Stalin, despite having studied and promoted the language at one time, sent its speakers to Gulags. And yet the language managed to live on, being taught in concentration camps and spoken by the disenfranchised. It was only able to survive the 20th century thanks to small groups of Esperanto enthusiasts. The language had an outsider status and was not often taken seriously, but the important thing was that it was kept from dying out. And even though Esperanto was made to be an auxiliary language, there is a cohort of about 1, people who speak Esperanto as their first language, a few of whom were interviewed in the video above.
The most famous native speaker is Hungarian-American billionaire philanthropist George Soros , whose father was a devotee of the language. Esperanto is clearly far from dead, and is in fact currently going through a renaissance. There are books , music and other kinds of entertainment. The biggest event for Esperanto is the Universala Kongreso , which was founded by Zamenhof and has been held in a different city almost every year since It started as a way to discuss and adjust the language, but today is a celebration of the people who speak it.
Why do people speak Esperanto? In addition to the yearly gathering, Esperanto speakers reach out to their community in countless ways, both online and in real life. The internet, of course, has been a massive boon to the language, connecting speakers from all over the world to create a community. On the website Pasporta Servo , you can find Esperantists around the world who let fellow speakers stay with them cheaply, or even for free, while on vacation.
Thomas grew up in suburban Massachusetts, and moved to New York City for college. He studied English literature and linguistics at New York University, but spent most of his time in college working for the student paper.
Because of this, he has really hard opinions about AP Style. He's spent a lot of time trying to learn Spanish, and has learned a little German. Thomas ist in einer Vorstadt in Massachusetts aufgewachsen und nach New York gezogen, um den krassen Kontrast zu erleben. Deshalb ist er auch etwas pedantisch, was Textstandards angeht. Ha studiato Letteratura inglese e Linguistica alla New York University ma ha trascorso la maggior parte del tempo a lavorare al giornale scolastico.
Thomas cresceu na suburbana Massachusetts, e se mudou para Nova York para fazer faculdade. But if you were to say that you can order your coffee in 0. But the fact is that seven languages only make up about 0. Because I was so surprised, I began asking my friends how many languages are there in the world, by their estimation.
I got different answers, but they all had one thing in common: they were far off from the actual number. When I told them the answer, loads of them looked at me in disbelief. Although I work with languages and I am aware of this diversity, I still find it difficult to imagine who speaks all of these languages and where they are spoken.
If almost a billion people speak Mandarin, and there are half a billion Spanish native speakers, and if you then think how many millions of people speak English, French, Portuguese and German…how can there still be so many other languages out there? It makes sense that centuries ago, there were numerous distinct languages being spoken throughout the archipelago at a time when the inhabitants did not come into contact with one another.
There was similar linguistic diversity in South America before the colonial powers of Spain and Portugal divided the territories among themselves and consequently spread both of their languages. Papua New Guinea has the most languages in the world, however, numbering over Where are the rest of the roughly 7, languages hiding though? Many of these lesser-known languages some of which are centuries old are being kept alive by a handful of speakers.
Or Chukchi, an old Siberian language used in the northeast of Russia by more than 5, native speakers. Or Ainu, the language of the native inhabitants in northern Japan, which now has barely 10 native speakers.
As can be easily understood from these examples, most of these languages will die out over the next few centuries.
But does it have to be that way? The answer is simple, but not that straightforward: yes and no. Roughly 40 percent of languages are currently endangered, many of which are being sustained by handfuls of less than 1, speakers. Of course awareness helps enormously. In many countries, such as Spain and France, successful attempts are being made to preserve and to some extent revive the local languages and dialects.
Whenever governments set up education and health systems, one language will automatically be used as an official language. The descendants of the Ainu people learned and grew up with Japanese in order to have better access to education and therefore a better life. Due to persecution and stigmatization, some languages die out faster than others. For example, Ainu has long been regarded as an inferior language, and therefore speakers of Ainu in Japan were often excluded from society. In such cases, population groups may decide to abandon their own language entirely and exclusively teach their children the majority language in order to ensure their social integration.
There have been many other examples of genocide and forced assimilation throughout history that have placed minority language speakers in even more oppressive circumstances. If these two decide to start a family together, chances are high that their children will not grow up with all four languages. Moreover, maintaining a language is also a question of cost for a nation.
Not every country can afford to maintain an entire public apparatus and mass media in two languages, let alone several languages. We only need to think of all the public signs, forms, applications, administrators, police officers, doctors, newspapers, television channels…the list is endless.
All of these things would have to be multilingual, or the people concerned would at least have to have extensive knowledge of the other languages. A great example of preserving a language can be found in Toulouse in the south of France.
And Occitan often does not sound so different from French, perhaps a bit like a mix of French and Spanish. Although in the future, fewer and fewer people will grow up learning Occitan as their native language, it is still at least possible this way to ensure that it remains a second language in this region thanks to these kinds of initiatives.
How many languages are there? Why do some languages disappear while others grow and become more important? And how can you prevent languages from dying out? Maren Pauli was born and raised in Berlin, and decided to study language, geography and culture as far away from her home country as possible: Japan. It quickly became clear that her love affair with the country would last a lifetime. I really wanted to learn it.
Seems like a good skill to have. Especially after I heard it's not that difficult as a language to learn. Nice , i am doing the opposite , esperanto then russian , maybe we will meet in the middle ; , if you have any questions let me know and ill try to help , like any language it requires effort and persistence, but it is easier than any natural language.
It will help you to understand the horrible Russian cases. The concept behind them and the resulting free word order in both languages is pretty the same. I mean, I just finished listening to a podcast of three people from Germany about the refugee crisis from a perspective I would never have been able to understand unless all three participants had spent a decade learning English or I had spent a decade learning German.
And I've spent maybe a year or so on Esperanto. So it's all about what you're using it for. I have to add, that one of the three is Slovak and thus not German native. Kaj dankon! I actually had been trying to figure out what the native countries of the two main hosts are, but I can't remember them saying anywhere, and since they were all so familiar with Germany I just assumed they were German. I'm guessing Eva is Slovak? Some can be disproved with a simple Google search and the rest are just rude.
No one would say such things about a language—unless the language is Esperanto. The Hungarian Academy of Sciences has determined that Esperanto is a living language. The International Academy of Sciences in San Marino uses Esperanto as its language of instruction and administration and confers accredited degrees.
I agree that there's more to culture than food and clothing and music. Personally, my argument would sooner be that the lack of culture can be a selling point for Esperanto, but this depends on each person's individual perspective, of course.
I myself learn languages out of linguistic and esthetic interest, not for cultural reasons. Not even to talk to people, per se. As for your fifth point about it not saving time Sure, it won't be this quick again with other, more difficult languages, but that's just a quantitative difference.
I was getting a bit frustrated and demotivated by my lack of success after many years of trying to learn, for example, Japanese. This feeling has been diminished by my success at Esperanto, and I feel more confident now. The same is true for my fear at actually starting to speak a new language. I am looking forward to getting back to other languages once I feel I am sufficiently fluent in Esperanto.
I might be confirming your idea that Esperantists are argumentative etc. I do hope you weren't trying to poison the well , but I hope it's alright in this setting for me to speak out a little, given that you yourself were making arguments in your post. Of course, I do think it's fine if you're not interested in learning the language yourself; I'm just sharing my personal opinions.
Even though, as I said, I don't agree with most of what you wrote, I'm still appreciative of most parts of your post. Thank you for writing it. I agree with many of your points on Esperanto but I've never really understood why it gets criticized for not having a culture?
If a language was invented as a easier means of international communication, then shouldn't it try to be culturally nuetral? You do realise that sooner or later, you were going to get a real anthropologist here who COULD and would critique your cherry picking and non-contextual use of definitions of culture.
Been working as an anthropologist paid for almost 20 years. Oh, and I speak an agglutinative Australian Aboriginal language. Something most 'language' enthusiasts wouldn't dare to try - they can't be bothered living in a remote area.
However, I do want to take exception with your use of the term 'culture' to advance your argument. You appear to be attempting to claim two things: that esperanto has no 'culture' and that it is suspended in some kind of cultural vacuum.
Esperanto is both a product of culture AND a sub-culture. How can it be anything else? It arose at a certain point in time, was 'authored by' and informed by the culture in which it arose. The definitions themselves are broad. Think about that. Re-read the quotes you've used then go away and think a little more deeply about this. Let's think about what culture is and how it is used politically at many levels by THE SAME individuals who claim membership to multiple cultures.
Am I Australian yes? Am I female yes? Am I a Northern Territorian yes? Do I identify with these groups who have readily definable " No big deal. The things the artefacts are those unique properties that give a particular culture its uniqueness. Sorry, but Esperanto HAS a culture. You've actually identified some of the unique parts of it in your critique. I'll leave you to figure it out. Like culture itself, they're slippery.
They're not 'in your face'. They're subtle and sophisticated. There is one other point that I'd like to discuss. You seem to be a little upset that in one subculture, there are people of the opposite ideo-political position. Apart from overlooking that this is indeed an artefact of Esperanto culture, I find it amusing. True 'right' wing conservatism does not exist. It cannot exist. It's a fallacy, antithetical to human culture, and antithetical to one most important reason that humans exist today: cultures change.
Every day. You aren't obligated to learn any language. I just wonder why you felt it was necessary to defend your personal choice.
Some of your arguments are accurate, but most are only approximately true, but it really doesn't matter. It's your thought process, to which you are entitled. Esperanto has not and probably will not achieve the goal that Dr. Zamenhof had in mind, so you are partly right that it is a failure in that sense.
However, making up a language that actually has native speakers is quite an accomplishment. There are more Wikipedia pages in Esperanto than in Danish, and there are more books in Esperanto than in Icelandic.
William Auld was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in , , and for works in Esperanto. To borrow a turn of phrase, Esperanto failed at being a floor wax, but it turned out to be a great desert topping. So it is not only a failure, it is a huge success. However, you don't want to learn it, and that's okay. Fakte, Esperanto estas lingvo. Vi ne devas akcepti nenion se vi vere volas uzi la lingvon.
Mi nun faras la multanojn kurso de Boris Kolker kaj estas tre kontente kun la libro kaj lecionoj. I cannot see how Esperanto can help with saving the dying languages. Esperanto is a destructive totalitarian pseudo-religious sect. It is evil, and it is a common knowledge that Evil cannot create. Esperanto itself it not a fair creation, it is a perversion of European languages. The real languages, such as English, give you tangible and also real benefits. Esperanto just kills your soul. Well it's up to you.
The problem is your diagnosis of its political motivations are hopelessly outdated. Like everything else in culture almost all political content or political content that doesn't reflect the currently dominant ideology has been almost entirely stripped away. There was indeed a time when Esperanto had even been adopted by a worker's movement, though that was not part of the regular Esperanto movement which was about as political as a harvest festival.
Your 'many Englishes' argument is spurious too. I hear this so often and from so many alleged 'linguists' who ought to know better.
In truth English only functions as some kid of bloc when the differences are skated over. The places where it is a first language have quite a few differences, but not enough to create a barrier. On the other hand in places where it has fairly deep roots and is spoken relatively well, like India, there is still too much difference for it to be comparable to standard English. The grave mistake so often made is in accepting as the truth the myth that the world speaks English.
The brute lies repeated about the level of English competence throughout the world sometimes beggars belief. The situation currently gives native English speakers the whip-hand in so many international arenas. Anyone promoting this situation is really a menace to international development. Particularly since its basis is utterly false. Personally I'm not all that interested in the alleged 'special culture' of Esperanto, but what you've missed is that Esperanto somehow manages to allow you to speak with many people in a way that helps you see their cultural position, without having to learn ten or more languages.
You won't get to see this because you're too afraid to have a go at it. That watery McCarthyism of yours, which makes you see the word 'Esperanto' as 'Communist' not that the latter is particularly if a person is not drenched in 90 years of U. Totally ill-informed diatribe. Almost every assertion quoted as "fact" has no basis other than the writer's personal prejudices.
What is there to say in reply? The biggest error is the frankly ludicrous claim about "Esperantistan" being "ideologically homogeneous". By his own admission, Donovan has not learned Esperanto and will never learn it. How then can he make a judgement about the Esperanto community and its imagined "ideology"?
Of course, there are a minority of fanatics and proselytisers among Esperanto enthusiasts, and presumably Donovan has met some of them and based his views on his dealings with them.
He quite obviously hasn't met the majority of enthusiasts - particularly from other countries who don't have English as a language - who have no interest in ideology of any kind, but simply enjoy being part of a world-wide community.
Esperanto speakers are the most diverse group of people you could wish to meet, united chiefly by an acceptance of diversity. That is something that Donovan Nagel could learn from, before criticising something of which he clearly has a poor knowledge.
Sorry, I take no offense to these views, nor am I a passionate believe in Esperanto as a solution for anything but here are my blunt words in response too: A childish rant that confuses a language with a political movement, and culture that it denies exists. Heck don't learn Klingon either. Or Swahili. Who really cares? And who, do you need to inform about the grand decision not to learn something? Just curious. Phewey, it has one, and yep it's full of extremists and nutters and it sucks.
Just get your message clear. But you don't like it and are railing against it. Fair enough. That says nothing about learning the language, and is like saying I won't read that danged bible because Christians are all nutters Read it or don't, but you might choose to read because Christians are nutters Ill conceived and foolish and not at all what experience suggest what research suggests. You seem literally to be unaware of the fact that you can speak this language and any constructed language with what, two weeks invested effort.
If you think you can't you haven't really tried. In fact when I discovered a strong interest in language and wanted to learn one, I had Spanish or French or Chinese or Japanese in mind, and someone told me about Esperanto, promised in 10 lessons I could read with a a little help form a pocket dictionary for vocab and rapidly be consulting it less and less so that withing 2 months you could mostly do without it. I though, heck, if I can't do that, I'm gonna drown in French And it delivered.
So, now I can speak Esperanto? Do I use it, not much, hardly ever. Do I care? Not much. Do I socialise with it? Not much, I mean as you observed the culture is dominated by oddballs and extremists. But was it a waste of time? Get real? The ignorance of that claim is so deep it grates. All you judgments are fine, but this is just plain wrong.
There is simply a lot to be said for learning to crawl before you work and I would seriously recommend any constructed language to anyone as a second language to help them let go of monolingualism, exercise new grammar and vocab all in context without exceptions, idioms, centuries of nuancal rhetorical meaning layers and soon.
The reward is fast, rapid and you learn that you can learn, and discover that communication can work in weird and wonderful ways after and it's not possible. Most flounder and fail at any natural second language, drowning in the complexity. If you don't kudos to you, but then you're probably be speaking Esperanto in a week if you pulled your head out of your And that said, the culture seems to be shifting with the internet as most are, and I suspect as the old guard slowly die off and the new enter it becomes a little less aberrant, more "ordinary" people learn it and in total opposition to your faulty conclusion in 6 - again nonsense, not an opinion or judgment a claim and the claim is utter nonsense because any language with speakers has a use.
Which brings us to one of the dominant uses of Esperanto. Seriously explain to me how you can give my children this:. A few months casual lessons and exercises, watching some videos, and then pen pals in Japan, China, Russia, Brazil, France, wherever with whom you can exchange in a language that you are peers at?
Not yours. This is one of its greatest gifts to English speakers. I bummed around Japan for two months in my 20s visiting among many people Esperanto speakers, and these were among my most valued relationships, because I spoke with peers, we both struggled with a a simpel toy language gifted to us, that cost us very little and neither of us owned or mastered,.
With this I could and di stay with a Japanese family help them harvest their rice, played Go with Grandad, and I stayed in a monastery and wend mountain climbing and all with people who I had no access to with English and if I did, I was always the mentor, not the peer. And that distinctly changes our relationship. There is no better language to learn for a world vagabond as I was, that comes as cheaply, and opens as many doors, in ans many nations, as does Esperanto.
But if you're not a globetrotting young vagabond, who cares? I mean I don't preach it in the street, in fact rarely if ever mention to anyone socially that I can speak Esperanto. Why not? Because unless I see some reason they may be interested, why would I raise it? And I see only two real plusses at present maybe three:.
Hitchhike and speak Esperanto. No two things will open as many genuine friendly doors for you as those, nope not even couchsurfing. These two things will offer far more spontaneous and genuine relationships I promise you, having done just that for a decade.
We'll manage a simple conversation in a few days and you'll be able to browse and understand websites in a week or two. You can of course potter around like any language and not get there, and not be progressing with it, but I promise you this, if that's the case, you probably would not be different with another natural language only slower, and more frustrated.
But crack this nut and feel the reward, and learn above all, about your learning skills and passion. Unless though I think you're yearning for one of tose three things, you will probably never learn form me that I speak Esperanto. Which is what takes me back to your motivations. Namely the lack of grace. An almost childish tantrum against a pile of eccentrics you don't like, confusing that with a language.
And likewise, no disrespect intended at all! I totally get where you're coming from and have felt similar and much of it resonates with my personal experience of the Esperanto world.
Just in places you are plain wrong is all. First of all thank you Mr. Nagel for your comment. The beauty of that world is that we, for many of us, still have the right and the liberty to express our opinions! Also, I'm begging your pardon for all the mistakes I'll may do.
You'll understand here that English is not my native language. There are people out there who sees Esperanto as a tool. And that's fine! It's only related to my native culture! Nothing to do with the fact I use Esperanto! So, what's the matter with the politic! Just for that, it wins my favor. Openness is one of the key for improving our intelligence Just a little research on the web concerning FFM Five factor model and OCEAN Openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism should convince you of the benefits of it ;.
I won't debate anything here, you have excellent comments about it on your own blog I read them all. English win. It's everywhere" Wrong! First thing first : It is NOT everywhere. If you traveled a little bit, you will admit that outside the hotels and outside the highly touristic sites, you' will find no one to help you in English.
And those who will help, will do with a barely understandable English! Second, the vast majority of the people who use English as a working language will : Have a decent to poor vocabulary in English.
Often it's just enough to do the job but nothing more. I know what I'm talking about, I classify myself in that category. Actually it requires from me an effort to write this comment! Thanks to my programmers job, otherwise I would probably not writing this comment.
Surprisingly, learning Esperanto opened doors for me to access other languages resources : the Esperantists native languages. Exchanging with them allow me to learn their language and in return I have the opportunity to help the other learn my language. And all the exchange is done with the bridge that represent Esperanto. Finally, I use Esperanto because it gave me tools I didn't have before. I use it for all the reasons mentioned above and the most important thing, I use it because I don't feel that I have to make excuses in advance for the possible mistakes I may do when I speak or write to someone else just because I'm pretty aware that my interlocutor is by far more agile with the language used.
I feeling that I don't get when I speak to someone in Esperanto! Alternate title: "Here are my widespread anti-Semitic generalizations based on my own cherry-picking logic about the people speaking this language and how I hate them and how English is a such better language there's no point. Donovan, are you a Brit by any chance? I have noticed that Brits have a tendency to falsely present themselves as experts and pontificate endlessly on subjects they know nothing about.
This is what you have done here. At best, you are describing Esperanto as it was more than a hundred years ago and has no relevance at all to the very different Esperanto world of today.
The language is far different today too and has effectively become a natural language complete with native speakers and evolving according to the laws of natural languages.
Zamenhof spent his whole life starting from puberty developing his international language project, a total of perhaps 15 years. He had a strong knowledge of linguistics and would have been delighted to become a professor of philology in a university but such an aspiration was impossible for a Polish Jew born in Czarist Russia and he had to make do with becoming an eye doctor to earn his living.
He originally developed a complicated language with a big vocabulary and an elaborate grammar but came to realize that no one man could create a whole language by himself.
He spent many years stripping down his language to the bare bones, creating the sketchy, schematic version he published as the "International Language Project of one Doctor Esperanto.
He decided not to create a whole language but instead a sturdy framework that the users of the new language could use to construct a full language on.
This is roughly what happened but it was a long and often stormy road. The Esperanto that Zamenhof used 30 years later at the end of his life was far more elegant and polished than the early version he published in the First Book. Since the beginning, it took more than a century to fully develop Esperanto and create the living language of today, a language you know nothing about. But you Sir, know effectively nothing about the real Esperanto.
You basically accuse it of not being a national language, which Esperanto was never intended to be so you are belaboring at great length a complete irrelevancy. I am amazed that you feel qualified to pontificate at length on a subject you are so obviously abysmally ignorant of, but that seems to be a thing Brits do nowadays.
The same point holds true of Justin B. Rye's silly rant. I am sorry to have to confront you with this Donovan but ignorance does not constitute knowledge and never will. You are no expert on Esperanto and your ill-informed opinion has no relevancy and substance. You seem to regard English as the great solution to International communication. Based on my experience, if we try to base the International Language on English, it will be some debased kind of pidgin English.
Such a language is already forming and is called "Globish". It is an awful travesty of the noble English language, the language of Shakespeare, Shelly and Hemingway. I fear it will eventually contaminate the English of native speakers if it gets too widespread. The fact is, English was never designed to be an international language and it is too difficult for the great majority, with the exception of native speakers of Germanic languages.
To master English requires studying it or practicing the language for several hours a day for ten full years and you need to live at least a couple of years in an English speaking country. This is well beyond the means of most people. The result is that English is and will doubtless remain the ;language of big business, finance and diplomacy, the language of a privileged and much envied elite but will remain inaccessible to the great majority.
Esperanto was designed from the ground up to be an international language and it works brilliantly for this purpose. It is the international SOCIAL language, the language of those who want to make friends across language barriers and enjoy the culture of others.
It is the language of the rest of us, those who are not of the elite. Another useful purpose for Esperanto I think would be to help stabilize and define English. Esperanto fully has the precision and logical rigor of the Classical languages and is well suited for this purpose.
Latin used to be used for this purpose, but it is so intractably difficult that hardly any ordinary student gains any real mastery of the subject and it has been abandoned for the most part. An English speaker who has never learned another language is as unaware of the soft mushy walls of the English language as a fish in an aquarium is aware of the water it swims in.
If you study Esperanto seriously on the other hand, you become vividly aware of the foggy, ambiguous nature of the English language, It will force him to recognize the need for rules and discipline to give English the clarity it needs to be effective. I learned long ago when I read Esperanto to stop trying to translate it into English.
I run all the time into words and expressions that have no equivalent in English although I understand them perfectly well. Translating from English, I am forced to work out the precise intended meaning that I need to express in the much clearer and more precise Esperanto.
This sort of exercise would be of great value in teaching native speaking English students to use English with the clarity and precision it needs to be effective. I find it interesting that you harp so much on culture, though in a way that is illogical and entirely inappropriate. An international culture is beginning to develop, especially in Europe. This culture reaches its fullest development in the Esperanto community.
The Esperanto community is the only genuine multinational, multicultural community because it is the only one that has a common language to bind them. You think you can give an informed opinion on Esperanto culture based on knowing little to nothing about it. Such a thing cannot be.
All that results is you show the deceitful sophistry of a lawyer arguing a case in court. It is not a way of reaching truth or genuine insights. I notice how much you do this in your arguments both in the original essay and your responses to others.
You should know that relatively little information is available in English and it tends to be hopelessly antiquated anyway. Most of the information, especially contemporary information, especially about the modern language, is only available in Esperanto itself. Since somebody linguistically sophisticated like yourself could go through a beginning course I highly recommend the 3rd Edition of "Teach Yourself Esperanto" and acquire a basic reading knowledge of the language in about a month.
With the aid of a good 2 way dictionary I highly recommend the most current edition of Weil's 2 way dictionary, it even includes some of the dirty words in the Esperanto part you should be able to access this literature for yourself, a good part of which can be found on the Internet if you look hard.
But to understand the current Esperanto community and it's place in the world, you need to learn to actually speak the language and fluently. That takes about a year of consistent daily study. First, I would go to the learning materials on lernu. No need to join up, just use it as a resource. Skip to content Home Useful tips Does anyone actually speak Esperanto? Useful tips. Esther Fleming July 21, Table of Contents.
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