Esperanto (eo and epo in ISO 639) is the most widely spoken of the constructed languages. The name derives from the pseudonym (Dr. Esperanto) under which L. L. Zamenhof published the first work on the subject, and literally means "one who hopes". Zamenhof, a Jewish oculist from Bialystok, Poland, published the Unua Libro (first book) of the language in 1887 after working on it for about ten years (see Esperanto history). His intention was to create an easy-to-learn language, to serve as an international auxiliary language, a second language for everyone in the world, rather than to replace all existing languages in the world. Some Esperanto speakers still want this, but most just want to meet foreigners and learn about other countries and cultures. Today, thousands of people use it regularly to communicate with people all over the world.
Esperanto has proven to be a good deal easier for speakers of European languages to learn as a second language than any national language (especially highly irregular and/or non-phonetic languages such as English, French, and Chinese). There is also evidence that studying Esperanto before studying any other second language (especially an Indo-European language) speeds and improves learning, because learning subsequent foreign languages is easier than learning one's first, while the use of a grammatically simple auxiliary language lessens the "first foreign language" learning hurdle. In one study (Williams 1965), a group of high school students studied Esperanto for one year, then French for three years, and ended up with a better command of French than the control group, who studied French without Esperanto during all four years.
A survey of the number of Esperanto speakers was conducted by Sidney S. Culbert, a retired psychology professor of the University of Washington, himself a Esperantist who has attended Esperanto congresses, who has commented regarding the logical structure of Esperanto: "If the world could be structured that efficiently", and whose wife Ruth, who has herself written four plays in Esperanto, has commented "It's the only hope for the world or it will be destroyed" ([1]). Culbert concluded that 1.6 million people speak Esperanto to Foreign Service Level 3 ability. This number is limited to those "professionally proficient" (possessing the ability to actually communicate beyond greetings and simple phrases) in Esperanto. This survey did not seek out speakers of Esperanto specifically, but formed a part of a world-wide survey of many languages. This number also appears in the Almanac World Book of Facts, and in Ethnologue. Assuming nonetheless that this figure is accurate, this means that about 0.03% of the world's population speaks the language, thus far falling short of Zamenhof's goal of a universal language. Ethnologue also states that there are 200 to 2000 native Esperanto speakers.
The phonemic alphabet of Esperanto has six accented letters: ĉ, ĝ, ĥ, ĵ, ŝ (c, g, h, j, and s with circumflex), and ŭ (u with breve).
The alphabet does not include the letters q, w, x, and y.
Therefore the alphabet consists of:
a b c ĉ d e f g ĝ h ĥ i j ĵ k l m n o p r s ŝ t u ŭ v z
(See for transliteration of the alphabet into braille. See also the external PDF file The Alphabets of Europe.)
As of December 22, 2003 the Esperanto version of the Wikipedia had 10,380 articles, making it the tenth-largest language in the Wikipedia.
Angoroj (1964) was the first film produced in Esperanto. Incubus (1965, starring William Shatner) is the only known feature film with entirely Esperanto dialogue.
A declaration endorsed by the Esperanto movement in 1905 limits changes to Esperanto principle. That declaration stated, amongst other things, that the basis of the language should remain Fundamento de Esperanto ("Basis of Esperanto", a work by Zamenhof), which is to be binding forever: nobody has the right to make changes to it. The declaration also permits new concepts to be expressed as the speaker sees fit, but it recommends doing so in accordance with the original style.
However, modern Esperanto usage may in fact depart from that originally described in the Fundamento. The translation given for "I like this one", in the above phrases offers a significant example. According to the Fundamento, Mi ŝatas ĉi tiun would in fact have meant "I esteem this one". The traditional usage would instead have been Ĉi tiu plaĉas al mi (literally, "this one is pleasing to me"), which, although it differs from the English phrasing in "I like this one", more closely reflects the phrasing in several other languages (e.g. French celui-ci me plaît, Spanish éste me gusta, Russian это мне нравится, German Dieses gefällt mir).
Other changes from traditional Esperanto have affected the names of countries, whose endings have changed from -ujo to -io. Also women's names ending in -a (e.g. Maria) are now recognised although this is strictly an adjectival ending, whereas previously purists would have insisted on the noun ending -o (e.g. Mario).
In addition to these, Esperantists have formed many words to express concepts which have arisen more recently, but where possible these have indeed conformed to the existing style of the language. For example, "computer" is komputilo, (using the suffix -il- meaning a tool). Eŭro (as in the above phrases) is another good example: even though the currency is called Euro in all the European Community's official languages which use a Latin script, in Esperanto Eŭro was chosen because it better fits the pattern of the language.
Not all changes meet ready acceptance, however. For example, the neologism ĉipa meaning "cheap" has appeared as an alternative to the more verbose malmultekosta (as in the above examples), but remains in minority usage.
Esperanto: an ideal choice as an international language?
Some debate occurs over whether Esperanto is the ideal solution for an international auxiliary language.Arguments against Esperanto as international language
Esperanto has had numerous criticisms, especially from the auxiliary language community. Some of the other planned languages that have emerged in the twentieth century have attempted to address criticisms of Esperanto:Responses to arguments against use of Esperanto as an international language
This section would be better presented as "arguments in favor" rather than "response to arguments against" (in which case it could be moved up before the "against"), but in order to do so it first requires some rewording.Use of Esperanto versus other planned languages
Some of the other planned languages that have emerged in the twentieth century have attempted to address criticisms of Esperanto. Yet despite its criticisms, no other constructed language has approached the number of Esperanto speakers or has an extensive body of literature like Esperanto. Some of these other languages are quite different from Esperanto while other languages, like Ido, are based on Esperanto, and enjoyed a period of popularity in the early 1900s. More recent spinoffs from Esperanto include the modified form Riismo which seeks to eliminate sexual inequality from the language. Other alternative languages include Idiom Neutral, Occidental, Novial, and Interlingua; some languages not originally intended as international auxiliary languages are also sometimes suggested, such as Lojban. Because Esperanto is the most well-known of constructed languages, many who have been interested were unaware of these other languages, but the Internet offers information about these languages as well.Alphabet
Some phrases
Language evolution
See also
References
External links