By Julie Pacotte
The Esperanto was created in 1887 by a Polish doctor (Zamenhof) as an auxiliary artificial language. In this moment, Zamenhof's hope was to turn it into a universal language; destined to serve as auxiliary international language, that is to say as a second language after the mother tongue.
The number of speakers grew rapidly during the decades following his creation. It was started to be spoken firstly in the Russian Empire, in Eastern Europe, and then in western Europe, America, China and Japan.
Along the 20th century many regimes prosecuted and prohibited the Esperanto; for example, Hitler judged this language as "a language that might be used for the domination of the world by a Jewish international conspiracy”… And Stalin considered it as a "spies' language".
It is possible to speak briefly about its construction, about its formation. The Esperanto is constituted of 5 vowels and 23 consonants; Zamenhof's intention was to create a language easy to learn for the comprehension between villages. Its simple and regular design makes of the Esperanto a language considerably simpler than anyother national language.
The vocabulary comes from many languages. The great majority comes from the Latin, from roman languages (principally Italian and French), from German, from English and from Japanese.
Almost the whole people who speaks it keeps learning it in an autodidactic way or by means of courses by correspondence.
Around the language, is developed a culture that implies equity and justice among the different languages. It promotes also the comprehension and tolerance between the peoples, besides the protection and preservation of the national languages.
Last Sunday (July 20) began in Holland the ninetieth third Universal Congress of Esperanto. In the international year of the languages this Congress has as motto "the languages: exchequer of the humanity". This year, the Congress celebrates also the "Centenary of the Universal Association of Esperanto", of which 117 countries where part of the members.
To what it refers to the Esperanto nowadays, it is difficult to say how many speakers are; nevertheless the majority of the sources report 2 million speakers in the whole world, rather concentrated in Europe and oriental Asia. Besides the people who speaks it, every year there are hundreds of new books, movies, songs, newspapers or magazines that go out in Esperanto.
Though, 120 years after its creation, the popularity of the Esperanto continues far below of Zamenhof's expectations, no (constructed) language was expended so rapidly worldwide without conquests, wars or settling.
The Esperanto was created in 1887 by a Polish doctor (Zamenhof) as an auxiliary artificial language. In this moment, Zamenhof's hope was to turn it into a universal language; destined to serve as auxiliary international language, that is to say as a second language after the mother tongue.
The number of speakers grew rapidly during the decades following his creation. It was started to be spoken firstly in the Russian Empire, in Eastern Europe, and then in western Europe, America, China and Japan.
Along the 20th century many regimes prosecuted and prohibited the Esperanto; for example, Hitler judged this language as "a language that might be used for the domination of the world by a Jewish international conspiracy”… And Stalin considered it as a "spies' language".
It is possible to speak briefly about its construction, about its formation. The Esperanto is constituted of 5 vowels and 23 consonants; Zamenhof's intention was to create a language easy to learn for the comprehension between villages. Its simple and regular design makes of the Esperanto a language considerably simpler than anyother national language.
The vocabulary comes from many languages. The great majority comes from the Latin, from roman languages (principally Italian and French), from German, from English and from Japanese.
Almost the whole people who speaks it keeps learning it in an autodidactic way or by means of courses by correspondence.
Around the language, is developed a culture that implies equity and justice among the different languages. It promotes also the comprehension and tolerance between the peoples, besides the protection and preservation of the national languages.
Last Sunday (July 20) began in Holland the ninetieth third Universal Congress of Esperanto. In the international year of the languages this Congress has as motto "the languages: exchequer of the humanity". This year, the Congress celebrates also the "Centenary of the Universal Association of Esperanto", of which 117 countries where part of the members.
To what it refers to the Esperanto nowadays, it is difficult to say how many speakers are; nevertheless the majority of the sources report 2 million speakers in the whole world, rather concentrated in Europe and oriental Asia. Besides the people who speaks it, every year there are hundreds of new books, movies, songs, newspapers or magazines that go out in Esperanto.
Though, 120 years after its creation, the popularity of the Esperanto continues far below of Zamenhof's expectations, no (constructed) language was expended so rapidly worldwide without conquests, wars or settling.
1 comentario:
It was good to see such positive comments about Esperanto.
Did you know that nine British MP's have nominated Esperanto for the Nobel Peace Prize 2008?
This can be seen at http://www.lernu.net
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