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

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).

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.

The ideals of Esperanto attracted interest from all over the political spectrum, particularly catching the interest of pacifists. 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. In Korea, 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.

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.

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

A group of literary artists for socialist revolution formed in 1925, called by the Esperanto name Korea Artista Proleta Federacio (KAPF). 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.

Chinese Esperantist caravans to DPRK

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.

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, 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 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.

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.

Gendered vocabulary

This criticism is based mainly in the fact that certain words in Esperanto are considered to be 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 feminine "mother" and "sister" or neutral "parent" and "sibling". This issue has proven frustrating to many Esperanto speakers, who voice a range of opinions on the subject, 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.

• An official solution commonly used is to junction a word with the male and female root words (Esperanto: vir' and in' respectively) to specify the gender and to genderlessly use the root word. This approach was adopted by Zamenhof when specifying sex for Animals.
• In general, the root forms of these words are considered to be masculine but also often are used as a gender-neutral form without using affixes to explicitly indicate the neutrality.
• 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 "he", "she", and "it" for its singular pronouns. While the word "it" 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 taboos of doing so in their own native languages, and have therefore sought to create alternatives. The most common gender neutral pronoun in Esperanto is "ri", considered to be controversial by some due to being an unofficial term, but nonetheless widely 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.

Further Reading

Language

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

See also

• Ido