Esperanto: The story of an artificial language that promotes peace

The major languages used worldwide like English, French, Spanish, Mandarin or our very own Bangla are natural languages, which are evolved through organic usage by humans and possess persisting human qualities.

But not all languages are like that.

There is a term called constructed language, or in short, conlang. Some also prefer to describe it as artificial language.

The phonology, grammar, and vocabulary of such language are consciously planned and developed.

Of the constructed languages, the most widely used around the world is Esperanto, a language developed more than 135 years ago in 1887.

The man behind the language is a Polish oculist L L Zamenhof, who articulated the language with the intention of turning it into a universal second language for international communication.

Why Esperanto?

Zamenhof, a doctor by profession, was optimistic about creating a universal language to bring the entire population of the world under one umbrella.

He believed, if there was one common language through which everyone could communicate with each other, then there would be no more xenophobia in the world.

Such ambitions were born from the doctor's experiences as a Jew growing up in the Russian Empire, which was deeply divided along ethnic and religious lines.

He first laid down the basic principles of the language's structure and formation in a book titled  Dr. Esperanto's International Language (Esperanto: Unua Libro) in 1905.

The book was published under the pseudonym Doktoro Esperanto. The word Esperanto translates into English as "one who hopes".

Early adopters of the language took an instant liking to the language, and soon started using it to describe the language.

This way, Esperanto became a torchbearer of establishing world peace at the beginning of the 20th century, with its white-green flag alongside a five-pointed star capturing the imagination of many. 

Easy-to-learn method

One of the key aims while creating the language was to reduce "time and labor we spend in learning foreign tongues," according to Zamenhof's letter to Nikolaj Borovko, a Ukrainian national and a fellow Esperantist.

So, he tried to keep the language as simple as possible, taking the middle ground between "naturalistic" (imitating existing natural languages) and a "priori" (where features are not based on existing languages).

Thus, the doctor let the language flow like a river, just what the natural languages do, too.

Initial success

Esperanto found unprecedented success from the word go, generating thousands of groups throughout Europe, North America and other parts of the world who started speaking the language.

Within a very short span of time, books written in this language also began to come out, while the speakers actively participated in a movement to disseminate the language as well as bring peace, hinting at the probable fulfilment of Zamenhof's dreams.

Even a small condominium of Neutral Moresnet, between Belgium and Germany, held talks of becoming the first country to adopt Esperanto as its official language.

The little country existing from 1816 to 1920 lay between rival empires and had multi-ethnic population, which inspired its government to view Esperanto as a language to be neutral, and free from the influences of neither the German, nor the French.

However, the plan never materialised. During the First World War, Neutral Monserat was invaded by the Germans and after the war it was annexed by Belgium and France.

This way, the state not only saw the abrupt end to its independence, but also the social experiment with the language developed by Zamenhof.

The golden age

The First World War almost shattered the doctor's dream of bringing world peace, as his artificial language was simply not enough to prevent the bloodbath caused by the war.

Still, following the First World War, Esperanto saw a new dawn, with serious efforts being taken to make it the official language of the League of Nations. However, the proposal nipped in the bud due to veto from France.

For some time, the language also received the blessings of Soviet Russia, with rumours of Stalin studying the language.

To add to that, there were a plethora of books, journals and newspapers published in the language, paving the way for a Golden Age of Esparento in the 1920s to come to be.

The Holocaust

In the following decade, the Golden Age of Esperanto came to a hasty end with Hitler's rise to power.

As the language was designed by a Jew, with thousands of Jews also speaking it, Hitler and the Nazis identified it as an international conspiracy by the Jewish people to take over the world.

Hitler went to the length of singling out Esperanto in his book Mein Kampf, which escalated the hate campaign against the language, making the Esperantists one of the first victims of the Holocaust.

Some Esperantists, as a last resort to save themselves, joined in the persecution of the jews, but were still massacred by the Nazis.

Zamenhof was not alive at that time to witness the horror of Holocaust, but none of his children were spared.

Esperanto, however, still continued to live on, thanks to some prisoners in the concentration camps who taught other prisoners the language and communicated with each other in it.

The decline thereafter 

Surprisingly, Soviet Russia also stopped patronising the language, as suspicion arose of the language being a dangerous foreign influence.

As a result, Stalin too began to prosecute the Esperantists, or sent them to the Gulag.

And then in the 1950s and 1960s, the U.S. army made war with the language of peace, when they used Esperanto as the fictitious language of a mock opponent during their training manoeuvres.

Esperanto now

Despite having all the potential to really become a universal second language for international communication, Esperanto eventually failed to meet its goal.

But that does not mean the language has gone totally extinct.

Though it has never become a secondary official language of any recognised country, it has still entered the education systems and national media of several countries, including China.

Overall, there are currently more than 100,000 Esperanto speakers around the world, and it is spoken in over 120 countries. Wikipedia also has an Esperanto version with nearly 3,50,000 articles.

The Universala Esperanto-Asocio (founded 1908) has members in 83 countries, and so far more than 30,000 books have been published in the language.