Historical story

Esperanto language and culture still alive

The first inaugural lecture in Esperanto was held at the University of Amsterdam on 13 March 2015. Frederico Gobbo thus accepted his chair in Interlinguistics and Esperanto. In addition to the language itself, his research focuses on the – still very lively – culture of the Esperanto movement.

We hear and see three different languages ​​in this oration in the Lutheran Church. Frederico Gobbo did not dare to speak only in Esperanto, as he says “so as not to lose his audience”. Because unfortunately for its creator Lejzer Zamenhof (1859-1917) it never became the world language he had hoped for.

English did get that role, which is why this is the other language that Gobbo uses in his inaugural lecture. Alternate with Dutch:after all, this is an inaugural lecture at a Dutch university.

Polyglot

Although Esperanto has never become a global language, in 2015 it is still a language that is still used and transmitted. Within a select group, admittedly, but they are there; people who raise their children in Esperanto. Gobbo knows that all Esperanto speakers are bilingual, and a large number are even polyglot. That means they master a large number of languages.

He shows on a map where the largest groups of Esperanto adherents live. They are mainly found in Europe. Esperanto is even an official language in Herzberg. You will find remarkably few Esperanto speakers in Islamic countries. Gobbo explains that the Esperanto movement originated in Christian countries, also because of Zamenhof's Jewish background.

The idea of ​​an easy-to-learn, international language emerged early in the seventeenth century. In a letter from 1629, René Descartes gives his reflections on a language for international purposes. In this letter he introduces the concept of interlinguistics :a field in which the search for a perfect interlingua or international language.

At that time, this branch of sport was mainly practiced by philosophers. They initially regarded language as a means of thinking. You could also think better in a logically structured language with few exceptions. Descartes himself was also very pessimistic about the feasibility of such a language.

Dr. Esperanto

Still, a few centuries later, a language that closely matched its description was devised. Then the Polish doctor Lejzer Zamenhof published his first book on a language with a very simple grammar and great regularity. He published the book under the pseudonym Dr Esperanto, which in his self-designed language means “one who hopes”. This language soon became known as Esperanto.

The use of this pseudonym was typical of the idealist that Zamenhof was. For him, Esperanto was the outcome of a long search for a language that would bring people together without any form of nationalism being involved.

That ideology clearly stemmed from his Jewish background. The following quote from one of his letters has become famous:

If I hadn't been a Jew from the Ghetto, the idea of ​​unifying mankind would either never have entered my head, or at least not hold me so persistently throughout my entire life (Zamenhof 1905)

Esperanto was not created for nothing in the context of Haskala, the Jewish enlightenment. Zamenhof saw an important role for language when it came to solving the Jewish problem. For a long time he worked on a grammar of Yiddish, but the Jewish community eventually chose Hebrew, which was revived from 1881 by Zamenhof's contemporary Eliezer Ben-Yehuda.

Indo-European languages

Zamenhof then switched to a global perspective to unite the people. Nevertheless, Hebrew and Yiddish have left their mark on Esperanto. But other Indo-European languages ​​can also be found in it. And that may also ensure that this language immediately feels familiar, even for those who have never come into contact with it before.

The linguistic aspects of Esperanto have already been studied by various linguists, Frederico Gobbo explains in his inaugural lecture. Both abroad and in the Netherlands itself, because before him the first Esperanto chair at the UvA was already held by the linguists Marc van Oostendorp and Wim Jansen. In his own research, Gobbo opts for a predominantly sociolinguistic approach. This means that he also closely follows the sociological side of the Esperanto movement.

Since Esperanto still has a vibrant community of Esperantists, there is still much to explore there. For example, you can deduce the liveliness of the culture from the origin of certain rituals.

For example, for several decades every Esperanto meeting has had a gufujo :a quiet place where young Esperanto members can discuss with each other in the evening, preferably by candlelight, while enjoying a cup of tea. The word is derived from the Esperanto word gufoj which means 'owls'.

Kviko, Kveko and Kvako

And you can also observe change in the language. Because Esperanto is still spoken by a large group of people - even as a mother tongue - words are regularly added. The word gufujo is an example of that. New words are also created through new literary translations, such as the Esperanto word for Tintin:Tinĉjo. There are no translations for Kwik, Kwek and Kwak yet, but Gobbo does feel something for Kviko, Kveko and Kvako. Kvaki is the Esperanto word for 'croak'.

All these changes in language and cultural expressions show that an artificial language like Esperanto can behave in the same way as a natural language. But it is precisely its different origins that make Esperanto interesting to compare with other languages.

Moreover, Gobbo believes that Esperanto can play an important role in language education. By coming into contact with Esperanto, primary school pupils can learn to think at a meta level about how language works. An experiment is already underway at a Montessori school in Milan under his supervision. There is therefore still plenty to research into the language and culture of Esperanto.

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