Esperanto, A Language with No Barriers
Have you ever heard of the artificial language, Esperanto? Many have not but it was created by a Polish-Jewish Doctor, Ludwik Zamenhof. Zamenhof was a passionate linguist in his youth and he was born bilingual, Yiddish and Russian were his mother tongues. In school, he also learnt French and German as well as Hebrew. In a gymnasium in Warsaw, he learnt classical languages like Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic. Zamenhof was fascinated by the idea of a world without war. So, whilst he was still in school, Zamenhof decided to start his own international auxiliary language and he later named it Esperanto!
The key idea of Esperanto was that it would be a second language that allowed everyone who speak different languages, be able to converse together, yet to retain their own language and cultural identities. Zamenhof grew up in Poland where there weren’t geographical barriers, but a cultural and language barrier. He created Esperanto to be an easy language to learn for all people from different language families, whether it be Asian languages, Romance languages, Germanic languages, Slavic languages or even Scandinavian languages! He wanted it to be easy so anyone could communicate with no worry of being grammatically wrong, insulting anyone’s culture or saying nonsense.
Sadly, Zamenhof’s language didn’t really take off as he thought it would be. But there are groups of people in language communities who think we should learn Esperanto and that we should break these barriers and be able to communicate with anyone we would like. These people are called Esperantists. However, the well-known language learning app, Duolingo, has made an Esperanto course for anyone to learn and free of charge. Now is your chance to learn Esperanto and help Zamenhof’s dream come true!
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Did you know that…
- William Shatner starred in the only film made in Esperanto, ‘La Inkubo’
- 8 Nobel Laureates have been Esperantists
- Esperantists make up the largest non-political party in the British Parliament
- A metro station in Barcelona has been named after the creator, ‘Dr Zamenhof’
- There are no irregularities in the language, unlike common languages like French, Spanish, Italian and German.
Here are some simple phrases in Esperanto…
Saluton — Hello
Bonan Matenon — Good Morning
Jes — Yes
Ne — No
Kiel vi fartas? — How are you?
Mi estas bona/malbona — I am good/bad
Dankon — Thank You
Bonvolu — Please
Pardonpetas — Sorry
Benvenon — Welcome
Nedankinde — You’re Welcome
Konsentite — Okay
Ĝis — Bye
Mi parolas Esperanto — I speak Esperanto
If you would like to learn Esperanto in depth, then study this course on Memrise, created by myself:
https://app.memrise.com/course/5711690/esperanto/
