Esperanto: What Is It and Who Speaks It

Ever heard of Esperanto? No, Esperanto is not a dialect of Spanish or some kind of Romance language. Actually, Esperanto is a constructed auxiliary language developed sometime in the late 1870s and early 1880s, by a Polish medical doctor named L.L. Zamenhof. Dr. Zamenhof created Esperanto with the goal of becoming an international second language, to promote world peace, unity, and understanding. You go, Dr. Zee!

What language is Esperanto closest to?

Again, Esperanto is not a Romance language, but its vocabulary is inspired by Indo-European languages, particularly by Romance languages, with some from Germanic and Slavic languages. In addition, most of its alphabet is based on Roman Script or Latin Script, excluding the following letters: q, w, x, and y. And because each letter in Esperanto has only one pronunciation, its words are pronounced similarly to how they are written.

History of Esperanto

No, this is not an exaggeration or some kind of fairytale dream, but Esperanto was made by L.L. Zamenhof in the hopes of promoting world peace. Growing up in Bialystok (now one of the largest cities in Poland), Zamenhof witnessed a divide in his community, where a diverse group of neighbors thought of each other as enemies, instead of friends.

At the beginning, the name for the language was originally "the international language," but the term Esperanto was so well-liked by its early speakers that the name stayed throughout. Ever since then, we’ve known of this artificial language as Esperanto.

Around 1905, a basic guidebook for the language called Fundamento de Esperanto was released by Zamenhof. The book contained important information about the language’s grammar and vocabulary rules. In that same year, the first World Esperanto Congress was held. There, the Declaration of Boulogne recognized the guidebook to have the exclusive source over the language.

Zamenhof devoted a lot of work translating literature into Esperanto throughout the years. And the number of Esperanto speakers grew throughout time, from those in the Russian Empire to those in Central Europe. The numbers steadily increased, reaching other parts of the world such as the Americas, Africa, and Asia.

Esperanto in Pop Culture

Esperanto has been appearing in a number of movies and works of literature. For example, in Charlie Chaplin’s movie called The Great Dictator you can see the store signs in the Jewish ghetto neighborhood written in Esperanto. In the 1994 Street Fighter film, a spoken dialogue in the movie featured Esperanto.

Does anyone speak Esperanto?

Even though the language may not have achieved its goal of becoming a universal second language, Esperanto has definitely fascinated millions of people across the world. In fact, it is estimated that there are about two million Esperantists worldwide (according to Ethnologue).

Every year, about 2000 or so Esperantists attend the World Esperanto Congress, where they speak primarily in Esperanto to meet new friends and discuss world events. Some famous Esperanto speakers include:

• Muztar Abbasi, a Pakistani scholar who translated the Qur’an into Esperanto
• William Auld, a poet in Esperanto from Scotland
• Leo Tolstoy, a well-known Russian author
• George Soros, Hungarian-American businessman and philanthropist

Esperanto Phrases

• Saluton – Hello
• Bonan matenon – Good morning
• Bonan nokton – Good night
• Dankon – Thank you