123 year old language makes a comeback

Posted on September 1, 2010 by Steve Shacklock

Ever heard of Esperanto? If not, you might be interested in an article I came across recently which discusses it. Esperanto is a language that was created over 100 years ago and is spoken by huge numbers of people across the world and was officially recognised by the UN in 1954.

Esperanto was introduced by Dr Ludovic Lazarus Zamenhof, a Polish doctor who wanted to devise an international second language to enable people to communicate worldwide. While the language may have declined over the years, with the increased use of the internet worldwide, Esperanto is seeing a comeback!

So why is this language so popular and among who? In the UK there are over 2000 speakers and it is used to communicate with fellow speakers across the globe – it has even resulted in two people finding love! Esperanto meetings are popping up all over the place and speakers claim it has ‘opened up doors and given [them] a global perspective’ and it is ‘gratifying because of all the global community it puts you in touch with’.

So if you want to be one of the growing numbers of Esperanto speakers worldwide you can learn it for free at lernu.net. It is not the traditional types of language we come across but it is certainly interesting to see a growing number of individuals wanting to learn something new!

Have you ever come across any other interesting languages?

2 thoughts on “123 year old language makes a comeback”

Pingback: Tweets that mention 123 year old language makes a comeback « Euro London's Blog -- Topsy.com
Bill Chapman on September 1, 2010 at 7:14 pm said:

I was pleased to see this fair presentation of a language which has meant a lot to me over the years.

Esperanto hasn’t yet gained the recognition it deserves. However, all things considered, it has actually done amazingly well. In these 123 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.

Esperanto works! I’ve used it in speech and writing in about fifteen countries over recent years.
Indeed, the language has some remarkable practical benefits. Personally, I’ve made friends around the world through Esperanto that I would never have been able to communicate with otherwise. And then there’s the Pasporta Servo, which provides free lodging and local information to Esperanto-speaking travellers in over 90 countries. Over recent years I have had guided tours of Berlin, Douala and Milan in the planned language. I have discussed philosophy with a Slovene poet, humour on television with a Bulgarian TV producer. I’ve discussed what life was like in East Berlin before the wall came down, how to cook perfect spaghetti, the advantages and disadvantages of monarchy, and so on. I recommend it, not just as an ideal but as a very practical way to overcome language barriers.