Given my personal interest in languages and culture, it seems only appropriate to mention L.L. Zamenhof as I follow the Jewish plight across Eastern Europe. For those unfamiliar, Zamenhof is the creator of the Esperanto language who found his home in Warsaw. Born in Poland (formerly the Russian Empire) in 1859, Zamenhof grew up keenly aware of his Jewish heritage. His childhood town was home to four major ethnic groups (Jewish, Polish, German, and Belarusian), between which ethnically fueled quarrels often arose. In addition, from the year of his birth until 1905, anti-Jewish pogroms ran rampant in the Russian Empire. These factors not only encouraged Zamenhof to join the Zionist movement for a time, but no doubt inspired his pursuit of a language which everyone could easily learn and speak. In his view, "the main reason for the hate and prejudice lay in mutual misunderstanding, caused by the lack of one common language that would play the role of a neutral communication tool between people of different ethnic and linguistic backgrounds" (wikipedia.com). Esperanto was Zamenhof's response to this age-old conflict – it was intended as a way of promoting the peaceful coexistence of different people and cultures.
While Zamenhof himself wasn't around to see the horrors of the holocaust, his children were – Adam, Sofia, and Lidia all died during the holocaust. And their Jewish heritage was not the only factor that may have played a role in their persecution. Hitler (as well as Stalin and other totalitarian leaders) saw Esperanto as a language of conspiracy and even wrote to this effect in Mein Kampf:
"As long as the Jew has not become the master of the other peoples, he must speak their languages whether he likes it or not, but as soon as they became his slaves, they would all have to learn a universal language (Esperanto, for instance!), so that by this additional means the Jews could more easily dominate them!"
Despite the persecution, Esperanto still survives boasting more than a thousand native speakers and hundreds of thousands of fluent speakers (some estimates as high as 8 million) worldwide. But more important, Zamenhof's pacifistic philosophy of tolerance survived the holocaust and continues to live on through the Esperanto language.
I was pleased to see this account of Zamenhof's language which I speak. Esperanto hasn't yet gained the recognition it deserves. However, all things considered, it has actually done amazingly well. In just over 120 years, it has managed to grow from a drawing-board project with just one speaker in one country to a complete and living natural language with around 2,000,000 speakers in over 120 countries and a rich literature and cosmopolitan culture, with little or no official backing and even bouts of persecution. It hasn't taken the world by storm - yet - but it's slowly but surely moving in that direction, with the Internet giving it a significant boost in recent years.
ReplyDeleteYou may be interested to know that a Welsh (and Esperanto) speaking Jewish man has just produced the first textbook on Esperanto in the Welsh language.
It is a pity that a majority ofpeople do not yet know that it has become a living language. In fact its often called the "youngest language in the World" ; after a short period of 122 years Esperanto is now in the top 100 languages, out of 6,800 worldwide. It is the 17th most used language in Wikipedia, and a language choice of Google, Skype, Firefox and Facebook.
ReplyDeleteNative Esperanto speakers,(people who have used the language from birth), include World Chess Champion Susan Polger, Ulrich Brandenberg the new German Ambassador to NATO and Nobel Laureate Daniel Bovet. According to the CIA Factbook the language is within the top 100 languages, out of all languages, worldwide.
Your readers may be interested in the following video :) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8837438938991452670 A glimpse of the language can be seen at http://www.lernu.net :)
Thanks so much, Brian! I was hoping some of my followers who speak Esperanto might be able to add to this post. I had no idea Esperanto is in the top 100 languages...for number of speakers I assume? Or was there a different measure used that placed it in the "top" 100?
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