A Language For All Lands — Esperanto

1905

The new universal language, known as "Esperanto," intended to become an international medium of communication, has spread widely in Europe, especially in France, and also in China and Japan. It will be taught next year in the Philadelphia school of industrial art.

Esperanto was invented by Dr. Zamenhof of Wasovie, Poland, three years ago. It is a simple language, constructed half of Latin stock and partly of English, German and Russian roots. Various vowel terminations are characteristic of parts of speech. If we take the root am, by adding o we have the noun amo, love; with i, the verb to love; as, the three persons, singular and plural, of the present tense is, will represent all the past forms; os, the future forms, etc. Half the adjectives only are used. Their contrary is made up by mal; mona, malbona (good, bad); granda, malgranda (large, small). Nouns designating females are obtained from the name of the male, with the suffix in; patro, patrino, father, mother; knabo, knabino, boy, girl, etc. No vowel has more than one sound, while the pronunciation of words is entirely phonetic.

There are many Esperanto societies in Europe and magazines are published in the new language. Among these publications are "Lingvo Internacia," a French Esperanto journal, and "L'Esperantiste," published in Paris.

Probably the first man in this city who spoke of Esperanto is Professor A. M. Grillon, professor of French and Spanish at the Central manual training school and the Philadelphia school of industrial art. Professor Grillon says:

"No one asserts that Esperanto will take the place of any living language. That is not its purpose. Its object is almost entirely commercial and scientific. If I want to find out something about the schools of Japan it does not pay me to learn Japanese for this, but, looking over the lists of Esperantists, I find so-and-so in Tokyo. I write to him in Esperanto and he replies in the same language. Commercial houses who do business with foreign countries will and do even now use it. Travelers will need it. Of course, it will be used only by the educated and upper commercial classes.

"Several attempts have been made to establish an international language. The last was Volapuk. This failed because it had not the requirements — rules without exception. Esperanto is such that it can not change. Other living languages change."

Esperanto was named from the nom de plume used by Dr. Zamenhof. The language has not made much progress in this country.