ESPERANTO: A CONSTRUCTED AND INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE

ESPERANTO: A CONSTRUCTED AND INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE

Esperanto is a language, created to facilitate communication amongst people from different countries. In particular, use for more than a hundred twenty six years, Esperanto has proved to be a genuinely living language, capable of expressing all facets of human thought. Dr.Ludwik Lazar Zamenhof created Esperanto in 1887 to a second language that would allow people who speak different native languages to communicate, yet at the same time to retain their own language and culture identities. Zamenhof grew up in Bialystok, Poland, where a geographical barrier, but a culture and language barrier did not separate different peoples. While he realized that a common language would not end the cultural barrier, it would enable ordinary people, not politicians, to have cross-national conversation. To this end, he created Esperanto, a language that would be easy for most people to learn, due to its logical, regular design. “Why we learn Esperanto?” of course, the answer is not the same for each person. Furthermore, there are different kinds of reasons. We want to discuss these various reasons under three heading. The three kinds of reasons are (1) the practical reasons, (2) the reasons related to expanding one’s mind, and (3) the moral reasons.

  The first practical reason, which we want to mention, is to enjoy you. By means of Esperanto, you can meet and become familiar with many good –hearted, interesting, education, clever, talented persons. You can travel to various countries throughout the world to do business, or get more education. You can participate in truly international conferences. You can hear music and join in dancing the dance of many cultures. The whole planet can become your playground.

    The second practical reason is to have like – minded friends (some of whom you have not even previously met) who will greet you and welcome you anywhere in the world. Sometimes they will even invite you to visit them and stay in their homes in far-off lands. As Esperantists often say, “If you want to gain money, study English; but if you want to have friends and money as well, learn Esperanto.” undoubtedly it is a true saying that Esperantists have good friends everywhere in the world. Beyond that, do not forget that sometimes Esperantists even find a wife or a husband because of belonging to the Esperanto community.

The third practical reason for learning Esperanto, especially for children in English speaking and Asian lands, is that Esperanto provides a good way of beginning the study of a languages other than your native tongues. Various experiments show that students learn the rule –guided language Esperanto more rapidly than European languages such as – English, French, Italian, German, Danish and Spanish. Furthermore, one can observe that students who first study Esperanto instead of languages that are more difficult are afterwards more eager to learn still other languages. They feel confident that they have the capability to do that. On the contrary, the study of more difficult Latin and non-Latin based languages like English; Chinese often discourages the students from trying to learn other languages.

Let us turn now to the second kind of reason for studying Esperanto, namely, to expand your mind in order to have a better understanding of the world. As Canadian Esperantist Dr. Stevens Norvell of Nova Scotia rightly notes, Esperanto is “a window to the world”. When you are able to read and hear Esperanto, you can use it to become inform about other countries, other cultures, and other viewpoints through books, newspapers, magazines, sound tapes, videotapes, radio and television broadcasts, websites, and web messages. You can acquire information from a neutral point of view about what is happening throughout the whole world.

  Furthermore, it is not only specific information, which you can acquire. You will also gain a better general understanding of the world. You will no longer be so tied by language to one small region of the earth and the viewpoint of that language or cultural community. You can become familiar with the completely human community. The third kind of reason to learn Esperanto is for me personally the most important. It is the moral reason and it has two sides: First reason, you can have a relationship with other persons throughout the world based on equality and justice because you are using the world –wide neutral language Esperanto instead of your own national language or the national language of any other nation or country. You will not require others to use your language, and they will not require you to use their language. Consequently, there exists a feeling of equity and justice between you and others. Second aspect, of the moral kind of reason for learning Esperanto is the fact that, as an Esperantist, you are helping to create an evolving harmonious global community. Through Esperanto, you become part of an important historical movement, which promotes a sense of solidarity among all humans. Esperanto is not only a language. We Esperantists constitute a very new kind of universal community based on the use of our global language. We together are now moving beyond the inter-nationalism of the twentieth century to the globalism of the 21^st century. Nevertheless, at the same time we are helping to conserve many national languages in the various part of the world, thus preserving linguistic diversity. Undoubtedly, there are other reasons for learning Esperanto, which is not mentioned. The situations and motives of humans are very diverse. Nevertheless, we hope that the ideas, which we have presented here, will help you to persuade others that they should learn Esperanto and become members of our evolving global community. Esperanto was created in the late 1870s and early 1880s by L.L Zamenhof, a Polish-Jewish ophthalmologist from Bialystok, then part of the Russian Empire. According to Zamenhof, he created the language to foster harmony between people from different countries. Esperanto has not been a secondary official language of any recognized country. In addition, the self-proclaimed artificial island micronation of Rose Island used Esperanto as its official language in 1968. In February 2013 an Avaaz petition was created to make Esperanto one of the official languages of the European Union Esperanto, the international language, is a language developed to make it easier for people of different cultures to communicate. Its author, Dr. L. L. Zamenhof (1859-1917), published his"Lingvo Internacia" in 1887 under the pseudonym "Dr. Esperanto". At least two million people, in over 100 countries, now speak it. There are thousands of books and several websites providing the online learning of the language Duolingo, Lernu.net, Edukado.net. Nevertheless, what makes it peculiar than any more international French, English or Russian? More importantly, Esperanto is specifically intended for international/intercultural use, so those who use it meet each other on an equal footing, since neither is using his or her native language. With national languages, the average person is not able to express himself as well as a native speaker or the gifted linguist.

some of the introduction of the language:

Alphabet

The Esperanto alphabet consists of 28 letters: a, b, c, ĉ, d, e, g, ĝ, h, ĥ, i j, ĵ, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, ŝ, t, u, ŭ, v, w, x, y, z.

• a as in "father"
• c = ts as in "Betsy"
• ĉ = ch as in "church"
• e as in "there"
• g as in "give"
• ĝ as in "judge"
• h as in "hammer"
• ĥ = Scottish ch as in "Loch"
• i as in "machine"
• j = y as in "yes". aj, ej, oj, uj are diphtongs consisting respectivel of a, e, o, u plus a short i-sound. Thus
  • aj = i in "die"
  • ej = a in "face"
  • oj = oy in "boy"
  • uj = ui in "ruin", prnounced quickly.
• ĵ = zh as in "measure"
• o as in "north"
• r is always pronounced – ideally, rolled
• s as in "sense"
• ŝ = sh in "sharp"
• u as in "fool"
• ŭ = w as in "tower". aŭ, eŭ are diphtongs consisting respectively of "a" or "e" plus a short oo-sound. Thus
  • aŭ = ou in "mouth"
  • eŭ is as "eh-oo".

Pronunciation

Words are pronounced exactly as spelled, applying the equivalents mentioned above, e.g.

• amiko = ah-MEE-koh
• ĉambro = CHAHM-broh
• ĝi = jee.

Stress

Words of more than one syllable are stressed on the last syllable but one, e.g.

• te-le-FO-no (teh-leh-FOH-noh)
• ra-DI-o (rah-DEE-oh)
• kaj (kigh)
• a-MI-ko (ah-MEE-koh)
• ES-tas (ESS-tahss).
• NB: AN-kaŭ (because kaŭ is a single syllable).

Be careful over words like historio (hi-sto-RI-o, hee-stoh-REE-oh).

Article

The definite article is la (– *the). It is invariable (no change for gender, case or number). There is no indefinite article:

• la amiko – the friend
  • amiko – a friend
• la laboro – the work
  • laboro – work

Personal Pronouns

• mi – I
• vi – you
• li – he
• ŝi – she
• ĝi – ĝi
• ni – we
• ili – they

The pronouns li, ŝi, ĝi are used in just the same way as English "he, she, it".

Possessive Pronouns

These are formed by adding the ending a to the simple pronouns:

• mia – my
• via – your
• lia – his
• ŝia – her
• ĝia – its
• nia – our
• ilia – their

Nouns

All nouns end in -O. There is no grammatical gender: where appropriate, feminine sex is indicated by a suffix.

• tablo – table
• lernanto – learner
• lernantino – learner (female)

Plural

The plural ending is j. Both nouns and adjectives take this ending, e.g.:

tabloj – tables

lernantoj – learners

viaj lernantoj – your learners

Verbs

1. The infinitive ending is -i, e.g.
   • lerni – to learn
   • labori – to work
   • esti – to be.
2. The present tense ending is -as. It is the same for all persons and numbers:
   • mi sidas – I sit
   • vi sidas – you sit
   • li sidas – we sit
   • ili sidas – they sit.

Ĉu?

This is an interrogative particle, used to turn a statement into a yes/no question:

• Ĉu vi sidas? – Are you sitting?
• Ĉu vi skribas? – Are you writing? Do you write?

Affixes

Prefixes

• dis – dispersal, breaking up
• ek – beginning of action, suddenness
• for – away, off
• ge – partaining of both sexes
• mal – opposite
• re – again, re-

Suffixes

• ad – continuous action
• an – member of a group
• ar – group, collection
• aĉ – indicates undesirable quality
• aĵ – thing, concrete manifestation
• ebl – possibility
• ec – abstract quality
• eg – big, augmentative
• ej – place
• er – fragment, small piece, particle
• estr – chief, head
• et – small, diminuitve
• ig – cause something
• il – tool, means
• in – female
• ind – worthy of
• ist – profession, habitual association
• iĝ – become
• uj – container, tree, country
• ul – person
• um – indefinite meaning

Word order

The usual order of words in the sentence is subject-verb-object, as in English. However, since the accusative ending-n pn the object makes it clear which is the subject and which the object, word order can be varied for stylistic or pragmatic purposes, very much more readily in Esperanto than in English.

• Mi legas libron. – I'm reading a book.
• Libron mi legas. – (A book is what I'm reading.)

Cor-relatives 

	question	ti- indication	i- indefinite	ĉi- universal	neni- negative
	kio – what (thing)	tio – that	io – something	ĉio – everything	nenio – nothing
	kiu – who, which (individual)	tiu – that person, that one	iu – someone	ĉiu – everyone, every	neniu – no-one, none of them
	kiam – when (time)	tiam – then	iam – some time, ever	ĉiam – always, every time	neniam – never, no time
	kia – what kind of (quality)	tia – that kind of	ia – some kind of	ĉia – every kind of	nenia – no kind of
	kiel – how (manner)	tiel – like that, thus	iel – in some way	ĉiel – in every way	neniel – in no way
	kiom – how much (amount)	tiom – that much	iom – to some extent, a certain amount	ĉiom – all of it, the whole amount	neniom – none of it, no amount
	kial – why (reason)	tial – for that reason	ial – for some reason	ĉial – for every reason	nenial – for no reason
	kies – whose (possession)	ties – that one's	ies – someone's	ĉies – everyone's	nenies – no-one's

     Note : Extracted from Internet and Mian salam Shany's booklet                            

Compiled by: Sandip Lamichhane (Youth Esperantist from Nepal)        

E-mail: sandeeplamichhane056@gmail.com  

Active  member of International club of Esperanto Nepal (NICE)