Over the last 3 months or so we’ve looked at a lot of different languages and the many different ways in which they’re structured. All are the product of thousands of years of natural evolution. However, there is one language of huge international importance that is not. The mostly widely spoken, consciously constructed language in the world, these are our Five Fun Facts about Esperanto!
1) In the late 1870s and early 1880s, Russian ophthalmologist Ludwig Lazarus Zamenhof artificially constructed his own language, intending to bridge international divides and foster harmony between people from different countries. After 10 years of development, Zamenhof published the first book of Esperanto grammar, Unua Libro. The number of Esperanto speakers grew rapidly over the next decades and it is now estimated that there are 100,000 to 2,000,000 active or fluent speakers worldwide.
2) As a consciously constructed language, Esperanto is not genealogically related to any natural language. However, it did draw on other languages in its creation. For example, the phonology, grammar, vocabulary and semantics of Esperanto are based on the Indo-European languages of Europe. The sounds are mostly Slavic, whereas the vocabulary derives primarily from Romance and Germanic languages. Esperanto root words are taken from Italian, French, German and English, with a few also coming from Latin, Greek, Lithuanian Russian and Polish. The default word order is Subject-Verb-Object and adjectives can be placed before or after the noun.
Here are some key Esperanto phrases:
Saluton - Hello
Jes - Yes
Ne - No
Bonan matenon - Good morning
Bonan vesperon - Good evening
Ĝis revido - Goodbye
Kio estas via nomo? - What is your name?
Mia nomo estas Marko. - My name is Marc.
Kiel vi fartas? - How are you?
Mi fartas bone. - I am well.
Ĉu vi parolas Esperanton? - Do you speak Esperanto?
3) Some people consider Esperanto to be much easier to learn than most natural languages. This is because Esperanto has no irregular verbs. In contrast, French has 2,238 irregular verbs and Spanish and German around 700 each. Esperanto also has no grammatical genders and all its words are pronounced phonetically.
4) In the early 1920s Esperanto nearly became the working language of the League of Nations. The proposal narrowly missed going through, with ten delegates accepting and just one dissenting. The dissenting delegate was Frenchman Gabriel Hanotaux, who saw Esperanto as a threat to the position of French as the leading international language. Today, the Europe-Democracy-Esperanto party is campaigning to establish Esperanto as the official language of the European Union.
5) World famous writer, philologist, and professor, J. R. R. Tolkien took a keen interest in the international language movement of the early 1930s. Despite never being a ‘practical Esperantist’, Tolkien did learn some Esperanto in his youth and was familiar with its grammar and structure. With this background in the language, Tolkien felt that Esperanto was ‘superior to all… competitors’ in its bid to become the international language. His advice to all concerned with the international language movement was to ‘Back Esperanto loyally.’
Andrew Wardell
Editorial Assistant | Linguistics
I am one of many people who for decades have argued quietly that institutional support for Esperanto as a lingua franca could bring many benefits to the world.
Take a look at: http://www.lernu.net
Posted by: Bill Chapman | May 23, 2014 at 05:33 PM
Mi amas Esperanton!
Posted by: PaleMantis | Jan 04, 2015 at 06:13 PM