Esperanto

Esperanto is an international auxiliary language (IAL) developed by Ludwik Lazar Zamenhof in 1887 through the Unua Libro. It is the most popular IAL, with the estimated amount of speakers varying between 10,000 and 2,000,000 depending on the criteria of a speaker used. It is maintained by the Academy of Esperanto.

Flag of the Esperanto movement.

History

The ideals of Esperanto attracted interest from all over the political spectrum, particularly catching the interest of pacifists as well as some national liberation movements. Although idealism pervaded the original conception of Esperanto, many leftists were nonetheless attracted to the various goals of peace, internationalism, and neutrality that it represented, as well as in some cases the practicality of having an alternative means of international communication outside of national languages. For instance, in East Asia, many Esperantists used Esperanto to bridge communication gaps between the Japanese, Korean, and Chinese languages, particularly in the face of the imposition of Japanese imperialism. For example, in 1924, Korean Esperantists made a declaration in the Chosun Ilbo newspaper, declaring "Opposing Japan's linguistic imperialism, each nation should use its own natural language, and humanity should use Esperanto in common." While in China, Esperantists also participated in the anti-Japanese struggle in various ways, for example using Esperanto to communicate with anti-imperialist Japanese Esperantists, notably in the case of Japanese anti-fascist Verda Majo and her work with Chinese Esperantists and anti-imperialists.

Founding

In 1887, Zamenhof published the Unua Libro, a founding book on. He published the Dua Libro the next year to make minor correction to Esperanto (ekzample: kian is replaced with kiam).

Author Christopher Gledhill summarizes the early aim of Esperanto being "to build a bridge between nations, to allow speakers of different languages to communicate on equal terms in a neutral, user-friendly second language." Gledhill notes that the original title of the project was Internacia lingvo (English: "International Language"), although part of Zamenhof's pseudonym, Doktoro Esperanto, became the commonly accepted name for the language. Gledhill states that among the hundreds of similar projects which emerged at the end of the nineteenth century, Esperanto is the only one to have survived to the present day with a sizable number of speakers and a worldwide literature.

An 1891 poem written by Zamenhof called "La Espero" (English: "The Hope") expresses some of the ideals envisioned by the language's creator, who emphasized his hope that by creating an easy to learn language which could be studied for international communication without supplanting anyone's native language, it would create more peace and understanding in the world. Since its writing, the poem has been performed to music among Esperanto speakers and generally been adopted as an anthem of Esperanto. Some of the aims expressed in the song include "On a neutral language basis, understanding one another, the peoples will make in agreement one great family circle" and "our diligent set of colleagues in peaceful labor will never tire until the beautiful dream of humanity for eternal blessing is realized." The song refers to the "peaceful warriors" who gather to labor under the "sacred sign of hope."

Under pressure from Wilhelm Trompeter, Zamenhof created a Reformed Variant Esperanto of 1894; but it was heavily rejected by the Esperanto community, and Zamenhof himself came to hate attempt.

Oppression

The Kingdom of Hungary restricted Esperanto in 1920 due to it's local association with the Bolsheviks and to uphold bourgeois nationalism.

Esperanto was oppressed by fascists (Nazi Germany in Europe and Imperial Japan in Asia) during the 1930s, due to reactionary nationalism and it's association with communism, anti-imperialism, and national liberation; The Nazis also oppressed Esperanto due to Antisemitism.

Bourgeois media and historians (prominently liberal Ulrich Lins) claim that the USSR oppressed Esperanto. However, there is not much evidence to support this claim, and the minority of Esperantists that were persecuted were often persecuted for being trotskyists, and class enemies of the Soviet Union.

Socialism and Communism

USSR

Soviet Esperantists in the Red Army fought in the anti-fascist war against Nazi Germany.

China

If Esperanto is taken as a form and enshrined in the way of true internationalism and the way of true revolution, then Esperanto can be learned and should be learned.

— Mao Zedong, Letter, Yan'an Esperanto Association, 1939

Esperanto is supported by the Communist Party of China and the Chinese people. They supported it in the Sino-Japanese War and Chinese Civil War movement. El Popola Ĉinio, a state official Esperanto journal, was established in 1951. China Radio International supported Esperanto starting from 1964.

The 89th Universal Congress of Esperanto happened in Beijing, China in 2004. The 71st congress was held in Beijing in 1986.

One can take a virtual tour of the Esperanto Museum (Esperanto: Esperanto Muzeo; Chinese: 世界语博物馆) of Zaozhuang College, located in Zaozhuang City, Shandong Province, via 720yun.com, as well as visit their website to see news and descriptions of the museum's collections and activities.

In 2022, Zaozhuang College hosted the Esperanto International Proficiency Test based on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (Esperanto: Komuna Eŭropa Referenckadro, KER) on November 26. Since 2013, Zaozhuang College has undertaken 5 Esperanto international proficiency exams. A total of 3 teachers in the school have passed the B1 and 3 passed the B2 proficiency exams.

Verda Majo

During the 1930s, an anti-fascist, feminist Japanese Esperantist originally named Hasegawa Teru, who went by the Esperanto name Verda Majo ("Green May"), left Japan and went to China, and ended up taking part in helping the Chinese resistance against the Japanese Empire.

While in Japan, Majo had become acquainted with Esperantist circles. There was a close symbiosis at the time between a part of the Japanese Esperanto-movement and the movement for proletarian literature. In 1932 she was briefly taken into custody, being suspected of having "leftist sympathies", and was thereupon expelled from college. Thus, she returned to Tokyo, where she started to learn typewriting and fully committed herself to propagating proletarian Esperantist literature, especially amongst women.

Via these activities she came into contact with the editor of the Chinese Esperanto magazine La Mondo (The World) in Shanghai at that time, which was looking among the Japanese Esperantists for someone to write an article about the situation of Japanese women. Majo published an article in the March/April issue 1935 focusing on the Japanese Women’s Movement and the question of labour and the suppression of the women's movement by Japanese fascism.

Eventually, Majo went to China after marrying a Chinese Esperantist. While in China she worked with other Chinese Esperantists, and eventually she became a Japanese language broadcaster with the Central Radio Station, broadcasting programs aimed at dividing the Japanese army. In July 1940, the Anti-war Revolution League of Japanese in China was founded and Majo was elected as one of its leaders. Majo died of an illness on January 10, 1947 at the age of 35. Zhou Enlai once said of Majo that she was "a sincere comrade-in-arms of the Chinese people."

Vietnam

Ho Chi Minh learned Esperanto in 1915 and supported Esperanto during the Vietnamese Liberation War. He suggested to the director of Voice of Vietnam to utilize Esperanto in the Declaration of Independence. He allowed the translation of his written diary Tagkajero en Prizono.

Voice of Vietnam supported Esperanto from september 1945 until december 1946, when French colonialists invaded Vietnam.

The 97th Universal Congress of Esperanto occurred in Hanoi, Vietnam in 2012.

Cuba

Fidel Castro supported Esperantists in the 1990 UEA Congress to Havana, Cuba.

The 95th Universal Esperanto Congress was held in Havana, Cuba in 2010.

The broadcast of Radio Havana Cuba, which is meant to spread information about the Cuban revolution to an international audience, is available in Esperanto, including audio broadcasts as well as written articles on their website. The Esperanto name of it is Radio Havano Kubo. It also has an Esperanto language YouTube channel.

In 2016, a 30-minute documentary called "Across the Florida Straits" (Esperanto: Trans La Florida Markolo) was produced. It follows the first legal visit of U.S. Esperantists to Cuba after 54 years of prohibition, where they meet up at a congress of the Cuban Esperanto Association and share their experiences.

Yugoslavia

Socialist Yugoslavia held the 38th World Esperanto Congress in 1953 at Zagreb.

Josip Broz Tito had mentioned in 1953, that he learned and supported Esperanto while in a prison. He said that Esperanto was an easy language to learn.

Korea

In Korea, the organization Chosun Esperanto (Korean: 조선에스페란토) was formed in the 1920s.

The Korean Artist Proletarian Federation (Esperanto: Korea Artisto Proleta Federacio, abbreviated KAPF) was a socialist literary organization that formed in 1925, and put forth "armed class consciousness" as its program, and had branches in Tokyo, Pyongyang, Suwon, and Kaesong. Artists from KAPF created literary works containing patriotism and optimism for the future in Korean society, and developed folk dances and folk songs containing national forms. Lim Hwa and Kim Nam-cheon of KAPF insisted on "Bolshevikization of the art movement" and reorganized KAPF for the purpose of "eradicating petty-bourgeois bias", a direction taken by KAPF in 1930. KAPF members began facing arrest by Japanese imperialist authorities for their activities in 1931. In the face of this, some of them continued their activities underground for the following years, while others split ideologically from KAPF. The General Federation of North Korean Literature and Arts (Korean: 북조선문학예술총동맹), which was formed in October 1946, was led by people from KAPF. Ahn Mak-i, one of the leading theorists of KAPF, served as the vice-chairman of the North Korean Federation of Literature and Arts. Han Seol-ya, also involved with KAPF, served as the Minister of Education and Culture in the Cabinet and vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the Supreme People's Assembly.

In 1959, a north Korean Esperanto Association was formed. Its president was Song Bong Uk, who was the finance minister at that time. According to an article by Wu Guojiang in Esperanto magazine, more than 650 people participated in the first two Esperanto courses.

In 1964, a 350-page Korean-Esperanto dictionary was released in Pyongyang. According to the preface of the dictionary, the "Esperanto movement is progressing under the wise guidance of the Labor Party and the government". The dictionary, whose author was Kim Hyungro, contained a section with Esperanto names for the various institutions of the government, political parties and social organizations of DPRK.

In 1989, a delegation from The World Esperanto Youth Organization (Esperanto: Tutmonda Esperantista Junulara Organizo, TEJO) took part in the World Youth Festival in Pyongyang. However, they did not manage to get information about Esperanto in DPRK at that time.

In the early to mid 2000s, the Korean Friendship Association (KFA) website was available in Esperanto, and on their contact page included a specific email address for Esperanto communication with KFA.

A 2008 article in Libera Folio notes that Liu Jianguo and a group of Esperantists active in Dandong, China were mentioned as having Esperanto contacts in DPRK.

In 2017, a group of Esperantists, the Esperanto Committee of the France-Korea Friendship Association (Esperanto: Esperanto-Komitato de Asocio pri Franckorea Amikeco) visited DPRK. According to the group's report published in Esperanto magazine, "We twice met the famous linguist Jong Sun-gi, who doesn't speak Esperanto himself but remembers well the Esperantists of that time. Mainly due to the disappearance of leaders and lack of contacts abroad, the movement died out, but it does not seem persecuted: for example, a volunteer who would come for a few months to teach Esperanto would very likely be well received." They also stated "as for our proposal to reintroduce Esperanto, it aroused real interest" and the report mentions that they taught a brief impromptu lesson to some 15 year old students, and that their guide began learning the language and wanted to continue. They conclude their report saying that on their return toward Beijing, they stopped near the border, in the Chinese city Dandong, where they met up with a group of several other Esperantists.

Since 2018, a group of Esperanto speakers from China has made visits to DPRK, referred to as Esperanto-karavanoj ("Esperanto caravans"). Their first visit occurred from June 4 to June 7, 2018, with 18 members in the caravan. The second occurred soon after, from June 29 to July 2 of 2018. The third such caravan visited from August 20-24 of 2019, consisting of 13 Esperantists from China. In an article about their 2019 visit, they write that Esperantists Wang Yanjing and Zhangwei taught Esperanto to three tour guides during the trip, and that after one or two lessons, the tour guides were able to converse in Esperanto with the Chinese Esperantists using easy phrases.

Criticism

Since its inception, the language of Esperanto itself as well as the related Esperanto movement have undergone various criticisms. The primary criticisms of Esperanto are the primarily European origin of its vocabulary, supposed patriarchal gender conventions in certain word roots, and idealism and dogmatism in the Esperanto movement. Much of the criticism of Esperanto is in light of Esperanto's original intended function as an international auxiliary language. A significant portion of Esperanto speakers today do not consider themselves ideologically devoted to this original goal nor consider themselves part of the original movement for its popularization, and may also be critics of the original movement. Meanwhile, certain other criticisms of Esperanto, its history, and its community of speakers are made both from inside and outside of the community, regardless of Esperanto's intended use as an IAL.

Eurocentric vocabulary

This criticism is based on the fact that the overwhelming majority^[quantity?] of word roots in Esperanto are derived from European languages. As Esperanto was originally intended for worldwide international communication on a neutral and fair basis, this is seen to be contrary to the original aims of Esperanto by making it more difficult for native speakers of non-European languages to learn Esperanto as quickly as those who already speak European languages which share more roots with Esperanto.^{[citation needed]}

Counterarguments are that Esperanto has many Asian and African characteristics of Asian and African languages than of European characteristics; and that some words have alternatives formed with junctions. For example:

• For the complex word manĝ'baston' (chopstick), the radical haŝi' is used by Asian Esperantists and allowed in common Esperanto dictionaries. ha' originate from Japanese (Kanji: 箸, Romanized: Hashi).
• For the radical astronomi' (astronomy), the complex word stel'scienc' (star + science) is used by Chinese Esperantists.

Linguist Christopher Gledhill notes that Esperanto is usually considered to be an agglutinating language (such as Hungarian, Turkish or Japanese) with a largely Romance vocabulary. However, different classifications of Esperanto have been advanced, largely because Esperanto's morphological system does not behave in the same way as typical agglutinating and Latin-based languages. The argument that Esperanto is like Kiswahili or Turkish is based on the fact that Esperanto's morphemes are used consistently for the same grammatical features, a difference that distinguishes Esperanto from the Romance language family. In addition, Gledhill states that the obligatory signaling of grammatical word class for lexical items (nominal, adjectival, verbal) in Esperanto is more akin to some Amerindian and African languages where classifiers and other particles are used for this function. Gledhill states it "might even be argued that the 'morpheme effect' may be a morphological feature that Esperanto shares with a incorporating languages (including Polynesian or Amerindian languages)." Ghledhill also notes that Claude Piron's analysis considers several non-agglutinating aspects of the language, including the freedom of word derivation and monomorphism that are reminiscent of isolating languages such as Chinese or Vietnamese.

Haitao Liu of the Communication University of China states that "lexically, Esperanto can be considered mainly a Romance language. Morphologically, it is an agglutinating language with a strong similarity to isolating languages. At the levels of syntax and style, it exhibits a significant degree of Slavic influence. Functionally, it has served as an interlanguage for more than a century."

A related criticism is that many of the phonemes and consonant clusters of Esperanto are difficult for speakers of some languages to pronounce. Since early on in the creation of the language, Esperantists have tended to encourage speakers to maintain their native accent, altering it only to the extent needed to be generally understood and upholding a fairly wide range of acceptable variations in pronunciation. However, this does not completely eliminate pronunciation difficulties for some speakers. Though this issue is to be expected and is present in all languages.

Analysis of lexicon

An analysis based on the 1000 most frequent words from a corpus size of one and a half million words (1,563,500 running words with 156 texts used) calculated that 70% of the 1000 most common words were Latinate in origin, 12% were unique to Esperanto, 10% were Germanic in origin, 5% were deemed Indo-European in origin, <2% were Greek in origin and <1% were Slavic in origin.

The analysis was published in "The Grammar of Esperanto. A Corpus-Based Description" by Christopher Gledhill, in the year 2000. Overall, words of Latinate origin were found to be dominant in the analysis. However, the author of the analysis points out that despite originating from one or another language, the majority of words were modified and accommodated into a more neutral form that does not always closely resemble the source language, and that the basic morphological rules of Esperanto inevitably lead to word forms that are unique to Esperanto. Some of these include compound words which, although they may be ultimately derived from European languages, represent combinations unique to Esperanto. The author further explains that compound words in the study were more frequent than Germanic words in the most frequent 1000 words, and they begin to "catch up" with Latinate words if the most frequent 10,000 words were to be considered. Outside of a group of 25 frequent compounds which appeared in the most frequent 1000 of the corpus, these forms are usually hapax legomena (one-off constructs) and rarely find their way into standard dictionaries.

Gledhill points out that an earlier analysis from 1994 conducted by Pierre Janton, which was an analysis of dictionary head-words in Esperanto, calculated their origin to be 80% Romance (Latin/French), 10% Anglo-German, 5% Greek, and 5% Slavic. Gledhill states that in the corpus analysis, speakers of Esperanto used a somewhat smaller distribution of Latinate words than suggested by Janton, and the situation is complicated by a larger number of Germanic forms and by very frequent use of words derived from Esperanto's own morphological system, which, as described above, lead to word forms unique to Esperanto due to Esperanto's morphological rules.

Neutrality in IAL design principles

In the paper "Neutrality of International Languages" by Haitao Liu of the Communication University of China, published in the Journal of Universal Language, the concept of "neutrality" in the creation and use of planned languages (including Esperanto) is discussed in depth. Liu notes that "neutrality" may be defined in different ways, with some definitions centering on lexical neutrality in regard to the origin of words, while other definitions may center more on the political neutrality of a language. In addition the paper discusses the challenges surrounding the selection of design principles of languages intended for neutral international communication, explaining that while planned languages that do not derive vocabulary from national languages tend to be evaluated as more "neutral" lexically, they tend to require more effort to learn; while languages which do derive vocabulary from national languages tend to be evaluated as less "neutral" lexically, they may be learned with less effort by a wider amount of people. This issue of balancing "facility maximization" with concerns of lexical neutrality are a high concern for planned international language projects.

In Liu's analysis, a neutral language for international communication can only be a planned language. Liu distinguishes between "communicative neutrality" and "linguistic neutrality" in the paper, writing: "All planned languages are communicatively neutral, but their linguistic neutrality varies, reflecting the diversity of language design principles. Communicative neutrality involves all users having to learn the language in order to be able to use it as a means of communication; linguistic neutrality has to do with maximizing equality of access for the learners with different mother tongues." Liu concludes:

Evidently, it is not an easy task to construct a language linguistically equidistant from all the languages of the world. In practice, absolute linguistic neutrality is neither practicable nor a fair representation of our task, because our goal is to create a language for humankind, which involves taking language universals on board. In this perspective, constructing a language based on some control languages coupled with systematic attention to linguistic universals is perhaps a rational procedure, if the control languages are selected from the set of languages that are in international use.

Liu states that "the history of planned languages shows that the task of interlinguists is to find a balancing point between a-priori and a-posteriori" in lexicon, and later writes: "the selection of lexical material is only one aspect of making a language easy to learn; a language designer also needs to consider the other components of a language. Linguistic neutrality cannot involve only lexical neutrality, but must also include other aspects of linguistic structure." Liu goes on to discuss whether assuring the "absolute neutrality" of a planned international language (such as a lexicon chosen by the statistical proportions of source language's worldwide prevalence) is a worthwhile pursuit at all in terms of its practicality for international language projects. Liu quotes philologist Detlev Blanke as writing, "A kind of absolute internationality would be reached, if in the vocabulary of a planned language all language of the world (proportional to its number of speakers) were represented. Such internationality would not be useful to anybody. The vocabulary would be extraordinarily heterogeneous and would be helpful for nobody." Following this quote, Liu writes: "Given that we cannot construct a viable language representing all linguistic properties drawn from the whole world on a meaningful basis, it is a rational decision to select some languages as one’s control languages." Speaking further on the subject of linguistic neutrality, Liu evaluates Esperanto by various qualities such as lexicon, morphology, and syntax, presenting it as an example of a language that is a "mixed" language "with distinct internationality profiles on different planes of linguistic structure" which Liu presents as the apparent rational result of the varying considerations of planned international language design, noting that "linguistic neutrality is not an absolute concept":

In summary, it is clear that linguistic neutrality is not an absolute concept. A language built on the basis of some purely formal absolute neutrality principle would not work as a language for humankind, because it would also have to fall in line with the known universals in human languages. It would appear to be rational to create or evaluate a planned language based on (a) some control languages selected on the basis of the international standing of the relevant languages and (b) linguistic universals. Such a procedure leads to a system that is a mixed language, with distinct internationality profiles on different planes of linguistic structure. For instance, lexically, Esperanto can be considered mainly a Romance language. Morphologically, it is an agglutinating language with a strong similarity to isolating languages. At the levels of syntax and style, it exhibits a significant degree of Slavic influence. Functionally, it has served as an interlanguage for more than a century (Janton 1973, 1993; Piron 1981; Wells 1989). Nuessel gives Esperanto the following properties: “a planned, a posteriori language, an amalgamation of the linguistic elements of the various ethnic languages including Yiddish, Germanic, and Slavic tongues that were a part of Zamenhof’s socially rancorous environment. The language also contained grammatical features of certain Romance languages with which Zamenhof was familiar” (Nuessel 2000: 41).

Liu also touches on the topic of "deneutralization" of languages, summarized as the process in which (for example) a lingua franca develops into the native language of some, with the consequence that once again neutrality would be lost and the whole process of designing a neutral language may be deemed to be in need of being relaunched. Liu states that the process of planned language development can be compared with the creolization of pidgins, in that when a pidgin has enough native speakers, it is creolizated, and may also be termed as "deneutralized". Liu states that the emergence of native speakers is an important milestone in the evolution of a planned language. While Esperanto has reached the milestone of having native speakers, in Liu's analysis, it has not yet reached a state of creolization or deneutralization.

Overall, Liu's paper focuses on the "neutrality" of international languages, exploring the concept of "neutrality" itself by varying definitions, exploring the practical concerns of IAL design, as well as using Esperanto (among other languages) as example cases for certain analyses in the paper, stating "Given that absolute linguistic neutrality unattainable, it becomes reasonable to construct a language based on certain control languages plus linguistic universals" and analyzing Esperanto as an example of a language which appears to be the result of such a construction process, and further demonstrates that although Esperanto now also has native speakers, this does not yet seem to have significantly impacted it in the fashion of creolization or what Liu terms "deneutralization".

Gendered vocabulary

This criticism is based mainly on the assertion by some Esperantists that certain words in Esperanto are masculine by default, and only inflected into an explicitly feminine or gender neutral form by the use of affixes. The majority of such words are among the family terms of Esperanto, such as root words like "father" (patr') and "brother" (frat') serving as root forms, while additions are needed to transform them into meaning the "mother" and "sister." They interpret this assertion as patriarchal.

However, there are also root words considered to be female-default such as: dam', matron', primadon', furi', amazon', gorgon', nimf', sukub', meger', alme', putin', meretric', hetajr', gejŝ', etc. which often do not receive the same complaint.

This issue has been controversial to some Esperanto speakers, who voice a range of opinions on the subject: junctioning the gendered roots to the male default radicals (or root words) and using the familial radicals genderlessly; including the proposal of official reforms to the language, the de facto colloquial adoption of more gender-neutral language changes; and the insistence on keeping the language as-is.

• A solution commonly used is to junction a word with the male and female radicals (Esperanto: vir' and in' respectively) to specify the gender and to genderlessly use the root word. (Example: Vir'patr' / Patr'vir' (father); patr'in' / in'patr' (mother); patr' (parent)) This approach stays within the grammar and rules of Esperanto. This approach was adopted by Zamenhof when specifying sex for Animals.
• Additionally, an unofficial affix (Esperanto: -iĉ-), modeled on the feminine root word (Esperanto: in'), has come into somewhat common use among certain speakers which is used to make a word explicitly masculine, with the implication that the root word itself is neutral; though in practice it is seen as redundant by some Esperantists as the root word vir can be junctioned to accomplish the same task as -iĉ-.

Pronouns

A related criticism is about the gendered pronouns of Esperanto. Esperanto includes three singular pronouns:

• li ("he")
• ŝi ("she")
• ĝi (pronoun for beings and objects)

While the word ĝi in Esperanto officially carries no specific dehumanizing stigma and may be used for humans, many speakers feel reluctant to use it as a gender neutral pronoun for human beings due to a taboo of describing humans with a pronoun for objects, as it is seen to imply that humans are objects; this taboo often forms from their native lingual culture.

An alternative unofficial pronoun for persons with no recognized gender in Esperanto is ri; considered to be controversial as it is not in the fundamento, but nonetheless widely^{[citation needed]} understood by Esperanto speakers, as it was proposed in the 1970s and has gained popularity since that time. Other common solutions to this issue are the use of the word "this" or "that" (Esperanto: tiu and tiu ĉi) when referring to individuals in the third person, or the use of the word "ŝli" which is similar conceptually to using "s/he" in English as it combines the masculine and feminine pronouns.

Dogmatism

The criticism of dogmatism that is sometimes made of the Esperanto movement and/or community stems largely from an early guiding principle in the Esperanto movement, commonly referred to in Esperanto as fundamentismo (English: fundamentalism) which continues to influence discourse among Esperantists today. The term can carry some connotation of strictness, for example the dictionary Plena Ilustrita Vortaro de Esperanto lists one of its definitions of fundamentisto as "an Esperantist who strictly obeys and defends the Foundation."

This trend comes from a 1905 book called Fundamento de Esperanto, in which L. L. Zamenhof states in the preface that, for the unity of Esperanto, "the foundation of our language must remain forever intact" and only be expanded, never altered, by an institutional central authority of the Esperanto language, and that any expansions outside of the foundation must be regarded only as recommendations rather than as obligatory.

Zamenhof explains in the preface of the Fundamento the reasoning behind these stipulations is for unity within the movement and so that Esperanto speakers can always use the Fundamento as a reference and that it must remain the same even including its faults, clarifying that it is not to prevent the language's development:

I said that the foundation of our language must be absolutely inviolable, if it even seemed to us that this or that point was undoubtedly wrong. This could give birth to the thought that our language will always remain rigid and will never develop... Oh, no! Despite the severe inviolability of the foundation, our language will have the full potential not only to constantly enrich itself, but even to constantly improve and perfect itself; the inviolability of the foundation will only guarantee us permanently that this perfection will be done not by arbitrary, infighting and destructive breaking and changing, not by canceling or making our literature useless until now, but by a natural, unconfused and harmless path. [...] If any authoritative central institution finds that this or that word or rule in our language is too inconvenient, it will not have to remove or change the said form, but it will be able to propose a new form, which it will recommend to be used in parallel with the old form. Over time, the new form will gradually push out the old form, which will become archaism, as we see this in every natural language.

These documents formed a guiding principle in the early development of the Esperanto language and the Esperanto movement, and various strains of this principle still remain among the Esperanto speaking community today, with varying degrees of strictness or looseness of their interpretation and application of it. There are also many Esperanto speakers who do not particularly adhere to this guiding principle. Arguments in favor of this principle typically center around preserving the regularity and intelligibility of the language over time, and ensuring that new learners receive relatively consistent and uniform information about the foundation of the language, so as to be able to quickly integrate and understand the language without facing regionalisms or irregularities. As this guiding principle has been present with the Esperanto movement since its early development and held influence over the language's evolution, reform proposals to the language are typically discussed in this framework, with people arguing for varying degrees of strict or lose fundamentalism, versus full-on reformism. These discussions are also complicated by various usage trends and natural shifts which have occurred in Esperanto's community of speakers outside of what is considered to be official recommendations.

Further Reading

Language

• L. L. Zamenhof (1905). Fundamento de Esperanto. Hachette.

See also

• Ido