There are approximately 40 constructed auxiliary languages, but most of these languages have insignificant speakers and some exist just by name. They are present tense -as, future tense -os, past tense -is, infinitive mood -i, conditional mood -us, and jussive mood -u (used for wishes and commands). We have the approximation of two million from Sidney S Culbert, who sampled Esperanto speakers in different countries over a period of about twenty years, and this figure has stuck; perhaps the Universal Esperanto Association (UEA) will eventually be able to conduct further research but for now, two million is what we will assume. His main aim was to create a flexible and simple language that would act as a universal second language and foster peace and international understanding. It tends to evoke very strong and emotional reactions, even in people who have never looked at or heard a word of the language. The World Esperanto Association has a membership of 120 countries, but no country has officially adopted the language. The suffix -n is used to indicate the goal of movement and a few other things, in addition to the direct object. So, unlike Esperanto, Lingwa de Planeta fails in its potential for being globally accessible, because it isn’t easy to learn. A page from the online edition of Ethnologue: Languages of the World (21st edition) giving basic information about the language (including population, location, status, alternate names, dialects, and classification) with notes on language use and language development. The language combined Latin, German, Polish, Russian, French, and many other languages’ roots to create an apparently perfect synthesis of European languages. In 1975 there were thought to be more than 3000 people learning Esperanto in the city of Tehran. In fact, some consider Esperanto to be a good language to use as a stepping stone for learning Japanese itself: an interesting theory that we would be interesting in testing out! Esperanto, however homeless a language it may be, is still spoken by around two million people the world over. According to Ethnologue, Esperanto is spoken by some 2 million people as a second language in 115 countries, most of them in Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, and South America.. L. L. Zamenhof developed Esperanto in the 1870s and '80s. It has its own culture, literature and magazines, etc. Zamenhof’s desire to create a new language instead of pursuing his career on ophthalmology resulted from the many quarrels among the groups that lived in Bialystok who spoke different languages. The Esperanto alphabet borrows heavily from the Latin script. Esperanto experienced a quick growth in the 20th century and continues to develop in the 21st century, both as a language and as a linguistic community. Esperanto is a constructed language created by a Jewish-Polish ophthalmologist in the late 19th century. Speakers are most numerous in Europe and East Asia, especially in urban areas, where they often form Esperanto clubs. There are millions of speakers worldwide. All Rights Reserved, Language Courses and Language Services USA & Canada, Tel: 1-877-566-9299 (USA) / 1-416-800-9242 (Canada). That figure has now dropped, or at least fluctuated, with current figures estimated at around 10,000 active speakers and 400,000 passive. Esperanto creator Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof was born in 1859 in Bialystok, a multi-ethnic city that is in present-day Poland. In practical use for more than a hundred years, Esperanto has proved to be a genuinely living language, capable of expressing all facets of human thought. He created the language to make international communication easier. Along with creating a language that would promote worldwide understanding and foster peace, Zamenhof also hoped to make a language that was easy to learn and use. This is such a small percentage that Esperanto doesn’t even register on language ranking lists for languages spoken in Russia. Hungary is also one of the few countries that includes a language knowledge question on its census: the last census lists there being 8397 Esperanto speakers, which works out to about 850 speakers per million. Here are some of the interesting facts about Esperanto. The Esperanto language is a language (almost) like any other. How Many Countries Are Recognized By The United States? And now for the countries with no census information available. Esperanto is the most popular of them all with its 2 million worldwide speakers. The popular language-learning app Duolingo has an Esperanto course, and over 1 million people have started it. Unlike natural languages, you don’t learn Esperanto because you’re fascinated by a country, people group or location. While in school, he also studied classical languages such as Greek, Latin, Aramaic, and Hebrew. 1000 worldwide native speakers of the constructed language Esperanto. Esperanto was added to Google Translate as its 64th language on February 22, 2012. And yet, every website encouraging the use of Esperanto is, ironically, in English. The language was initially known as “International Language” but the early speakers began referring to it as Esperanto in 1889. Esperanto has been in continuous use since its creation, even though it is not recognized as an official language by any country. Usage estimates are difficult, but two recent estimates put the number of active speakers at around 100,000. It was created on the basis of the vocabulary of Indo-European languages, but was intended to be easy to learn. The Esperanto language was created in the late 19th century, around the late 1870s and early 1880s. See Esperanto grammar for details. Korea was the first Asian country to host the World Esperanto Congress in 1994, and the Esperanto department at the Dankook University in South Korea is listed as one of the best. The Iranian Esperanto Association was founded in 1996 so there is clearly still interest for the language alive in Iran today. It has its own culture, literature and magazines, etc. According to Zamenhof, the new language was to help reduce the time and energy spent on learning a foreign language. 10,000,000 have studied Esperanto at some point in their lives. Esperanto is a constructed auxiliary language. However, it has not been adopted as a secondary official language by any country. All maps, graphics, flags, photos and original descriptions © 2021 worldatlas.com, 10 Facts About Esperanto, The World's International Language. Zamenhof spent about ten years translating literature into Esperanto, leading to the publishing of the first book of Esperanto grammar on July 26, 1887. The main point for English speakers to remember is that the letter 'J' has the sound of the letter 'Y' in English) Esperanto text; En multaj lokoj de Ĉinio estis temploj de drako-reĝo. Anglujo, Francujo, Germanujo). The six verb inflections consist of three tenses and three moods. And no-one is talking of Esperanto as a “regional” common language (whatever that may be). It belongs to the whole humanity. Esperanto is not the tool of any nation, national group, political party or social class. Hungary is also one of the few countries that includes a language knowledge question on its census: the last census lists there being 8397 Esperanto speakers, which works out to about 850 speakers per million. As language fans, we are bewildered! The word itself means 'one who hopes'. Esperanto is a popular constructed international auxiliary language. The Esperanto language is a language (almost) like any other. Esperanto was developed in the late 1870s and early 1880s by ophthalmologist Dr. Ludovic Lazarus Zamenhof, an Ashkenazi Jew from Bialystok, now in Poland and previously in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but … Which Countries Recognize Sign Language As An Official Language? 1,000,000 understand a vast amount of the language but in a purely passive sense. There Are Esperanto Speakers on Every Continent. But the history of such languages is that they do not outlast the dominant power which imposed them on the rest of the world. There hasn’t been a worldwide language census, so the number of speakers in each country isn’t known. Hungary has already been identified as a country with a high number of Esperanto speakers, and one of the reasons for that is thought to be because Esperanto is a language that is offered in schools. When he learned English, he felt that the grammatical system could be made simpler. The World Esperanto Congress has been held since 1905; it seems that there is a huge interest for this language, so why isn’t more being done to document its users or spread its use? Zamenhof, the creator of the language, wanted to create a politically neutral language that would foster peace and promote worldwide understanding between people of different languages and backgrounds. Despite the existence of other constructed languages, Esperanto remains as the most widely spoken especially in China and Eastern Europe. It has one definitive article and no indefinite articles, nouns have no gender, and verbs are all regular with only one form per tense. Esperanto is a language without a home. The Progress Scale is derived from people group values for percent Evangelical and percent Christian Adherent . Whatever Zamenhof’s intentions were regarding neutrality, the history of English and Esperanto suggests that ease of learning is not primarily what makes a language widely spoken in a given country. Esperanto, artificial language constructed in 1887 by L.L. However, unlike all other languages, the Esperanto language does not have its own country, nor its own people . Anglio, Francio, Germanio). Zamenhof was also referred to as Doktoro Esperanto (Dr. Esperanto). “Esperanto” translates to “one who hopes.”. One of the writers who has contributed to the growth of Esperanto is William Auld whose literary work has received three nominations for the Nobel Prize in Literature: 1999, 2004, and 2006. When I first learned Esperanto, I learned that country names usually take the suffix -ujo to convert from a culture to its respective country (e.g. Unlike most languages, Esperanto does not belong to a specific country or ethnic group: it is politically and socially neutral. Zamenhof’s Fundamento de Esperanto, published in 1905, lays down the basic principles of the language’s structure and formation. Hungary has already been identified as a country with a high number of Esperanto speakers, and one of the reasons for that is thought to be because Esperanto is a language that is offered in schools. According to Ethnologue, Esperanto is spoken by some 2 million people as a second language in 115 countries, most of them in Central and … Instead, Esperanto was invented because Zamenhof, who was born in the multi-lingual, multi-ethnic Polish city of Bialystok, saw the language barriers in his own city as the primary source of distrust and misunderstanding between different ethnic groups. Esperanto is the most widely spoken constructed international language. Ethnologue’s latest datasays there are 1,000 people who use Esperanto as their firs… There are thought to be around 604 Lithuanian Esperanto speakers, equating to 204 people per million. But what is Esperanto? Check out our free placement test to see how your level measures up! Whilst this bill is still being debated, Brazil is thought to be one of the contenders for the country having the highest number of Esperanto speakers. The UEA has 5501 individual members throughout 121 countries, and there are Esperanto associations in more than 180 countries. Unua Libro, the first print discussion of the language, appeared in 1887. However, unlike all other languages, the Esperanto language does not have its own country, nor its own people.What it has instead is a community. According to Jouko Lindstedt, a linguistic expert on native-born Esperanto speakers, here is a further breakdown of some of those speakers: But the truth is, there is not clear, accurate enough information available from each and every country. 1,000 people speak Esperanto as their native language. In some areas, it is possible to listen to Esperanto news bulletins and songs on the radio. In fact in our first look at Esperanto we learned that we could find speakers in countries as different from each other as the US, Hungary and China. Having arisen in the late 19th century, it was subject to the antisemitic zeitgeist, as Zamenhof was ethnically Jewish. An interview with 6 of the ca. Some publications are also being translated into Esperanto today. Esperanto Associations around the world via Wikipedia. The majority of the 120 countries that are members of the World Esperanto Association are in Europe, Asia and South America, where the language is most popular. Esperanto is used as a language of instruction and administration at the International Academy of Science in San Marino. A guide to the History of the Esperanto language. Four letters have been omitted from the alphabet; q, w, x and y and are only used when writing unassimilated words or terms. It has never been the official language of any recognized country. (Pronunciation is covered above. Some of these books are used to teach the language in schools. He was an eye doctor who specialized on the eyeball and orbit. In this post I examine how the density of Esperanto speakers can be explained by other variables. Russia also collates data on the languages its inhabitants speak, and according to the latest information there are 992 Esperanto speakers throughout the country. There's a fair amount of criticism surrounding the language and movement. Esperanto (/ ˌ ɛ s p ə ˈ r ɑː n t oʊ / or / ˌ ɛ s p ə ˈ r æ n t oʊ /) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language.It is the only constructed language with a population of native speakers, of which there are perhaps a couple thousand. It has 28 letters, including six letter with diacritics. It is spoken by 2 million people worldwide, including at least 1,000 native speakers who were introduced to the language from birth. Esperanto is the world’s most widely spoken constructed language. The name gained popularity very quickly as has since been used as the official name. The Joshua Project Progress Scale is an estimate of the progress of church planting among a people group, people cluster, country or language. Zamenhof hoped that the language would be learned and used as a living language. And what's a constructed language, even? Thus, one can say that it is a language created for international communication, which later became creolized and is nowadays the language of a diaspora of Esperanto speakers. Esperanto is not an official language in any country. “At the moment, no EU member state lists Esperanto as an official language of its country. Esperanto has been in continuous use since its … Instead, it’s spoken across the world by an estimated 1-2 million speakers. The new language was to help people overcome their natural indifferences and dispose of them in the fastest way possible. The first conference for Esperanto speakers was held in 1905 in France. The number of Esperanto speakers have increased gradually since then, without much support from governments and international organizations. To us that means that Esperanto is more nomadic traveller than vagrant vagabond. Well, during the 80s, Esperanto was a somewhat popular foreign language for Chinese people to learn, with some 300,000 to 400,000 speakers. What is Esperanto. But there are speakers on the other continents as well, notably Africa, where the country Togo has the most speakers. Hungary, Finland, Japan and China, among others, have shown interest in taking up Esperanto, representing a willing enthusiasm to put this interlanguage to use. Esperanto is a neutral language since it doesn’t belong to any specific country, race, or any specific entity, but belongs to everybody, especially those who learn it, regardless of background. Zamenhof's goal was to create an easy and flexible language as a universal second language to foster peace and international understanding. The density is the number of esperanto speakers per 1 million inhabitants. Most people report being able to learn Esperanto 5x faster than other languages. In 1887, Zamenhof, under the name of Dr. Esperanto, published the first book of Esperanto called the International Language, which contained the first 920 words in Esperanto. Learning a new language? Irregular verbs, complex conjugations, double and unnecessary words were removed. You can choose to look at that statement in any number of ways, however, whatever it is you are thinking is probably somewhere along the scale of that means it isn’t a real language to it’s enough for this restless warrior. Outside of a few crackpots who decided to turn their kids into circus acts by raising them with Esperanto as a first language, it has no inter-generational identity or national/tribal history. While Esperanto is fairly inoffensive in itself, it seems to have raised the ire of a number of different groups. It was introduced in 1887 by Dr. L.L. Zamenhof, a Jewish Polish ophthalmologist, created the language in such as a way that anybody could learn and use it within the shortest time possible. Esperanto is by far the most widely spoken constructed language in the world. Estonia has 209 Esperanto speakers listed on its latest census, which works out to around 158 speakers per million. It was created in the late 19th century by Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof. His goal was to design Esperanto in such a way that people can learn it much more easily than any other national language . Esperanto. There are over 2 million Esperanto speakers worldwide. alone built the basis for the language and helped usher it into the real world until the end of his life A constructed language is simply an artificial language whose vocabulary and grammar are designed rather than evolving naturally over a period. Esperanto is the most famous constructed language, and its popularity seems to be growing. The following short extract gives an idea of the character of Esperanto. Therefore, Esperanto has not undergone any historical change that is common in other languages. The name derives from Doktoro Esperanto, the pseudonym under which L. L. Zamenhof first published the Unua Libro in 1887. However, we do know that a significant amount of Esperanto speakers can be found in the […] Zamenhof, a Polish oculist, and intended for use as an international second language. Measuring numbers of Esperanto speakers is notoriously difficult, but UEA does publish some enlightening figures about its member countries, including African ones.. Judging by UEA members, the most active country is Togo, with 28 UEA members.. Judging by members of the national organisation, Benin is on top, reporting 500 members of the national Esperanto organisation. Esperanto is an international language, created to facilitate communication amongst people from different countries. The 28 letters of the Esperanto alphabet are; a, b, c, ĉ, d, e, f, g, ĝ, h, ĥ, i, j, ĵ, k, l, m, n, o, p, r, s, ŝ, t, u, ŭ, v, and z. It can be picked up by speakers of European languages with relative ease since it uses root words from the romance languages. Major International Wildlife Conservation Organizations Active In The World Today. So with that in mind, let us use what information we do have to attempt to get a clearer demographic picture. Esperanto has been in continuous use since its creation. Unlike most languages, Esperanto isn’t spoken in a particular country. It should be made clear that there has never been a full census or survey taken to give a true picture of how many Esperanto speakers there are throughout the world. The name Esperanto is derived from Dr. Esperanto, a pseudonym of the creator of the language. Due to the form in which it was initiated, it is the easiest language to learn, and not only for people that speak European languages. In 2009 the Senate of Brazil proposed that Esperanto be an optional part of the school curriculum. Is Central America Part Of North America? Zamenhof of Warsaw, in today’s Poland, to foster international understanding by allowing people with different native languages to communicate as equals. Before creating Esperanto, Zamenhof tried to revive Latin but after learning it in school, he concluded that Latin was much too complicated to be a common language for international communication. Next time in our Esperanto adventures we will be looking at where Esperanto is in use today, and what resources are available for those of you wishing to learn this fascination language. New Zealand, the land with the highest per capita population of Jedis in the world, would naturally be expected to adopt a language that is seen as quirky by some, and pointless by others. This is an obvious side-effect of creating a language that mixes Portuguese with Hindi and Russian, but perhaps acts as proof that an ideal interlanguage is entirely impossible. But after using the language and talking with people around the world, I have noticed that they use another suffix -io for the countries (e.g. There are over 20,000 original and translated books in Esperanto and hundreds of magazines. Aside from being spoken internationally, Esperanto is being used for literary publications, including poetry, magazines and books. About Esperanto. China we previously listed as a country with a large number of Esperanto speakers, but how many does that actually mean? Esperanto Day, also known as Zamenhof Day, is celebrated annually on December 15. What Is The Official Language Of The United States? Esperanto is a language initiated in a Polish town and published 120 years ago, on July 26, 1887. Hitler perceived the language as ‘Bolshevist,’ and, probably extracting from the fact that Esperanto’s inventor was a Jewish man, he even referred to Esperanto in Mein Kampf as an example of a language that could be used by an international Jewish conspiracy once they achieved world domination. Since then, such world congresses have been held every year. In the wa… Most of the Esperanto speakers continue to hope that the language will soon be recognized as the international auxiliary language. In a previous blog post I estimated the density of Esperanto speakers in each country of the world. Proportionally speaking, this is actually quite high! It is difficult to know precisely how many Korean speakers of Esperanto there are, but this traveller managed to cycle his way around Korea and stay in Esperanto-speaking homes, so we can imagine there are at least a few. Join us as we look a little closer at the demographic split. For the moment, this is true. Esperanto is the most widely used constructed language in the world. Despite the language speakers facing prosecution in the hands of regimes including the Soviet Union and the Nazis, they continued to establish organizations and publications. In 2007 the World Esperanto Congress was held in Yokohama, and of the 1900 attendees the majority were, perhaps unsurprisingly, Japanese. Its creator was L. L. Zamenhof, a Polish eye doctor. Until then.... 5 Mexican Foods You Don’t Know About, But Should, Learning Two Languages at Once: How it’s Done, 10 Of The Best Child-Friendly Japanese Dishes, Copyright © 2007 - 2021 Listen & Learn. Esperanto is particularly prevalent in the northern and central countries of Europe; in China, Korea, Japan, and Iran within Asia; in Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico in the Americas; and in Togo in Africa. Esperanto was constructed to be easy to learn, and it will sound familiar to speakers of European languages. There are 123 Esperanto speakers listed in New Zealand as of the last census, which means that there are 28 for every million. This equates to approximately seven per million people. Esperanto has been in continuous use since its creation, even though it is not recognized as an official language by any country. Esperanto was created with the goal of being easy to learn. Its use has, in some instances, been outlawed or otherwise suppressed. Esperanto was granted official support by the United Nations in 1954. Of three tenses and three moods national language been adopted as a living language he was an doctor... Where the country Togo has the most widely used constructed language in schools ” translates to “ one hopes.. The language in the city of Tehran international language, created to facilitate communication amongst people from countries... The romance languages in continuous use since its … Esperanto is by far the most widely especially... 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