ESPERANTO

Hokitika Guardian, 16 October 1920, Page 4

ESPERANTO

HISTORY AND SUCCESS

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Last article (through the kindly indulgence of the Editor), I devoted my permitted space to stressing the importance of Esperanto as an essential factor in the great work of promoting international understanding and the future peace of the world.

Doctor Ludovic Tamenhof, the iriventor of Esperanto, was born in Bjelostok (Poland) 1859. The inhabitants of his native town consisted of four different nationalities, and speaking four dis- 1 tinct languages. Thus Tamenhof early j 1 realised the need of an international language. When he-was in the second classical school of Warsaw, he thought of reviving one of the dead languages, but the mass of grammatical forms and ponderous dictionaries forced him to change his resolve. He realised also that owing to national prejudices' it would be impossible to adopt any one. of tiie present, spoken languages. The international language must, he knew, be a neutral one, logical, musical, easy to learn, phonetic and fitted alike for the workman and the scientist. leaving mastered German and French, Latin and Greek, he came to the study of English, and here, he tells us, he had his first glimpse of a simple grammar — there arc in Esperanto grammar only sixteen rules and no exceptions. The next difficulty was to limit the size of his proposed dictionary. He noticed that certain terminations have constant meanings such as “ess” denotes the feminine gender, ambassador, ambassadress, and lie immediately realised the importance of a number of suffixes around a word or root to give it various meanings, So that, when he discovered that a great number of words were already international, such as stenography, science, telegram, telephone etc. he altered such words only to make them phonetic. With other words he searched diligently to make their roots common to three or more languages. Thus in 1887, when lie published “International Language/’ by “Dr Esperanto” (one who hopes) bis grammar contained only sixteen rules, and his vocabulary consisted of only two thousand root words and thirty-four suffixes. When it is remembered that some one hundred and fifty languages have been devised during the past two hundred years, and all had failed, the wonderful achievement of Tamenhof is all the more remarkable and praiseworthy. It has triumphed (1) over the natural conservatism of men to a new idea; (2) over the prejudice of all nations who love their own language; and (3) over numberless tests and criticism. Passing over the wonderful success of the many great international congresses at some of which as many as fifteen governments were officially represented, and as in the Dresden Congress when no less than forty-three nationalities took part, the success of Esperanto for the worker and professional man is riot less marked. All over the continent workmen’s Esperanto clubs have sprung up, and are using the language to get in touch with comrades all over tiie globe. In Great Britain there are more than 150 groups affiliated to the B-.E.A. The following names are sufficient suggestive: “International scientific review,” “Esperanto Doctor’s Association.” There are also Esperanto associations of engineers, lawyers, soldiers, sailors, theosophists, “'teachers, etc., and in educational circles Esperanto has been recognised in the Oxford senior local, and by the National Union of Teachers, and in England (1908-9) 'thirty-three schools received grants from the Board" of Education.

Space forbids more than a summary allusion to the Universal Esperanto Association (Switzerland) with its thousand Esperanto Consulates in all parts of the world, to the number of guide books, catalogues, books and prospectuses of all kinds, to the ever-growing literature and to the spread and use of the language by all sorts of outside organisations for the international dissemination of the aims and ideals for which they are working. “Our movement,” wrote the editor of the ‘British Esperanto/ “is well worthy the attention of every thinking man and woman who desires to help in the bringing about of brotherhood and goodwill between the nations.” v t