Advanced Esperantists also celebrate Zamenhof Day on his birthday, December 15. Esperantists first began celebrating this holiday in the 1920s, and now it is proposed to rename it to Esperanto Literature Day, Esperanto Book Day, or Esperanto Culture Day.
Zamenhof was born in Białystok, in present-day Poland, which at that time was part of the Russian Empire. The city was inhabited by Belarusians, Poles, Russians, Jews, Germans, and Lithuanians.
People of different nationalities often treated each other with suspicion and even hostility. Zamenhof dreamed of giving people a common, universally understandable language to overcome the alienation between peoples. He devoted his entire life to this idea.
Studying various languages, Zamenhof realized that any national language has too many complexities and exceptions that make it difficult to learn. So he began work on creating an artificial language, which took him more than 10 years. His dream was to create a universal international communication system that would serve as a second language (after the native one) for every educated person.
As a result, on July 26, 1887, a small brochure in Russian appeared in Warsaw: 'International Language. Preface and Complete Textbook.' The author signed with the pseudonym Dr. Esperanto, which in the new language meant 'one who hopes.' Soon this word became the name of the language.
Words in Esperanto consist mainly of Romance and Germanic roots, as well as internationalisms of Latin and Greek origin. There is also a small number of stems borrowed from Slavic languages.
Interestingly, in Esperanto, new words that appear are not borrowed from other languages. For new concepts, a new word is usually created from existing elements in the language. This feature of the language minimizes the number of roots needed to master Esperanto and facilitates the learning process.
Zamenhof immediately waived his copyright on his invention, allowing improvements to be made to the language. However, his creation was very successful, requiring virtually no fundamental changes.
To maintain the unity of the new language, the Academy of Esperanto was established, and in 1905 the 1st World Congress of Esperanto took place.
As of today, there are between 100,000 and several million people worldwide who speak Esperanto. According to Finnish linguists, for about 1,000 people around the world, Esperanto is a native language. These are mainly children from international marriages whose parents chose Esperanto as their primary language of communication. Another about 10,000 people worldwide can speak Esperanto fluently, and about 100,000 can use it actively.
Fans of Esperanto aspire for it to become one of the main languages of communication in Europe and to obtain official status as an auxiliary language in the EU, where the majority of Esperantists live.
Outside Europe, active Esperanto movements exist in Brazil, Vietnam, Iran, China, the USA, Japan, and some other countries.
Based on materials from Rosbalt.