In the late 19th century, a young
Jewish physician named Ludwik Zamenhof became deeply troubled by fractions
between people in his home city of Bialystok, Poland.
Zamenhof noted that Bialystok was
populated by four distinct ethnic groups at the time: Russians, Poles, Germans
and Jews. He attributed much of the unrest between these groups to their
inability to understand each other. He felt language diversity was the greatest
cause of separation between groups of people.
So what did this peace seeking idealist
do? He constructed a new language. Zamenhof used his own linguistic talent to
create a neutral communication tool that’s easy to learn, with
an underlying goal of fostering peace and international understanding.
Zamenhof’s language, known as Esperanto, now has an estimated 2 million users in around 115
countries.
Find out more about Esperanto at www.uea.org.
It's a great ideal.However, I believe most linguists and anthropologists think Esperanto ultimately fails because it is an artificial language, not associated closely with a culture, and not spoken anywhere as a first language. So it’s an idea that’s good in theory, but not in practice.
ReplyDeleteCompared with other constructed languages though, Esperanto is one of the more successful because it borrows so much from existing languages, so is relatively easy to learn.
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting constructed language, invented for exactly the same reason as Esperanto, is Blissymbols:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blissymbols
This language uses only symbols and has no relation to any spoken language. Consequently, it hasn't been too successful as a global language.
But decades after its invention it was picked up as a tool to help children with disabilities communicate, so it gained a life of its own. It's now known as Blissymbolics:
http://www.blissymbolics.org/index.php/about-blissymbolics.
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