For many people, Esperanto is the answer. Esperanto enthusiasts tend to cultivate friends from across the world. Esperanto is a created language that continues to bring people together despite geographical and linguistic differences.
In this interview, Erin Piateski, a mechanical engineer living in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC, will be telling us more about this intriguing language and its history, as well as its practical applications. Erin is a member of the core team that runs the Esperanto-learning website, http://lernu.net.
CAINE: How long has Esperanto existed as a language, and what are its origins?
ERIN PIATESKI: Esperanto was created by Ludwig Lazarus Zamenhof, an oculist who is variously described as Russian or Polish or Jewish. The various
descriptions of Zamenhof as a person are closely related to the origins of Esperanto as a language. Zamenhof grew up in Bialystok, which is in modern-day Poland, but which was at the time part of the
Russian Empire. In the city, there were Russians, Poles, Germans, and Jews; the people, therefore, spoke Russian or Polish or German or Yiddish. The various groups didn't necessarily mix very much, and
there was a lot of mistrust. Zamenhof thought that if everyone learned a second language, a neutral language that was not connected to any one culture, that people could talk to each other more easily.
He believed that if you picked the language of a certain ethnic group as the common language, that it would give that group an unfair advantage over others.
Esperanto was published in its final version in 1887, but Zamenhof worked on developing it, off and on, it for around 10 years prior to then. Zamenhof wrote a lot of sample texts and translations to test
the capabilities of the language before he released it to the public.
CAINE: Have you found Esperanto to be a relatively easy language to learn?
PIATESKI: Yes, I have. Like any other language, Esperanto has vocabulary to memorize and grammatical forms to learn. It still requires a
substantial commitment of time, and learning isn't instantaneous or effortless. But it's much simpler than other languages. The effort you expend is less, you learn faster. I have studied Latin, Italian,
French, and Yiddish, and Esperanto was certainly far easier than any of those.
CAINE: How long have you been studying Esperanto, and what got you interested in the language?
PIATESKI: I began studying Esperanto in 1995, so around 14 years ago now. I actively studied it for around two years; after that, I wouldn't really call it studying, more like using the language and gaining
fluency. I read about Esperanto in the "Stainless Steel Rat" series of science fiction books. I heard that it was a real language, and easy to learn. At the time, my sister had studied Spanish for four
years, but it seemed to me that she still couldn't speak with any fluency; I knew hardly anyone who had really learned a language in school, that is, really learned it enough to use it outside the classroom. I wanted to be fluent in a foreign language, but I had not studied any languages yet. I was about to enter high school, and I was signed up to study Latin, and I knew I would never be fluent in Latin. I thought that Esperanto was my one and only chance to become
fluent in a foreign language, since it was supposed to be easier than other languages. And I guess I was right, because now I speak Esperanto extremely fluently. I have studied several other languages
since, but I haven't attained anything close to the same degree of fluency.
CAINE: Please write a brief statement in Esperanto, anything you wish, followed by an English translation, so we can see an example of written Esperanto.
PIATESKI: This is an Esperanto proverb from a large collection of proverbs that Zamenhof published. Many of them have become popular sayings.
"Groŝon ŝtelis--ho, ŝtelisto! milojn ŝtelis--financisto"
I loosely translate it as "Stole a penny--stop, thief! Stole millions -- a financier"
CAINE: Esperanto isn't the only attempt at creating a global language, but does seem to be the most popular. To what factors do you attribute Esperanto's popularity over other created languages?
PIATESKI: Esperanto was born in a time when 'universal' languages were a popular
idea. Most of those languages are dead today, or have only a few speakers. The precise reason depends on the specific language, but in my opinion, it usually comes down to ease of learning, and stability
of the language. Some languages died because they were simply too hard to learn. Esperanto is "neutral", but it is not fully neutral
because the vocabulary is based on European languages. If you speak one European language, it makes it easier for you to learn Esperanto. Some constructed languages are composed of random sounds, so they are fully neutral - but also very hard to learn, since you are memorizing words with no cognates in any language on earth. So those tended to
fail. Other languages failed because of constant changes and "improvements". Esperanto is built on an unchangeable base; the language can develop, but certain basic principles must always remain valid, and this has made our language stable. People can feel
comfortable learning Esperanto, because a new version of the grammar won't be released tomorrow, and you won't have to throw away what you already learned and start again. This hasn't been the case with some
other constructed languages, so they have had a hard time gaining new speakers. At this point, Esperanto has an established speaking community, literature, magazines, books, music, etc. A new constructed language, even if it were significantly easier to learn and equally as stable as Esperanto, would find it hard to compete with Esperanto, simply because it would lack an existing community of speakers.
CAINE: When Esperanto speakers from different countries get together, is it difficult to understand them, or is the pronunciation standardized enough to counteract the effect of native accents?
PIATESKI: Esperanto has a fairly standard pronunciation, but it's true that some people have strong accents. You are considered to have a "good accent" if it's not clear what country you come from, based on your accent. This would be a lot easier for an Italian to achieve than an American or a French person. Most people try as hard as they can to adhere to the standard, with varying degrees of success. Accents are not generally a problem, especially now that the internet has made it easier to hear models of correct pronunciation online; the younger generation tends to speak with a weaker "foreign" accent than the older generation.
CAINE: Do you feel that the world be better off if the majority of its inhabitants were able to speak a common second language, such as Esperanto?
PIATESKI: Yes, I do. It probably would not help us avoid any new wars, but it would save a lot of money in translation costs at world organizations,
and it would allow people to talk to one another, without need of intermediaries. And I think that talking to one another is a great way for people to feel connected to one another. Many problems today
are global in nature, especially with relation to the environment, and in my opinion, we would be better off seeing one another as citizens of the same planet and working together to solve these problems to
everyone's benefit.
CAINE: Is it true that Esperanto was discouraged by some governments in the past, and that Esperanto speakers were even persecuted?
PIATESKI: Yes. There was a good deal of persecution of Esperanto in the past. There
is a book written about it, called La Danĝera Lingvo (The Dangerous Language). In brief, some totalitarian governments have persecuted Esperanto because of the international outlook of its speakers and because of the language's internal idea of peace between nations. Totalitarian governments feel threatened by these sorts of ideas, as you might imagine. Esperanto organizations were shut down and Esperanto was outlawed in Nazi Germany. Many speakers were put into concentration camps, probably because they were not only Esperanto speakers, but also Jews or Socialists or members of another banned organization.
Esperanto has mixed experiences in Communist
countries. In some cases, the government uses it for its own ends; I have seen plenty of Esperanto-language Communist propaganda from Cuba
or China. Communist countries in Eastern Europe used to provide some state support to Esperanto organizations, and Esperanto was popular in
those countries, as a means to talk to the outside world. On the other hand, under Stalin, the Soviet Union clamped down on Esperanto, precisely because they were afraid of people having access to
uncensored information through their foreign correspondence. The members of the main Soviet Esperanto group at the time were hunted down and arrested, then executed or sent to Siberia. Things loosened up after Stalin died, but the movement never regained its former momentum.
Today, I can't think of any specific government that places restrictions on Esperanto or on its speakers; rather, Esperanto suffers from apathy and indifference, and governments no longer see it
as a threat. People feel they don't need it, so they don't learn it. They assume that English is the international language, so they want to focus their attention on that instead. Of course, a hundred years
ago, French was the international language. The world situation changes continuously, and if Esperanto were to gain a significant number of new supporters, I wouldn't be surprised if some government decided it was a threat, and started placing new restrictions on it.
CAINE: Can learning the basic grammatical rules of Esperanto be helpful toward understanding how other languages work?
PIATESKI: Yes, absolutely. Esperanto words are clearly marked with endings that mark them as nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc. Many students find that
after studying Esperanto, they better understand how their own language works. You learn how a sentence is constructed. Certain complex verb tenses are very simple to construct in Esperanto, so you see how those work, and you can understand when to use them. It's a lot like learning to read music with a simple musical instrument rather than a very complex one; you learn valuable skills in an easy way, and then you can apply those same skills to something much more
complex.
CAINE: Is there is a sense of community among Esperanto speakers?
PIATESKI: There is a very strong sense of community. Esperanto speakers are a small minority in the world, and in spite of the central idea of Esperanto being an international language for everyone, we will probably always remain a small minority. But as a small community, people know each other and they look out for each other. As an Esperanto speaker, when I travel abroad for work or tourism, I can contact the Esperanto speakers in the cities I visit, and in most cases, they will show me around their city, or meet me for coffee, or invite me to stay in their house. I can't expect that as an English speaker; no one will want to meet me or let me stay in their house just because I speak English. When I meet an Esperanto speaker in a foreign city for the first time, it is a little like meeting a distant relative; we don't know each other at all, but we feel that we are already friends. Normally that person will help me however they can in their city, and normally I will bring them a small gift from the US to thank them for their hospitality. After talking for a while, usually we discover that we have some mutual acquaintances. Many Esperanto-speaking homes have a guestbook, and it can be fun to flip through the book to find names that your recognize, people you know who have stayed there.
CAINE: Do you feel that the Internet is helping with the spread of Esperanto?
PIATESKI: Yes and no. I think that the internet has made it much easier to learn Esperanto, for people who are interested in learning, and it has made it much easier for Esperanto organizations to disseminate their information. It has made it much easier for speakers to find and contact one another, even if they live in a very isolated area. On the other hand, many people used to take advantage of Esperanto for international contacts and travel. To some extent, this is no longer necessary, because the internet has made it easy to make direct contact with people in foreign countries, without the use of any kind of organization. Of course, in that case, you meet only the people who have learned English, which turns out to be a different population than those who have learned Esperanto.
CAINE: What advantages have you personally experienced as a result of your having studied this language?
PIATESKI: I have traveled to many different countries. That's something I could easily have done without Esperanto. But I have met up with local Esperanto speakers in almost every country I have visited, and I think it has made my experience different from that of most tourists. Being with a local person makes a visit easier in a thousand ways, ranging from very practical things, like having someone who can translate a menu for you, or ask directions in the local language, or tell you where the best bookstore is, to the finer details of making the most of your visit to a foreign country, like introducing you to the local culinary specialties, showing you the best panoramas of the city, and taking you to the places that you wouldn't find in your guidebook. Any guidebook can show you the main tourist attractions of a city, but for me it's interesting to see the city through the eyes of a local person; this is where he went to elementary school, this is the market where he shops, this is his favorite ice cream sundae at the local cafe, etc. And of course, when these foreign Esperantists visit my city, I do the same for them; I help them reach the main tourist sites (and tell them which are actually worth visiting, and which are not), but I also show them the local shops near my house, I show them the ice cream place with the best ice cream, the bookstore with the inexpensive books, and the right bus to get them to wherever they need to go.
There is a pin sold by the US Esperanto book service that says "Neniu fremdulo en Esperantujo" - roughly translated, "There is no foreigner in the land of Esperanto". It sounds cheesy, but to a large extent I
have felt it to be true. With other Esperanto speakers, you don't feel foreign. So even if you are in a foreign country, you can't read a single word on the restaurant menu, you can't read a single street
sign, and you couldn't point to where you are on a map, you still don't feel foreign. Because you are being led around by someone who lives there and speaks your language (Esperanto), and who is taking
care of all of those details for you, and you are doing everything that a local person does, and you feel perfectly safe and perfectly in your element, because you have nothing to worry about. Someone else
is taking care of those details for you, leaving you free to experience the new culture, and ask whatever questions you have about what's going on around you. Such as, uh, why did the police pull over
our taxi, and what are they questioning our driver about? (This happened to me in India. I don't speak Telugu, but my Esperanto-speaking friend told me that our driver didn't have a license, and had to pay a small fine).
On a more personal level, I have a foreign Esperanto-speaking boyfriend, and we use only Esperanto together, so I feel a significant personal benefit from Esperanto. Esperanto events are a lot of fun,
and meeting Esperanto speakers abroad is a lot of fun as well, so I'm glad that this is a part of my life that my boyfriend and I can participate in together. I never would have met him if not for Esperanto, so obviously I'm very grateful for that.
CAINE: If someone wanted to start learning Esperanto, what are some resources that are useful for beginners?
PIATESKI: The following links are all free learning resources; it's easy to learn Esperanto without spending a cent!