Esperanto

(art by SketchyMouse!) Saluton, miaj amikoj! Languages and language learning has been an interest of mine for a long time, and one language in particular has caught my eye for a while now. Esperanto. You've PROBABLY heard about it, one way or another. It's been present in various forms of media over the years, typically as the butt of a joke. But it is certainly a very real language, and still has an active community of speakers and learners! I even use it as a language for one of my characters, Rayek!

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So what is Esperanto, exactly? Esperanto is an artificial language created by Polish-Jewish ophthalmologist L.L. Zamenhof, with the first book about it (Unua Libro) published in 1887! The name originates from the pseudonym Zamenhof used when publishing the book, which was Doktoro Esperanto. Thus the name 'Esperanto' was cast onto the newly created language. The name Esperanto translates into 'one who hopes.' There is an estimated two million speakers worldwide as of 2015!

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So what's the point of making this language? Zamenhof grew up in an area filled with many different types of people, all speaking their own language, creating division between the groups. Esperanto is created for the purpose of being an easy-to-learn, consistent, and international language, to enable communication between all people through one language. In Unua Libro, Zamenhof listed three goals of the language: 1. "To render the study of the language so easy as to make its acquisition mere play to the learner." 2. "To enable the learner to make direct use of his knowledge with persons of any nationality, whether the language be universally accepted or not; in other words, the language is to be directly a means of international communication." 3. "To find some means of overcoming the natural indifference of mankind, and disposing them, in the quickest manner possible, and en masse, to learn and use the proposed language as a living one, and not only in last extremities, and with the key at hand."

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Some basics! As Esperanto was designed to be easier than any naturally-created language, all words follow the same rules (there are few exceptions)! All nouns end with -o All adjectives end with -a All adverbs end with -e All verb infinitives end with -i All plurals (for both noun and adj.) end with -j The direct object (and it's adj.) ends with -n The affix -in specifies female gender

Pronouns: I : mi You : vi He : li She : ŝi It : ĝi They (pl.) : ili Thou : ci There is no singular they! Zamenhof advised simply using ĝi, although some speakers use ci or ri, but this is not commonly accepted. Pronouns become possessive by using the suffix -a.

Verb conjugations go as follows: Past tense: -is Present tense: -as Future tense: -os

Pronounciation is also designed to be simple, as each letter is designed to be pronounced a certain way. A full pronunciation guide can be found here (https://goo.gl/geu2ka), but here are the most important to note! r is trilled or tapped! j is pronounced like y in yell! ĉ is pronounced like ch in chat! ĝ is pronounced like the g in giant! ĵ is pronounced like s in pleasure! ŝ is pronounced like sh in she ĥ is pronounced like the Scottish loch (a more rare letter!)

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Sample sentences!

Saluton! Estas plezuro renkonti vin! -- Hello! It's a pleasure to meet you! La hispanan estas bela lingvo! -- Spanish is a beautiful language! Mi parolas esperanton kaj la anglan, kaj vi? -- I speak Esperanto and English, and you? Ido estas ido de Esperanto. -- Ido is a descendant of Esperanto.

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Esperanto resources! There are some great resources to research the language! Duolingo currently has a course for the language, and a more traditional online course is on Lernu.net! Telegramo.org is a site that lists many Esperanto Telegram groups! (Also, me. I'm far from an expert, but as the resident Esperantist I'm happy to answer questions and help to the best of my ability.)