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, 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 others just want to use the language to meet foreigners and learn about other countries and cultures. Today, thousands of people use it regularly to communicate with others around the world. See Esperanto as an international language
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.
| Esperanto |
|---|
| Spoken in: | Worldwide |
| Total speakers: | 2 Million |
| Ranking: | 11 |
Genetic
classification: |
Constructed language
Esperanto
| | Official status |
|---|
| Official language of: | 0 countries |
| Regulated by: | Akademio de Esperanto |
| Language codes |
|---|
| ISO 639-1: | eo |
| ISO 639-2: | epo |
| SIL: | ESP |
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.
Language evolution
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.
Classification
As 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
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". 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.
Official status
Esperanto 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
No new languages or dialects, have formed through fragmentation of Esperanto as they do in natural languages. However, through the years many groups and individuals have proposed new language projects as 'reformed' versions of the Esperanto. Almost all of these remained stillborn and did not progress past the planning stage, and the only one to have had an amount of success has been Ido (Esperanto for 'offspring'), 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 descended itself into fragmentation as others proposed changes to it. Modern estimates place current speakers of Ido between 250 and 5000.
Writing system
Esperanto 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).
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 here for transliteration of the alphabet into braille. See also the external PDF file The Alphabets of Europe.)
Learning Esperanto
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.
Examples
- Hello: Saluton
- How much?: Kiom?
- I like this one: Mi ŝatas ĉi tiun
- Is it cheap?: Ĉu ĝi estas malmultekosta?
- Five euros: Kvin eŭroj
- Do you accept US dollars?: Ĉu vi akceptas usonajn dolarojn?
- Please give me a receipt: Bonvolu doni al mi kvitancon
- Thank you: Dankon
- I love you: Mi amas vin
- Goodbye: Ĝis revido
See also
References
- Williams, N. (1965) 'A language teaching experiment', Canadian Modern Language Review 22.1: 26-28
External links
Referenced By
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