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The Story of Ludwik Zamenhof and Esperanto

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The Story of Ludwik Zamenhof and Esperanto Is It P ossible for A ll P eople to Speak th e Sam e Language? The Story of Ludw ik Zamenhof and Esperanto Federico Gobbo (Am sterdam / Torino) PO LIN Museum , 14 Decem ber ( ursday), 6 PM, free adm ission Abstract First, we will see the pillars of Zam enhof's thinking and why his linguistic project a$racted the Esperanto pioneers. Then, we will move on the contem porary days, looking to the m otivations of today’s speakers and their aspirations for the present and future of Esperanto. About the lecturer Lecture by Professor Federico Gobbo from University of Am sterdam . Federico Gobbo is Full Professor at the University of Amsterdam, holding the Special Chair in Interlinguistics and Esperanto, and teaching fellow in Language Planning and Planned Language at the University of Torino (Italy). He is a leading scholar in the analysis of the Esperanto phenom enon and language, including Zam enhof’s heritage in th e E s p e ra n to c o m m u n ity o f p ra c tic e . About the lecture Lecture delivered in English with simultaneous translation into Polish. The lecture is organized within the Global Education Outreach Program . The lecture was made possible thanks to the support of the Taube Foundation for Jew ish L ife & C u ltu re, th e W illia m K . B o w es, Jr. F o u n d a tio n , a n d th e A sso cia tio n o f th e Jew ish H isto rica l In stitu te of P o lan d . e casual tourist in Warsaw can encounter traces of Zamenhof and his main creation, the Esperanto language, w andering throughout the city. Coming here to the PO LIN M useum , you com e across ulica Zam enhofa. In th e city th ere is also an Esperanto Street, and a city bus show s ‘Esperanto’ on its display as that street is its last stop. B u t th ere are m an y Esp eran to an d Z am en h of streets in the w orld, so this is not w hat m akes W arsaw unique. Follow ing our im aginary to u rist, w h o is fo n d o f stre e t a rt, w e ca n ta k e a to u r to d isco v e r W a rsa w ’s murals: one of them portrays Zamenhof with an extensive bilingual Esperanto–Polish text, which can be found just outside here, around the corner, in the Muranów m e tro s ta tio n . L e t’s s u p p o s e th a t o u r im a g in a ry to u ris t is fond of languages too, and she loves biking. She w ill certainly ask herself the follow ing question: W hy does W arsaw ’s public bike system have such a stran ge non -P olish nam e, Veturilo? You can now guess the answ er: it is a w ord in Esperanto, m eaning ‘vehicle’. If our im aginary tourist happens to read Polish or Esperanto, she could satisfy her legitimate curiosity about the topic by consulting a book that is a source of reliable inform ation about the relation between Zam enhof and this city. In fact, the book entitled Zam enhof in Warsaw, published earlier this year, appeared in tw o editions, the <rst in P olish and the second in Esperanto. e book guides one through the city in search of th e m a n y tra ce s le = b y th e Z a m e n h o f fa m ily . Its a u th o r is Rom an Dobrzy@ski, a Polish journalist and Esperantist, w ho som e years ago interview ed Louis- Christophe Zaleski-Zamenhof, the grandson of the inventor of Esperanto, whose life story is really remarkable. at interview, originally in Polish, was translated in several languages, including Esperanto. Even if Ludwik Lejzer was born in Białystok, he spent most of his life here in Warsaw, where he published the unua libro (‘first book’) on July 1887. So, Warsaw can be considered the adopted home of Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof and, of course, the cradle of Esperanto. UNESCO declared 2017 Zamenhof Year, being the 100th anniversary of his death, which transpired here in Warsaw, where Zamenhof’s grave is also located. The UNESCO decision was made after a proposal by Poland with the support of Germany and Slovakia. It is worth reading an extract of the original document motivating this important symbolic decision: 1 In 1887 he [Zam enhoD] published a textbook in R ussian: “ e international tongue – Preface and com plete m ethod”, under the pseudonym Doktoro Esperanto. e pseudonym means “ e Doctor who hopes” and has caught on as the nam e of the language. In the sam e year the textbook w as published in Polish, French, G erm an and English. e <rst Esperanto clubs started to com e into being, and the advantages of the language w ere recognized by linguists too. In 1905 in B oulogne-sur- Mer, France, the <rst World Congress of Esperanto took place. While stay ing in Fran ce, Z am en h of w as decorated w ith th e N ation al O rder of the Legion of H onour. In 1906 Z am enhof published hum anitism (h o m a ra n ism o ), w h ich is th e id e a o f th e u n io n o f a ll th e n a tio n s com m unicating in a com m on language. Zamenhof himself was the <rst to ask if it were possible for all people to speak th e sa m e la n g u a g e. F o r h im , th is w a s n o t a u to p ia n d re a m , a s it w a s fo r philosophers like René Descartes and Leibniz, but a concrete possibility. But Zamenhof was well aware that simply having a com m on language was not enough to m ake this idea a reality. is is an aspect seldom discussed in presentations on the Esperanto language. Nonetheless, it is extrem ely im portant in order to understand the w hole phenom enon. Let m e brieMy explain this point in detail. Every language is a vehicle for a set of values held by the people who use it— in this case, the collection of the Esperanto-speakers— and even an invented language like Esperanto is no exception in this sense. In other w ords, Esperanto is not only a language, but a culture represented by its artifacts, created by the Esperantists, the people w ho believe that using that language for one purpose or another is w orth the tim e spent learning it. W e are used to ta lk in g a b o u t a sin g le E sp e ra n to la n g u a g e id e o lo g y , b u t th e v a rie ty o f p o litica l and social ideas connected to this language justify the use of the w ord ‘E sp e ra n tism s’ in th e p lu ra l. According to Mark FeOes, a scholar who is currently the president of the most im portant association supporting the language, the U niversal Esperanto Association, the way Esperanto speakers perceive their language fa c e s a dilem m a between two contrasting aspects: on one side, there is the Gemeins⌫a⇠, linked to tradition, kinship, rurality; w hile on the other side, 2 th e re is th e Gesells⌫a⇠, linked to m odernity, individualism , and urbanness. e Esperanto G e m e in s⌫a⇠ aspect nurtures original poetry and prose, prepares theatrical pieces for perform ance at Esperanto conferences, and takes care of th e co n ce rt p e rfo rm e d b y th e la te st E sp e ra n to ro ck b a n d . e E sp e ra n to Gesells⌫a⇠ a s p e c t is m o re c o n c e rn e d w ith re c o g n itio n o f th e la n g u a g e a n d its value by external institutions, such as the UN ESC O declaration we saw above (w h ic h is o n ly th e la st o f a ra th e r lo n g list) o r th e P o lish P a rlia m e n t re so lu tio n in m em ory of Zam enhof, adopted on (th e 7th o f A p ril 2017) 7 A p ril 2 0 1 7 . If w e consider the fact that Esperanto is spoken by a m inority scaOered around th e w o rld a n d th a t a t a sa m e tim e it h a s a n in te rn a tio n a l ch a ra cte r b y de<nition, the Esperanto culture has almost literally created a cosm opolitan global village.
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