Esperanto
Esperanto 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, (now
Poland, but then part of the Russian empire), and living in
Warsaw, 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, or Esperantists, still want this (they are called
pracelistoj), but others just want to use the language to meet foreigners and learn about other countries and cultures (called
raŭmistoj). Today, thousands of people use it regularly to communicate with others around the world. See
Esperanto as an international language.
According to a
February 25,
2004, press release, the Esperanto version of the Wikipedia had 11,000 articles, making it the tenth-largest language in the Wikipedia.
[1]
Angoroj (
1964) was the first film produced in Esperanto.
Incubus (
1965, starring
William Shatner) is the only known professionally produced feature film with entirely Esperanto dialogue.
\n
\n| Esperanto |
|---|
\n| Spoken in: | Worldwide |
\n\n| Total speakers: | est. 2 million (estimates vary enormously) |
\n\nGenetic
classification: | \nConstructed language
\n Esperanto
\n |
| Official status |
|---|
\n| Official language of: | 0 countries |
\n| Regulated by: | Akademio de Esperanto |
\n| Language codes |
|---|
\n| ISO 639-1: | eo |
\n| ISO 639-2: | epo |
\n| SIL: | ESP |
\n
History
\nAs a constructed language, Esperanto's history is both short and well-known. Esperanto was invented in the 1880s by L. L. Zamenhof. The first grammar of the language was published in 1887.
Language evolution
\nA 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 ("Foundation 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.
Zamenhof's approach is why Esperanto is uniquely strong among constructed languages. More generally, there are five primary reasons for its strength:
1. Re-thinking it all: Zamenhof started developing his constructed language early, and he had done an enormous amount of work by the time he left for college. When he returned home, as the legend goes, he found that his father had burned all his notes and work. Thus he was forced to begin again, but this time he had the advantage of all that he had learned in his first attempt.
2. Tapping innate structures: Zamenhof based his language on a regularized version of natural languages, rather than building a totally novel and abstract structure (an approach used by some others). Not only are the word roots generally from natural languages, the overall structure mimics natural languages. This approach means that Esperanto can exploit desirable features from naturally evolved languages.
3. Delay before publication: When Zamenhof was ready to publish his language, the Czarist censors would not allow it. Stymied, he spent his time in translating works (such as parts of the Bible and Shakespeare) into Esperanto. This enforced delay led to continuing refinement and improvement before the language was presented to the world.
4. Esperanto belongs to the Esperantists: Developers of constructed languages are usually extremely possessive of their brain-children and reject any attempt by others to contribute or have a significant role in the development of the language. Zamenhof declared that "Esperanto belongs to the Esperantists" and moved to the background once the language was published, allowing others to share in the development and creation.
5. Stability: Constructed languages are often destroyed by continual tinkering, with the constant changes making the language impossible to learn and use. Zamenhof, in contrast, published his Fundamento de Esperanto and established it as an unchanging foundation. This gave Esperanto a stability of structure and grammar similar to that which natural languages possess by virtue of their great body of literature and speakers. Thus one could learn Esperanto without having it move from underfoot.
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 phrases below 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 [eto mnye nravitsya], 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 recognized 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 examples below), but remains in minority usage.
Classification
\nAs a constructed language, Esperanto is not genetically related to any of the natural languages. However, its phonology and vocabulary was influenced by Indo-European languages.
Geographic distribution
\nAn estimate of the number of Esperanto speakers was made by Sidney S. Culbert, a retired psychology professor of the University of Washington (himself a longtime Esperantist who commented regarding the logical structure of Esperanto: "If the world could be structured that efficiently"). Culbert concluded that 1.6 million people speak Esperanto at Foreign Service Level 3, limited to those "professionally proficient" (possessing the ability to actually communicate beyond greetings and simple phrases). Culbert's estimate was not made for Esperanto alone, but formed part of his listing of estimates for all languages of over 1 million speakers, published annually in the World Almanac and Book of Facts. In the Almanac, his estimates for numbers of language speakers were rounded to the nearest million, thus the number for Esperanto speakers is shown as 2 million. This latter figure appears in Ethnologue. Assuming that this figure is accurate, this means that about 0.03% of the world's population speaks the language, thus falling far short of Zamenhof's goal of a universal language. Ethnologue also states that there are 200 to 2000 native Esperanto speakers.
Official status
\nEsperanto is not an official language of any country. However, it is the official working language of several non-profit organizations, mostly Esperanto organizations.
Dialects and derived languages
\nNo new languages or dialects have formed through fragmentation of Esperanto as they do in natural languages, due mainly to the regular nature of the language and its intended field of use. People tend to create slang and regional variants in the language(s) they use day to day, rather than those used primarily for intercommunication with different-language speakers; in the case of Esperanto, such variations, if heavily different from the official Fundamento version, would make universal comprehension less likely and negate the intended purpose of the language.
Esperanto has slang words - for example, saluton (hello) is sometimes clipped to luton, sal etc., and Esperantists sometimes use the slang word Esp-o instead of Esperanto. There are many other slang and swear words. There is not as much slang in Esperanto as in other languages, perhaps because it hasn't been largely adopted by a youth subculture.
Through the years many groups and individuals have proposed new language projects as 'reformed' versions of the Esperanto. Almost all of these projects have remained stillborn, failing to progress past the planning stage, and the only one to have had an amount of success has been Ido (Esperanto for 'offspring'). This version of Esperanto was proposed by the Delegation for the Adoption of an International Auxiliary Language in Paris in October 1907. Its main differences were in the fields of alphabet and some grammatical features. Early on there was a relatively large number of people who moved their support behind the Ido project, but the movement itself descended into fragmentation and decline as others proposed further changes. Modern estimates place current speakers of Ido between 250 and 5000.\n
Writing system
\nEsperanto is written using a modified version of the Latin alphabet, with six accented letters: ĉ, ĝ, ĥ, ĵ, ŝ (c, g, h, j, and s with circumflex), and ŭ (u with breve). \nThe alphabet does not include the letters q, w, x, and y.
Therefore the alphabet consists of: \na 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
The unaccented letters are pronounced as the lower-case equivalents in X-SAMPA, with the exception of c, which is pronounced [ts]. ĉ is pronounced [tS]. ĝ is pronounced [dZ]. ĥ is pronounced [x]. ĵ is pronounced [Z]. ŝ is pronounced [S]. ŭ is pronounced [U], and always follows an a, e or o; it almost never appears at the start of a word. Diphthongs can be formed by the letters j and ŭ.
(See the external PDF file The Alphabets of Europe.)
The six Esperanto accented characters are included in the international form of Morse code.
Learning Esperanto
\nSome studies suggest that Esperanto is a good deal easier for speakers of European languages to learn as a second language than any natural language (especially languages such as English, French, and Chinese).
There is also some evidence that suggests studying Esperanto before studying any other second language (especially an Indo-European language) may speed and improve 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. However, the study failed to prove that Esperanto was responsible for this advantage specifically, as it is likely that learning any language will benefit the future study of other languages.
Today, people often learn Esperanto online through websites like lernu
Examples
Here are some examples of Esperanto sentences, with rough pronunciation guides. The five vowels ought to have roughly the same qualities that they do in Italian, Spanish, Tagalog, Maori, Swahili, and many other languages, as well as in the International Phonetic Alphabet.
- Hello: Saluton [sah-LOO-tone]\n* How much?: Kiom? [KEE-ohm]\n* Do you speak Esperanto?: Ĉu vi parolas Esperanton? [choo vee pah-ROLE-ahss ess-peh-RAHN-tone?]\n* I like this one: Mi ŝatas ĉi tiun (Ĉi tiu plaĉas al mi) [mee SHAH-tahss chee TEE-oon (chee TEE-oo PLA-chahss ahl mee)]\n* Is it cheap?: Ĉu ĝi estas malmultekosta? [choo jee ESS-tahss mahl-MOOL-teh-KOCE-tah?]\n* Five euros: Kvin eŭroj [kveen EH-wroy]\n* Do you accept US dollars?: Ĉu vi akceptas usonajn dolarojn? [choo vee ak-TSEP-tahss oo-SO-nine dole-AH-royn?]\n* Please give me a receipt: Bonvolu doni al mi kvitancon [bon-VOH-loo DOH-nee ahl mee kvee-TAHN-tsone]\n* Thank you: Dankon [DAHN-cone]\n* I love you: Mi amas vin [mee AH-mahs veen]\n* Goodbye: Ĝis revido [jeece reh-VEE-do]
Namesakes
The minor planet (1421) Esperanto is named in honor of the language. It was discovered on
March 18,
1936 by
Yrjö Väisälä.
See also
References
\n* Schmadel, Lutz D. Dictionary of Minor Planet Names (2nd ed.). Berlin; New York: Springer-Verlag, 1993.\n* Williams, N. (1965) 'A language teaching experiment', Canadian Modern Language Review 22.1: 26-28
External links
\nInformation on Esperanto
\n* An Update on Esperanto by the
World Esperanto Association\n*
Esperanto.net: information in 57 languages\n*
Esperanto: A Language for the Global Village by Sylvan Zaft\n*
Learn Not to Speak Esperanto by Justin Rye\n*
Majstro Multlingva Tradukvortaro: An on-line translation dictionary that uses Esperanto as an auxiliary language\n*
Reta vortaro, an Esperanto dictionary\n*
The Alternative Esperanto Dictionary\n*
Esperanto - English Dictionary: from
Webster's Online Dictionary - the Rosetta Edition.
Esperanto courses
\n* Lernu.net: Free Esperanto course in over 10 languages\n*
Free Esperanto Course - Email correspondence course\n*
Kurso de Esperanto - Software + email correspondence course (multilingual)\n
Esperanto organizations
\n* Esperanto League for North America - US national organization\n*
Universal Esperanto Association\n
Fun
\n*Generator for Esperanto typographical filler text
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Category:Esperanto
