a modified version of the Latin alphabet, notably making use of the circumflex ^ over c,g, and s to indicate pronunciation. The alphabet does not include the letters w,q,x or y, except in specific names.

Words in Esperanto are formed by stringing together prefixes, roots and suffixes, which allows new words to be created as the speaker goes along and needs them. A "stock" of about 900 roots in Zamenhof's original grammar gives rise to the formation of hundreds of thousands of words. The word order is also quite free.

Some examples which show the influence of the basic language are as follows:

Thank you = Dankon (German: danke)

Good morning = bonan matenon (Roman language influence)

Good night = Bonan nokton (see above)

Congratulations! = Gratulon (German: gratuliere)

Use of Esperanto

At the beginning, Esperanto was quite successful. The use grew rapidly in Eastern Europe, Western Europe, the Americas, China and Japan. The first World Congress of Esperanto speakers was held in 1905 in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France. At the time, Esperanto enthusiasts kept in touch through correspondence, periodicals and magazines. In 1924, the American Radio Relay League adopted Esperanto as the official language of communication, but the use and influence was minimal. Today, Esperanto is the working language of several non-profit organizations, most importantly the World Esperanto Association, which works closely with UNESCO.

Esperanto was never adopted as any country's official language, but in 1968 an artificial island and self-proclaimed state by the name of Rose Island made Esperanto their official language.

Generally speaking, Esperanto never achieved the intended success as the #1 world auxiliary language, but is still used in travel, correspondence, culture, books, radio, TV and, of course, language courses. It's said that one of the reasons for Esperanto's failure is that the language looks, writes and sounds too artificial. On the other hand, studies have shown, that, not unlike Latin, the learning of Esperanto considerably facilitates the acquisition of other languages. Approximately 2 million people speak and correspond in Esperanto but about 10 million have a basic or passive knowledge of the language.

Learning Esperanto

Learning Esperanto can be a good basis and starting point for learning second and third languages. It's also quite fun as some words and constructions do indeed sound odd. Self study books are available as are on-line courses. The best source for further information is esperanto.net.

This article gives some additional information about Esperanto and a number of free online resources for learning Esperanto.

This download contains the special Esperanto diacritical characters in a number of common fonts.

9 Comments

Oct 7, 2009 1:24 PM

Hoss

Académie française

I'm wondering about Heather's claim that the Académie française has labored to fix the French language in a "perfect" form. This assertion is repeated quite often—usually in the form of criticism—but is it really true? It might have been true in the 16th century, but as far as I can tell, the modern Académie is merely an advisory body.

The Académie française doesn't try to *stop* language change; it attempts to *guide* that change through non-binding recommendations. While the recommendations are sometimes ignored, they also have significant influence on popular usage, and they've undeniably influenced the evolution of modern French.

In the anglosphere we tend to think of language change as an uncontrollable phenomenon, but the experiences of other languages have shown that language planning can be very influential. A striking example is the heavy-handed reform (perhaps it should be called an "overhaul") of Turkish under Atatürk. While one can argue that the vast changes made by the turkish language academy were suboptimal, it's hard to deny that they were very successful.

Oct 7, 2009 11:25 AM

Rebecca Scudder

edits of mistakes

Jinx, thanks for bringing those errors to our attention. The edits have been made.

Oct 5, 2009 1:30 PM

Neil Blonstein

Esperanto

Thankyou for the initial article.
1. Inevitably I feel most criticism of Esperanto provides support for the status quo: The USA via English dominating the world culturally: What does that mean?
China produces about 1,000 movies per year.
India produces about 1,000 movies per year in a variety of language.
Nigeria produces about 1,000 movies per year.
Of the hundreds of movie theatres in New York City only a few show foreign movies. When living in Brazil for a year I found 9 out of 10 movies being American movies. The US is paricipating in a cultural monologue.
A few months ago I heard vast criticism on China because it only will allow 20 Amercan movies into its theatre. What in fact does the American film industry do? Distribute foreign movies for a multicultural world? I don't think so.
2. Observing the Esperanto movement for 39 years I've seen a movement consistenly balanced between publishing books from China, Russia, Hungary, Lithuania, France, Japan, Israel and without excess from the US among many others. Books are original and translations. This is the world I wish to participate in, and therefore dedicated most of my free time to supporting Esperanto.
3. By emphasizing friendship the Esperanto movement has produced something: a mini world of friends.
4. I did an exhibit on E-o at my liberal unitarian church yesterday and a friend, a former ESL teacher (a job I did also), emphasized that the Esperanto movement is stagnating and was stronger at an earlier point. (Regrettfully I partially agree). But what I find very interesting is her emphasis on the number of Esperanto speakers which she thinks is too small to make it an interesting community. So I just googled the words Unitarian and then I googled Esperanto. She suggests maybe one should not get involved in small movement on principal. The word Unitarian gets a little more than one million entries and the word Esperanto, now gets over 52 million entries. Esperanto is useful now.

Oct 5, 2009 11:52 AM

Hoss

Re: Esperanto and Linguistic Change

Heather is correct that Esperanto undergoes change just like other natural languages; it has evolved significantly during the past century, for example, and it will undoubtedly continue to evolve in the future.

However, we need to be careful not to conflate two different processes: the process of language change (which is inevitable) and the process of dialectization (which is not). Language change can certainly lead to dialectization, but the latter doesn't necessarily follow from the former.

The societies that gave rise to the children of proto-Indo-European were largely isolated from one another for many generations. Local changes that spontaneously arose in one language community had no way of spreading to others, and over time the differences accumulated, much like genetic variation accumulates in isolated breeding populations.

Such isolation isn't the case with the communities that speak Esperanto, however, just as it isn't the case with most of the communities that speak modern English. There are local subdialects, to be sure, but there's also a mutually comprehensible core that is continually cross-fertilized by regional changes. Witness how kids in Sydney are using hip-hop slang from Los Angeles, for example.

Oct 5, 2009 6:00 AM

Betty Chatterjee

Esperanto in the world today.

First of all let me congratulate you on writing a respectful and objective article about Esperanto.
Although it has not yet become as well known as was first predicted it is still going strong.
Nowadays thanks to Internet many more people have become aware of its existence and potential. Vikopedia has an Esperanto section and Google has also been translated. Earlier people learnt it by attending courses at evening school or the local Esperanto club. Nowadays many of us have learnt it by going on line; e.g. http://en.lernu.net/
Much as I appreciate my mother tongue English and enjoy its usefullness, I have found that Esperanto has opened doors that would otherwise have been closed. For example, travelling in Eastern Europe I have met many very interesting and hospitable Esperantists who have never learnt English. I have never learnt their languages either. They have welcomed me and we have talked about everything and nothing in our shared language.
Once again, thank you for taking the time to research this article. Sadly too many journalists forget the vital fact-finding process that is essential for writing a good article.

Oct 4, 2009 1:40 PM

Heather Marie Kosur

Language Change

No, I am not laboring under any misapprehension. Languages, even those created fro international communication as second languages, cannot be "fixed or ascertained" in form or function. For example, the French Academy has labored long and hard to fix the French language in a "perfect" form. But, alas, language changes, even when a socially powerful institution attempts to prevent otherwise. So, yes, Esperanto, regardless of its use, would inevitably change. Language cannot be fixed into one form. Language is the product of language users.

Oct 2, 2009 2:30 PM

Jim McNeill

Esperanto and Linguistic Change

I think you are possibly labouring under a misapprehension. Esperanto is supposed to be a second language for international communication, so your comment, while probably accurate for natural language evolution, does not necessarily hold in the case of Esperanto.

Oct 1, 2009 9:10 PM

Jinx

RE: Esperanto - History, Today's Use and Learning Methods

Just two small edits: I believe "Esperanto" actually means "one who hopes," and "good morning" should be "bonan matenon" (note spelling). :)

Sep 29, 2009 4:42 PM

Heather Marie Kosur

Esperanto and Linguistic Change

"...driven by a desire to create harmony and understanding between people of different countries and cultures..." What a romantic notion. However, Zamenhof failed to take into consideration the fundamental linguistic fact of language change. Even if everyone in the world spoke the same language at one point in time, geographical and social distance would inevitably produce change just as the proto-Indo-European language changed and has become modern English, German, Spanish, French, etc...