I Decided to Learn an Artificial Language
Why would anybody do that?
How it all started
The year was 2009. I was 16 and my biggest dream was to travel, meet people from different countries, and learn about their cultures. This was the dream of a girl from a small town in the north of Kazakhstan.
Apparently, my school teacher was an activist in an Esperanto society. Esperanto is an artificial language invented by a Polish-Jewish ophthalmologist, she explained once.
One of the main purposes of creating such a language is to ease the communication between people from around the world who could use a language, neutral for all.
My teacher was keen on telling stories about Esperanto and the activities they did in her society. As I listened, spellbound, about stories of her traveling in Europe, with almost no money, made possible through a special service called “Pasporta Servo” in which Esperantists welcome each other at their homes for free. She couldn’t even speak English or any other foreign language, but she also accommodated Esperanto friends in her house in Kazakhstan.
It all sounded so adventurous that I instantly fell in love with the language and the idea of traveling the world and making friendships with other Esperantists.
It was then decided! I came back home and immediately registered in the biggest learning site for Esperanto called Lernu.
“Saluton! Kiel vi fartas?” — “Hello! How are you?”
I was so excited to learn a few phrases in a language I never even heard before. The site had forums where you could speak with other users and practice what you’ve learned. Shocking for me, I started chatting with foreigners for the first time in my life, in a language I could barely speak. Fun old times. Everyone was quite supportive and encouraging to continue learning and not to worry about any mistakes.
The language is easy to learn as expected. Simple grammar and easy to understand structures without crazy rules or exceptions. It is said that Leo Tolstoy learned Esperanto in 3–4 hours. Not sure how true it is, but personally I could speak and have simple conversations without worrying, after 1–2 months of non-regular learning.
My craziness for Esperanto and their whole culture lasted a little more than a year. In this period of time, I made friendships with people who I still keep in touch 10 years later. Fortunately, they speak English as my Esperanto has turned rusty, to say the least.
Do I regret deciding to learn Esperanto at that time? Not at all. Among the Esperantists, you can find many friendly and open-minded people. Moreover, their society and culture are unique. More than 25,000 books are written in the language, theatres plays, and concerts are also performed in Esperanto.
Esperanto has its own flag and anthem, here’re a few of the lines.
“Sur neŭtrala lingva fundamento, _______“On a neutral language basis,
komprenante unu la alian, _____________understanding one another,
la popoloj faros en konsento ____________ the people will make in agreement
unu grandan rondon familian.” _________one great family circle.”
Could you understand some words from the part in Esperanto? You might be able to understand even without learning it as the vocabulary comes from Romance (Latin) and Germanic languages.
Interesting facts about Esperanto
- Estimates of 1000–2000 native speakers, who learned Esperanto from birth
- Esperantists have their own original version of Google and Google translator, Esperanto keyboard in Android
- Esperanto is one of the official languages of Wikipedia, which has over 280,000 articles as of 2016
- Approximately 2 million people speak Esperanto
- According to experiments of H. Frank, a French child would need 1500 hours of studying English to reach a medium level. It will only take 150 hours to reach the same for Esperanto.
- Harry Harrison (American science-fiction writer), Leo Tolstoy and Maxim Gorky (Russian authors), Willem Drees (former prime minister of the Netherlands), Franz Jonas and Heinz Fischer (Former Austrian presidents), Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam’s first president), J. R. R. Tolkien (English writer), Jules Verne (French novelist), Louis Lumière (Cinema inventor) and others popular people fluently spoke Esperanto
- Joseph Stalin (general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union) tried to learn Esperanto and German but finally did not succeed in both
Esperanto may never become a universal second language, but it certainly has its charm and wonderful community. The language’s popularity and usage are pretty small but still big enough to find people to talk to, read books and articles, listen to music, and so on. More importantly, you can make new significant friendships and have memorable experiences through Esperanto, its unique culture, and network of people around the world.
