On a whim or in a dream, these men and women one day decided to abolish their borders to become “citizens of the world.” Created in 1887, Esperanto now has more than two million speakers across the globe. While, for a large part of the world, the Esperanto community has long faded away, the reality is quite different. Composed of globe-trotters of all kinds, travel lovers, or simply irrepressible philanthropists, associations supporting this universal language have been flourishing for several years.
While English dominates the international linguistic scene, the “comeback” of Esperanto may surprise. And yet, a single word is enough to give it meaning: Internet. What better vehicle for spreading the philosophy of Esperanto than the free and open-access web? The phenomenon is thus expanding rapidly, and the language is enticing more internet users every day, particularly those “alter-English” users tired of a world deemed imperialistic. The language’s compelling argument is that it takes no more than 15 minutes to grasp all of its spelling and grammatical rules.
Émilie Vergauwe studies anthropology at the Free University of Brussels. She has lived most of her life in Australia, her father is of Russian origin, and her mother is Belgian. Émilie decided to learn Esperanto last summer. Today, she speaks the language fluently through the Internet.
The young student admits she had to wait two months before parting with her dictionary, which she had until then kept within reach of her computer. In less than two months, she will celebrate New Year’s Eve in Prague, at a friend’s house, an Esperanto speaker she met through the Esperanto network and thanks to the “Esperanto-Jeunes” association (https://esperanto-jeunes.org). Émilie also owns the “Pasporta Servo,” a directory listing some 1350 hosts worldwide ready to accommodate any Esperanto speaker for free, and she intends to use it on her way to Prague. Traveling almost for free, exchanging as equals with any human, regardless of origin or ethnicity, is the slightly crazy wish made by Louis Lazare Zamenhof, the inventor of this universal language.
Today, after more than a hundred years of existence, Esperanto seems to find a new breath thanks to the Internet. If this is a second chance, let’s not miss it: https://www.esperanto-france.org/
