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Home > Esperanto

1 History

As 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.

1.1 Language evolution

A declaration endorsed by the Esperanto movement in 1905 limits changes to the 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.

Esperantists believe 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 university. When he returned home in 1881, as the legend goes, he found that his father had burned all his notes and work. Thus Zamenhof was forced to begin again, but this time he had the advantage of all that he had learned in his first attempt. He commented later in a letter to N. Borovko, "I worked for six years perfecting and testing the language, even though it had seemed to me in 1878 that the language was already completely ready."
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 satas ci tiun would in fact have meant "I esteem this one". The traditional usage would instead have been Ci tiu placas 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, (adding the suffix -il- meaning a tool to the root of the verb komputi, 'to compute'). Euro (as in these 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 Euro was chosen because it better fits the phonology of the language.

Not all changes meet ready acceptanceAcceptance is a cognitive activity or state that is the opposite of resistance. Lack of acceptance of things that cannot be changed can contribute towards negative mental states such as depression or anxiety. Increasing one's acceptance of oneself and one, however. For example, the neologismIn linguistics, a neologism is a recently- coined word, or the act of inventing a word or phrase. Additionally it can imply the use of old words in a new sense such as giving new meanings to existing words or phrases. Neologisms are especially useful in i "cipa", meaning "cheap", has appeared as an alternative to the more verbose "malmultekosta", meaning "the opposite of expensive", but remains in minority usage.

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EsperantoEsperanto is a planned ( constructed) international auxiliary language. The name derives from the pseudonym (Dr. Esperanto) under which L. Zamenhof published the language in 1887. See Esperanto history. His intention was to create an easy-to-learn languag Esperanto historyIn 1878, L. Zamenhof considered a revival of Latin to be the solution for the language problem, but after learning it he realized it was obsolete and too difficult for the task. When he learned English, he noted that verb conjugations were unnecessary for Esperanto grammarEsperanto is an agglutinative language which has no grammatical genders and limited, regular verb conjugation. Nouns and adjectives have two cases, nominative and accusative, and two numbers, singular and plural; and nouns and adjectives must agree in cas Esperanto cultureThe language Esperanto is often used to access an international culture. There are over 25,000 Esperanto books (originals and translations) as well as over a hundred regularly distributed Esperanto magazines. Many Esperanto speakers use the language for f Esperanto flagThe Esperanto flag is composed of a green background with a white square in the upper lefthand corner, which in turn contains a green star. The green field symbolizes hope, the white symbolizes peace and neutrality, and the five-pointed star represents th Esperanto libraryThe following Esperanto libraries and collections of works in the Esperanto language are worthy of note: The Montagu Butler Library of Esperanto materials, maintained by the British Esperanto Association, whose collection of 30,000 items is often quoted. Esperanto Pen Pal Service Esperanto orthography Esperanto Association of Britain Esperanto music Esperanto literature Esperanto pronunciation Esperanto film Esperanto as an international language Esperanto (car)