Those of you who know me personally will know that I am an Esperantist, a speaker of Esperanto. Esperanto is what is called a planned or artificial language, invented (if that is the right word) by a Polish Jew, called Ludwik Zamenhof, living in Bialystok in NW Poland in 1887. His vision was to create a language which would be easy to learn and would unite people by serving as a universal second language.
Zamenhof authored the book outlining the 16 simple rules of grammar of what he called la Universala Lingvo (the Universal Language) under the pseudonym Doktoro Esperanto (The Hoping Doctor). It was this pseudonym which became the name of the language. Esperanto looks and sounds like a sort of Slavicised Italian. Here is a sample sentence: "En la komenco estis la Vorto." ("In the beginning was the Word"). In my experience Esperanto functions as a language. I have been able to converse in Esperanto and indeed correspond in the langauge. When I was learning, I subscribed to the monthly magazine Monato, which had perfectly intelligible articles in the language.
Esperanto is not the only or the first planned language. There are plenty of others, including the facscinating Volapük, but it is the most successful and has a community of several million people who speak and use the language.
Esperanto occupies a certain very personal place in my own life. When I was learning it, I shared its idealist aspirations, not least the hope that the language's popularity would gain traction, actually becoming a second language in international relations. In a broader sense both Esperanto's founder, Zamenhof, and its movement, breath the air of a certain idealism. For me personally, this was part of my spiritual search which led me to find answers in the Christian faith.
On a more pragmatic level, as I look back, the decision to learn Esperanto, sometime around 1988, was a watershed for my language learning. At school I had foolishly opted not to take Latin, but Esperanto, with its simple rules of grammar and clearly marked parts of speech, gave me an insight into how langauges work. Even now, as I learn and teach languages, I refer back to this knowledge. That's basically what is meant by the phrase "valeur propédeutique", used by Claude Piron, a famous Esperantist who works at the UN: learning Esperanto helps you learn other langauges. This, along with a week-long language exchange to Germany in 1987, revolutionised my language learning. I began Italian in 1988, then Welsh, then Russian. My current tally is 14 - the most recent addition being Spanish.
Mi nomiĝas Russell Phillips. Mi donas lingvo-lecionojn en angla, rusa, germana, itala kaj franca lingvoj.
La kosto de la lecionoj estas GBP 9 (naŭ britaj funtoj) por 15 minutoj. Mi postulas antaŭ-pagon.
Kontaktu min je www.facebook.com/russelljamesphillips aŭ per e-poŝto je regnavit[at]gmail.com
Zamenhof authored the book outlining the 16 simple rules of grammar of what he called la Universala Lingvo (the Universal Language) under the pseudonym Doktoro Esperanto (The Hoping Doctor). It was this pseudonym which became the name of the language. Esperanto looks and sounds like a sort of Slavicised Italian. Here is a sample sentence: "En la komenco estis la Vorto." ("In the beginning was the Word"). In my experience Esperanto functions as a language. I have been able to converse in Esperanto and indeed correspond in the langauge. When I was learning, I subscribed to the monthly magazine Monato, which had perfectly intelligible articles in the language.Esperanto is not the only or the first planned language. There are plenty of others, including the facscinating Volapük, but it is the most successful and has a community of several million people who speak and use the language.
Esperanto occupies a certain very personal place in my own life. When I was learning it, I shared its idealist aspirations, not least the hope that the language's popularity would gain traction, actually becoming a second language in international relations. In a broader sense both Esperanto's founder, Zamenhof, and its movement, breath the air of a certain idealism. For me personally, this was part of my spiritual search which led me to find answers in the Christian faith.
On a more pragmatic level, as I look back, the decision to learn Esperanto, sometime around 1988, was a watershed for my language learning. At school I had foolishly opted not to take Latin, but Esperanto, with its simple rules of grammar and clearly marked parts of speech, gave me an insight into how langauges work. Even now, as I learn and teach languages, I refer back to this knowledge. That's basically what is meant by the phrase "valeur propédeutique", used by Claude Piron, a famous Esperantist who works at the UN: learning Esperanto helps you learn other langauges. This, along with a week-long language exchange to Germany in 1987, revolutionised my language learning. I began Italian in 1988, then Welsh, then Russian. My current tally is 14 - the most recent addition being Spanish.
Mi nomiĝas Russell Phillips. Mi donas lingvo-lecionojn en angla, rusa, germana, itala kaj franca lingvoj. La kosto de la lecionoj estas GBP 9 (naŭ britaj funtoj) por 15 minutoj. Mi postulas antaŭ-pagon.
Kontaktu min je www.facebook.com/russelljamesphillips aŭ per e-poŝto je regnavit[at]gmail.com
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