Speaker 1: Alz Media, Hello and welcome to It could happen here.
Speaker 1: I want you to imagine a world where everyone shared
Speaker 1: a second language, not because of imperial conquest, but out
Speaker 1: of a shared desire for unity and understanding. That was
Speaker 1: the dream behind Esperanto, a constructed language designed to be
Speaker 1: the basis for global bilingualism. Long before I learned anything
Speaker 1: about anarchism, I spent some time trying to learn Esperanto.
Speaker 1: It has shown up on my dual lingo one day,
Speaker 1: and it seems like such a fascinating and simple project
Speaker 1: to pick up. I was enamored with the philosophy behind it,
Speaker 1: so I generally spent a few months on and off
Speaker 1: trying to learn it. I was probably a decade ago
Speaker 1: at this point, so I don't remember too much about it,
Speaker 1: but the connection was there. And it's really because I've
Speaker 1: been exploring this topic for this episode that I ended
Speaker 1: up going back and dabbling in some of it again.
Speaker 1: I've learned recently actually somewhat of a connection between Esperanto
Speaker 1: and anarchism, so I stayed the time to explore the
Speaker 1: origins of Esperanto. It's anarchist connections, it's flaws, and its future.
Speaker 1: My name is Andrew Siege and I'm here once again
Speaker 1: with it's me.
Speaker 2: It's James again. Very excited for this one.
Speaker 1: Yes, you're familiar with Esperanto.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, very familiar I am. I wrote about it
Speaker 2: a little bit in my first book and my PhD dissertation. Also,
Speaker 2: the last living person to participate in the Popular Olympics,
Speaker 2: which is what I wrote my book about, was an
Speaker 2: Esperantis like. Part of the project of the Popular Front
Speaker 2: in Catalonia was to bring people to diverstory sport, and
Speaker 2: then Esperanto is going to be this thing that would,
Speaker 2: as you mentioned, like bridge the gaps between people.
Speaker 1: Right. Yes, it's a really inspiring project. And so I
Speaker 1: know you're probably gonna know all this information, but I
Speaker 1: do have to share it with the audience.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm excited. I never like really did full rundown Esperanto.
Speaker 2: It just paid now, So howly shit that's called so
Speaker 2: learn a lot.
Speaker 1: Sure. So. Esperanto was first constructed in a little booklet
Speaker 1: in eighteen eighty seven by Polish Jewish ophthalmologist el El Samonhoff.
Speaker 1: According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the name itself comes from
Speaker 1: the pseudonym he took on to publish the booklet. He
Speaker 1: called himself doctorro Esperanto. Esperanto meaning one who hopes and
Speaker 1: hope really analyzed the whole project. According to a BBC
Speaker 1: article written by Jose Luis Benarredondo, he lived as a
Speaker 1: Polish Jew in the multicultural Russian Empire in a time
Speaker 1: rife with racial and national conflict. He was trying to
Speaker 1: promote peace and understanding, and he saw an international language
Speaker 1: as a ways to do that, with a flag of
Speaker 1: green and white, the colors of hope and peace. For
Speaker 1: his efforts, Zamenhoff himself was nominated fourteen times for the
Speaker 1: Nobel Peace Prize. He genuine believed that if we all
Speaker 1: shared a common second language quote education, ideals, convictions, aims
Speaker 1: would be the same too, and all nations would be
Speaker 1: united in a common brotherhood end quote. Esperanto was created
Speaker 1: in a time when modernism was on the rise and
Speaker 1: the idea of rationality and science was being used to
Speaker 1: quote un quote optimize the world. When it was featured
Speaker 1: in Paris's Exposition Universal in nineteen hundred, the language caught
Speaker 1: on amongst the French intelligensia, who saw it as more
Speaker 1: optimal than the messy and the logical realm of natural languages.
Speaker 1: Because it was so easy, all words and sentences being
Speaker 1: built from sixteen basic rules that could fit on a paper,
Speaker 1: and the language lacked the confusing exceptions and special rules
Speaker 1: or other languages, it was once seen as the language
Speaker 1: of the future. Esperanto made its full fledged public debut
Speaker 1: in nineteen oh five when seven Hoff published The Fundamental Esperanto,
Speaker 1: which laid down the basic principles of languages structure and formation.
Speaker 1: Esperanto designed to be simple, logical, and accessible, drawn from
Speaker 1: the influence of Romance, Germanic, and Slavic languages and its construction.
Speaker 1: The orthography is phonetic, so all the words are spelled
Speaker 1: as pronounced, and the grammar is so straightforward. There's a
Speaker 1: consistent word ending for nouns, pluralization, adjectives, and verbs. But
Speaker 1: although simple, it can convey complexity. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: suffixes you can add to give degrees of meaning, and
Speaker 1: there's room for compound words too. It's European focus to
Speaker 1: be the target of criticism later on, but it actually
Speaker 1: ended up being picked up in some unusual places anyway.
Speaker 1: Zamenhoff translated literature and wrote original verse, and after years
Speaker 1: of effort, there were speakers to be found across Europe,
Speaker 1: the Americas, China, and Japan.
Speaker 2: Interesting.
Speaker 1: By nineteen oh eight, the Universala Esperanto a Socio was founded,
Speaker 1: and it can now find members in eighty three countries worldwide. Today,
Speaker 1: there's also fifty national Esperanto associations and twenty two international
Speaker 1: professional associations that use Esperanto. There's an annual World Esperanto
Speaker 1: Congress and more than one hundred periodicals published in Esperanto.
Speaker 1: Estimates range widely in terms of how many people speak
Speaker 1: Esperanto today. They are apparently a handful of native speakers,
Speaker 1: folks who are raised speaking Esperanto. Oh wow, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: really really really cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But L two speakers are somewhere between thirty eight thousand
Speaker 1: l to being you know, second language speakers are somewhere
Speaker 1: between thirty eight thousand to two million. According to Wildfith's
Speaker 1: article on Esperanto and anarchism, there are tens of thousands
Speaker 1: of books in Esperanto and several hundred, mostly small periodicals
Speaker 1: that appear regularly. Partly a day passes about international meetings,
Speaker 1: such as those of specialized organizations, conferences, youth get togethers, seminars,
Speaker 1: group holidays, and regional meetings. There are several radio stations
Speaker 1: that podcast programs in Esperanto, and Esperanto has even been
Speaker 1: used by couples of different origins as a family language.
Speaker 1: It's cool, funny enough. As with every language, even an
Speaker 1: aspiring universal language, it has since had its offshoots. I
Speaker 1: saw on Wikipedia that nearly a year after Salmonhoff's creation
Speaker 1: of Esperanto, in eighteen eighty eight, Dutch author J. Brachmann
Speaker 1: proposed a few changes to language, like combining the end
Speaker 1: in for the adjective and adverb, change in conjugations, introducing
Speaker 1: more Latin roots, getting rid of the diacritics, and so on.
Speaker 1: This language would be called Mundolinko, and it was the
Speaker 1: first of many offshoots from Esperanto proper. Even zalmon Hooff
Speaker 1: would try to reform the language at one point in
Speaker 1: eighteen ninety four, but it was rejected by the Esperanto
Speaker 1: community and eventually even himself. These reforms would later be
Speaker 1: used to develop Edo, another attempt at universal language, with
Speaker 1: far less success. I also learned view Wikipedia there was
Speaker 1: an attempt to make Esperanto more complex by introducing Cherokee
Speaker 1: components called policepo created by a Native American activist named
Speaker 1: Billy ray Walden. Esperanto speakers continue to play the language
Speaker 1: in all sorts of ways. To this day. Esperanto is
Speaker 1: an evolved in language and Samanhoff himself is honored as
Speaker 1: part of this global Esperanto culture. They celebrate his birthday
Speaker 1: the fifteenth of December. There are statues and streets and
Speaker 1: plaques remembering him worldwide, and even an asteroid bears his name.
Speaker 1: At one point, according to the BBC article, there was
Speaker 1: an effort to establish an Esperanto speaking land called ami Kejo,
Speaker 1: which would have been a three point five square kilometer
Speaker 1: territory between the Netherlands, Germany and France. Yeah. Nice, three
Speaker 1: point five square kilometers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not huge, Yeah, it's like how big. Well, I know,
Speaker 2: we've got a few of those, like little ones in Europe, you.
Speaker 1: Know, Yeah, a couple of micro estates. It could have
Speaker 1: been another micro state, but the idea was very squashed
Speaker 1: follow World War One.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know. This SENATEAVI, the Spanish Anarchosynthicalist Union was
Speaker 2: like in its first congress, like its foundational Congress. I
Speaker 2: suppose they were like, and everyone has to everyone should
Speaker 2: try and learn Esperanto, Like that was one of their
Speaker 2: like the things that at the foundation of what became
Speaker 2: probably the most powerful anarchist movement the world's ever seen.
Speaker 2: They were like, also, this is a big thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, Esperanto was really huge in the anarchist movement
Speaker 1: at a certain point. Yeah, but we're going to get
Speaker 1: to those connections soon enough. I wanted to bring up
Speaker 1: this other interesting story. There was actually an effort by esperantists,
Speaker 1: including a delegate from Iran, to get the language to
Speaker 1: become the official language of the League of Nations. But
Speaker 1: take one guess as to which country block that effort.
Speaker 2: Was it one of the anglophone countries? No, oh, wow,
Speaker 2: the French.
Speaker 1: It was the French.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there is not a state more invested in its
Speaker 2: language than France. Indeed, they have laws I think about,
Speaker 2: like broadcasting music and dubbing films and things.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The French government seemingly hated Esperanto. At least according
Speaker 1: to the article on imp of the Diverse blog site,
Speaker 1: they blocked its study in universities and public schools, and
Speaker 1: as the article quotes, the opponents directly quote. On September tenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty two, the New York Tribune ran a translation
Speaker 1: of a piece by the editor in chief of the
Speaker 1: Martin Stefan Lausanne miss Lasan spent half his editorial writing
Speaker 1: about Esperanto. And I'm not going to do a French
Speaker 1: accent for this section. But just imagine, like the most
Speaker 1: French Frenchman reading this, that Finns or Albanians but such
Speaker 1: a proper gander is comprehensible. Their dialect has no chance
Speaker 1: of imposing itself on the universe. They need a second
Speaker 1: language just as well Esperanto as any other. But that
Speaker 1: French people or English or Germans could have let themselves
Speaker 1: be allured by this linguistic bolsheviser that is far more extraordinary.
Speaker 1: It is nevertheless a fact that Esperanto, which was born
Speaker 1: twenty five years ago and ought to have died through ridicule,
Speaker 1: continues to have disciples in Europe. Every year, in a
Speaker 1: different capital they hold a congress at which they are
Speaker 1: not very numerous, but where they make a great noise.
Speaker 1: They get so excited that quite recently the Minister of
Speaker 1: Public Instruction had to address a circular to all the
Speaker 1: French educational resorts to warn them against the danger of Esperanto.
Speaker 1: An article in the Washington Herald on that same day
Speaker 1: explained the danger, at the least according to the Ministry
Speaker 1: of Public Instruction. The reason for this order, according to
Speaker 1: certain school teachers, is that teaching of a language as
Speaker 1: easy as Esperanto endangers the existence of the French language
Speaker 1: and thus the national solidarity of the country. They consent
Speaker 1: that children will nationally take to an easy language is Esperanto,
Speaker 1: and in that time French and English would perish, and
Speaker 1: that the literary standard of the world would be debased. Furthermore,
Speaker 1: they argue that a national language plays a predominant part
Speaker 1: in maintaining national unity, and points to Poland and Lorraine
Speaker 1: as examples. Esperanto is an artificial language of no real merit.
Speaker 1: Right to one professor, it has no very definite origin,
Speaker 1: and what it aims to draw the scattered people of
Speaker 1: the world together? Does it doth rather tend to denationalization?
Speaker 1: End quote.
Speaker 2: They're not wrong, Like France is the language if you
Speaker 2: read like a peasants into Frenchman is kind of the
Speaker 2: classic work on like French nationalization, but like in order
Speaker 2: to make people French, they did have to suppress like
Speaker 2: Basque and Breton and Catalan and other languages, right, and
Speaker 2: make people go to schools where they learned French and
Speaker 2: conceived of themselves as French. As a result of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, their imposition of DaShan identity was perhaps among the
Speaker 1: most successful in the world. Yeah, in terms of its
Speaker 1: iliness and its consistent enforcement.
Speaker 2: It shows like nations are always projects of the bourgeoisie, right, Like,
Speaker 2: at least I would argue that, and so a lot
Speaker 2: of other people. But like the French example is one
Speaker 2: where we can see it more clearly than others. Like
Speaker 2: it's a state and specifically like a certain class within
Speaker 2: the state's project to enforce and continue to perpetuate this
Speaker 2: narrative of nation.
Speaker 1: And you know, they weren't the only enemies of Esperanto.
Speaker 1: And do you know that's saying judge me by my enemies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, who else have we got?
Speaker 1: Nazi Germany, Francoist Spain and the Soviet Union also heated.
Speaker 2: Esperanto gets cooler with every the.
Speaker 1: Nazis, they were nationalists and the Zawonhoff was Jewish, so
Speaker 1: his family was actually targeted and the language was banned
Speaker 1: and Esperantists were targeted and put in camps during the Holocaust,
Speaker 1: which is really tragic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty fucked.
Speaker 1: Yeah, his whole family was heavily targeted by Nazi Germany.
Speaker 1: Franco associated Esperanto with anti nationalism and anarchism, which true. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he wasn't wrong, So it was targeted for a while. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the Soviets, while originally recognizing Esperantists, eventually reversed that
Speaker 1: policy under Stalin during the Great Purge and executed exiled
Speaker 1: or guvagh Esperantists. And as you can imagine, all that
Speaker 1: repression all at once kind of killed Esperanto's momentum. Today,
Speaker 1: despite its goal of being a truly international language, Esperanto's
Speaker 1: global reatremain's une fun well. It has made some strides
Speaker 1: in recent years, it's still underrepresented in many parts of
Speaker 1: Africa and Asia. The majority of Esperanto speakers today are
Speaker 1: in Europe. Those development outside of Europe deserves some attention,
Speaker 1: as Esperanto manage to levermarque in China, Iran, Togo, and
Speaker 1: the Democratic Republic of Congo. But the response to Esperanto
Speaker 1: historically should give you an indication as to how anarchists
Speaker 1: must have felt about Esperanto as an internationalist or anti
Speaker 1: nationalist movement. Anarchism was very supportive of the Esperanto project.
Speaker 1: When running through the timeline could to see Wilfirth's Esperanto
Speaker 1: and Anarchism. One of the earliest anarchist Esperanto groups was
Speaker 1: founded in Stockholm in nineteen oh five. The same year,
Speaker 1: the anarchist Pull Up with a Lot founded the monthly
Speaker 1: magazine Esperanto. Similar groups suonnimmersed in Bulgaria, China and other countries.
Speaker 1: In nineteen oh six, anarchists anarchist Synicolis founded an international association,
Speaker 1: Paco Libreco Peace Freedom, which published the Internacia Socia Review.
Speaker 1: By nineteen ten, Paco Libireco merged with Esperantista Lawari Staro
Speaker 1: to form Liberiga Stello star Liberation, strengthening anarchist Esperanto networks.
Speaker 1: The nineteen oh seven International Anarchist Congress in Amsterdam formally
Speaker 1: addressed their role of Esperanto in international communication. Subsequent anarchist
Speaker 1: congresses continue to pass resolutions advocating for Esperanto's use within
Speaker 1: the movement. By nineteen fourteen, these anarchists esperantist organizations had
Speaker 1: published extensive revolutionary literature, including anarchist texts in Esperanto. Around
Speaker 1: this time, correspondence between European and Japanese anarchists became more active,
Speaker 1: facilitated by Esperanto. In Prague, Eugene Adam proposed the formation
Speaker 1: of Sena Sisa Associo Tutmunda the SAT or the World
Speaker 1: in National Association. Unlike other Esperanto associations, SAT rejected nationalism
Speaker 1: wholesale and sought to create a transnational class conscious workers movement.
Speaker 1: To quote why is there an Esperanto Workers Movement by
Speaker 1: Gary Michel, SAT was not meant to usurp the role
Speaker 1: of political parties by engaging in political struggles directly, but
Speaker 1: was to be a cultural association engaged in workers education,
Speaker 1: one that would help to break down national and ethnic
Speaker 1: barriers between workers by involving them in practical collective activity,
Speaker 1: bringing workers into contact, freeing them from the shackles of nationalism.
Speaker 1: SAT's ideas, and especially the ideas of its a nationalist faction,
Speaker 1: were an early statement of an idea that has more
Speaker 1: recently come to be known as globalization from below. So
Speaker 1: in August nineteen twenty one, seventy nine workers from fifteen
Speaker 1: countries gathered in Prague to formally established SAT. By nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty nine to nineteen thirty, SAT had grown to six
Speaker 1: five hundred and twenty four members across forty two countries,
Speaker 1: reaching its peak influence. The use of Esperanto flourished in
Speaker 1: German workers' movements between nineteen twenty and nineteen thirty three.
Speaker 1: By nineteen thirty two, the Workers Esperanto League had four
Speaker 1: thousand members, leading to Esperanto being called the Workers Latin.
Speaker 1: But as you can imagine, this was not to last.
Speaker 1: By the time Hitler came into power. The Scientific Anarchist
Speaker 1: Library of the International Language or ISAB, was founded in
Speaker 1: the USSR in nineteen twenty three, publishing anarchist works by
Speaker 1: Kropotkin and a. Borivoi in Esperanto. This also would not
Speaker 1: last the Great Purge. The Berlin group of anarchistyniclist Esperantis
Speaker 1: creeated the second Congress of the International Workers Association in
Speaker 1: Amsterdam in nineteen twenty five and reported that Esperanto had
Speaker 1: become so integrated into their movement that an international libertarian
Speaker 1: Esperantist organization had formed. This likely referred to the TLEs
Speaker 1: the World League of Titless Esperantists, which later merged with SAT.
Speaker 1: Esperanto was also popping off amongst anarchists and socialists in Korea, China,
Speaker 1: and Japan. Liushifu, a key figure in Chinese anarchism, began
Speaker 1: publishing La Vocho de la Popolo The Voice of the
Speaker 1: People in nineteen thirteen, the first anarchist periodical in China.
Speaker 1: His work relied heavily on information from Internacia Socier Review
Speaker 1: and helped popularize esperanto in China. Japanese anarchists and socialists,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned, were among the earliest esperantists in the country,
Speaker 1: but faced heavy persecution and sadly between imperial Japan, Francoist Spain,
Speaker 1: Nazi Germany, and Stalinist Russia. The rise of tatalitarian regimes
Speaker 1: lead into World War II largely suppressed the anarchist esperanto movement.
Speaker 1: After the war, the Paras Anarchist Esperanto group was the
Speaker 1: first to resume organized work, launching the publication Sen Santano
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty six. Most anarchist esperantists have since been
Speaker 1: organized within SAT, with an anarchist faction maintaining its autonomy.
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty nine, this faction began publishing the Liberal
Speaker 1: Sana Bultano, later a day in the Liberate Sana Ligillo.
Speaker 1: By nineteen ninety seven, SAT membership had dwindled to fewer
Speaker 1: than fifteen one hundred members. The initial radical vision of
Speaker 1: SAT was weakened by political shifts and the growing dominance
Speaker 1: of English as a global lingua franca. The only separation
Speaker 1: between SAT and mainstream Esperanto organizations was a response to
Speaker 1: bourgeois political neutrality, but it also contributed to its marginalization,
Speaker 1: and today the anarchist Esperanto movement exists largely as a
Speaker 1: niche within SAT. So what can we say about the
Speaker 1: role of Esperanto today. Well, one of the more interesting
Speaker 1: currents I found in the Esperanto community mentioned by Firth
Speaker 1: is Raumismo, a philosophy named after the Finnish city of Rauma,
Speaker 1: where a youth congress in nineteen eighty helped define this approach.
Speaker 1: Braumismo views Esperanto speakers as a kind of linguistic diaspora,
Speaker 1: a cultural group bound together by a shared language rather
Speaker 1: than an national identity. Instead of focusing on making Esperanto
Speaker 1: a universal second language, browingy storage embrace it as just
Speaker 1: one language among many, valuing its use in literature, culture
Speaker 1: and everyday communication without any grand ideological ambitions. But it's possible, Esperanto,
Speaker 1: who can still play a role in facilities in exchange
Speaker 1: and collaboration between people of different linguistic backgrounds. A German
Speaker 1: anarchist once lamented the barriers international understanding, quoted in Food's article,
Speaker 1: more or less in isolation from one another, we work
Speaker 1: and fight without engaging in exchange about our victories and defeats,
Speaker 1: and with thoughts supporting and encouraging one another. Intensifying contact
Speaker 1: above the regional level with people having similar ideas and
Speaker 1: aims should be an important component of our work in
Speaker 1: order to make effective, active solidarity possible. And that's the trouble.
Speaker 1: Even today. Linguistic barriers hinder international cooperation. Groups struggle to
Speaker 1: maintain foreign language correspondence, organize multilingual meetings, or find interpreters. Instead,
Speaker 1: communication tends to rely on chance. You know someone in
Speaker 1: a group happens to speak a certain language that determines
Speaker 1: who they can connect with. But when those key individuals
Speaker 1: move on, those connections can have fallen apart. So I
Speaker 1: get the appeal, I mean, wouldn't it be beneficial for
Speaker 1: these movements and for any interest group working across language
Speaker 1: barriers to have a relatively easy to learn, politically neutral
Speaker 1: means of communication. Major languages like English, Spanish or French
Speaker 1: don't fully solve the problem, as they come with historical
Speaker 1: baggage and imbalances influency levels. Esperanto, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: provides a more equitable solution because everybody is from this
Speaker 1: starts and from the same point. Since it isn't tied
Speaker 1: to any one nation, it avoids the poodynamics that arise
Speaker 1: when non native speakers must conform to the linguistic norms
Speaker 1: of dominant cultures. Unlike English, which often privileges native speakers
Speaker 1: and places others as perpetual learners, Esperanto fosters a more
Speaker 1: level playin field English like a global linguid franca right now,
Speaker 1: but a lot of people leave school without ever developing
Speaker 1: an effluency to navigate an English dominated world, and English
Speaker 1: is not the easiest language to learn. Esperanto, regardless of
Speaker 1: weather ever, becomes a global standard, offers an alternative path.
Speaker 1: It can help people overcome language learning anxieties, as particularly
Speaker 1: those who feel disempowered by additional educational systems, and it
Speaker 1: can inspire an interest in language itself. If you've ever
Speaker 1: met an Esperanto speaker, you know that they are very
Speaker 1: passionate about linguistics. More often than not, many of the
Speaker 1: speakers go on to study linguistics, language politics, or even
Speaker 1: lesser known languages. It's also a great way to develop
Speaker 1: translation skills in a friendly, cooperative environment. For monolingual English speakers,
Speaker 1: using Esperanto can be an eye opening experience. It puts
Speaker 1: them the shoes of those who never got to rely
Speaker 1: on their native language in international settings. Rather than view
Speaker 1: an Esperanto as a competitor to other languages, perhaps a
Speaker 1: more productive approach is to see it as a tool
Speaker 1: for promoting multilingualism, cultural exchange, and a more cosmopolitan mindset
Speaker 1: within the Esperanto speaking The community. Opinions and its future
Speaker 1: vary widely, but one thing is clear. The question of
Speaker 1: how we communicate a cross linguistic divides is still very
Speaker 1: much alive, and Esperanto offers but one possible answer. However,
Speaker 1: as I alluded to Ilier, Esperanto is not without its critiques,
Speaker 1: as covered by Firth, Let's start with one of the
Speaker 1: most frequent critiques, Esperanto is an artificial language. Unlike the
Speaker 1: so called natural languages, which evolved organically over time, Esperanto
Speaker 1: is deliberately constructed. But here's the thing. Since the rise
Speaker 1: of the nation state, the line between natural and artificial
Speaker 1: languages has become increasingly blurry. Many national languages, like standard
Speaker 1: German or Standard French, have been shaped by deliberate standardization,
Speaker 1: legal regulations, and media influence. In that sense, every language
Speaker 1: is to some degree engineered. Authors, storytellers, and ordinary speakers
Speaker 1: continuously influenced language development, meaning that Esperanto is not as different.
Speaker 1: After all, it does continue to evolve. And here's where
Speaker 1: I think. James Scott had a rather negative characterization of
Speaker 1: Esperanto as a purely high modernist endeavor, as though all
Speaker 1: esperandos sought to make Esperanto the official international language in
Speaker 1: se Meca State. He claims that Esperanto was created to
Speaker 1: replace the dialects and vernaculars of Europe. But such was
Speaker 1: never the case. It was always meant to be a
Speaker 1: language used to facilitate communication. There was more than one
Speaker 1: motivation of Esperando's use, and boil in such an exercise
Speaker 1: and human creativity, and attempted a connection down to just
Speaker 1: that status focus to me seems needlessly reductive. He also
Speaker 1: calls it quote an exceptionally thin language without any of
Speaker 1: the resonances, connotations ready metaphor literatures, oral histories, idioms, and
Speaker 1: traditions of practical use that any social embedded language already
Speaker 1: had end quote, which may be true when I began,
Speaker 1: but it's certainly not true now was over a century
Speaker 1: of use and evolution.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: His analogies between Esperanto and plant cities also missed the
Speaker 1: mark for me, as Esperanto has clearly operated as a
Speaker 1: self organized and grassroots movement for most of its history
Speaker 1: and has never really received the back end of states
Speaker 1: or their enforcement.
Speaker 2: It's a weird angle from Scott because normally he'd advocate
Speaker 2: for like what he calls like the anarchist squint right
Speaker 2: like in seeing history through a perspective of anarchism, I
Speaker 2: guess like an anarchist lens, and I feel like, exactly
Speaker 2: this is very applicable with Esperanto, the only language which
Speaker 2: isn't inherently tied to any state or nation or ethnicity.
Speaker 1: Exactly when I saw that, I remember reading seeing like
Speaker 1: the States some years ago and I've already lost to that,
Speaker 1: But in doing the research for this, I ended up
Speaker 1: stumbling upon it again and I was like, h after
Speaker 1: reading the history, it's like this wasn't quite accurate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's about it. Yeah, generally like Scott.
Speaker 1: Me as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, recently some listeners very kindly. James Scott passed away
Speaker 2: out of this year, as I'm sure you know, I do, yes,
Speaker 2: But his library was donated to a local second hand
Speaker 2: bookshop and some folks that I asked online and they
Speaker 2: went and got me some books and sent them, which
Speaker 2: was really kind. So I have some of his books now.
Speaker 1: Oh that's nice.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: There's another common claim about Esperanto, which is that it's Eurocentric,
Speaker 1: right and linguistically, there's some truth to this. Esperanto originated
Speaker 1: in Eastern Europe, and it still carries structural elements to example,
Speaker 1: Indo European languages. The majority of Esperanto speakers today are European,
Speaker 1: and its vocabulary is largely drawn from European languages. Whoever,
Speaker 1: critics who make this argument often suggest alternatives like English
Speaker 1: or Spanish languages that are just as if not more
Speaker 1: e're centric in the historical and political reach. Esperanto, in contrast,
Speaker 1: has evolved through influence from non European languages as well,
Speaker 1: particularly through its development in China and Japan. It's a
Speaker 1: glassative word formation, a feature more common in languages like
Speaker 1: Turkish or Japanese, and what some call the Hungarian period
Speaker 1: of Esperanto's history. So while Esperanto has European roots, its
Speaker 1: global evolution challenges the idea that it is exclusively European
Speaker 1: in character. Another critique is that Esperanto is sexist. The
Speaker 1: argument goes that because feminine forms are typically created by
Speaker 1: adding in to a base form like laboristo worker becoming
Speaker 1: Labrestino female worker, the language assumes masculinity as a default,
Speaker 1: and while this is a valid concern, Esperanto differs from
Speaker 1: any European languages in a key way. It is not
Speaker 1: assigned grammatical gender to inanimate objects. A chair isn't arbitrarily
Speaker 1: feminine like in French or masculine like in German. However,
Speaker 1: in practice, gender bias can still creep in the basic
Speaker 1: form of noun is often assumed to be masculine, even
Speaker 1: though Esperanto allows for explicitly male forms as well, like
Speaker 1: in any language, reducing linguistic sexism in Esperanto requires conscious
Speaker 1: effort in how people actually use it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's an interesting one. Like we see this in
Speaker 2: Spanish too, write like with attempts to create like gender
Speaker 2: neutral forms, they presumptive masculine or if you're addressing a
Speaker 2: mixed gender group then you would use the masculine. But
Speaker 2: like people who are first language Spanish speakers can correct me.
Speaker 2: I'm sure you will on the subreddit if you want to. So,
Speaker 2: like when I hear in English language media it's referred
Speaker 2: to as latinx. But like that's kind of a word
Speaker 2: that I struggle to say in Spanish, like Latin eki
Speaker 2: or like is it latiniques, And so there's this very
Speaker 2: kind of clumsy gender neutral form which seems to be
Speaker 2: easier to say in English. Spanish.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've seen Latin used in some circles. Yeah, Latine, latine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when I speak to non binary people in Spanish,
Speaker 2: that's what they prefer to use. Of this relatively small
Speaker 2: sample size, given that there are probably millions of non
Speaker 2: binary Spanish speaking people, I haven't obviously spoken to all
Speaker 2: or most of them, but like it's very interesting to
Speaker 2: see this like outside critique of the language, which seems
Speaker 2: to also ignore an inside movement within people who are
Speaker 2: Spanish first language speakers to create a organic, like gender
Speaker 2: neutral form, which could also happen in any language. Right Like,
Speaker 2: just because Esperanto has a certain form doesn't mean that
Speaker 2: people within that language who don't feel represented by them
Speaker 2: couldn't create forms within that language that better represent them exactly.
Speaker 2: And it's easier because you don't have like a government
Speaker 2: telling you you can't use it or whatever exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: Esperanto is and continues to be a grassroots movement, and
Speaker 1: that has actually been a subject of critique for some.
Speaker 1: You know, perhaps one of the biggest critiques for Esperando
Speaker 1: is that it never achieved its original goal of becoming
Speaker 1: a universal second language. Zamenhoffit's creator, envisioned a world where
Speaker 1: Esperanto would bridge linguistic divides, but for many learnar language
Speaker 1: that relatively few people spoke simply wasn't practical. But the
Speaker 1: rise of the Internet changed the game for Esperanto. What
Speaker 1: was once difficult to learn and use daily has become
Speaker 1: far more accessible. For example, Esperanto is actually one of
Speaker 1: the most overrepresented languages on the Internet. The Esperanto Wikipedia
Speaker 1: has around two hundred and forty thousand articles, putting it
Speaker 1: in the same league as languages spoken by tens of
Speaker 1: millions of people, like Turkish and Korean. Google and Facebook
Speaker 1: have offered Esperanto versions of their platforms for years, and
Speaker 1: language learning services like due Lingo have helped introduce it
Speaker 1: to a new generation of learners like myself. In fact,
Speaker 1: the people who developed Esperanto courses for du Lingo did
Speaker 1: so voluntarily, simply because they believed in the languages potential.
Speaker 1: Esperanto has fostered a unique online community, and there's even
Speaker 1: a free hospitality network called passporta Servo where Esperanto speakers
Speaker 1: can stay with each other around the world, no money required,
Speaker 1: just a shared language and a common philosophy of global connection.
Speaker 1: Not everyone learns Esperanto for the same reasons. Some people
Speaker 1: seek intellectual challenge, some want a sense of unique community,
Speaker 1: and others are drawn to its political neutrality. As communications
Speaker 1: lecturer Sara Marino points out in the BBC article, people
Speaker 1: engage in Esperanto for many different motivations, whether it's personal fulfillment,
Speaker 1: social inclusion, civic engagement, or just the simple joy of
Speaker 1: learning a new language. It's important and not to reduce
Speaker 1: Esperanto learners to stereotype. Their reasons for participating are as
Speaker 1: diverse as the language itself. So where does Esperanto stand today?
Speaker 1: It may never replace English as the global lingua franca,
Speaker 1: but perhaps there was never the point. Instead, it serves
Speaker 1: us a tool for promoting bilingualism, foster and cross cultural connections,
Speaker 1: and encouraging people to think differently about language itself. And
Speaker 1: I think that is worthy of Atoinner Award. That's what
Speaker 1: I have for today. All power to all the people. Peace.
Speaker 2: It could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
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Speaker 2: Listened directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.