Esperanto is the most widely spoken international planned language. Doctor Esperanto(from lat. Esperanto- hoping) is the pseudonym of Dr. Ludwig (Lazar) Zamenhof, who published the basics of the language in 1887. His intention was to create an easy-to-learn, neutral language for international understanding, which, however, should not replace other languages. At the initiative of Zamenhof, an international language community was created, using Esperanto for various purposes, primarily for travel, correspondence, international meetings and cultural exchange.
The international language of Esperanto makes it possible to have direct contact with people from more than 100 countries where Esperanto is spoken alongside their mother tongue. Esperanto is the link of the international language community. Daily meetings of representatives of a dozen nations: Hungarians, Belgians, Spaniards, Poles and even the Japanese, who talk about their everyday problems and share their experiences, are a common thing. Everyday Esperanto is an online discussion between twenty countries: in Indigenaj Dialogoj(Dialogues of One Begotten) Indigenous people from different parts of the world regularly exchange information in Esperanto about the preservation of their culture and rights. Everyday life of Esperanto is when a poem by an Italian published by a Belgian publishing house, a review of which can be found in a Hungarian magazine, becomes a song performed by a Danish-Swedish group and then discussed on the Internet by Brazilians and Nigerians. The world is getting closer, Esperanto is bringing people together.
Thanks to its rich application possibilities, Esperanto gradually became a living language. New concepts quickly take root in it: a mobile phone - postelefono(lit. pocket phone, pronounced "posh-telephono"), laptop - tekokomputilo(computer in the briefcase), and the Internet - Interreto(Internet). Esperanto estas mia lingvo(Esperanto is my language)
A bridge language can be learned much faster than other languages. A school experiment showed that Esperanto requires only 20-30% of the time needed to master any other language at the same level. Many learners of Esperanto begin to use it in international communication after 20 lessons. This is possible due to the fact that, firstly, Esperanto, including pronunciation, has clear rules, and secondly, with an optimal word-formation system, the number of roots that need to be memorized is small. Therefore, even speakers of non-European languages find Esperanto much easier than, for example, English.
The grammar of this language is also built according to the rules, and the student quickly enough begins to confidently, and, most importantly, correctly, make sentences. A few years later, learners of Esperanto speak it as if they were their mother tongue. They actively participate in its preservation and contribute to its further development. This practically does not happen with other foreign languages: their study requires a lot of effort, and there are many exceptions to their rules.
Many of those who have mastered Esperanto also know other languages. Esperanto allows you to look at the world as a whole and arouses interest in other national cultures. Someone has learned a planned language after English and has the opportunity to communicate also with people from countries where the latter is not so popular. And someone after Esperanto began to study the languages of different countries, because thanks to this artificial language he learned about these countries and wanted to get more information.
Every year there are hundreds of international meetings on Esperanto issues, not only in Europe, but also in East Asia, Africa, for example in Togo and Nigeria, in South America. Guest service helps organize personal meetings Passport Servo and the Amikeca Reto Friendship Network. You can communicate in Esperanto every day without leaving your home. There are several million pages on the Internet in this language that unites peoples, and on forums, interlocutors from dozens of countries discuss a variety of topics.
Esperanto songs have been sung for more than a hundred years. Now they are released on CD by about twenty bands, some works can be downloaded from the Internet. Every year about two hundred books and several hundred magazines are published in Esperanto, with which mainly authors from different countries collaborate. For example, Monato magazine publishes articles on politics, economics and culture in about 40 countries. About 10 radio stations broadcast in Esperanto.
Esperanto allows you to take a step towards each other to talk somewhere in the middle. There is no Esperanto-speaking country on the world map. But those who know this language can make acquaintances all over the world.
See also information about Esperanto:
Nikolaeva Evgeniya
The paper tells about the most popular modern artificial language - Esperanto, which can rightfully claim to be the language of international communication.
Municipal educational institution
secondary school No. 96
Abstract on the topic:
"Esperanto - the language of international communication"
I've done the work:
11 "A" class student
Nikolaeva Evgeniya
Work checked:
teacher of Russian language
and literature
Maslova Natalya Mikhailovna
2007 - 2008 academic year
Nizhny Novgorod
List of used literature:
Esperanto and other artificial languages
Interlinguistics- a section of linguistics that studies interlingual communication and international languages as a means of such communication.
The large encyclopedic dictionary "Linguistics" gives the following definition of artificial languages: "Constructed languages- sign systems created for use in areas where the use of natural language is less effective or impossible.
There are so-called "non-specialized general-purpose languages" or "international artificial languages". Any international artificial language is called planned if he received realization in communication; less implemented artificial languages are calledlinguistic projects. Only published linguistic projects by different researchers count up to 2 thousand or more (idioms - neutral (1893 - 1898), interlingua (1951), loglan, ro), while the number of planned languages does not exceed a dozen (Volapyuk, Ido (1907 ), Interlingua, Latin-Blue-Flexione, Novial (1928), Occidental, Esperanto (1887)) (according to other sources, about 600 artificial languages).
Human fantasy is unbridled. Tolkienists, of course, will remember Quenya, and fans of the endless Star Trek series - Klingon; programming languages, in essence, are artificial languages, there are also formalized scientific languages and information languages. The grammar of these languages is built on the example of ethnic languages; artificial languages and vocabulary (primarily international) are borrowed from ethnic languages.
Let's highlight the most popular and interesting of the above languages.
Calligraphy in tengwara
Klingon
Solresol Recording Capabilities
This language did not become relatively popular, losing its positions, like other artificial languages, Esperanto.
Bible in Esperanto
Problems and prospects of Esperanto
For Esperantists, the question of the prospects of the language is rather painful. At the beginning of the 20th century, the influence of Esperanto grew continuously; it was especially great inUSSR in the 1920s, when this language, with the filingTrotsky has been widely studied as "the language of the world revolution". Esperanto was actively used in the network of "work correspondents" (work correspondents). At that time, even the inscriptions on postal envelopes were duplicated in two languages, Russian and Esperanto. However, already in the 1930s and 1940s, Esperanto speakers were subjected to repression: in the USSR - as "Trotskyists", "spies" and "terrorists", and in the territories controlled by Nazi Germany - as supporters of the "pro-Jewish" doctrine. In the USSR and Germany, the Esperanto movement actually ceased to exist.
In the 1950s, when Esperanto began to legalize again, the place of the de facto international language was taken byEnglish , in this regard, the growth in the number of Esperanto supporters is slower (for example, the number of individual members of the World Esperanto Association (UEA) even decreased from 8071 people in 1991 to 5657 in 2002, the fall in the number of associated members in 1991 - from 25 to 19 thousand - due to the crisis of the Esperanto movement in the socialist countries, especially in Bulgaria and Hungary, after the abolition of state support for local associations that were part of the UEA). In classical Esperanto organizations (the World Esperanto Association, the Russian Union of Esperantists and others) in recent years there has been an equalization in the number of members, and the number of people who learn and use Esperanto on the Internet and do not join any organizations is also increasing.
At present, most Esperanto periodicals look rather poor, including the illustrated social and political magazine Monato (one of the most popular).
Among the possible prospects for the use of Esperanto in the Esperanto community, the idea of introducing Esperanto as an auxiliary language is now especially popular.European Union . It is believed that such use of Esperanto would make interlingual communication in Europe more efficient and equal. Proposals for a more serious consideration of Esperanto at the European level were made by some European politicians and entire parties, there are examples of the use of Esperanto in European politics (for example, Esperanto versions of Le Monde Diplomatic and the newsletter "Conspectus rerum latinus" during the EU PresidencyFinland ).
"Europe needs a single language - an intermediary, lingua franca", - such a statement was made on the pages of the large daily newspaper Sydsvenska Dagbladet by the co-founder of the Swedish Green Party, Per Garton, who proposes three candidates for the role of intermediary language: Latin, Esperanto and French. According to the Swedish politician,« it will take only one or two generations for the political decision to introduce Latin or Esperanto to become a reality in the European Union». Garton considers the further spread of English as an international language as a threat to the independence and identity of the EU.
Recently, the number of new Esperantists has been growing especially actively thanks to the Internet. For example, a multilingual online resourcelernu! is the largest source of new Esperanto learners on the web.
Modifications and descendants
Despite its easy grammar, Esperanto has some drawbacks. Because of this, Esperanto had such supporters who wanted to change the language for the better, as they thought, side. But since by that time already existedFundamento de Esperanto , Esperanto was impossible to reform. Then the reformers found a solution: they created new planned languages that differed from Esperanto. The most noticeable branch of linguistic projects - descendants traces its history fromthe year the language was createdido . The creation of the language gave rise to a split in the Esperanto movement: some of the former Esperantists switched to Ido. However, most Esperanto speakers remained true to their language. However, in 1928, Ido itself fell into a similar situation after the appearance of an “improved Ido” - the languagenovial . Less visible branches are languagesedo And Esperantido , which differ from Esperanto only in a modified spelling. Until our time, all four languages have almost lost their supporters.
Esperanto speakers
It is difficult to say how many people speak Esperanto today. The most optimistic sources give estimates of up to 500 million people worldwide. The well-known site Ethnologue.com estimates the number of Esperanto speakers at 2 million people, and, according to the site, 2,000 people speak their native language (usually these are children from international marriages, where Esperanto serves as the language of intra-family communication).
There is no doubt that a really large number of educated people have at some time become familiar with Esperanto, although not all of them have become active users of it as a result. The prevalence of a language among educated people can be indirectly judged by the volume of Wikipedia in this language, which (as of May 2007) contains over 84,000 articles and ranks 15th in this indicator, significantly surpassing many national languages. Hundreds of new translations and originals are published each year.books in Esperanto, writtensongs and films are made. There are also many newspapers and magazines published in Esperanto; There isradio stations , broadcasting in Esperanto (for example,China Radio International (CRI) And Polish radio ). In November 2005, the first worldwide Internet television in Esperanto was launched.Internacia Televido (ITV).
In Russia, the publishing house "Impeto" (Moscow ) And " season" (Kaliningrad ), literature is periodically published in non-specialized publishing houses, an organ is publishedRussian Union of Esperantists « Rusia Esperanto-Gazeto» (Russian Esperanto - newspaper), monthly independent magazine "La Ondo de Esperanto» ("The Esperanto Wave") and a number of less significant publications.
With the advent of new Internet technologies such aspodcasting , many Esperantists got the opportunity to self-broadcast on the Internet. One ("Green Radio") which regularly broadcasts from of the year.
Most Esperantists are open to international and intercultural contacts. Many of them travel to attend conventions and festivals where Esperanto speakers meet old friends and make new ones. Many Esperantists have correspondents around the world and are often willing to host a traveling Esperantist for a few days. Visiting exchange network popular among Esperanto speakersPassport Servo .
famous science fiction writerHarry Harrison he speaks Esperanto himself and actively promotes it in his works. In the world of the future he describes, the inhabitants of the Galaxy speak mainly Esperanto. Esperanto is the most successful of all artificial languages.
Dominique Pellet has translated the well-known text editor Vim into Esperanto - he announced this in a mail group (programistoj - respondas), where Esperanto-speaking information technology specialists gather.
The Slovak publishing house Espero, which has been operating since 2003, plans to release a collection of Stan Marchek's crossword puzzles, a book of poems by Iranian poets, an electronic Esperanto-Slovak dictionary on a laser disc, and several more books and discs.
The publishing house of the Flemish Esperanto League (FEL) is preparing a translation of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species and several novels at once, includingThe Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas translated by Daniel Moiran.
In New York, the Mondial publishing house has already publishedEsperanto translation of "White on Black" by Gallego (Ruben Gallego, Laureate of Booker - 2003 , the author of the novel wrote a special preface to the Esperanto edition: “I thank all future Esperanto readers for the beautiful Esperanto language, for their attention to my work. Read. This is a good book. I hope, I really want to believe that bad books are not translated and written in the language of dreams, the language of hope - Esperanto"), is working on a 740-page tome entitled "Concise Encyclopedia of the Original Literature of Esperanto" ("A Concise Encyclopedia of the Original Literature of Esperanto"). Literature in Esperanto). The book promises to be the most comprehensive reference guide to non-translatable Esperanto literature.
Mikhail Bronstein published the novel Ten Days of Captain Postnikov,published by the Impeto publishing house in Russian translation Anatoly Radaev. The action of the novel takes place in 1910 - 1911 with excursions into the past and the future; scenes - Moscow, St. Petersburg and the steamer "George Washington", on which Alexander Postnikov, the protagonist of the novel, went to the 6th World Esperanto Congress in the USA. On the way to America, Postnikov talks a lot with Ludwik Markovich Zamenhof, the "initiator" of Esperanto - from such dialogues, the reader, among other things, learns a lot about the life of the creator of Esperanto himself.
It looks like 2008 will be rich in encyclopedias - a biographical guide about famous Esperantists is being prepared by the Kaliningrad publishing house "Sezonoj". There will also be translations by Jules Verne and Borges.
Main Uses of Esperanto
There are many periodicals published in Esperanto, among them there are about 10 known all over the world (“Esperanto”, “LaOndodeEsperanto”, “Monato”, “Kontakto”, “LaGazeto”, “Fonto”, “Literatura Foiro” and others). Most of the publications are organs of various Esperanto organizations (for example, “Esperanto” is the organ of the World Esperanto Association; “RusiaEsperanto-Gazeto” is a joint publication of the Russian Esperanto Union and the Russian Youth Esperanto Movement), but there are also “independent” publications: most the most famous of them is the Monato magazine: it publishes various materials in Esperanto, but never about Esperanto.
From the very first days of its existence, Esperanto served for international (primarily private) correspondence. Many people are attracted by the opportunity, having mastered one language, to acquire correspondents in various countries of the world.
The spread of the Internet has a beneficial effect on all dispersed language communities, including Esperanto speakers. Now it is possible to practice the language every day (and not only during international Esperanto meetings) in chat rooms, on news sites, in mail groups, forums and so on. There is an opinion, which is difficult to confirm or refute, that Esperanto ranks second on the Web in terms of the volume of use for interlingual communication. There are distance courses for teaching Esperanto via the Internet, many people communicate in Esperanto on the Web for several years, while not having the experience of oral communication.
Various kinds of congresses, summer camps, festivals and so on. Since the first mass congress in Boulogne - sur - Mayor, this area of use of Esperanto has been very popular. Meetings are mass (World Esperanto Congress, IJK, RET and others) and specialized (Railway Congress, Meeting of Cat Lovers, Table Tennis Championship and the like).
There are about a thousand international families in which the main language of family communication is Esperanto. According to the websitewww.ethnologue.com up to 2,000 people are considered native speakers (denaskaj parolantoj) of Esperanto (these are not necessarily the children of international marriages, there are about many children in Russia who know Esperanto as their native language with both Russian parents).
Contrary to expectations, almost since its inception, Esperanto has been used to write original fiction (both prose and poetry). In 1993, an Esperanto section was formed in the international organization of writers PEN. The first Esperanto novel, Kastelode Prelongo, was published as early as 1907. Esperanto phraseology, "catch phrases" and idioms in this language have become a popular topic for Esperanto studies.
Esperanto is the working language of the International Academy of San Marino (AIS). In a number of Eastern European countries (including Russia and Estonia) there are universities where students are required to study Esperanto in the first or second year, and the thesis must be accompanied by a brief annotation in IL (InternaciaLingvo), as Esperanto is often called in AIS . The Esperanto Academy publishes “AkademiajStudoj”, collections of articles are published in Germany, France and other countries. Since the 1920s, a lot of work has been done to develop terminology, dozens of terminological dictionaries have been published (general and special: in chemistry, physics, medicine, jurisprudence, railways and other sciences).
Esperanto is taught in a number of schools around the world as the first language before learning an ethnic language (more often French or Italian). The experiments carried out confirmed the effectiveness of this method. In Gymnasium No. 271 (St. Petersburg), all children learn Esperanto in the first grade, and French in the second grade (Esperanto remains an elective in the middle grades).
There are examples of the successful use of Esperanto in commerce, in the implementation of major international projects (in particular, the creation of multilingual sites on the Internet, the development of IP-telephony, the organization of international tourism, and so on).
During the Cold War era, Esperanto was actively used by the countries of the socialist camp (China, Hungary, Bulgaria, and to a lesser extent Poland and the USSR) to promote socialism. In Esperanto, for example, the famous "Red Book" (Mao's quotation book) was published, many of Lenin's works were published, periodicals about life in the PRC, the USSR and other countries were published. Cuba and China continue to broadcast regular shortwave programs in Esperanto to this day. In China, there are regularly updated information sites in Esperanto, such as http://esperanto.cri.com.cn and others.
Grammar
Valid
Passive
Future
Ont-
present tense
Ant-
Past tense
Int-
Degrees of comparison of adverbs and adjectives
The degrees of comparison are conveyed by additional words. Comparative degree - pli (more), malpli (less), excellent - la plej (most) (for example, important - grava, more important - pli grava, most important - la plej grava).
Pronouns and pronominal adverbs
Another convenient system in Esperanto involves the connection of pronouns and some adverbs by dividing them into structural elements.
quality | causes | time | places | image | direction- leniya | belong- bedtime | subject | quantity | faces |
|
indefinite | ||||||||||
collective | ĉia | ĉial | ĉiam | eie | ĉiel | ĉien | ĉies | Geo | ĉiom | ĉiu |
interrogative | kial | kiam | kiel | Kien | kies | kiom | ||||
negative | nenia | neial | neniam | nenie | neniel | nenien | nenies | neonio | neniom | neniu |
index | tial | tiam | tiel | Tien | ties | thyom |
Flexible word-formation system
Perhaps the main success of Esperanto is its flexible word-formation system. The language contains several dozenprefixes And suffixes , having a constant value and allowing to form from a small numberroots many new words.
Here are some of suffixes :
-et - diminutive suffix
-eg - augmentative suffix,
-ar - a suffix denoting a set of objects,
-il - suffix denoting instrument,
-ul - suffix of a person, creature,
-i - a modern suffix for designating countries.
With the help of these suffixes, it is possible to form words from the roots arb-, dom-, skrib-, bel-, rus- (tree-, house-, pis-, kras-, russ-):
arbeto - tree,
arbaro - forest,
domego - house,
skribilo - pen (or pencil);,
belulo - handsome
Rusio - Russia.
There are also, for example, suffixes that make it possible to form the names of fruit trees from the names of fruits ( piro "pear", pirujo “pear (tree)”), part of the whole (-er-), thing; there are prefixes with the meanings “kinship through marriage” (bo-), “both sexes” (ge-), an antonym to this word (mal-).
Diacritics set
Specifically Esperanto letters with "lids" (diacritics ) are not found in the standard Windows keyboard layouts, which led to the creation of special programs for quickly typing these letters (Ek! , addition to firefox abcTajpu , macros for Microsoft Word , custom keyboard layouts, and others). There are Esperanto layouts underlinux : specifically in the standard distributionubuntu . Most Internet sites (including the Esperanto section of Wikipedia) automatically convert characters with x's typed in postpositions (x is not included in the Esperanto alphabet and can be considered a service character) into characters with diacritics (for example, from the combination jx turns out ĵ ). Similar typing systems with diacritics (two consecutively pressed keys type one character) exist in keyboard layouts for other languages as well, such as the "Canadian multilingual" layout for typing French diacritics. A letter can also be used instead of a diacritic. h in postposition (Zamenhof advised this alternative notation in the first language textbook: "Printing houses that do not have the letters ĉ, ĝ, ĥ, ĵ, ŝ, ŭ may initially use ch, gh, hh, jh, sh, u”), but this method makes the spelling non-phonemic and makes automatic sorting and transcoding difficult. With the spreadUnicode this method (as well as others, such as diacritics in postposition - g’o, g^o and the like) is less and less common in Esperanto texts.
Basic language facts
Esperanto is intended to serve as a universal international language, the second (after the native) for every educated person. It is assumed that the presence of a neutral (non-ethnic) and easy-to-learn language could bring interlingual contacts to a qualitatively new level. In addition, Esperanto has a large- greatly facilitates the subsequent study of other languages.
Alphabet and reading
Alphabet Esperanto is based onLatin . Alphabetically 28 letters : A, B, C, Ĉ, D, E, F, G, Ĝ, H, Ĥ, I, J, Ĵ, K, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, Ŝ, T, U , Ŭ, V, Z (special letters addedĉ, ĝ, ĥ, ĵ, ŝ, ŭ; graphemes q, w, x, y are not included in the Esperanto alphabet), which correspond to 28 sounds - five vowels, two semivowels and 21 consonants. In the alphabet, letters are called like this: consonants - consonant + o, vowels - just a vowel: A - a, B-bo C - co and so on.
Each letter corresponds to one sound (phonemic letter). The reading of a letter does not depend on the position in the word (in particular, voiced consonants at the end of a word are not stunned, unstressed vowels are not reduced). Stress in words is fixed - it always falls on the second syllable from the end (the last syllable of the stem). The pronunciation of many letters can be assumed without special training (M, N, K and others), the pronunciation of others must be remembered:
From the history of Esperanto
The creator of Esperanto, doctor Ludvik Markovich Zamenhof, was fluent in several languages, two of which were Slavic (Russian And Polish ). The first Esperanto textbook was published inWarsaw in summer years in Russian, then in 1887 - 1888 - in Polish, German and French, a little later - in English. He signed his work "Doctor Esperanto", which is translated from Esperanto as "Hopeful". Zamenhof hoped that this language would win. Time dictated that such a language is simply vital.
During the entire first period of its history (1887-) the new language was most actively spread in Russia. Three-quarters of the subscribers of the first Esperanto periodicals ("Lingvo International» And " La Esperantisto» ) were subjectsRussian Empire . Among the first translations that laid the foundations of the Esperanto literary style were the works of Russian writers: N.V.Gogol , "Snowstorm" A.S. Pushkin , "Princess Mary" M.Yu.Lermontov and others.
Until the early 20th century, Esperanto was essentially a written language. According to Edmond Prive, in the West, supporters of the language did not dare to speak it, although they had already written, composed and translated a lot. The Esperantist magazine in November 1902 publishes the impressions of the Russian colonel Levitsky on a trip to France, who vividly describes his first conversation in Esperanto: how difficult and unusual it was in the first minutes, and how after an hour the speakers forgot that everyone speaks a foreign language for themselves language. Esperanto magazines of that time are full of similar impressions - the use of Esperanto in oral communication was still a curiosity.
A new stage in the use of the language unfolded on the shores of the Pas de Calais: in August 1904, meetings of the Esperantists of England and France were held in the cities of Dover and Calais, where there were a lot of people who were surprised by the simplicity and logic of the language. The success of these meetings gave birth to the idea of the World Esperanto Congress.
In 1905, in the French city of Boulogne-sur-Mare, the first World Esperanto Congress was held, which brought together 700 participants from many countries of the world. Here, for the first time, many heard how songs in the new language sound; many different discussions took place - in particular, the well-known "Declaration on the Essence of Esperantism" was adopted, which emphasizes that "anyone who knows and uses the Esperanto language, regardless of goals" is called an Esperantist, that is, according to this declaration, "Esperantist" - "speaking Esperanto". Since then, the use of Esperanto for the preparation of various statements, manifestos and similar documents has become one of the most frequent areas of use of this language.
The First World War interrupted the rapid development of Esperanto in Europe. During the war in the occupiedL. Zamenhof died in Warsaw.
After the war, a new sphere of language use was clearly outlined - political. Esperanto became popular among the workers and socialists of the young Soviet Republic, even supported by the authorities, because it corresponded to the idea of a world revolution (the world language could, according to the then leaders, could be the language of a world revolution). In the 1920s, inscriptions on Soviet postcards were made simultaneously in Russian and Esperanto, radio broadcasts were made in Esperanto, and books were published. By the mid-1930s, the opinion began to be voiced that it would be logical to make Esperanto the language of interethnic communication in the USSR. This would be entirely in line with Lenin's national policy ("no privileges to any of the languages!"). The Esperanto University was founded in Leningrad. However, the Stalinist repressions left nothing of the Esperanto movement in the country: the situation when a simple Soviet worker corresponded directly with the workers of France, Germany and other countries did not suit the leader (it is documented that these letters also expressed disillusionment with Soviet-style socialism); in addition, those who carried a foreign culture were considered enemies of the people, and Esperantists, moreover, went to congresses abroad. The communists accused the supporters of the Esperanto language of cosmopolitanism, that it was an alien ideology for the country. Many Esperantists were repressed and shot. And only after the war
Esperanto also became deadly in Nazi Germany, where it was declared the language of Jews and communists.
During the Second World War, Esperanto speakers in Switzerland did a great deal for the transit of letters and help between the warring parties. In the 1950s, UNESCO adopted a resolution recognizing the cultural value of Esperanto, its value for public diplomacy and the merits of Esperantists in the struggle for peace. At the same time, after the death of Stalin, Esperanto was revived in the USSR - this was facilitated by the accession to the Soviet Union of the Baltic States, in which Esperantists were not repressed; the revival was even forced "from above" in connection with the International Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow in 1957.
Currently, there are (according to various sources) from 2 to 500 million Esperanto speakers in the world (in St. Petersburg alone, there are slightly less than 1 million Esperanto speakers). This language is popular in Hungary, Poland, France, Japan and many other countries. INyear Universala Esperanto-Asocio (UEA,World Esperanto Association ) had members in 114 countries. There are about 120 Esperanto clubs in different countries. One of them is the St. Petersburg club "Esperanto", which in 2008 will celebrate 116 years since its foundation and 52 years since its revival (before the revolution, Grand Duke Konstantin Romanov was a member of the club).
Every year, the World Esperanto Congress (Universala Kongreso) is held in different countries of the world (2006 - Florence, 2007 - Japan, in 2008 the 93rd Esperanto Congress in Africa will be held), which gathers from one and a half to five thousand participants.
Other artificial languages, before they had time to appear, suffered a fiasco, because no culture developed around them. A lot of literature has been written in Esperanto; there is a virtual country of Esperantido with its president, the Italian writer Rinato Corsetti; Esperantists also have their own anthem, flag, and emblem.
Esperanto vocabulary
Most of the Esperanto vocabulary consists of Romance and Germanic roots, as well as internationalisms.Latin And Greek origin. There are a small number of stems borrowed from or through the Slavic (Russian and Polish) languages. Borrowed words adapt toEsperanto phonology and are written in the phonemic alphabet (that is, the original spelling of the source language is not preserved).
On the whole, the Esperanto lexical system manifests itself as autonomous, reluctant to borrow new foundations. For new concepts, a new word is usually created from elements already existing in the language, which is facilitated by the rich possibilities of word formation. This feature of the language allows you to minimize the number of roots and affixes needed to master Esperanto. A vivid illustration here can be a comparison with the Russian language:
Regarding the Slavic influence onphonological level, we can say that in Esperanto there is not a single phoneme that would not be in Russian or Polish. The Esperanto alphabet resembles the Czech, Slovak, Croatian, Slovene alphabets (there are no symbolsq, w, x, characters with diacritics are actively used:ĉ , ĝ , ĥ , ĵ , ŝ , ŭ ). In vocabulary, with the exception of words denoting purely Slavic realities (bareo"borscht" and others) from 2612 roots, presented in "Universala Vortaro" ( ) only 29 could be borrowed from Russian or Polish. Explicit Russian borrowings arebanto, barakti, gladi, kartavi, krom(except),kruta, nepre(of course)rights, vosto(tail) and some others. However, the Slavic influence in vocabulary is manifested in the active use of prepositions as prefixes with a change in meaning (for example,sub"under",aceti"buy" -subaceti"bribe";aŭskulti"listen" -subatskulti"eavesdrop"). The doubling of the stems is identical to that in Russian:plena - plena- compare: "full-full",finfine- compare: "in the end." Some Slavicisms of the first years of Esperanto were leveled over time: for example, the verbelrigardi(el-rigard-i) "look" replaced with new -aspect. In the syntax of some prepositions and conjunctions, the Slavic influence is preserved, which was once even greater (kvankam teorie… sed en la praktiko…“although in theory… but in practice…”). According to the Slavic model, the coordination of times is also carried out (Li diriske li jam faristion"He said he already did it"Li diris, ke li estostie"He said he would be there."
Also, the system of conjunctions in Esperanto is largely similar to the system of conjunctions in Russian:
KI- | TI- | I- | NENI- | ĈI- |
|
U | kiu | tiu | iu | neniu | ĉiu |
O | kio | tio | io | neonio | Geo |
A | kia | tia | ia | nenia | ĉia |
E | kie | tie | ie | nenie | eie |
EN | Kien | Tien | ien | nenien | ĉien |
AM | kiam | tiam | iam | neniam | ĉiam |
OM | kiom | thyom | iom | neniom | ĉiom |
EL | kiel | tiel | iel | neniel | ĉiel |
AL | kial | tial | ial | neial | ĉial |
ES | kies | ties | ies | nenies | ĉies |
It can be said that the influence of the Slavic languages (primarily Russian) on Esperanto is much stronger than is commonly believed, and exceeds the influence of the Romance and Germanic languages. Modern Esperanto, after the "Russian" and "French" periods, has entered the so-called "international" period, when individual ethnic languages no longer have a serious influence on its further development.
Specialized vocabulary is not sufficiently developed, although active work is underway in this area. In different years, special dictionaries were published, including multilingual ones, in mathematics, chemistry, medicine and other sciences. The insufficient development of terminology is often cited as one of the reasons for the relatively small spread of Esperanto. In colloquial Esperanto, there is a tendency to replace words of Latin origin with words formed from Esperanto roots in a descriptive manner (flood -altakvaĵoinstead of vocabularyinundo, extra -troainstead of vocabularysuperflua, as in the proverbla tria estas troa - third wheeland so on). In Russian, the most famous are Esperanto - Russian and Russian - Esperanto dictionaries, compiled by a famous Caucasian linguist
The globalization of the modern world shows more and more cultural pluralism and at the same time requires more and more unity, including linguistic. That is, there must be some kind of common language that does not belong to any people, but carries the culture of different peoples, a language that unites people, and does not separate.
More than 100 years ago, Ludwik Zamenhof (1859-1917) created an auxiliary artificial language Esperanto, which does not displace national languages and acts as a peacemaking language of international communication. Today it is owned by tens of millions of people in almost all countries of the world. It has every reason to become the language of global communication in the 21st century.
This project is designed for decades and involves the gradual spread in the world of a single international language of communication, which, from our point of view, can only be the artificial language Esperanto. This language cannot replace the existing national languages, it should only supplement them, performing the function of the language of international communication. The limitation of this function will not allow him to replace international communication with the ethnic features of this or that natural language. Esperanto is intended to serve as a universal international language, the second (after the native) for every educated person. In addition, Esperanto has a largepedagogical (propaedeutic) value - greatly facilitates the subsequent study of other languages. Knowledge of the Esperanto language from a young age will increase the level of tolerance in society, that is, instill tolerance for other languages, for other views.
The now widespread English language cannot effectively fulfill the function of the language of international communication precisely because of its national identity. The spread of English in this function expresses the social inequality of languages and cultures. Any non-speaking ethnic group will ask the question: "Why are the national features of the English language elevated to the rank of a world language?" The dominance of the English language arouses suspicion, introduces additional disharmony and cultural friction. In addition, English itself exists in various versions: American, Australian, Caribbean, Canadian, South African, New Zealand, Irish, and so on, which significantly complicates not only international communication in general, but also communication between ethnic groups speaking different English languages. And in order to preserve the originality of English culture, it is hardly advisable to turn this language into an international one. Genuine globalism preserves rather than suppresses identity. Many sociologists rightly pointed out the perniciousness and fallacy of the spread of English as an international language: A. Touraine, M. Veverka, M. Sasaki, T. Suzuki and others.
On the other hand, why should Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, African and other language worlds on the planet use English for international communication? Why not vice versa? Such questions are quite legitimate and justified. They are removed by the voluntary adoption of an artificial language equal to all without exception.
Esperanto, which has been tested for more than a century, has millions of adherents in almost 120 countries of the world, is very simple and convenient to use, write and pronounce. In the "Declaration of Esperantism", adopted in 1905 by the International Congress of Esperantists, the essence of Esperanto and Esperantism is defined as follows: , would give people of different nations the opportunity to communicate with each other, which could serve as a peacekeeping language of public institutions in those countries where different nations are at enmity among themselves because of the language ... Since at present not a single researcher in the world doubts that international only an artificial language can be a language, and since practically all of the great many attempts made over the past two centuries are only theoretical projects, and the language is really complete, comprehensively tested, completely viable and in all respects the most suitable is only one language “Esperanto, supporters of the idea of an international language, realizing that a theoretical dispute will lead nowhere and the goal can only be achieved by practical work, have long united around one language - Esperanto - and are working to spread it and enrich its literature.”
Tetrasociology, as a global theory of social space-time, generalizes the arguments for asserting Esperanto as a single auxiliary language parallel to the national world language. They are the following:
Sociologists can help Esperanto establish itself as a single language of international communication, for example by putting forward the idea of convening a World Summit on Esperanto and adopting it as the official language of the International Sociological Association.
Probably, at least once everyone has heard about Esperanto - a universal language, designed to become global. And although the majority of people in the world still speak Chinese, this invention of the Polish doctor has its own history and prospects. Where did Esperanto come from, what is this innovation in linguistics, who uses it - read on, and we will answer all these questions.
Probably, since the construction of the Tower of Babel, mankind has experienced difficulties associated with a misunderstanding of the speech of other peoples.
Esperanto was developed to facilitate communication between people of different countries and cultures. It was first published in 1887 by Dr. Ludwik Lazar Zamenhof (1859-1917). He used the pseudonym "Doctor Esperanto", which means "one who hopes". And so the name of his brainchild appeared, which he carefully developed over the years. The international language Esperanto should be used as a neutral language when speaking between people who do not know each other's language.
It even has its own flag. It looks like this:
Esperanto is much easier to learn than the usual national languages that have developed naturally. Its structure is streamlined and clear.
It would not be an exaggeration to say about Esperanto that it is one of the major European languages. Dr. Zamenhof took very real words for his creation as a basis. About 75% of the vocabulary comes from Latin and Romance languages (especially French), 20% comes from Germanic (German and English), and the rest of the expressions are taken from Slavic languages (Russian and Polish) and Greek (mostly scientific terms). Common words are widely used. Therefore, a person who speaks Russian, even without preparation, will be able to read about 40% of the text in Esperanto.
Phonetic writing is inherent in the language, that is, each word is pronounced exactly as it is written. There are no unpronounceable letters or exceptions, making it much easier to learn and use.
This is a very common question, but no one really knows the exact answer. The only way to reliably determine the number of people who speak Esperanto is to conduct a worldwide census, which, of course, is almost impossible.
However, Professor Sidney Culbert of the University of Washington (Seattle, USA) has done the most comprehensive research on the use of this language. He has conducted interviews with Esperanto speakers in dozens of countries around the world. Based on this study, Professor Culbert concluded that about two million people use it. This puts it on a par with languages such as Lithuanian and Hebrew.
Sometimes the number of Esperanto speakers is exaggerated or, conversely, reduced to a minimum, figures vary from 100,000 to 8 million people.
The Esperanto language has many ardent admirers. Did you know that there is an Esperanto street in Russia too? Kazan became the first city of the then Russian Empire, where a club dedicated to the study and dissemination of this language was opened. It was founded by several intellectual activists who enthusiastically accepted the idea of Dr. Zamenhof and began to promote it. Then the professors and students of Kazan University opened their own small club in 1906, which could not last long in the tumultuous years of the early twentieth century. But after the Civil War, the movement resumed, even a newspaper about Esperanto appeared. The language became more and more popular, as it corresponded to the concept of the Communist Party, calling for the unification of different peoples in the name of the World Revolution. Therefore, in 1930, the street on which the Esperanto club was located received a new name - Esperanto. However, in 1947 it was renamed again in honor of the politician. At the same time, participation in the study of this language became dangerous, and since then its popularity has declined significantly. But the Esperantists did not give up, and in 1988 the street got its former name.
In total, there are about 1000 native speakers in Russia. On the one hand, this is not enough, but on the other hand, given that only enthusiasts in clubs study the language, this is not such a small figure.
The alphabet is based on Latin. It contains 28 letters. Since each of them corresponds to a sound, there are also 28 of them, namely: 21 consonants, 5 vowels and 2 semivowels.
In Esperanto, the letters familiar to us from the Latin alphabet sometimes come in twos and are written with a “house” (an inverted check mark on top). So Dr. Zamenhof introduced the new sounds that were needed for his language.
Here, too, the main principle of Esperanto is confessed - simplicity and clarity. There are no genders in the language, and the order of words in a sentence is arbitrary. There are only two cases, three tenses and three. There is an extensive system of prefixes and suffixes, with which you can create many new words from one root.
The flexible word order in a sentence allows people of different backgrounds to use the structures they are most familiar with while still speaking perfectly understandable and grammatically correct Esperanto.
New knowledge never hurts, but here are some specific benefits you can get from learning Esperanto:
For more than 100 years, the most widespread artificial language has had both admirers and critics. They say about Esperanto that it's just another funny leftover, like phrenology or spiritualism. For all the time of its existence, it never became a world language. Moreover, humanity does not show much enthusiasm for this idea.
Critics also argue about Esperanto that it is not at all an easy language, but a difficult language to learn. Its grammar has many unspoken rules, and writing letters is difficult on a modern keyboard. Representatives of different countries are constantly trying to make their own amendments to improve it. This leads to disputes and differences in teaching materials. Also questioned is its euphony.
But fans of this language argue that 100 years is too short for the whole world to speak the same language, and given the current number of native speakers, Esperanto has its own future.
Esperanto is the best known and most widely used artificial language in the world. Like Volapuk, it appeared at the end of the 19th century, but this language was much more fortunate. Its creator is the doctor and linguist Lazar Markovich Zamenhof. Today Esperanto is spoken by 100 thousand to several million people, there are even people for whom the language is native (usually children from international marriages, in which Esperanto is the language of family communication). Unfortunately, exact statistics for artificial languages are not kept.
The first textbook and description of the language was published in Warsaw on July 26, 1887. The author took the pseudonym "Esperanto", the language itself at that moment was called simply and modestly: "international language". However, the author's pseudonym was instantly transferred to the language, and the language almost immediately gained great popularity: the Esperanto Academy was soon created, and in 1905 the first world congress of Esperanto took place.
The Latin alphabet was taken as the basis of the Esperanto alphabet. There are 28 letters in Esperanto, one letter corresponds to one sound (that is, how it is written is how it is heard - and vice versa). The stress always falls on the penultimate syllable.
The vocabulary of Esperanto was created on the basis of the Germanic and Romance languages, the language has many roots from Latin and Greek.
There are Esperanto dictionaries, for example, on the Internet you can find a large Esperanto-Russian dictionary, there are even plans to release Esperanto dictionaries for mobile devices.
Esperanto grammar is the dream of any student of a foreign language. There are only 16 rules in Esperanto. All.
There are two cases in the language, there is a plural and a singular, but there is no grammatical gender category (that is, there are, of course, pronouns he, she, it, but they do not require adjectives and verbs to agree with them).
