Portal:Esperanto
THE ESPERANTO PORTAL
La Portalo pri Esperanto
Esperanto is the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language in the world. Its name derives from Doktoro Esperanto, the pseudonym under which L. L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, the Unua Libro, in 1887. The word esperanto means 'one who hopes' in the language itself. Zamenhof's goal was to create an easy and flexible language that would serve as a universal second language to foster peace and international understanding.
Esperanto has had continuous usage by a community estimated at between 100,000 and 2 million speakers for over a century, and approximately one thousand native speakers. However, no country has adopted the language officially. Today, Esperanto is employed in world travel, correspondence, cultural exchange, conventions, literature, language instruction, television, and radio broadcasting. Also, there is an Esperanto Wikipedia with over 179,000 articles (as of April 27, 2013).
There is evidence that learning Esperanto may provide a good foundation for learning languages in general. Some state education systems offer basic instruction and elective courses in Esperanto. Esperanto is also the language of instruction in one university, the Akademio Internacia de la Sciencoj in San Marino.
Article of the month - May
Monata artikolo - majo
Ludwik Łazarz Zamenhof (pron.: /ˈzɑːmɨnhɒf/; born Eliezer Samenhof, December 15, 1859 – April 14, 1917) was an ophthalmologist, philologist, and the inventor of Esperanto, a constructed language designed for international communication. His native languages were Russian and Yiddish, but he also spoke Polish and German fluently. Later he learned French, Latin, Greek, Hebrew and English. He also was interested in Italian, Spanish and Lithuanian.
Zamenhof was born on December 15, 1859 in the town of Białystok (now in Poland, then part of the Russian Empire) to parents of Lithuanian Jewish descent. In addition to the Yiddish-speaking Jewish majority, the population of Białystok was made up of three other ethnic groups: Poles, Germans, and Belarusians. Zamenhof was saddened and frustrated by the many quarrels between these groups. He supposed that the main reason for the hate and prejudice lay in mutual misunderstanding, caused by the lack of one common language that would play the role of a neutral communication tool between people of different ethnic and linguistic backgrounds. Find out more...
Vocabulary of the month - May
Monata vortlisto - majo
Amimals (la bestoj)
- hundo meaning: "dog"
- kato meaning: "cat"
- ĉevalo meaning: "horse"
- birdo meaning: "bird"
- fiŝo meaning: "fish"
- bovo meaning: "cow"
- porko meaning: "pig"
- koko meaning: "chicken"
Grammar of the month - May
Monata gramatiko - majo
In order to simplify the amount of vocabulary which needs to be learned, Esperanto uses certain affixes, one of them being the simple prefix "mal-", which creates sets of opposites: bona = "good" and malbona = "bad", dekstra = "right" and maldekstra = "left"...
Categories
Kategorioj
Culture · Dictionaries
Education · Esperantido
Esperantists · History
Language · Literature
Media · Native speakers
Organizations
Esperanto resources
Rimedoj pri Esperanto
Here are some online resources:
Did you know...
Ĉu vi scias...
- ...that William Shatner (of Star Trek fame) once starred in the feature-length Esperanto-language film Incubus?
- ...that Esperanto superseded another constructed language, Volapük, which is now mostly defunct?
- ...that Esperanto contains six letters found in no other alphabet: ĉ, ĝ, ĥ, ĵ, ŝ and ŭ?
- ...that Esperanto has no q, w, x or y?
Articles
Artikoloj
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Related topics
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Wikimedia
Portal · Task force · Esperanto Wikipedia (Vikipedio)
Vikivortaro · Vikicitaro · Vikifontaro Vikilibroj · Vikikomunejo Vikispecoj · Vikinovaĵoj |
Things you can do
Kiel vi povas helpi
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Here are some Esperanto tasks:
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