Bonvolu al blogo de Haroldo de Esperanto.

Some of you may recall that last summer I went to Taiwan where I wrote a weekly Letter from Tai pei. On the side, I also studied Chinese and learned more than I ever wanted to know about the Chinese culture.

This summer I have elected to study Esperanto.

Esperanto, the language of no where.

I identify with it.

In 1887 a Polish Jew named Leyzer Zamenhof who lived in Bialystok, Poland ( at that time part of Czarist Russia) published a little book that introduced a new language which he called Esperanto. Zamenhof lived in a city where the inhabitants spoke Yiddish, Russian, Polish, Lithuanian and German. Few of them could communicate with each other. A lot of misunderstanding arose because of this. Prejudice, hatred, discrimination. It was a tower of Babel. They just couldn't talk with each other but they certainly had a lot of ideas about the others. Those ideas, for the most part, were not complimentary.

Zamenhof's language, which was largely based on the roots of Western languages, was deliberately designed to be very easy to learn.

It had 16 rules of grammar and was completely regular. It was a linguistic dream come true and was enthusiastically embraced by people everywhere.

Before World War Two there were many Esperantists, as the devotees of the language described themselves. Both Hitler and Stalin aggressively persecuted ( ie. killed) them. Hitler mentions Esperanto in his magnum opus, Mein Kamf. Stalin called it a language of spies. Other than that they had no problem with Esperanto.

English is now the de facto international language. However, only 5% of the world's population are native English speakers. Another 5% fluently speak English. Of the rest, a few can communicate in English but never comfortably. They feel at a real disadvantage when speaking English. Of course, no one really bothers to learn their languages.

Imagine that you are an educated Chinese speaker and that your English is so so. You can read a bit but your spoken English isn't that great. You are unable to really say what you want the way you want to. You are always at a disadvantage when speaking English. It is not a pleasant experience. At the least, you may feel frustrated and embarrassed each time you attempt to speak with native English-speakers.

With Esperanto everyone is on the same level. No one is compelled to speak some other culture's language. It is a pleasant experience once you have even a rudimentary command of the language.

When I was in junior high school in New Jersey I discovered Esperanto. I became the president of the Esperanto Club. I also was the only member. I was unable to speak a single sentence in the language.

After many years I decided to learn the language. A few months ago I began to study and practice speaking a bit. A few weeks ago I went to Canada where I happened upon a group of Canadian Esperantists in Toronto. I spent about two days with them off and on. I was in heaven ( linguistically) surrounded by very sweet people who had all gone to the trouble of learning this language.

Anyway, this letter is an attempt to share my experience of what it is like to be in a setting ( University of California - San Diego) for a three week course to learn Esperanto.

Tonight I met much of our group. Thirty students from around the world have assembled here to live, speak, eat and study in Esperanto for three weeks. My letter will give you my take on this experience.