Esperanto Research Paper

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The Polish linguist L. L. Zamenhof created Esperanto in the late nineteenth century in the hope that an international language would harmonize the peoples of the world. Widespread acceptance has continued, and in the midtwentieth century, UNESCO affirmed the value of establishing Esperanto as a universal second language. Esperantists believe that doing so will produce positive outcomes in learning and teaching language, multilingualism, and human liberation.

Esperanto is the most successful of the roughly fifty planned language projects initiated since 1879. There are Esperanto speakers on virtually every continent of the globe. Estimates of the total number of speakers worldwide vary, though it is reasonable to assume—based on several variables including the large number of national Esperanto associations, high sales of instructional textbooks in the language, and membership data from local Esperanto societies— that those with some degree of proficiency in the language may range from several hundred thousand to several million. Esperanto is a living language that is both spoken and written. Its total lexicon contains between fifteen and twenty thousand root words that are potentially generative of myriad others.

Description

Known for its simplicity, beauty, and malleability as a medium for translation, Esperanto is considered by many to be one of the easiest languages to master. Its fundamental grammar is based on sixteen rules. In simplified form, these are as follows: (1) there exists no indefinite article and the definite article (i.e., “the” in English) for masculine and feminine nouns is la; (2) all singular nouns end in -o (nominative) or -on (accusative); (3) the adjectival ending is -a; (4) the Esperanto lexicon contains words for the following numbers—“one” through “ten,” “one hundred,” and “one thousand”; (5) there are ten personal pronouns; (6) person and number are not indicated in verb forms, only tense and mood; the endings for the past, present, future, conditional, imperative, and infinitive are -as, -is, -os, -us, -u, and -i, respectively; (7) the adverbial ending is -e; (8) prepositions govern the nominative case; (9) words are read and pronounced exactly as they are written; (10) word accent falls always on the penultimate (next-to-last) syllable; (11) lexical juxtaposition is the means employed to form compound words; (12) two negative particles/words are unnecessary in any clause; (13) the accusative case is used to indicate directionality; (14) all prepositions have a definitive and unchanging meaning—in instances where the correct choice of preposition is uncertain, the word je (which has no exact meaning) is used; (15) foreign words are brought into Esperanto unchanged, except insofar as adjustments are needed to conform them to its orthographic conventions; and (16) an apostrophe can take the place of the final vowel that appears on either the definite article or a noun.

Esperanto’s creator, Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof, was born on 15 December 1859 in Bialystok, Poland. He was raised in a Jewish household, and his parents reinforced in him idealistic virtues that accentuated the kinship of all peoples. At home and in school, he was exposed to several languages including Russian, Polish, German, French, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Lithuanian. The interethnic strife that dominated his city left a lasting impression on him, and at the age of nineteen he began working on the rudiments of what would become Esperanto. His hope was to provide an international language and unifying ideology that would bring all of the peoples of the Earth together in harmony. He published his initial tractate entitled Lingvo Internacia (International Language) in 1887 (in Russian). He did so using the pseudonymous attribution “Dr. Esperanto,” the meaning of which is roughly “a doctor who is hopeful.” Eventually, this fictive appellation was adopted as the name of Zamenhof’s new language. This was to be a fortuitous development because it describes well the character of many who consider themselves true “Esperantists.”

The corpus of Esperanto literature has grown over the years into one as rich and diverse as that of many national and ethnic languages. It includes novels, plays, periodicals, poetry, and exemplars from virtually all of the major literary genres. In addition, many major literary masterpieces—such as the works of William Shakespeare and even the Christian Bible—have been translated into Esperanto. National and international Esperanto associations serve as resources for those who use the language for social exchange, scientific writing, and a host of other purposes. These include the Esperanto League of North America (www.esperanto-usa.org) and the World Esperanto Association (also known as the UEA—Universala Esperanto-Asocio; for more information see www.uea.org). Both are membership organizations that provide opportunities to become part of the global community of Esperantists through conferences, receipt of newsletters and other periodicals, written correspondence with speakers around the world, and online opportunities for language learning.

In 1954 the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) passed a resolution affirming the value of Esperanto in establishing rapprochement between the peoples of the world, noting its positive benefit in furthering intellectual engagement, and pledging cooperation between UNESCO and the UEA. The spirit of this initial resolution was reaffirmed in 1985 by a second resolution that celebrated the centenary of Esperanto in 1987 and empowered UNESCO’s director-general to follow closely the development of Esperanto as a mechanism for facilitating cross-cultural understanding. In 1996 the World Esperanto Congress, held in Prague, issued a manifesto calling world governments, institutions, and others to realize that use of a limited number of national languages would never result in a “fair and effective language order” that promotes democracy, global education, effective language teaching and learning, multilingualism, language rights, language diversity, and human liberation. Concomitantly, it identified the movement to promote Esperanto as a universal second language as a means to achieve the aforementioned ends.

Outlook

The growth and popularity of this planned language are evidence of its utility and the continuing vitality of Zamenhof’s vision of Esperanto as a linguistic bridge capable of connecting the world’s disparate peoples. The future of the Esperanto movement certainly merits close scrutiny, particularly as the need for effective means of communication, coalition building, and peacemaking increase in the wake of changing geopolitical realities in our postcolonial era.

Bibliography:

Connor, G. A. (1973). Esperanto: The world interlanguage. San Diego, CA:Oak Tree Publications.
Forster, P. G. (1981). The Esperanto movement (contributions to the sociology of language). New York: Walter De Gruyter Inc.
Janton, P. (1993). Esperanto: Language, literature, and community (H. Tonkin, J. Edwards, & K. Johnson-Weiner, Trans.). Albany: State University of New York Press.
Richmond, I. M., & Tonkin, H. (1992). Aspects of internationalism. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Tonkin, H. (1997). Esperanto, interlinguistics, and planned language (Vol. 5). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

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