July 26: Esperanto

The first book propounding the rules of Esperanto, the international language invented by L.L. Zamenhof, was published on this date in 1887 in Warsaw. It was called Unua Libro (“First Book”) and came out first in a Russian edition, followed by versions in Hebrew, Polish, French, German and English. Zamenhof created sixteen grammatical rules and 900 vocabulary roots and signed the book “Doktoro Esperanto.” The word “Esperanto” means (in Esperanto) “one who is hoping.” His hope was to create a simple international language to help foster peace. The language was officially recognized by UNESCO in 1954 and today has about 1,000 native speakers (people who learned it from their parents) and thousands of other fluent speakers in about 115 countries. Lazar Ludwik Zamenhof, an opthalmologist, grew up in Bialystok speaking Russian, Yiddish, and Polish, and later acquired French, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and English. In 1879, he wrote one of the first grammars of the Yididsh language.

“Lingvo internacia de la venontaj generacioj estos sole kaj nepre nur lingvo arta — Future generations’ international lingua franca will certainly be just an artificial language.” —L.L. Zamenhof