Partially, and in some ways, the task of making Esperanto widely known is the same as a hundred years ago. But in other ways, it’s very different. Around the world, as never before, English seems to dominate, and there are many new ways to communicate. These provide both challenges and opportunities.
Why should we make Esperanto widely known? The answer depends on our vision for it. Do we seek:
- “La Fina Venko” (The Final Victory)? – when Esperanto will be able to be used as an international neutral language on a global scale world – Or …
- For successful worldwide Esperanto community now? – Because the more Esperanto is used by others, the more beneficial it is to me. And if Esperanto does not succeed, it might wither.
So, how we should spread Esperanto?
According to Lu Wunsch-Rolshoven, a German mathematician and head of EsperantoLand, there are two main strategies:
- “Top-down-ism” (Desuprismo): the belief that you can achieve the global introduction of Esperanto, by convincing politicians, and by introduction of Esperanto in the schools, and so on, and…
- “Bottom-up-ism” (Desubismo): the belief that you can achieve the global introduction of Esperanto (or at least to strengthen its use) by spreading Esperanto among individuals.
Additionally, there is a third strategy (which is actually a variant of “top-down-ism”):
- “Side-across-ism” (Deflankismo): to convince experts, mainly linguists, who could – with their specialised knowledge – influence the decision-makers.
During the remainder of this answer, I will focus on “desubismo”.
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What are the challenges to spreading Esperanto? First is ignorance (by the public). So, we should be familiar with frequent (and sometimes sensitive) questions about Esperanto, and have good answers to them.
Another challenge is laziness and apathy (by the public). So, we should think about what kind of motives people might have, and about the strategies that would work best for them.
Another challenge is fear (by the public) – of other cultures.
Another challenge is to despair – among Esperanto speakers – due to the decreasing memberships of Esperanto associations. (However, let’s remember: the use of Esperanto on the Internet is actually growing!)
Another challenge is fear (by the public) – of other cultures. For example, in The Sydney Morning Herald of 30 December 2015, there was a report of a woman on a Sydney train throwing racist insults at a fellow passenger because she spoke a language other than English.
Another challenge is despair… among Esperantists – due to the decline in membership of Esperanto associations. (However, let’s remember: The use of Esperanto on the Internet is actually growing!)
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Let’s now explore some common tricky questions and arguments about Esperanto.
In countries where English is the most widely spoken language, the main question is usually:
“Why not English?” (In other words, “English already is the international language, so why would we need another one?”)
Although many people around the world study English and often think that they speak it well, the number of people who can participating in a non-trivial conversation in English is very small outside of English-speaking countries. Knowing English may be enough to live as a tourist in many places, but not more.
“Esperanto is artificial and soulless.”
According to Judith Meyer, board member of TEJO, German polyglot and programmer:
“Artificiality is actually an advantage for Esperanto. Esperanto is an artificial language in the same way that a car is an artificial horse. Horses are beautiful, but they wouldn’t be my first choice to go somewhere fast. (If I wanted to have a fun afternoon, my choice would be different.)
“Cars were designed to be fast. Esperanto was designed to be quick to learn, and people usually report that one can learn Esperanto at least five times faster than another European language. Many Asians say that for more than ten years they have learned English without achieving any worthy result, yet they are fluent in Esperanto after one year. Artificial is good. No non-artificial language can be as easy as Esperanto. Certainly not English.”
“Hasn’t Esperanto already failed?” (In other words: “Almost no one speaks it.”)
How do we respond to that? “Oh no, more than 2 million (or 5 or 10 million) people are fluent speakers of Esperanto!”? Such a claim is probably an exaggeration and would hurt the argument for Esperanto.
Or should we answer: “Nobody knows how many Esperanto speakers there are?”? Anyone who hears this will probably assume that the number must be very small.
So, how many people speak Esperanto? We need to explain the meaning of the word “speak.” In 1996, Finnish linguist Jouko Lindstedt assessed language skills in the global Esperanto community, based on standardised surveys in several countries, as follows:
- About 1000 people have Esperanto as their first language (these are native speakers)
- About 10,000 speak it fluently.
- About 100,000 can actively use it.
- About 1,000,000 people passively understand a large amount of it.
- About 10,000,000 have studied it a little, at some time.
So, of course, Esperanto won’t dominate the world any time soon, but its community of speakers and writers is also not insignificant.
(The relative rarity of Esperanto can actually be an advantage: There is no country where you could be sure that most people would understand you if you spoke Esperanto; but on the other hand you can find Esperantists almost anywhere who would be ready to welcome you into their homes, and show you places that regular tourists would not see, just because you speak Esperanto!)
“Esperanto is not international enough” (because of its ‘Europeanness’)
Should we create a language with words from every language? Well, there are thousands of languages in the world, and if Esperanto tried to get its vocabulary out of even 10% of them, the result would be a language, which is very difficult to learn for everyone, instead of Esperanto, which is relatively easy for everyone. The internationalism of Esperanto does not come from its vocabulary. Esperanto is a truly “international” language (as opposed to a “global” language, like English) because of its extraordinary semantic flexibility, which allows speakers of various language families to translate their own thoughts directly into Esperanto and create something both understandable and grammatically correct.
“Esperanto is not perfect.” (For example, it’s “sexist” because of the lack of a masculine suffix, or it’s not “entirely logical”.)
This is a fairly common argument, mostly from people who have some knowledge of Esperanto.
Many of those who tried to create more “perfect” international languages (that is, more “international”, more “logical”, or whatever) than Esperanto did not understand that further tinkering would not only fail to significantly improve the product, but would disrupt the establishment of a large community of speakers. A language such as Interlingua would perhaps be (by some criteria) “better” than Esperanto, but to be worthy of eradicating the established world of Esperanto and creating a world community of speakers as vast as Esperanto’s, it would have to be a huge and obvious improvement over Esperanto. No such language has been created.
In the Internet community, one of the best known planned language projects is Loglan (and its successor, Lojban). Although some indeed think of these languages as competitors to Esperanto, they were invented not as tools to facilitate good communication, but as linguistic experiments (to test a theory that a language forms the thoughts of its speakers). Therefore, they are deliberately designed not to resemble existing human languages.
“Esperanto will fall apart into dialects.”
Esperanto was created for intercultural use, so using too many idioms, etc., would jeopardise the possibility of being understood (which, presumably, is the intention). This acts as a stabilising influence on the language.
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As I said, laziness and apathy (from the public) are challenges for the spread of Esperanto. One can think of apathy as a lack of motivation. There is not one motive to learn Esperanto, but several, including…
• the desire to learn a foreign language (as a personal challenge)
• the desire to connect with people from different cultures
• the desire to be part of a movement for global understanding and linguistic justice
• curiosity and fascination about a constructed language.
Each motive requires a separate strategy. For example:
– A desire to learn a foreign language: Esperanto can be an easy first step.
– A desire to connect with people from different cultures: International travel through, for example, Pasporta Servo, and Internet communication
– A desire to be a part of a movement for global understanding and linguistic justice: Activism (and personal and online)
– Curiosity and fascination of a constructed language: Literature (especially poetry), and word games
So, which communication tools can we (and should we) use?
Objects in view of the public
For example, T-shirts, flags, etc. Their effectiveness depends on the text on them, and the context. If the aim is to communicate with an unknown public (eg, on the street)…
– A green star without words could mean almost anything
– An object with the word “Esperanto” might remind people about Esperanto, and tell them that the language is still alive
– An object with a very short message in the national language may communicate more.
But, if we were to have an opportunity to speak to someone who sees the object (such as a relative, friend or acquaintance), it would probably have the greatest impact. You could then use a special item: a brochure or booklet.
Booths at public events
The advantage is that people are already there, and they might have a little more interest in Esperanto than the average person, depending on the theme of the event.
Courses for adults
Such a course should be well taught, but also the title and description of it should be attractive.
Language festivals
These show that the Esperanto movement supports linguistic diversity.
Meetings with Meetup
Meetup is a website for people to find local groups that have the same interests.
Press Releases
Here are three tips:
- Find a specific anchor or hook, for instance, a mention of or quote by an individual, event or achievement.
- Avoid excessively internal terms and Esperantisms (eg, in English, “congress” and “Esperantist” – better would be a “conference” and “Esperanto speaker”, respectively).
- Avoid visions about the future; it is better to talk about concrete facts.
Letters to the Editor of a newspaper or news website
Tips for these are similar to those for press releases. In addition, most letters are not printed. Carefully study those that have already been printed. Notice how they get to the heart of the matter quickly and clearly. See how the sentences are not too long or complicated.
Social networks
These are also very useful for connecting between Esperanto speakers.
Facebook: The public Facebook group “Esperanto” had over 21 000 members when I wrote this.
(By the way, the most important difference between a Facebook group and a Facebook page is that in a “page”, visitors can create posts and they will appear only in particular (almost hidden) section, but in a “group”, any member can create a post, which will appear in the main section. A group can also be open or closed.
However, the most effective use of Facebook (and other social networks) for spreading knowledge about Esperanto is the personal accounts of speakers. Posts can be bilingual, both in the national language and Esperanto.
Another important social network is Twitter. A post on Twitter, which is called a “tweet” (or in Esperanto, “pepo”) has a maximum of 140 280 characters, but it can also include a picture. Unlike Facebook, Twitter has no concept of “Friends”, although one can “follow” others so that their tweets appear in their own news stream.
To find accounts connected to Esperanto, you can search.
Some describe the service YouTube as a social network, but in fact it is social media. It is “social” because anyone can upload their videos to it and anyone can like/unlike and comment on videos. But it is completely public, and videos are by default publicly findable. Therefore, it is a powerful tool for spreading Esperanto.
For this reason, Richard Delamore created his series of videos, under the nickname “Evildea”. And that is why he proposed a campaign idea for the most recent Zamenhof Day: “EsperantoLives”. Here is the result of a search on YouTube for “#esperantolives”.
In fact, any web site or blog can be tool for spreading knowledge of Esperanto, if people can find it. And what do most people search with? With Google, of course! And usually high up in the Google search results is Wikipedia, the huge collaborative encyclopedia.
Because of this, Wikipedia (in your language, or that of your “target audience”) is probably the most important online tool to spread knowledge about Esperanto. And anyone is free to contribute to it!
Articles in Wikipedia must be both credible and well written. If anything appears there that looks like an ad or press release, it will soon be removed or rewritten.
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So, what are the key messages for the spreading of Esperanto? I believe they are:
• Esperanto (an international auxiliary language) exists!
• Esperanto is a real language (not ridiculous, not useless)
• Esperanto is a good idea for international communication
• Esperanto is worth learning
• Learning Esperanto is not too hard
• Learning Esperanto is fun