I encountered this news story a little while ago during my periodic voyages across the Internet. The piece is a bit outdated (it’s from 2005), but it does raise a valid question: what happened to Esperanto? There are still quite a few speakers worldwide, but I have a feeling that Esperanto does not enter the public consciousness as often as it should.
Another, more recent news story, suggests that Esperanto could soon make a comeback. Apparently there is an effort in the UK to incorporate Esperanto into grade school curricula. I think it’s a fine idea, especially since Esperanto borrows many of its roots from other languages. As a consequence, a lot of the words you learn in Esperanto help with other languages. For example, take Spanish. The preposition “with” in Spanish is “con;” in Esperanto, it’s “kun.” The Spanish verb “to run” is “correr;” Esperanto, “kuri.”
But, setting the case for teaching Esperanto aside for a moment, we might want to think about why Esperanto is fading from the public eye. I would imagine that some people are more familiar with Elvish, the invented language from J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” saga, than they are with Esperanto! Maybe it isn’t in enough popular culture. Or perhaps, as civitanoj usonaj, we don’t encounter enough foreign languages in our daily life to start thinking about how useful communication can be.
Any thoughts? How could Esperanto be promoted? Why is it not well-enough known?
Comments:
Zhang:
Ineteresa artiklo. Mi, propre, pensas, ke kauxzo estas manko de junaj aktivuloj. Kiel lingvo aktivas sen suficxaj junaj subtantoj? Kontraste, se multe da junuloj apliki nian lingvon por siaj laboro, lernado, ludado kaj komunikado en siaj cxiutagvivoj, kial ni cxagreni konatigxon de Esperanto?
Do, la sxlosilo estas interesi junulojn.
En Sichuan, Cxinio, la surloka asocio ofte okazis kelkajn aktivojn, (http:sea.nialingvo.com) ecx ili orgazinis siajn bicikloteamon, rokmuzikan bandon kaj tertreman savantan teamon. La amuzaj aktivoj interesas gejunulojn.
🙂 Mi esperas ke pli kaj pli usonaj amikoj aligxos al Esperantujo. Elkoran bondeziron!
russ:
Spanish “con” is the English preposition “with” (Esperanto “kun”), not the English conjunction “and” (Esperanto “kaj”).
Lex:
Good catch! I must have been a bit zoned when I wrote that. It’s been fixed – thank you kindly for the reminder!
A young Floridian:
Well, I have to say I only found out about Esperanto at the tail end of 2008 or the dawn of 2009. I honestly dont know how I first came across the language.
I was looking for French and Spanish lessons online and I remember I read like one or two paragraphs in which it explained the premise/purpose and origin of Esperanto and since I’d been dreaming of such a language for the past 7 years, I was immediately taken with the idea. So I spent a few days looking into Asperat, Osperinta, etc, until I finally got a nudge in the right direction via Googles “did you mean…Esperanza, Esperanto…”