Esperanto with Andrew

It has shown up on my dual lingo one day, and it seems like such a fascinating and simple project to pick up. I was enamored with the philosophy behind it, so I generally spent a few months on and off trying to learn it. I was probably a decade ago at this point, so I don't remember too much about it, but the connection was there. And it's really because I've been exploring this topic for this episode that I ended up going back and dabbling in some of it again.

I've learned recently actually somewhat of a connection between Esperanto and anarchism, so I stayed the time to explore the origins of Esperanto. It's anarchist connections, it's flaws, and its future. My name is Andrew Siege and I'm here once again with it's me.

hope really analyzed the whole project. According to a BBC article written by Jose Luis Benarredondo, he lived as a Polish Jew in the multicultural Russian Empire in a time rife with racial and national conflict. He was trying to promote peace and understanding, and he saw an international language as a ways to do that, with a flag of green and white, the colors of hope and peace. For his efforts, Zamenhoff himself was nominated fourteen times for the

Nobel Peace Prize. He genuine believed that if we all shared a common second language quote education, ideals, convictions, aims would be the same too, and all nations would be united in a common brotherhood end quote. Esperanto was created in a time when modernism was on the rise and the idea of rationality and science was being used to

quote un quote optimize the world. When it was featured in Paris's Exposition Universal in nineteen hundred, the language caught on amongst the French intelligensia, who saw it as more optimal than the messy and the logical realm of natural languages. Because it was so easy, all words and sentences being built from sixteen basic rules that could fit on a paper, and the language lacked the confusing exceptions and special rules or other languages, it was once seen as the language

of the future. Esperanto made its full fledged public debut in nineteen oh five when seven Hoff published The Fundamental Esperanto, which laid down the basic principles of languages structure and formation. Esperanto designed to be simple, logical, and accessible, drawn from the influence of Romance, Germanic, and Slavic languages and its construction. The orthography is phonetic, so all the words are spelled as pronounced, and the grammar is so straightforward. There's a

consistent word ending for nouns, pluralization, adjectives, and verbs. But although simple, it can convey complexity. There's a lot of suffixes you can add to give degrees of meaning, and there's room for compound words too. It's European focus to be the target of criticism later on, but it actually ended up being picked up in some unusual places anyway.

Zamenhoff translated literature and wrote original verse, and after years of effort, there were speakers to be found across Europe, the Americas, China, and Japan.

folks who are raised speaking Esperanto. Oh wow, yeah, it's really really really cool.

group holidays, and regional meetings. There are several radio stations that podcast programs in Esperanto, and Esperanto has even been used by couples of different origins as a family language. It's cool, funny enough. As with every language, even an

aspiring universal language, it has since had its offshoots. I saw on Wikipedia that nearly a year after Salmonhoff's creation of Esperanto, in eighteen eighty eight, Dutch author J. Brachmann proposed a few changes to language, like combining the end in for the adjective and adverb, change in conjugations, introducing more Latin roots, getting rid of the diacritics, and so on. This language would be called Mundolinko, and it was the

first of many offshoots from Esperanto proper. Even zalmon Hooff would try to reform the language at one point in eighteen ninety four, but it was rejected by the Esperanto community and eventually even himself. These reforms would later be used to develop Edo, another attempt at universal language, with far less success. I also learned view Wikipedia there was an attempt to make Esperanto more complex by introducing Cherokee components called policepo created by a Native American activist named

Billy ray Walden. Esperanto speakers continue to play the language in all sorts of ways. To this day. Esperanto is an evolved in language and Samanhoff himself is honored as part of this global Esperanto culture. They celebrate his birthday the fifteenth of December. There are statues and streets and plaques remembering him worldwide, and even an asteroid bears his name.

At one point, according to the BBC article, there was an effort to establish an Esperanto speaking land called ami Kejo, which would have been a three point five square kilometer territory between the Netherlands, Germany and France. Yeah. Nice, three point five square kilometers.

accent for this section. But just imagine, like the most French Frenchman reading this, that Finns or Albanians but such a proper gander is comprehensible. Their dialect has no chance of imposing itself on the universe. They need a second language just as well Esperanto as any other. But that French people or English or Germans could have let themselves be allured by this linguistic bolsheviser that is far more extraordinary.

It is nevertheless a fact that Esperanto, which was born twenty five years ago and ought to have died through ridicule, continues to have disciples in Europe. Every year, in a different capital they hold a congress at which they are not very numerous, but where they make a great noise. They get so excited that quite recently the Minister of Public Instruction had to address a circular to all the French educational resorts to warn them against the danger of Esperanto.

An article in the Washington Herald on that same day explained the danger, at the least according to the Ministry of Public Instruction. The reason for this order, according to certain school teachers, is that teaching of a language as easy as Esperanto endangers the existence of the French language and thus the national solidarity of the country. They consent that children will nationally take to an easy language is Esperanto, and in that time French and English would perish, and

that the literary standard of the world would be debased. Furthermore, they argue that a national language plays a predominant part in maintaining national unity, and points to Poland and Lorraine as examples. Esperanto is an artificial language of no real merit. Right to one professor, it has no very definite origin, and what it aims to draw the scattered people of the world together? Does it doth rather tend to denationalization? End quote.

repression all at once kind of killed Esperanto's momentum. Today, despite its goal of being a truly international language, Esperanto's global reatremain's une fun well. It has made some strides in recent years, it's still underrepresented in many parts of Africa and Asia. The majority of Esperanto speakers today are in Europe. Those development outside of Europe deserves some attention, as Esperanto manage to levermarque in China, Iran, Togo, and

the Democratic Republic of Congo. But the response to Esperanto historically should give you an indication as to how anarchists must have felt about Esperanto as an internationalist or anti nationalist movement. Anarchism was very supportive of the Esperanto project. When running through the timeline could to see Wilfirth's Esperanto and Anarchism. One of the earliest anarchist Esperanto groups was

founded in Stockholm in nineteen oh five. The same year, the anarchist Pull Up with a Lot founded the monthly magazine Esperanto. Similar groups suonnimmersed in Bulgaria, China and other countries. In nineteen oh six, anarchists anarchist Synicolis founded an international association, Paco Libreco Peace Freedom, which published the Internacia Socia Review.

By nineteen ten, Paco Libireco merged with Esperantista Lawari Staro to form Liberiga Stello star Liberation, strengthening anarchist Esperanto networks. The nineteen oh seven International Anarchist Congress in Amsterdam formally addressed their role of Esperanto in international communication. Subsequent anarchist congresses continue to pass resolutions advocating for Esperanto's use within the movement. By nineteen fourteen, these anarchists esperantist organizations had

published extensive revolutionary literature, including anarchist texts in Esperanto. Around this time, correspondence between European and Japanese anarchists became more active, facilitated by Esperanto. In Prague, Eugene Adam proposed the formation of Sena Sisa Associo Tutmunda the SAT or the World in National Association. Unlike other Esperanto associations, SAT rejected nationalism wholesale and sought to create a transnational class conscious workers movement.

To quote why is there an Esperanto Workers Movement by Gary Michel, SAT was not meant to usurp the role of political parties by engaging in political struggles directly, but was to be a cultural association engaged in workers education, one that would help to break down national and ethnic barriers between workers by involving them in practical collective activity, bringing workers into contact, freeing them from the shackles of nationalism.

SAT's ideas, and especially the ideas of its a nationalist faction, were an early statement of an idea that has more recently come to be known as globalization from below. So in August nineteen twenty one, seventy nine workers from fifteen countries gathered in Prague to formally established SAT. By nineteen twenty nine to nineteen thirty, SAT had grown to six five hundred and twenty four members across forty two countries,

reaching its peak influence. The use of Esperanto flourished in German workers' movements between nineteen twenty and nineteen thirty three. By nineteen thirty two, the Workers Esperanto League had four thousand members, leading to Esperanto being called the Workers Latin. But as you can imagine, this was not to last.

By the time Hitler came into power. The Scientific Anarchist Library of the International Language or ISAB, was founded in the USSR in nineteen twenty three, publishing anarchist works by Kropotkin and a. Borivoi in Esperanto. This also would not

last the Great Purge. The Berlin group of anarchistyniclist Esperantis creeated the second Congress of the International Workers Association in Amsterdam in nineteen twenty five and reported that Esperanto had become so integrated into their movement that an international libertarian Esperantist organization had formed. This likely referred to the TLEs the World League of Titless Esperantists, which later merged with SAT.

Esperanto was also popping off amongst anarchists and socialists in Korea, China, and Japan. Liushifu, a key figure in Chinese anarchism, began publishing La Vocho de la Popolo The Voice of the People in nineteen thirteen, the first anarchist periodical in China. His work relied heavily on information from Internacia Socier Review

and helped popularize esperanto in China. Japanese anarchists and socialists, as I mentioned, were among the earliest esperantists in the country, but faced heavy persecution and sadly between imperial Japan, Francoist Spain, Nazi Germany, and Stalinist Russia. The rise of tatalitarian regimes lead into World War II largely suppressed the anarchist esperanto movement. After the war, the Paras Anarchist Esperanto group was the first to resume organized work, launching the publication Sen Santano

in nineteen forty six. Most anarchist esperantists have since been organized within SAT, with an anarchist faction maintaining its autonomy. In nineteen sixty nine, this faction began publishing the Liberal Sana Bultano, later a day in the Liberate Sana Ligillo. By nineteen ninety seven, SAT membership had dwindled to fewer than fifteen one hundred members. The initial radical vision of SAT was weakened by political shifts and the growing dominance

of English as a global lingua franca. The only separation between SAT and mainstream Esperanto organizations was a response to bourgeois political neutrality, but it also contributed to its marginalization, and today the anarchist Esperanto movement exists largely as a niche within SAT. So what can we say about the

role of Esperanto today. Well, one of the more interesting currents I found in the Esperanto community mentioned by Firth is Raumismo, a philosophy named after the Finnish city of Rauma, where a youth congress in nineteen eighty helped define this approach. Braumismo views Esperanto speakers as a kind of linguistic diaspora, a cultural group bound together by a shared language rather

than an national identity. Instead of focusing on making Esperanto a universal second language, browingy storage embrace it as just one language among many, valuing its use in literature, culture and everyday communication without any grand ideological ambitions. But it's possible, Esperanto, who can still play a role in facilities in exchange

and collaboration between people of different linguistic backgrounds. A German anarchist once lamented the barriers international understanding, quoted in Food's article, more or less in isolation from one another, we work and fight without engaging in exchange about our victories and defeats, and with thoughts supporting and encouraging one another. Intensifying contact above the regional level with people having similar ideas and aims should be an important component of our work in

order to make effective, active solidarity possible. And that's the trouble. Even today. Linguistic barriers hinder international cooperation. Groups struggle to maintain foreign language correspondence, organize multilingual meetings, or find interpreters. Instead, communication tends to rely on chance. You know someone in a group happens to speak a certain language that determines who they can connect with. But when those key individuals

move on, those connections can have fallen apart. So I get the appeal, I mean, wouldn't it be beneficial for these movements and for any interest group working across language barriers to have a relatively easy to learn, politically neutral means of communication. Major languages like English, Spanish or French don't fully solve the problem, as they come with historical

baggage and imbalances influency levels. Esperanto, on the other hand, provides a more equitable solution because everybody is from this starts and from the same point. Since it isn't tied to any one nation, it avoids the poodynamics that arise when non native speakers must conform to the linguistic norms

of dominant cultures. Unlike English, which often privileges native speakers and places others as perpetual learners, Esperanto fosters a more level playin field English like a global linguid franca right now, but a lot of people leave school without ever developing an effluency to navigate an English dominated world, and English is not the easiest language to learn. Esperanto, regardless of weather ever, becomes a global standard, offers an alternative path.

It can help people overcome language learning anxieties, as particularly those who feel disempowered by additional educational systems, and it can inspire an interest in language itself. If you've ever met an Esperanto speaker, you know that they are very passionate about linguistics. More often than not, many of the speakers go on to study linguistics, language politics, or even lesser known languages. It's also a great way to develop

translation skills in a friendly, cooperative environment. For monolingual English speakers, using Esperanto can be an eye opening experience. It puts them the shoes of those who never got to rely on their native language in international settings. Rather than view an Esperanto as a competitor to other languages, perhaps a more productive approach is to see it as a tool for promoting multilingualism, cultural exchange, and a more cosmopolitan mindset

within the Esperanto speaking The community. Opinions and its future vary widely, but one thing is clear. The question of how we communicate a cross linguistic divides is still very much alive, and Esperanto offers but one possible answer. However, as I alluded to Ilier, Esperanto is not without its critiques, as covered by Firth, Let's start with one of the

most frequent critiques, Esperanto is an artificial language. Unlike the so called natural languages, which evolved organically over time, Esperanto is deliberately constructed. But here's the thing. Since the rise of the nation state, the line between natural and artificial languages has become increasingly blurry. Many national languages, like standard German or Standard French, have been shaped by deliberate standardization,

legal regulations, and media influence. In that sense, every language is to some degree engineered. Authors, storytellers, and ordinary speakers continuously influenced language development, meaning that Esperanto is not as different. After all, it does continue to evolve. And here's where I think. James Scott had a rather negative characterization of Esperanto as a purely high modernist endeavor, as though all esperandos sought to make Esperanto the official international language in

se Meca State. He claims that Esperanto was created to replace the dialects and vernaculars of Europe. But such was never the case. It was always meant to be a language used to facilitate communication. There was more than one motivation of Esperando's use, and boil in such an exercise and human creativity, and attempted a connection down to just

that status focus to me seems needlessly reductive. He also calls it quote an exceptionally thin language without any of the resonances, connotations ready metaphor literatures, oral histories, idioms, and traditions of practical use that any social embedded language already had end quote, which may be true when I began, but it's certainly not true now was over a century of use and evolution.

e're centric in the historical and political reach. Esperanto, in contrast, has evolved through influence from non European languages as well, particularly through its development in China and Japan. It's a glassative word formation, a feature more common in languages like Turkish or Japanese, and what some call the Hungarian period of Esperanto's history. So while Esperanto has European roots, its global evolution challenges the idea that it is exclusively European

in character. Another critique is that Esperanto is sexist. The argument goes that because feminine forms are typically created by adding in to a base form like laboristo worker becoming Labrestino female worker, the language assumes masculinity as a default, and while this is a valid concern, Esperanto differs from any European languages in a key way. It is not assigned grammatical gender to inanimate objects. A chair isn't arbitrarily

feminine like in French or masculine like in German. However, in practice, gender bias can still creep in the basic form of noun is often assumed to be masculine, even though Esperanto allows for explicitly male forms as well, like in any language, reducing linguistic sexism in Esperanto requires conscious effort in how people actually use it.

to as latinx. But like that's kind of a word that I struggle to say in Spanish, like Latin eki or like is it latiniques, And so there's this very kind of clumsy gender neutral form which seems to be easier to say in English. Spanish.

neutral form, which could also happen in any language. Right Like, just because Esperanto has a certain form doesn't mean that people within that language who don't feel represented by them couldn't create forms within that language that better represent them exactly. And it's easier because you don't have like a government telling you you can't use it or whatever exactly exactly.

rise of the Internet changed the game for Esperanto. What was once difficult to learn and use daily has become far more accessible. For example, Esperanto is actually one of the most overrepresented languages on the Internet. The Esperanto Wikipedia has around two hundred and forty thousand articles, putting it in the same league as languages spoken by tens of

millions of people, like Turkish and Korean. Google and Facebook have offered Esperanto versions of their platforms for years, and language learning services like due Lingo have helped introduce it to a new generation of learners like myself. In fact, the people who developed Esperanto courses for du Lingo did so voluntarily, simply because they believed in the languages potential.

Esperanto has fostered a unique online community, and there's even a free hospitality network called passporta Servo where Esperanto speakers can stay with each other around the world, no money required, just a shared language and a common philosophy of global connection. Not everyone learns Esperanto for the same reasons. Some people seek intellectual challenge, some want a sense of unique community,

and others are drawn to its political neutrality. As communications lecturer Sara Marino points out in the BBC article, people engage in Esperanto for many different motivations, whether it's personal fulfillment, social inclusion, civic engagement, or just the simple joy of learning a new language. It's important and not to reduce Esperanto learners to stereotype. Their reasons for participating are as diverse as the language itself. So where does Esperanto stand today?

It may never replace English as the global lingua franca, but perhaps there was never the point. Instead, it serves us a tool for promoting bilingualism, foster and cross cultural connections, and encouraging people to think differently about language itself. And I think that is worthy of Atoinner Award. That's what I have for today. All power to all the people. Peace.