Misplaced Pages

#793206

99-737: The UEA was founded in 1908 by the Swiss journalist Hector Hodler and others and is now headquartered in Rotterdam , Netherlands. The organization has official relations with the United Nations and has an office at the United Nations headquarters in New York City . According to its 1980 statutes (Statuto de UEA), the Universal Esperanto Association has two kinds of members: The UEA's supervisory board,

198-481: A "community of speakers". His original title for the language was simply "the international language" ( la lingvo internacia ), but early speakers grew fond of the name Esperanto, and began to use it as the name for the language just two years after its creation. The name quickly gained prominence, and has been used as an official name ever since. In 1905, Zamenhof published the Fundamento de Esperanto as

297-622: A 387-page work in French about the peaceful organization of peoples. After his death in 1920, he bequeathed to the UEA the magazine Esperanto and his Esperanto library , which nowadays bears his name , as well as a large sum of money to ensure its continued existence. He is buried at the cemetery of Saint George in Geneva next to his father. Esperanto Esperanto ( / ˌ ɛ s p ə ˈ r ɑː n t oʊ / , /- æ n t oʊ / )

396-476: A Jewish ophthalmologist from Białystok , then part of the Russian Empire , but now part of Poland . According to Zamenhof, he created the language to reduce the "time and labor we spend in learning foreign tongues", and to foster harmony between people from different countries: "Were there but an international language, all translations would be made into it alone ... and all nations would be united in

495-426: A basic understanding of Esperanto. The language-learning platforms Drops , Memrise and LingQ also have materials for Esperanto. On February 22, 2012, Google Translate added Esperanto as its 64th language. On July 25, 2016, Yandex Translate added Esperanto as a language. With about 361,000 articles, Esperanto Misplaced Pages (Vikipedio) is the 36th-largest Misplaced Pages, as measured by the number of articles, and

594-446: A board with the name Estraro was established.) Hodler was still the owner and publisher of his magazine Esperanto , published every second week. From the beginning, UEA had a Yearbook — Jarlibro — with basic information about the association and with the addresses of the delegates. Esperanto speakers are divided by different subjects they are interested in. In those early years, some specialist organizations developed — for example,

693-608: A catastrophic financial situation and decided in early 1936 to depart Geneva for London. In London, the capable activist Cecil C. Goldsmith wanted to become the new director (secretary), and for certain currency reasons UEA could exist significantly more cheaply in Britain than in Switzerland. A hastily organized and secret campaign, led by former president Stettler, made it impossible for the Bastien-led board to legally move

792-526: A certain degree isolating in character". Approximately 80% of Esperanto's vocabulary is derived from Romance languages. Typologically , Esperanto has prepositions and a pragmatic word order that by default is subject–verb–object (SVO). Adjectives can be freely placed before or after the nouns they modify, though placing them before the noun is more common. New words are formed through extensive use of affixes and compounds . Esperanto's phonology , grammar , vocabulary , and semantics are based on

891-477: A common brotherhood." His feelings and the situation in Białystok may be gleaned from an extract from his letter to Nikolai Borovko: The place where I was born and spent my childhood gave direction to all my future struggles. In Białystok the inhabitants were divided into four distinct elements: Russians, Poles, Germans, and Jews; each of these spoke their own language and looked on all the others as enemies. In such

990-475: A complete reform of the movement. In 1933, at the Cologne congress, UEA and the national organizations made UEA the common or umbrella organization of the international Esperanto movement. In 1934 the UEA members accepted new UEA statutes. The 'new UEA', as it was called, was (and still is) a federation of national associations but also of individual members directly administered by UEA. The highest organ of UEA

1089-549: A definitive guide to the language. Later that year, French Esperantists organized with his participation the first World Esperanto Congress , an ongoing annual conference, in Boulogne-sur-Mer , France. Zamenhof also proposed to the first congress that an independent body of linguistic scholars should steward the future evolution of Esperanto, foreshadowing the founding of the Akademio de Esperanto (in part modeled after

SECTION 10

#1732790758794

1188-519: A different location. The IJK is a week-long event of concerts, presentations, excursions attended by hundreds of young people from all over the world. The youth section has a Komitato and national and specialist affiliated organizations, just as the UEA itself. A TEJO volunteer works at the Rotterdam headquarters. The first national Esperanto organization was founded in 1898 in France, originally as

1287-441: A few dorożkas with their horses squeezed in between. Such a sight it was. Later a few blocks were changed from Dzika Street to Dr. Zamenhofa Street and a nice monument was erected there with his name and his invention inscribed on it, to honor his memory. Zamenhof's goal was to create an easy and flexible language that would serve as a universal second language , to foster world peace and international understanding, and to build

1386-520: A given locality, e.g. a town, were supposed to have UEA member conventions and elect a delegito (plural delegitoj ), a delegate. The delegate was tasked with collecting membership fees and sending them to the Geneva headquarters, and was expected to represent the other local members on the international level. The totality of delegates held referendums, and they elected the Komitato. The Komitato board initially had eight (since 1910: ten) members, with

1485-704: A language that could be used by an international Jewish conspiracy once they achieved world domination. Esperantists were killed during the Holocaust , with Zamenhof's family in particular singled out to be killed. The efforts of a minority of German Esperantists to expel their Jewish colleagues and overtly align themselves with the Reich were futile, and Esperanto was legally forbidden in 1935. Esperantists in German concentration camps did, however, teach Esperanto to fellow prisoners, telling guards they were teaching Italian,

1584-603: A local contact person for Esperanto and UEA members in their town. A ĉefdelegito (chief delegate) is someone installed also by the UEA headquarters, but with the task to collect and remit membership fees in a given country. TEJO , the World Esperanto Youth Organization, is the youth section of the UEA. Similar to the World Congress, TEJO organizes an International Youth Congress of Esperanto ( Internacia Junulara Kongreso ) each year in

1683-593: A potential international association. In 1903 the second one followed, in Switzerland. Within a couple of years, many of the still existing national organizations came into existence. Since 1933-1934 they have sent representatives to the UEA Komitato , making it a federation of national organizations. In Esperanto these were initially termed as Naciaj Societoj (national societies), but they have subsequently become known as Landaj Asocioj (country associations). When UEA accepted national organizations in 1933-1934 for

1782-400: A president and a vice-president. One of the board members served as director; from 1908 to 1920 this was Hector Hodler. The director installed delegates in towns with fewer than 20 members. These were 94 percent of the delegates, so the UEA was not so much a democracy but a circular, self-renewing system of cooptation . (Since 1920, the Komitato was enlarged, becoming a kind of parliament, and

1881-577: A smaller set of words. Esperanto is the most successful constructed international auxiliary language, and the only such language with a sizeable population of native speakers , of which there are perhaps several thousand. Usage estimates are difficult, but two estimates put the number of people who know how to speak Esperanto at around 100,000. Concentration of speakers is highest in Europe, East Asia, and South America. Although no country has adopted Esperanto officially, Esperantujo ("Esperanto-land")

1980-476: A town a sensitive nature feels more acutely than elsewhere the misery caused by language division and sees at every step that the diversity of languages is the first, or at least the most influential, basis for the separation of the human family into groups of enemies. I was brought up as an idealist; I was taught that all people were brothers, while outside in the street at every step I felt that there were no people, only Russians, Poles, Germans, Jews, and so on. This

2079-423: A unitary, truly international association, and UEA members should found separate organizations on national and local levels. The national (and local) associations initially saw the UEA not as a supporting resource but as a threat, as undesirable competition. They were afraid of a division in the movement between the traditional groups on the one hand and the UEA members on the other. Also, propaganda and lessons were

SECTION 20

#1732790758794

2178-758: Is also Education@Internet, which has developed from an Esperanto organization; most others are specifically Esperanto organizations. The largest of these, the Universal Esperanto Association , has an official consultative relationship with the United Nations and UNESCO , which recognized Esperanto as a medium for international understanding in 1954. The Universal Esperanto Association collaborated in 2017 with UNESCO to deliver an Esperanto translation of its magazine UNESCO Courier ( Esperanto : Unesko Kuriero en Esperanto ). The World Health Organization offers an Esperanto version of

2277-575: Is the largest Misplaced Pages in a constructed language. About 150,000 users consult the Vikipedio regularly, as attested by Misplaced Pages's automatically aggregated log-in data, which showed that in October 2019 the website has 117,366 unique individual visitors per month, plus 33,572 who view the site on a mobile device instead. Esperanto has been described as "a language lexically predominantly Romanic , morphologically intensively agglutinative , and to

2376-519: Is the most widely spoken constructed language in the world. Although no country has adopted Esperanto officially, Esperantujo ("Esperanto-land") is the name given to the collection of places where it is spoken. Esperanto is the working language of several non-profit international organizations such as the Sennacieca Asocio Tutmonda , a left-wing cultural association which had 724 members in over 85 countries in 2006. There

2475-514: Is the result of a decades-long process of several attempts to give the Esperanto movement a sound foundation. The first Esperanto associations were local clubs, of which the one in Nuremberg, Germany , is considered the first (1888). From 1898, national Esperanto associations were found in several countries, with the French one being the first. In 1903 followed the Swiss association; then in 1904

2574-449: Is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language . Created by L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it is intended to be a universal second language for international communication, or "the international language" ( la Lingvo Internacia ). Zamenhof first described the language in Dr. Esperanto's International Language (Esperanto: Unua Libro ), which he published under

2673-405: Is used as a name for the collection of places where it is spoken. The language has also gained a noticeable presence on the internet, as it became increasingly accessible on platforms such as Duolingo , Misplaced Pages , Amikumu and Google Translate . Esperanto speakers are often called "Esperantists" ( Esperantistoj ). Esperanto was created in the late 1870s and early 1880s by L. L. Zamenhof ,

2772-596: The Académie Française ), which was established soon thereafter. Since then, world congresses have been held in different countries every year, except during the two World Wars, and the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic (when it was moved to an online-only event). Since the Second World War , they have been attended by an average of more than 2,000 people, and up to 6,000 people at the most. Zamenhof wrote that he wanted mankind to "learn and use ... en masse ...

2871-662: The COVID-19 pandemic ( Esperanto : pandemio KOVIM-19 ) occupational safety and health education course. All personal documents sold by the World Service Authority , including the World Passport , are written in Esperanto, together with the official languages of the United Nations : English , French , Spanish , Russian , Arabic , and Chinese . Esperanto has not been a secondary official language of any recognized country. However, it has entered

2970-597: The COVID-19 pandemic . Congresses are scheduled for Arusha , Tanzania in 2024 and Brno , Czech Republic in 2025. Twice a year, in spring and autumn, UEA headquarters in Rotterdam holds an Open Day. In addition to the UN and UNESCO, UEA also has consultative relations with UNICEF and the Council of Europe , and a general working relationship with the Organization of American States . It works in an official capacity with

3069-601: The First World War . It is still produced as a publication associated with the UEA. He authored and translated many important articles, and he suggested translating masterpieces instead of trivial things. He signed his articles with the initials A. R. The proposals of Rousseau and Carles were melded with his plans, were discussed in his magazine and received a warm welcome. By the third World Esperanto Congress in 1907, there were already about 200 consuls (delegates). Hodler and others such as Théophile Rousseau founded

Universal Esperanto Association - Misplaced Pages Continue

3168-579: The Gulag labour camps. Quite often the accusation was: "You are an active member of an international spy organization which hides itself under the name of 'Association of Soviet Esperantists' on the territory of the Soviet Union." Until the end of the Stalin era, it was dangerous to use Esperanto in the Soviet Union, even though it was never officially forbidden to speak Esperanto. Fascist Italy allowed

3267-601: The Hector Hodler Library . The organisation has a network of local representatives from around the world, the Delegita Reto , who are available to provide information about their geographical area or professional field. The yearly World Esperanto Congress ( Universala Kongreso de Esperanto ), which attracts 1,500–3,000 people to a different city each year, is held under the direction of UEA. The first congress took place in 1905, and since 1933–1934

3366-489: The Indo-European group . A substantial majority of its vocabulary (approximately 80%) derives from Romance languages , but it also contains elements derived from Germanic , Greek , and Slavic languages. One of the language's most notable features is its extensive system of derivation , where prefixes and suffixes may be freely combined with roots to generate words, making it possible to communicate effectively with

3465-851: The Indo-European languages spoken in Europe. Beside his native Yiddish and (Belo)Russian, Zamenhof studied German, Hebrew, Latin, English, Spanish, Lithuanian, Italian, French, Aramaic and Volapük , knowing altogether something of 13 different languages, which had an influence on Esperanto's linguistic properties. Esperantist and linguist Ilona Koutny notes that Esperanto's vocabulary, phrase structure, agreement systems, and semantic typology are similar to those of Indo-European languages spoken in Europe. However, Koutny and Esperantist Humphrey Tonkin also note that Esperanto has features that are atypical of Indo-European languages spoken in Europe, such as its agglutinative morphology. Claude Piron argued that Esperanto word-formation has more in common with that of Chinese than with typical European languages , and that

3564-642: The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) as an A-liaison to ISO/TC37 . UEA is active in public information in the European Union and, as necessary, at other interstate and international organizations and conferences. The organisation is a member of the European Language Council , a common forum of universities and language associations for the awareness of languages and cultures inside and outside

3663-456: The Komitato , has members ( komitatanoj ) elected in three different ways: The Komitato serves as a sort of parliament and elects a board, the Estraro . The Estraro installs a general director and sometimes a director as well. The general director and staff work at the UEA headquarters, Oficejo de UEA , in Rotterdam. Individual members can become a delegito , a 'delegate', who serves as

3762-579: The Montevideo Resolution . However, Esperanto is not one of the six official languages of the UN . The development of Esperanto has continued unabated into the 21st century. The advent of the Internet has had a significant impact on the language, as learning it has become increasingly accessible on platforms such as Duolingo , and as speakers have increasingly networked on platforms such as Amikumu . With up to two million speakers, it

3861-409: The Universal Esperanto Association on 28 April 1908, and Hodler became General Director and Vice-President. He was a friend and colleague of Eduard Stettler , and Edmond Privat was one of his editors. Hodler wanted to use the magazine "to create a strong bond of solidarity among members of diverse languages." During the war, Hodler, with the then secretary of the association Hans Jakob , organized

3960-511: The Universala Medicina Esperanto-Asocio of 1908. Hodler tried to give those 'specialists' a home in the UEA. Instead of founding specialized associations of their own, with separate bulletins and conventions, he wanted them to be UEA members and have 'fakoj' (compartments). He also thought of partner organizations — for example, hotels which would give a discount to UEA members in exchange for an advertisement in

4059-599: The first book of Esperanto grammar was published in Warsaw on July 26, 1887. The number of speakers grew rapidly over the next few decades; at first, primarily in the Russian Empire and Central Europe, then in other parts of Europe, the Americas, China, and Japan. In the early years before the world congresses, speakers of Esperanto kept in contact primarily through correspondence and periodicals. Zamenhof's name for

Universal Esperanto Association - Misplaced Pages Continue

4158-512: The hero of Montevideo . After having served for more than 30 years on the board of UEA, Lapenna left the association in 1974 and created a rival organization ( Neŭtrala Esperanto-Movado ). During the Cold War , UEA had to deal with the difficulty of having national organizations and individual members in communist countries. Additionally, the work of Esperanto organizations in Western countries

4257-640: The 1920s as the heyday of the Esperanto movement. During this time, Anarchism as a political movement was very supportive of both anationalism and the Esperanto language. Fran Novljan was one of the chief promoters of Esperanto in the former Kingdom of Yugoslavia . He was among the founders of the Croatian Prosvjetni savez (Educational Alliance), of which he was the first secretary, and organized Esperanto institutions in Zagreb . Novljan collaborated with Esperanto newspapers and magazines, and

4356-480: The 1950s reshaped the association significantly. The office moved from Heronsgate to Rotterdam, the board since then has a general secretary , the Esperanto editor is a paid position. After 1956, the association in 1980 was again (and since then for the last time) given new statutes. In the decades after the war, the staff grew. Before the war, it was common to have a director with only one or two assistants. After

4455-558: The 1970s Esperanto was used as the basis for Defense Language Aptitude Tests. Beginning in 1908, there were efforts to establish the world's first Esperanto state in Neutral Moresnet , which at the time was a Belgian – Prussian condominium in central-western Europe. Any such efforts came to an end with the beginning of World War I and the German invasion of Belgium , voiding the treaty which established joint sovereignty over

4554-553: The British, in 1906 the German and Swedish, etc. The founder of Esperanto, L. L. Zamenhof , wished for an international association to come into existence, but the first world congress of 1905 produced only a general manifesto about the essence and neutrality of the movement. The organizing team passed the torch to organizers of a next congress the year after, which eventually created a Konstanta Kongresa Komitato (Permanent Congress Committee). It consisted of two members representing

4653-655: The European Union. In May 2011, UEA officially became an Associate Member of the International Information Centre for Terminology (Infoterm) . The Grabowski Prize is a prize awarded to young authors writing in Esperanto by the Antoni Grabowski Foundation , part of the Universal Esperanto Association (UEA). It is named after Antoni Grabowski, who has been called "the father of Esperanto poetry". The awards for

4752-590: The Geneva world congress, Zamenhof created a Lingva Komitato (Language Committee), the basis of the later Akademio de Esperanto . It consisted of some eminent speakers from several countries and was intended to safeguard the evolution of the Esperanto language; members were elected for a nine-year term. In 1908, a group of young Esperanto speakers founded an international association based on individual, direct membership: Universala Esperanto-Asocio , based in Geneva. According to Hector Hodler and his followers, an international cause such as Esperanto must be supported by

4851-506: The UEA delegitoj ); an Internacia Unuiĝo de Esperantistaj Societoj (International Union of Esperanto associations, 1913-1914) was a second attempt. This evolutionary thread ceased in 1914 with the breakout of World War I , which forced the movement as a whole to pause many of its activities, and the Congresses planned for 1916, 1917, 1918 and 1919 were cancelled. The original UEA was purely based on individual membership. The members in

4950-463: The UEA Yearbook. Hodler projected an organization fit to contain tens or hundreds of thousands of members, the so-called esperantianoj (UEA members, in opposition to the simple esperantistoj , Esperanto speakers). In fact, UEA never exceeded a membership of 10,000. The association adopted several new statutes until 1920. In 1920, the Esperanto movement gathered again for the first time since

5049-509: The UEA has had responsibility for the annual event. Since 2009, World Congresses have been held in Białystok, Poland , the hometown of L. L. Zamenhof , the creator and guiding spirit of Esperanto , as well as in Havana , Copenhagen , Hanoi , Reykjavík , Buenos Aires , Lille , Nitra , Seoul , Lisbon , Lahti , Montreal and Turin . In 2020 and 2021 the Congresses were held virtually due to

SECTION 50

#1732790758794

5148-567: The Wartime Assistance of the association. After the death of Harold Bolingbroke Mudie in 1916, the presidency of the World Esperanto Association was vacant until after the war, when Hodler was elected to succeed him. Hodler was especially interested in social questions, pacifism and animal protection. Privat wrote about him: "To that which the genius of Zamenhof initiated in the linguistic field, he added

5247-779: The core services of the association, such as the Yearbook, were still reserved to individual members. UEA since then is the legal heir of the former Helsinki organizations, such as the International Central Committee. The association since then also organizes the annual World Congress of Esperanto . Although in 1933-1934 it first seemed that the transition could happen in harmony, at the 1934 congress in Stockholm some UEA functionaries were not re-elected. In anger, UEA president Eduard Stettler and others resigned. The new board with president Louis Bastien faced

5346-474: The decision. However, two years later, the League recommended that its member states include Esperanto in their educational curricula. The French government retaliated by banning all instruction in Esperanto in France's schools and universities. The French Ministry of Public Instruction said that "French and English would perish and the literary standard of the world would be debased". Nonetheless, many people see

5445-401: The delegates. Since 1947, one speaks of the komitatanoj A (from the national organizations), the komitatanoj B (from the delegates, later members) and the komitatanoj C (those indirectly elected). As the representatives of the national organizations by far outnumbered the others, it is right to call UEA in essence a federation. But all officeholders of UEA had to be individual members, and

5544-401: The education systems of several countries, including Hungary and China. Esperanto was also the first language of teaching and administration of the now-defunct International Academy of Sciences San Marino . The League of Nations made attempts to promote the teaching of Esperanto in its member countries, but the resolutions were defeated (mainly by French delegates, who did not feel there

5643-491: The first three winners are $ 700, $ 300 and $ 150 respectively. Ulrich Becker, a publisher of literature in and about Esperanto and of interlinguistic literature in general, was awarded the Grabowski Prize ( Premio Grabowski ) in 2005 for his achievements in publishing in Esperanto. Among other works, he is the publisher of the thrice-yearly periodical of Esperanto belles-lettres , Beletra Almanako . The modern UEA

5742-553: The first time, it required them to Especially the last prerequisite caused serious problems, e.g. to the German national association submitting to Nazi Party rule. Decades later, in 1959, the Cuban association was refused because its statutes respected the leading role of the Communist Party of Cuba . In 1980, the UEA statutes were altered to specify that while a national organization need not be neutral itself, it must respect

5841-682: The headquarters away from Switzerland. After several months of discussions and a referendum, the Bastien board members and the Komitato members left the UEA altogether and established, in September 1936, a new association, the Internacia Esperanto-Ligo (IEL). Nearly all national organizations and individual members followed. In Geneva there remained a near-deserted shell of the UEA, in which the old leaders once again took power,

5940-439: The language learning platform Duolingo launched a free Esperanto course for English speakers On March 25, 2016, when the first Duolingo Esperanto course completed its beta-testing phase, that course had 350,000 people registered to learn Esperanto through the medium of English. By July 2018, the number of learners had risen to 1.36 million. On July 20, 2018, Duolingo changed from recording users cumulatively to reporting only

6039-602: The language of one of Germany's Axis allies . In Imperial Japan , the left wing of the Japanese Esperanto movement was forbidden, but its leaders were careful enough not to give the impression to the government that the Esperantists were socialist revolutionaries, which proved a successful strategy. After the October Revolution of 1917, Esperanto was given a measure of government support by

SECTION 60

#1732790758794

6138-486: The language was simply Internacia Lingvo ("International Language"). December 15, Zamenhof's birthday, is now regarded as Zamenhof Day or Esperanto Book Day. The autonomous territory of Neutral Moresnet , between what is today Belgium and Germany, had a sizable proportion of Esperanto-speaking citizens among its small, diverse population. There was a proposal to make Esperanto its official language. However, neither Belgium nor Germany had surrendered their claims to

6237-429: The language would be used by radio amateurs in international communications, but its actual use for radio communications was negligible. The United States Army has published military phrase books in Esperanto, to be used from the 1950s until the 1970s in war games by mock enemy forces . A field reference manual, FM 30-101-1 Feb. 1962, contained the grammar, English-Esperanto-English dictionary, and common phrases. In

6336-623: The money and how it should decide on spending the money. In 1906, the French Gen. Hyppolyte Sebert created his Esperantista Centra Oficejo (Central Office of the Esperantists) in Paris. It collected information on the movement and published an Oficiala Gazeto . In spite of this 'official' name, the office was a purely private enterprise of Sebert, but he tried to engender support from the various national associations. One year later, at

6435-509: The necessary basis in the social field." According to an article by László Halka in Enciklopedio de Esperanto , "it is characteristic of his noble spirit and humanity that in Geneva he joined the local animal protection society, and that he said he would like to make the UEA an association to protect humans." In the last several years of his life, when he was already quite unhealthy, he turned mainly to scientific problems. In 1916 he wrote

6534-516: The neutrality of UEA. Specialist organizations are similar to the national organizations. They are divided into two groups: The youth section TEJO has two affiliated specialist groups, the Esperantist cyclists and Esperantist rock music fans. UEA publishes Esperanto , the most important Esperanto periodical . It was started in 1905 by Paul Berthelot, three years before UEA was founded. UEA founder Hector Hodler took it over in 1907 and made it

6633-762: The new communist states in the former Russian Empire and later by the Soviet Union government, with the Soviet Esperantist Union being established as an organization that, temporarily, was officially recognized. In his biography on Joseph Stalin , Leon Trotsky mentions that Stalin had studied Esperanto. However, in 1937, at the height of the Great Purge , Stalin completely reversed the Soviet government's policies on Esperanto; many Esperanto speakers were executed, exiled or held in captivity in

6732-919: The number of "active learners" (i.e., those who are studying at the time and have not yet completed the course), which as of October 2022 stands at 299,000 learners. On October 26, 2016, a second Duolingo Esperanto course, for which the language of instruction is Spanish, appeared on the same platform and which as of April 2021 has a further 176,000 students. A third Esperanto course, taught in Brazilian Portuguese, began its beta-testing phase on May 14, 2018, and as of April 2021, 220,000 people are using this course and 155,000 people in May 2022. A fourth Esperanto course, taught in French, began its beta-testing phase in July 2020, and as of March 2021 has 72,500 students and 101,000 students in May 2022. As of October 2018, Lernu! , another online learning platform for Esperanto, has 320,000 registered users, and nearly 75,000 monthly visits. 50,000 users possess at least

6831-438: The number of Esperanto features shared with Slavic languages warrants the identification of a Slavic-derived stratum of language structure that he calls the "Middle Plane". Esperanto typically has 22 to 24 consonants (depending on the phonemic analysis and individual speaker), five vowels, and two semivowels that combine with the vowels to form six diphthongs . (The consonant /j/ and semivowel /i̯/ are both written ⟨j⟩, and

6930-438: The occasion of the second World Congress of Esperanto organised by Hodler and Privat (born in 1889), he saw in the organizational proposals by Théophile Rousseau and Alphonse Carles for Esperanto consuls ( konsuloj ) a chance to realize his plan to organize reciprocal self-help among people of good will. This was the germ of the Universal Esperanto Association (in Esperanto, UEA: Universala Esperanto-Asocio ) of which Hodler

7029-502: The official UEA magazine in 1908. In 1920 he left the magazine to the association. Since the 1950s it has had a paid editor-in-chief. Next to Esperanto , the Yearbook ( Jarlibro de UEA ) which published for 108 years, was the oldest continuous publication of the association. UEA publishes books and has the largest mail-order Esperanto bookstore in the world (with over 6,000 book titles, CDs and other items). It also maintains an information centre and an important Esperanto library , called

7128-535: The petitions... About the same time, in the middle of the block marched a huge demonstration of people holding posters reading "Learn Esperanto", "Support the Universal language", "Esperanto the language of hope and expectation", "Esperanto the bond for international communication" and so on, and many "Sign the petitions". I will never forget that rich-poor, sad-glad parade and among all these people stood two fiery red tramway cars waiting on their opposite lanes and also

7227-460: The previous congress, two for the current one, and two for the next following congress. Esperantists agreed that the whole movement must support two common international tasks: international documentation, propaganda in countries without movements of their own, lobbying at international organizations, organizing the world congresses, etc. Esperantists did disagree on which or what organization should be responsible for these tasks, how it should collect

7326-440: The proposal with only one voice against, the French delegate, Gabriel Hanotaux . Hanotaux opposed all recognition of Esperanto at the League, from the first resolution on December 18, 1920, and subsequently through all efforts during the next three years. Hanotaux did not approve of how the French language was losing its position as the international language and saw Esperanto as a threat, effectively wielding his veto power to block

7425-526: The proposed language as a living one". The goal for Esperanto to become a global auxiliary language was not Zamenhof's only goal; he also wanted to "enable the learner to make direct use of his knowledge with persons of any nationality, whether the language be universally accepted or not; in other words, the language is to be directly a means of international communication". After some ten years of development, which Zamenhof spent translating literature into Esperanto, as well as writing original prose and verse,

7524-521: The pseudonym Doktoro Esperanto . Early adopters of the language liked the name Esperanto and soon used it to describe his language. The word esperanto translates into English as "one who hopes". Within the range of constructed languages, Esperanto occupies a middle ground between "naturalistic" (imitating existing natural languages) and a   priori (where features are not based on existing languages). Esperanto's vocabulary , syntax and semantics derive predominantly from languages of

7623-404: The region, with the latter having adopted a more aggressive stance towards pursuing its claim around the turn of the century, even being accused of sabotage and administrative obstruction to force the issue. The outbreak of World War I would bring about the end of neutrality, with Moresnet initially left as "an oasis in a desert of destruction" following the German invasion of Belgium. The territory

7722-558: The same subjects: the Komitato of UEA, the Ko-Ro of the national associations and the six members of the ICK. From 1929, they all had a joint gathering called Ĝenerala Estraro (general board). A number of proposals came up in the movement to reform the organization. The final blow to the Helsinki system came in 1932 when UEA did not pay its contributions for the common budget, and the same

7821-569: The so-called Genevan UEA. The international Esperanto movement survived World War II with its IEL headquarters in Heronsgate , near London. Hans Jakob, from the Genevan UEA, tricked the IEL board into a merger of IEL and the rump Genevan UEA, falsely stating that the wealthy Eduard Stettler had left a huge sum to the UEA. Ivo Lapenna , a London law professor originally coming from Croatia, in

7920-498: The stress on the second i , but when the word is used without the final o ( famili’ ), the stress remains on the second i : [fa.mi.ˈli] . The 23 consonants are: There is some degree of allophony: A large number of consonant clusters can occur, up to three in initial position (as in stranga , "strange") and five in medial position (as in ekssklavo , "former slave"). Final clusters are uncommon except in unassimilated names, poetic elision of final o , and

8019-563: The suspicion of many states. Repression was especially pronounced in Nazi Germany , Francoist Spain up until the 1950s, and the Soviet Union under Stalin , from 1937 to 1956. In Nazi Germany, there was a motivation to ban Esperanto because Zamenhof was Jewish, and due to the internationalist nature of Esperanto, which was perceived as "Bolshevist". In his work, Mein Kampf , Adolf Hitler specifically mentioned Esperanto as an example of

8118-414: The task of the national associations (often federations of local groups). They did not like the perspective that new Esperantists, created by the traditional groups, would be picked up by UEA. The national associations then tried to build up an international organizational level of their own. A first attempt took the form of rajtigitaj delegitoj to the congresses in 1911 and 1912 (not to be confused with

8217-506: The territory. The Treaty of Versailles subsequently awarded the disputed territory to Belgium, effective January 10, 1920. The self-proclaimed micronation of Rose Island , on an artificial island near Italy in the Adriatic Sea , used Esperanto as its official language in 1968. Another micronation, the extant Republic of Molossia , near Dayton, Nevada , uses Esperanto as an official language alongside English. On May 28, 2015,

8316-400: The uncommon consonant /dz/ is written with the digraph ⟨dz⟩, which is the only consonant that does not have its own letter.) Tone is not used to distinguish meanings of words. Stress is always on the second-to-last vowel in proper Esperanto words, unless a final vowel o is elided , a phenomenon mostly occurring in poetry. For example, familio "family" is [fa.mi.ˈli.o] , with

8415-577: The use of Esperanto, finding its phonology similar to that of Italian and publishing some tourist material in the language. During and after the Spanish Civil War , Francoist Spain suppressed anarchists , socialists and Catalan nationalists for many years, among whom the use of Esperanto was extensive, but in the 1950s the Esperanto movement was again tolerated. In 1954, the United Nations  — through UNESCO  — granted official support to Esperanto as an international auxiliary language in

8514-530: The war, at The Hague congress. The discussions eventually created the so-called Helsinki system, on which UEA and the national associations agreed at the congress of 1922 in the Finnish capital . This system defined the movement to consist of these 'official' entities: This Helsinki system lasted for only a couple of years. The heads of the movement saw that at the world congresses there was considerable overlap, and three separate groups were discussing essentially

8613-554: The war, the UEA at times employed ten or more people (e.g. a congress manager, a book seller, a librarian.) Lapenna introduced a prestige policy , for which he was willing to spend considerable funds. This included signature campaigns for Esperanto and efforts to make UNESCO support Esperanto in a moral way, which Lapenna accomplished in 1954 at the UNESCO conference in Montevideo, Uruguay. This made him famous in Esperanto circles as

8712-426: The world. A group of people had organized and sent letters to the government asking to change the name of the street where Dr. Zamenhof lived for many years when he invented Esperanto, from Dzika to Zamenhofa. They were told that a petition with a large number of signatures would be needed. That took time so they organized demonstrations carrying large posters encouraging people to learn the universal language and to sign

8811-430: Was a Swiss Esperantist who had a strong influence on the early Esperanto movement. Hodler was a son of the Swiss painter Ferdinand Hodler , who after a period of poverty became suddenly very well-to-do, and Augustine Dupin. As a 16-year-old, Hector Hodler learned Esperanto with his classmate Edmond Privat , and founded soon afterward a club and the journal Juna Esperantisto ("The Young Esperantist"). The schoolbench

8910-400: Was a co-founder. In 1907 he took over the editorship of Esperanto magazine from its founder Paul Berthelot and made it a significant journal dealing with organizational questions from the language community. Esperanto also included many articles about social life, similar to the present magazine Monato . He edited it for 13 years until his death, except for six months in 1914 during

9009-634: Was a need for it). The Chinese government has used Esperanto since 2001 for an Esperanto version of its China Internet Information Center . China also uses Esperanto in China Radio International , and for the internet magazine El Popola Ĉinio . The Vatican Radio has an Esperanto version of its podcasts and its website. In the summer of 1924, the American Radio Relay League adopted Esperanto as its official international auxiliary language, and hoped that

9108-406: Was always a great torment to my infant mind, although many people may smile at such an 'anguish for the world' in a child. Since at that time I thought that 'grown-ups' were omnipotent, I often said to myself that when I grew up I would certainly destroy this evil. It was invented in 1887 and designed so that anyone could learn it in a few short months. Dr. Zamenhof lived on Dzika Street, No. 9, which

9207-624: Was formally annexed by Prussia in 1915, though without international recognition. After the war, a great opportunity for Esperanto seemingly presented itself, when the Iranian delegation to the League of Nations proposed that the language be adopted for use in international relations following a report by a Japanese delegate to the League named Nitobe Inazō , in the context of the 13th World Congress of Esperanto, held in Prague . Ten delegates accepted

9306-402: Was just around the corner from the street on which we lived. Brother Afrum was so impressed with that idea that he learned Esperanto in a very short time at home from a little book. He then bought many dozens of them and gave them out to relatives, friends, just anyone he could, to support that magnificent idea for he felt that this would be a common bond to promote relationships with fellow men in

9405-850: Was sometimes influenced by the Cold War: In the early 50s, the American Esperanto leader George Allan Connor denounced dissenting members of his national organization as communists. His national organization and he as an individual were eventually thrown out of UEA. The collapse of the Soviet Union and its allied states between 1989 and 1991 completely changed the international situation. 51°54′50″N 4°27′52″E  /  51.9138°N 4.4644°E  / 51.9138; 4.4644 Hector Hodler Hector Hodler (1 October 1887, in Geneva – 31 March 1920, in Leysin , Switzerland )

9504-415: Was the Komitato. It gathered representatives from the national organizations; the numbers depended on the size of the national organization. Other representatives were elected by the delegates, depending on the number of delegates. A third group of representatives was elected by the two first groups; this opened the possibility to include 'experts' who were not linked to a national organization or popular among

9603-702: Was the author of the Esperanto textbook Internacia lingvo esperanto i Esperanto en tridek lecionoj . In 1920s Korea , socialist thinkers pushed for the use of Esperanto through a series of columns in The Dong-a Ilbo as resistance to both Japanese occupation as well as a counter to the growing nationalist movement for Korean language standardization. This lasted until the Mukden Incident in 1931, when changing colonial policy led to an outright ban on Esperanto education in Korea . Esperanto attracted

9702-600: Was their editorial office for five years as they managed production, addressed copies and replied to correspondence. Sometime later they learned about Idiom Neutral and about Bolak , in order to convince themselves as to whether Esperanto was truly the "best" international language. Besides The Young Esperantist , he authored articles in Through the World and the translation of the novel Paul et Virginie ( Paul and Virginia ) by Bernardin de Saint Pierre (1905). In 1906, on

9801-399: Was true for some of the national associations. The British, German and French associations, the largest ones, took up the initiative to found a new organization, Universala Federacio Esperantista (World Federation of Esperantists), as a federation of national associations. This new organization had scarcely come into existence when in early 1933 the UEA and the national organizations agreed on

#793206