In the 19th century, a young man by the name of L.
L. Zamenhov grew up in a small European town. Four languages were
spoken in this town and if you wanted to communicate with every
citizen, you either had to know their language, or they had to
know yours. Zamenhov realized that not only did this create a
communication problem, but it also created groupings of people
sharing a common language. Each group would consider themselves
as 'us' and all others as 'them'. He realized that if everyone
would speak the same language then many of society's problems
could be lessened and perhaps mankind could learn to live in peace
with one another. However, the world could not be told to learn
Polish, because only the Poles would support that idea. And the
world could not be told to learn Chinese, because only the Chinese
would agree to it. What was needed, he decided, was a simple language,
easily learned, that owed no allegiance to any people or country.
Therefore, everyone could learn his or her native language and
also learn the common language. In this way everyone could retain
pride in their own culture and language, and at the same time,
everyone could communicate with everyone else.
With this in mind, Zamenhov spent many years creating what we
call a 'planned language'. When he had it ready, his work was
published and he renounced all royalties for the book, declaring
instead that the language was free to all of mankind. He used
as his pen name for the book, "Dr. Esperanto". The word
esperanto means 'one who hopes', because he hoped that the book
would be a boon to all the world. The language became known by
the author's pen name and that is why it is called Esperanto.
The ease of learning the language is remarkable. Many people believe
that the average person, with no knowledge of any language save
their native one, can learn to become conversational in only one
hundred hours of study. It is also said that a student of languages
can achieve the same result in ten to twelve hours!
How is this possible? It is because the language is incredibly regular. An example are the verbs. In English we can say "I sit today, but I sat yesterday. I eat today, but I ate yesterday. I hope today, but I hoped yesterday. I lead today, but I led yesterday. Do you see how in each of these cases the past tense is formed in a different manner from the other three? Well, in Esperanto, ALL past tenses are formed in exactly the same way. ALL future tenses share the same formation. ALL present tenses share the same formation. So, if you learn the proper ending for each of these three tenses, you then know how to form the correct past, present, and future tense of ANY Esperanto verb!
Other items are: all singular nouns end in O. All plural nouns end in OJ. All adjectives end in A (or, if modifying a plural noun, end in AJ). All adverbs end in E. You see? Very simple to learn. And, get ready for this now, ALL letters have ONE specific way of pronouncing them and ALL letters are pronounced! This means that if you see a word, you can pronounce it. And, if you hear a word, you can spell it!
There are only 16 rules of grammar in Esperanto, and we just covered several of them! So, I assure you, it is an easy language to learn.
How about the words, you ask? Well, most of the words are taken from the Latin and thus are quite easy for an English speaker to recognize. A domo is a house (remember the word dormitory?). A hundo is a dog (hound). A homo is a man (Homo sapiens). Kato is a cat. You can quickly build up an impressive vocabulary. And just to help you even more, here is another of the secrets of the ease of learning Esperanto. Esperanto uses a series of affixes (suffixes and prefixes) to modify or build words. The prefix 'mal' for example, means "the opposite of". If bona is the adjective for good, then malbona is the adjective for bad! You see, by learning that one little prefix, you now have the ability to create the opposite of any other word you learn! If you learn a thousand words, then by using mal you have doubled your vocabulary to 2000 words!
So, you say, sure, the language appears to be easy to learn, but why should I learn it? What good will it do me? Good questions! Let me try to answer those for you.
In a study done in California, some years ago, a large school which housed a number of fifth grade classes was chosen and some of these classes were taught one language (I think it was French or Spanish, but I can't remember) and the other classes were taught Esperanto. At the end of one school year, the students in the first set of classes were speaking only very basic French (or Spanish, I still can't remember) but the Esperanto language students were creating simple poetry. For anyone who has ever tried to learn a foreign language, I am sure you are aware of what it takes in terms of language knowledge to be able to write poetry in a foreign language. Then for TWO more years, the first students studied the language they started with and the Esperanto students STARTED studying that same language. At the end of the total of three years, the two groups were tested and it was discovered that the Esperanto students spoke French (or Spanish; dang I wish I could remember!) better, after only two years of study, than did the students with three years of that same language! The experts scratched their heads, hemmed and hawwed, and finally decided that the reason was twofold. First, the Esperanto students had developed the self-confidence to be sure they could learn another language because they had already proved it to themselves by learning Esperanto. And second, because Esperanto is so regular, they were able to better learn what grammar is and to apply that knowledge of grammar to this next language. So, the Esperanto students did not lose in this deal, but instead they gained! They could speak three languages to the other students two and they could speak them better. So, the moral is, if you want to learn a language, learn Esperanto first. It will save you time and improve your ability. It will also add another language to your repertoire.
But what if you only learn Esperanto? What good is that? Well, there are estimates of speakers of Esperanto ranging from 800,000 to about ten million people. No good survey exists and the definition of a speaker differs. Must a person be fluent to be a speaker? Must they only need to be able to "get along"? But, the point is, there are, apparently, at least 800,000 people who presently speak the language to some degree or another, and probably a whole lot more than that. You can find Esperanto speakers in nearly every city and country. You can obtain pen pals from around the world. You and your spouse/kids/friends/etc can learn the language and communicate right in front of your parents/spouse/friends/etc.
This could be a lot of fun! But, more than just fun, there is an Esperanto organization called Pasporta Servo, which means Passport Service. If you, an Esperanto speaker, contact them and tell them that you will be traveling in, say, France, Spain, and Portugal, they will give you contact names and numbers of people in those areas who speak Esperanto AND are willing to put you up for the night and maybe even give you breakfast in the morning! And many times for free! Why? Well, because they get to meet people from all around the world and the most it would cost them is a breakfast! And if they are free the day you are there, you might even get a personal guide to show you the sights. Hard to beat a deal like that, huh?
There are many Esperanto organizations on the Internet and they always welcome those who are willing to learn. There are even free Internet courses in the language! There are books, tapes, magazines, newspapers, even radio broadcasts in Esperanto. There are many social, business, professional, and religious organizations with groups who speak Esperanto. With the Internet's ability to disseminate knowledge, the numbers of users of the Esperanto language is getting greater every day. Grab onto the wave and join us!