Those Esperanto speakers who want to see Esperanto adopted officially or on a large scale worldwide are commonly called finvenkistoj, from fina venko, meaning "final victory", or pracelistoj, from pracelo, meaning "original goal".[34] Those who focus on the intrinsic value of the language are commonly called raŭmistoj, from Rauma, Finland, where a declaration on the near-term unlikelihood of the "fina venko" and the value of Esperanto culture was made at the International Youth Congress in 1980.[35] These categories are, however, not mutually exclusive.
The Prague Manifesto (1996) presents the views of the mainstream of the Esperanto movement and of its main organisation, the World Esperanto Association (UEA).[36]
[edit] Symbols and flags
The earliest flag, and the one most commonly used today, features a green five-pointed star against a white canton, upon a field of green. It was proposed to Zamenhof by Irishman Richard Geoghegan, author of the first Esperanto textbook for English speakers, in 1887. The flag was approved in 1905 by delegates to the first conference of Esperantists at Boulogne-sur-Mer. A version with an "E" superimposed over the green star is sometimes seen. Other variants include that for Christian Esperantists, with a white Christian cross superimposed upon the green star, and that for Leftists, with the color of the field changed from green to red.[37]
In 1987, a second flag design was chosen in a contest organized by the UEA celebrating the first centennial of the language. It featured a white background with two stylised curved "E"s facing each other. Dubbed the "jubilea simbolo" (jubilee symbol)[38], it attracted criticism from some Esperantists, who dubbed it the "melono" (melon) because of the design's elliptical shape. It is still in use, though to a lesser degree than the traditional symbol, known as the "verda stelo" (green star).[39]
[edit] Politics
Esperanto has been placed in many proposed political situations. The most popular of these is the Europe – Democracy – Esperanto, which aims to establish Esperanto as the official language of the European Union.
[edit] Religion
Esperanto has served an important role in several religions, such as Oomoto from Japan and the Baha'i Faith from Iran, and has been encouraged by others.
[edit] Oomoto
The Oomoto religion encourages the use of Esperanto among their followers and includes Zamenhof as one of its deified spirits.[40]
[edit] Bahá'í Faith
The Bahá'í Faith encourages the use of an auxiliary international language. While endorsing no specific language, some Bahá'ís see Esperanto as having great potential in this role.[41]
Lidja Zamenhof, the daughter of Esperanto founder L. L. Zamenhof, became a Bahá'í.
Various volumes of the Bahá'í literatures and other Baha'i books have been translated into Esperanto.
[edit] Spiritism
Esperanto is also actively promoted, at least in Brazil, by followers of Spiritism. The Brazilian Spiritist Federation publishes Esperanto coursebooks, translations of Spiritism's basic books, and encourages Spiritists to become Esperantists.[42]
[edit] Bible translations
The first translation of the Bible into Esperanto was a translation of the Tanach or Old Testament done by L. L. Zamenhof. The translation was reviewed and compared with other languages' translations by a group of British clergy and scholars before publishing it at the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1910. In 1926 this was published along with a New Testament translation, in an edition commonly called the "Londona Biblio". In the 1960s, the Internacia Asocio de Bibliistoj kaj Orientalistoj tried to organize a new, ecumenical Esperanto Bible version.[43] Since then, the Dutch Lutheran pastor Gerrit Berveling has translated the Deuterocanonical or apocryphal books in addition to new translations of the Gospels, some of the New Testament epistles, and some books of the Tanakh or Old Testament. These have been published in various separate booklets, or serialized in Dia Regno, but the Deuterocanonical books have appeared in recent editions of the Londona Biblio.
[edit] Christianity
Two Roman Catholic popes, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, have regularly used Esperanto in their multilingual urbi et orbi blessings at Easter and Christmas each year since Easter 1994. Christian Esperanto organizations include two that were formed early in the history of Esperanto, the International Union of Catholic Esperantists and the International Christian Esperantists League. An issue of "The Friend" describes the activities of the Quaker Esperanto Society.[44] There are instances of Christian apologists and teachers who use Esperanto as a medium. Nigerian Pastor Bayo Afolaranmi's "Spirita nutraĵo" (spiritual food) Yahoo mailing list, for example, has hosted weekly messages since 2003.[45] Chick Publications, publisher of Protestant fundamentalist themed evangelistic tracts, has published a number of comic book style tracts by Jack T. Chick translated into Esperanto, including "This Was Your Life!" ("Jen Via Tuto Vivo!")[46]
[edit] Islam
Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran called on Muslims to learn Esperanto and praised its use as a medium for better understanding among peoples of different religious backgrounds. After he suggested that Esperanto replace English as an international lingua franca, it began to be used in the seminaries of Qom. An Esperanto translation of the Qur'an was published by the state shortly thereafter.[47][48] In 1981, Khomeini and the Iranian government began to oppose Esperanto after realising that followers of the Bahá'í Faith were interested in it.[47]
[edit] Criticism
Esperanto was conceived as a language of international communication, more precisely as a universal second language. Since publication, there has been debate over whether it is possible for Esperanto to attain this position, and whether it would be an improvement for international communication if it did. There have been a number of attempts to reform the language, the most well-known of which is the language Ido which resulted in a schism in the community at the time, beginning in 1907.
Since Esperanto is a planned language, there have been many, often passionate, criticisms of minor points which are too numerous to cover here, such as Zamenhof's choice of the word edzo over something like spozo for "husband, spouse", or his choice of the Classic Greek and Old Latin singular and plural endings -o, -oj, -a, -aj over their Medieval contractions -o, -i, -a, -e. (Both these changes were adopted by the Ido reform, though Ido dispensed with adjectival agreement altogether.) See the links below for examples of more general criticism. The more common points include:
- Esperanto has failed the expectations of its founder to become a universal second language. Although many promoters of Esperanto stress the successes it has had, the fact remains that well over a century since its publication, the portion of the world that speaks Esperanto, and the number of primary and secondary schools which teach it, remain minuscule. It simply cannot compete with English in this regard.[49]
- The vocabulary and grammar are based on major European languages, and are not universal. Often this criticism is specific to a few points such as adjectival agreement and the accusative case (generally such obvious details are all that reform projects suggest changing), but sometimes it is more general: Both the grammar and the 'international' vocabulary are difficult for many Asians, among others, and give an unfair advantage to speakers of European languages. One attempt to address this issue is Lojban, which draws from the six most populous languages Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, English, Hindi, Russian, and Spanish, and whose grammar is designed for computer parsing.[50]
- The vocabulary, diacritic letters, and grammar are too dissimilar from the major Western European languages, and therefore Esperanto is not as easy as it could be for speakers of those languages to learn, even though it is much more easy to learn than any other European language[51][52]. Attempts to address this issue include the younger planned languages Ido and Interlingua.[53]
- Esperanto phonology is unimaginatively provincial, being essentially Belorussian with regularized stress, leaving out only the nasal vowels, palatalized consonants, and /dz/. For example, Esperanto has phonemes such as /x/, /ʒ/, /ts/, /eu̯/ (ĥ, ĵ, c, eŭ
which are rare as distinct phonemes outside Europe. (Note that none of these are found in initial position in English.)[54] - Esperanto has no culture. Although it has a large international literature, Esperanto does not encapsulate a specific culture.[55]
- Esperanto is culturally European. This is due to the European derivation of its vocabulary, and more insidiously, its semantics; both infuse the language with a European world view.[56]
- The vocabulary is too large. Rather than deriving new words from existing roots, large numbers of new roots are adopted into the language by people who think they are international, when in fact they're only European. This makes the language much more difficult for non-Europeans than it needs to be.[18] A similar argument is made by many Esperanto speakers, not against the language itself but against the way it is (in their view) misused by many (mostly European) speakers; they argue that compounds or derivations should be used whenever possible, and new root words borrowed only when absolutely necessary.[57][58]
- Esperanto is sexist. Most kin terms and titles are masculine by default and only feminine when so specified. There have been many attempts to address this issue, of which one of the better known is Riism.[59]
- Esperanto is, looks, or sounds artificial. This criticism is primarily due to the letters with circumflex diacritics, which some find odd or cumbersome, and to the lack of fluent speakers: Few Esperantists have spent much time with fluent, let alone native, speakers, and many learn Esperanto relatively late in life, and so speak haltingly, which can create a negative impression among non-speakers. Among fluent speakers, Esperanto sounds no more artificial than any other language. Others claim that an artificial language will necessarily be deficient, due to its very nature,[60] but the Hungarian Academy of Sciences has found that Esperanto fulfills all the requirements of a living language.[61]
[edit] Modifications
Though Esperanto itself has changed little since the publication of the Fundamento de Esperanto (Foundation of Esperanto), a number of reform projects have been proposed over the years, starting with Zamenhof's proposals in 1894 and Ido in 1907. Several later constructed languages, such as Fasile, were based on Esperanto.
In modern times, attempts have been made to eliminate perceived sexism in the language. One example of this is Riism. However, as Esperanto has become a living language, changes are as difficult to implement as in ethnic languages.
[edit] See also
- Distributed Language Translation (Distribuita Lingvo-Tradukado) (DLT)
- Encyclopedia of Esperanto
- EoLA (an international festival of Esperanto arts and literature)
- Esperantic Studies Foundation
- Esperantido (reforms of Esperanto)
- Esperantist
- Esperanto and Ido compared
- Esperanto and Interlingua compared
- Esperanto and Novial compared
- Esperanto Antaŭen
- Esperanto as an international language
- Esperanto in popular culture
- Esperanto library
- Esperanto magazine
- Esperanto Wikipedia
- Esperantujo (the Esperanto community)
- Indigenous Dialogues (project to empower organisations of indigenous peoples)
- list of Esperanto organizations
- Lojban (see under Comparison with other auxiliary languages)
- Monato (a monthly world news magazine)
- Reformed Esperanto
- World Esperanto Association (in Esperanto, UEA: Universala Esperanto-Asocio)
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