Who invented the international language called the ‘Esperanto’? General Knowledge for Kids and Students of Class 7, 8, 9, 10, 12 Examinations

Who invented the international language called the ‘Esperanto’?

The first ESPERANTO textbook was Lingvo Internacia, published in Russian by Dr Ludovic Zamenhof, a Polish oculist, under the pseudonymn ‘Dr Esperanto’ (i.e. one who hopes) at Warsaw in 1887. Zamenhof was born in 1859 at Bielostock, a town populated by Russians, Poles, Germans and Jews. He himself was Jewish. At an early age he became concerned at the bad relations that existed between these language groups and determined to further the brotherhood of man by devising a universal tongue, to be learned as a second language by all who shared his ideal. This task he began whole a 14-year-old schoolboy at the Classical Academy in Warsaw; by 1878, when he was 19 years of age, he had progressed far enough to start instructing some six or seven of his friends in its rudiments. A meeting was held at his home on 17 December of this year for the purpose of celebrating the birth of the new language in speech and song. This group of pioneer Esperantists soon fell away when its members found themselves exposed to the ridicule of their elders, and Zamenhof was left to continue the work alone.

After many setbacks his work was published in a slender 40-page volume, the result of nearly 15 years’ labour. It contained a declaration that the author renounced all personal rights in his work, since ‘an international language, like a national one, is common property’.

Early adherents of Esperanto were chiefly Germans, Swedes and Russians. Among the last was numbered Count Leo Tolstoy, who claimed that with the aid of Zamenhof’s book he had learned to read Esperanto within the space. of two hours. As the movement spread westward it found its strongest support in France, where the first national association was formed in 1898.

The first exponent of Esperanto in Britain was an Irish-born career diplomat and linguist, Richard H. Geoghegan, who translated the Esperanto instruction book into English. It appeared in 1889, Polish, French and German versions having succeeded the original Russian edition in the interim.

The first organized group of Esperantists in Britain was the Society for the Learning and Propagation of Esperanto. founded by Yorkshire journalist Joseph Rhodes at Keighley on 7 November 1902. The British Esperanto Association was established in 1904.

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