Portal:Esperanto/Article of the month
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[edit] /July 2008
Dr. Ludovic Lazarus (Ludwik Lejzer) Zamenhof (December 15, 1859 – April 14, 1917) was an ophthalmologist and philologist who was the initiator of Esperanto, the most widely spoken planned language. 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 in Białystok, Poland, a town then part of the Russian Empire, to a Russian father and Jewish mother. The town's population was made up of three major ethnic groups: Poles, Belarusians, and Yiddish-speaking Jews. 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...
[edit] /June 2008
The Unua Libro (First Book) was the first publication to describe the international language, Esperanto (then called Lingvo Internacia, "international language"). First published in Russian on July 26, 1887, later editions were published in Russian, 1888, Hebrew, 1889. Polish, French, German and English. This booklet included the Lord's Prayer, some Bible verses, a letter, poetry, the sixteen rules of grammar and 900 roots of vocabulary. Zamenhof declared: "An international language, like a national one, is common property." Zamenhof signed the work as "Doktoro Esperanto," and the title Esperanto stuck as the name of the language — which in Esperanto means "one who hopes." Find out more...
[edit] /May 2008
Dr. Ludovic Lazarus (Ludwik Lejzer) Zamenhof (December 15, 1859 – April 14, 1917) was an ophthalmologist and philologist who was the initiator of Esperanto, the most widely spoken planned language. 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 in Białystok, Poland, a town then part of the Russian Empire, to a Russian father and Jewish mother. The town's population was made up of three major ethnic groups: Poles, Belarusians, and Yiddish-speaking Jews. 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...
[edit] /April 2008
| a b c ĉ d e f g ĝ h ĥ i j ĵ |
| k l m n o p r s ŝ t u ŭ v z |
Esperanto is written in a Latin alphabet of twenty-eight letters, upper and lower case. This is supplemented by punctuation marks and by various logograms, such as the numerals 0-9, currency signs such as $, and mathematical symbols.
Twenty-two of the letters are identical in form to letters of the English alphabet (q, w, x, and y being omitted). The remaining six have diacritical marks, ĉ, ĝ, ĥ, ĵ, ŝ, and ŭ (that is, c, g, h, j, and s circumflex, and u breve). Find out more...
