Esperanto-USA

Today I gave a speech to a local Rotary Club, the text of which (more-or-less) I've stuck here below. The crowd was a little older, a little conservative, and I wrote my speech with that in mind. It's also a group with strong local ties, and so I tried to bring some of that in towards the end. I'd be happy for your feedback, especially relating to factual errors or over-simplifications.

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Henri invited me here today to talk a little bit about Esperanto. You may not have ever heard of Esperanto; many people haven't, though it's not a secret or a recent invention. Esperanto is a language invented by Dr. Ludoviko Zamenhof in the 1880s. It was designed to be easy to learn, with no irregular verbs or grammatical genders or any of those troublesome things we get hung up on when learning a foreign language. Because Esperanto is constructed regularly and logically, it's probably the easiest language on Earth to learn.

That doesn't mean it's a piece of cake -- “the easiest language” is perhaps like “the simplest book on calculus”. Languages are complicated, but Esperanto has a lot fewer complications that other languages. I started learning Esperanto on my own a few months before I starting studying Russian in college. I put about the same number of hours into each – more reading in Esperanto, more conversation in my Russian class. It's seven years later now, I'm fluent in Esperanto, but I can only “get by” in Russian. It's painful obvious from my wretched American accent and poor conjugation that I'm not a native Russian speaker. So, Russian-speakers talk down to me, speak slowly, use simple words. They probably think I'm a little simple, but really, it's just that languages are pretty difficult.

Esperanto, a language that's much less difficult, was dreamed up by Zamenhof as a boy growing up in Poland in the late 19th century. All around him, Zamenhof saw a very fractured and divided population. Zamenhof's family was Jewish, and they lived among ethnic Poles in a country recently acquired by Russia. Zamenhof spoke Yiddish with his family, Polish with his neighbours, and Russian with his school teachers, in addition to studying French, Spanish, English, German, Ancient Greek, and Latin – the necessary languages for an educated European. Each part of society seemed to have its own language, and language was a tool for exclusion, a way to make divisions between different populations and to know who was “in” and who was “out.” To cross the divide you had to learn the language, and even if you studied for years, it was still clear who were the native speakers and who were the late-comers.

Imagine two people, each standing on different mountains. To communicate, they've got to be closer. One person can hike down his mountain and all the way up the other mountain. But climbing up a mountain isn't easy, and the nearer you get to the top, the tougher it is. These mountains are tall enough that, unless a person is especially dilligent or talented, he or she might never make it the way to the top. At some point, the climber and the person sitting on top of the moutain can start to talk to each other, by shouting up or down. But it's clear who's on top, and who's still struggling to get there. It's not a situation condusive to a honest exchange of ideas.

A better solution is to have both people hike down from their moutains and meet in the middle. Zamenhof envisioned a language that would be like meeting in the middle. Between all the moutains of the world's languages, there would be a little hill. It's a bit of climb, but it's not nearly as steep as the other mountains. And everyone who makes the little trek up the hill stands on equal footing. No one is shouting down or up. No one has the advantage of being on the high ground.

Zamenhof's language wouldn't just be the
language of those in power, with the cultural baggage that comes with it. It wouldn't be a religious or ethnic language. Instead it would be for everyone. His language would be easy to learn, so that the inequalities between native speakers and non-native speakers would disappear faster. And his language would not take the place of anyone's native language, but be a universal second language. Speak your native language with your family and with those who share your nationality or ethnicity; speak the universal language with everyone else.

Zamenhof began working on his language as a very young man. He used what he saw as the best parts of many different languages for his project, which he
called simply “The International Language.” He wasn't the first to attempt an invented artificial language. Linguists and philosophers before him and after him came up with projects of various merits, but Zamenhof's language to this day is the most successful. Maybe that's because Zamenhof was not a linguist – his only training in languages was as a learner, frequently frustrated by the cases and declinations on Latin, the aspects of Ancient Greek, the genders of French, the motion verbs of Russian. Zamenhof drew from existing European languages for his vocabulary, where other language projects tend to make up words, or twist them beyond recognition. While other international languages strive for abstract logical and linguistic perfection, Zamenhof refined his language through poetry – by translating Shakespeare, the Bible, the poems of Heine, and even by writing his own poems. Zamenhof's language is perhaps the most “natural” artificial language. You might have heard people speaking it on the street, but you may have though they were speaking Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, or another Romance language.

Zamenhof published the first description of “The International Language” -- including basic grammar, vocabulary, and learning exercises, in 1887. But even by this point in his life, Zamenhof had finished his schooling, was married, and a successful optometrist with a respectable clientle. Unsure of how his patients and the Russian authorities would respond to a project like his International Language, he published the book under the pseudonym, Doctor Esperanto. In the International Language “Esperanto” means “one who hopes.” Zamenhof hoped that his patients wouldn't think him a crazy dreamer; he hoped that the Russian government wouldn't think him a dangerous revolutionary; he hoped that his project would reach the people who needed it.

Doctor Esperanto's International Language did become a modest success in a relatively short time. Magazines and newspapers began to appear, chiefly in Poland, Russia, and France. Translated and original poems, plays, and novels were written and published. The first World Congress of Esperanto was held in France in 1905, and the World Congress has been held almost every year since then. The first World Congress held in the United States was in Washington, DC in 1910, with Zamenhof in attendance.

Some international language projects have been undone by the ego of their creator. Zamenhof recgnized this, and so he took a back seat to allow Esperanto to develop on its own. He knew that Esperanto is a tool, with a utility separate from the ideas that created it. Some people will use Esperanto to organize politically, some will use it to read literature otherwise inaccessible to them, some will use it to travel for pleasure, some will use it to express themselves through poetry or song, some will use it for business. Some will believe in Zamenhof's ideals of universality, and some will not. But no one is more or less right, and no activity is forbidden by any written or unwritten “rules” of the language. In short, Esperanto is like any other language, capable of the full range of human expression. Yes, there are swear words, some fairly mild and some that would make just about anyone blush.

Zamenhof is still widely respected by Esperanto-speakers as a brilliant yet modest man who cared deeply about his fellow humans, but his death in 1917 was not a deathblow to the language he created. Esperanto experienced a cultural renaissance after the First World War, and a tide of talented writers, especially from Hungary and France, wrote deeply moving poetry, complex novels, and continued with ambitious translations of Dante's Divine Comedy, Dostoevsky, Baudelaire, and others. A trend in “national anthologies” sprang up as a way to present national literature otherwise unavailable in the international marketplace – Swiss, Belgian, Hungarian, British, and Chinese anthologies were all produced in Esperanto. People were proud of their heritage, and they wanted to share it with others.

A United States Anthology hasn't come together yet, although there are lots of individual translations, especially of Poe. This year, in order to get some more material for a United States Anthology and to honor one of our long-time volunteers, I helped organize the first annual Harlow Prize for translation of American poetry into Esperanto. Winners included a translation of Whitman's “O Captain My Captain” and the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” which you can still sing to the same tune. Because of the competition, other Esperanto-speakers around the world got to read these works for the first time. I don't think I'd read “O Captain My Captain” since high school, and I had a new appreciation for it after reading several different Esperanto translations.

Back to our timeline. The Second World War proved to be a difficult time for Esperanto. The conflict shut down international travel. Zamenhof's family's house was destroyed by bombing, and some of Zamenhof's children died in concentration camps. Even after the war, persecution of Esperanto-speakers continued in the Soviet Union, and many prominent Esperanto-speakers were jailed or exiled because of their “suspicious international connections.”

A new crop of writers after the Second World War has pushed the envelope thematically and linguistically, stretching Zamenhof's language to its limits and beyond, and a literary community continues to flourish. For example, this year, a new Esperanto edition of “The Lord of the Rings” was printed in Russia, and a new translation of Herodotus' “Histories” came from Athens, Greece. Two new literary magazines have been lauched this year alone, and publishers from California to New York to Kaliningrad to Yokohama continue to print original literary works.

The growing body of Esperanto literature is just one element of a unique Esperanto culture. There are jokes unique to the Esperanto community, as well as flags and symbols and words. There are historical events and epic poems that mean more to an Esperanto-speaker than non-speakers. Some people criticize Esperanto as an artificial language without a culture of its own, but this criticism is just plain wrong. Esperanto does have its own culture, and I think that Esperanto's unique culture is one of its most attractive features and a valuable goal in itself.

The Esperanto community is made up of people who speak at least two languages, and most speak more than that. After learning Esperanto, some people are inspired to learn more languages, and they often find them a little easier because of their experiences with Esperanto. Perhaps it's because learning an easier language first makes you a little less afraid of learning difficult languages later, or perhaps its because perhaps your brain is able to make use of more parallels, contrasts, and cognates. Some informal experiments conducted over the years show that students who study one year of Esperanto and three years of French, for example, speak better French that their counterparts, who studied French for four years – plus, they can speak Esperanto. More scientific studies are needed, but the informal results are intriguing.

Esperanto culture is uniquely literate as well, as you've already heard from my list of translations that Esperanto-speakers have produced throughout the last 130 years. The number and quality of literary works is proportionally larger in Esperanto than in other languages. In Esperanto, we do need some more “beach books” -- too many of our books tend to be weighty or serious. Fortunately, this trend is beginning to change, and more detective novels and science-fiction books are starting to be published.

As a community, Esperanto-speakers are unusually patient with beginners, because the vast majority of us were beginners at some point. There are a few Esperanto-speakers-from-birth, usually the children of couple whose only common language is Esperanto – there's a pun that Esperanto is sometimes “edz-peranto” -- which means “match maker.”

Esperanto culture is a participatory culture. When I run the evening activities at the North American Summer Esperanto Program, I invite people to present about whatever they feel most strongly about, whatever they enjoy most. We've had presentations about origami, veganism, Canadian painters, being a veterinarian in South Africa, the Japanese tea ceremony, and Icelandic epic poetry. Even if people have only been studying Esperanto for a few weeks, they can usually put together a short presentation about their passions.

Actually, Esperanto culture may be a little too participatory – an Esperanto joke has two beginners meeting on the street. “How long have you been learning Esperanto?” asks the first. “About three weeks,” answers the second. “Really? How many books of poetry have you published?”

Still, even if Esperanto has perhaps a few too many amateur poets, it is a refreshing change from the cutthroat publishing world of English, or the great obstacles to publishing in another language. No matter how much I study, I will never speak Russian or German well enough to publish a novel in those languages – it is the rare genius, like Nabokov or Conrad, who can jump over. But in Esperanto, I have published stories in several literary magazines, from New York to Brazil, France, Russia, and Lithuania.

So far I haven't mentioned the number of Esperanto-speakers, and that's because it's a somewhat contested number. It's hard to count Esperanto-speakers, because we don't have a world-wide census we can rely on. In short, there are somewhere between 100,000 and two million speakers of Esperanto, which is a pretty big spread. The larger number does come from reputable sources, like the World Almanac and Ethnologue, but I believe its an overestimate based on bad data. Two million is probably the number of people who have dabbled in Esperanto a little bit, own a book or two. The real number of current “speakers” is likely closer to a hundred thousand, but a hundred thousand speakers is still enough for a diverse, worldwide community. You won't find a lot of Esperanto-speakers around the world, but you will find them almost everywhere you go.

This wide-spread community comes together for many different events throughout the year. Some are primarly educational, like the three-week-long summer course in San Diego or the week-long Summer Esperanto University in Barlastone, England. Some are youth-based, like the World Esperanto Youth Congress, which often features several touring Esperanto rock bands. Individual countries host their own meetings, usually offering a blend of Esperanto-language and national-language programs.

The largest of all the yearly events is the World Congress of Esperanto. The most recent have been held in Japan, Sweden, China, Lithuania, and Brazil, with upcoming congresses in the Netherlands and Poland. To each of these far flung destinations come thousands of Esperanto-speakers, who meet not just to speak Esperanto, but to explore another country, another culture.

I went to the World Congress of Esperanto in Zagreb, Croatia, in 2001. I'd only been studying Esperanto for a little over a year, and I wasn't sure how much I'd be able to participate in the events of the world congress. But I soon saw that I'd already learned enough to have some amazing experiences. Some days, I hung around the main conference halls, listening to poetry readings and oratory competitions. I helped a Chinese journalist send reports back to his hometown paper and set up interviews for Radio Polonia, a Polish radio station that broadcasts daily in Esperanto. I took a crash course in Serbo-Croatian from some locals and met up with a French couple and some Japanese ladies I'd met at the summer program. I took several half-day trips (all with Esperanto guides) to the old city of Zagreb and the castles and churches on the surrounding hills, and I took a day-long “art, pastry, and brandy tour.” Our bus took us from village to village – each stop featuring its own museum of local artists' work, as well as the local pastry specialty and the local spirit of choice. Our last stop was a traditional forest camp, where about twenty children in native costume played folk songs – the Japanese ladies folded origami cranes to give the children afterwards -- and their parents cooked traditional goulash and sausage and fish recipes over a bonfire. I'm not sure a similar day would have been available to a non Esperanto-speaker.

Esperanto was created in a particular time and place, for a Polish city that was deeply divided on cultural and ethnic lines. Zamenhof hoped to bridge these divides with a universal language. Our world, one hundred and thirty years later, is vastly different than his, but remarkably, the cultural and ethnic divisions are still present – even heightened, because we are much more likely to come in contact not just with a handful of different cultures, but with a globe-ful.

One hundred and thirty years ago, there were no cars, airplanes, study abroad programs, weekend bus tours of Paris, satellite news, European Unions, United Nations, or international mega-corporations, like our own Coca-Cola, selling in every country on Earth. Our wars are world-wide, and our economies are global, just like our problems. The solutions have to be global, too -- we need honest, open communication between equals, not just the linguistically advantaged shouting down at the less advantaged.

And perhaps most strikingly, a hundred and thirty years ago, there was no Internet, no world-wide web. Now, it's just as easy to communicate internationally as it is to communicate with people down the street. An e-mail is nearly instantaneous in both cases. With the physical barriers to communication removed, it's just the language barriers that remain, and Esperanto is helping people to bridge those barriers in a way that Zamenhof never would have dreamed.

Esperanto-USA, which is a membership organization for Esperanto-speakers in the United States, is taking advantage of the Internet to get the word out about Esperanto. One of my biggest achievements as a board member has been to run an online advertising campagin through Google's AdWords program – these online ad campaigns are also part of my day job; I do advertising and web sites for a few Lawrenceville companies. Esperanto-USA is a registered chairitable organization, so the ad campaign is actually free (and a big tax write-off for Google). It's a great way for Esperanto-USA to get national exposure despite our small budget.

But there's a need for more awareness about languages and lingustic diversity -- not just online, but also right here, on the home front, in Gwinnett County. We're experiencing a boom in diversity that I think is tremendously enriching us. I went to Richards Middle School from 1994 to 1996. I remember my fellow students looking and thinking pretty much like I did. My wife is a teacher at Richards now, and just among her students, there are five different languages spoken at home, and there a dozen more spoken to some degree within the school. This is a tremendous opportunity for all students to learn more about people and cultures that are different from their own, and in a more honest and engaging way than reading from a “cultural diversity” textbook. As these children grown up in an increasingly global and connected society, they will benefit greatly from their experience with diversity. They won't be limited by what's familiar to them, but will be courageous enough to converse with the world.

Perhaps Esperanto needs one more generation to really flourish, one more generation that has grown up never knowing a time when you couldn't get on a plane and fly anywhere in the world, or couln't send an e-mail to someone on the other side of the world just as easier as to someone on the other side of the street. For me, Esperanto is a great hobby and a good cause; for my children, it may be an economic necessity, a requirement for global citizenship.

Fortunately, Esperanto-speakers don't have to wait until some future date to make use of Esperanto. Esperanto-speakers already have a thriving, unique, world-wide culture that is open to all – a culture that exists not only in the dozens of meeting and conferences and concerts and cultural events held each year, but also online.

Though it was created in a world that in some ways was radically different from ours, Esperanto is still incredibly relevant today. Many people are surprised when they hear that Esperanto is over a hundred years old, because it seems tailor-made for our modern world of global communication and commerce. Esperanto still feels fresh, relevant, and exciting, and that is a testament to its value and potential, for now and for the future.