"A history of Esperanto, the utopian "universal language" invented in 1887"--

The problems of international communication and linguistic rights are recurring debates in the present-day age of globalization. But the debate truly began over a hundred years ago, when the increasingly interconnected world of the nineteenth century fostered a desire for the development of a global lingua franca. Many individuals and social movements competed to create an artificial language unencumbered by the political rivalries that accompanied English, German, and French. Organizations including the American Philosophical Society, the International Association of Academies, the International Peace Bureau, the Comintern, and the League of Nations intervened in the debate about the possibility of an artificial language, but of the numerous tongues created before World War II, only Esperanto survives today. Esperanto and Its Rivals sheds light on the factors that led almost all artificial languages to fail and helped English to prevail as the global tongue of the twenty-first century. Exploring the social and political contexts of the three most prominent artificial languages—Volapük, Esperanto, and Ido—Roberto Garvía examines the roles played by social movement leaders and inventors, the strategies different organizations used to lobby for each language, and other early decisions that shaped how those languages spread and evolved. Through the rise and fall of these artificial languages, Esperanto and Its Rivals reveals the intellectual dilemmas and political anxieties that troubled the globalizing world at the turn of the twentieth century.

Do you want to develop a solid understanding of Esperanto and communicate confidently with others? Through authentic conversations, vocabulary building, grammar explanations, and extensive practice and review, Complete Esperanto will equip you with the practical skills you need to use modern Esperanto in a variety of realistic settings and situations, developing your cultural awareness along the way. What will I achieve by the end of the course? By the end of Complete Esperanto you will have a solid intermediate-level grounding in the four key skills - reading, writing, speaking, and listening - and be able to communicate with confidence and accuracy. Is this course for me? If you want to move confidently from beginner to intermediate level, this is the course for you. It's perfect for the self-study learner, with a one-on-one tutor, or for the beginner classroom. It can also be used as a refresher course. What do I get? -18 learning units plus verbs reference and word glossary and revision section -Discovery Method - figure out rules and patterns to make the language stick -Teaches the key skills - reading, writing, listening, and speaking -Learn to learn - tips and skills on how to be a better language learner -Culture notes - learn about modern Esperanto culture -Outcome-based learning - focus your studies with clear aims -Authentic listening activities - everyday conversations give you a flavor of real spoken Esperanto -Test Yourself - see and track your own progress *Complete Esperanto maps from Novice Low to Advanced Low level proficiency of ACTFL (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) and from A1 Beginner to B1/B2 Upper Intermediate level of the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) guidelines. Please note not all devices support the audio/video component of enhanced ebooks. We recommend you download a sample to check compatibility with your device. Alternatively, you can find the audio for this course for free on our website https://library.teachyourself.com. You will be able to stream it online or download it to the Teach Yourself Library app. Rely on Teach Yourself, trusted by language learners for over 85 years.

Here is the captivating story of humankind’s enduring quest to build a better language—and overcome the curse of Babel. Just about everyone has heard of Esperanto, which was nothing less than one man’s attempt to bring about world peace by means of linguistic solidarity. And every Star Trek fan knows about Klingon. But few people have heard of Babm, Blissymbolics, Loglan (not to be confused with Lojban), and the nearly nine hundred other invented languages that represent the hard work, high hopes, and full-blown delusions of so many misguided souls over the centuries. With intelligence and humor, Arika Okrent has written a truly original and enlightening book for all word freaks, grammar geeks, and plain old language lovers.

Anyone who has ever traveled knows the challenge of language barriers. These are caused by the different languages and dialects across the world. Perhaps the solution to those barriers lies within this book. This is an entry-level text for learning the language of Esperanto. Unlike nearly every other language on Earth, Esperanto is a constructed language, created by Dr. L. L. Zamenhoej in the late 19th century. This book contains not only the vocabulary, mechanics, grammar, and syntax of Esperanto, but also the hopes and dreams of Dr. Zamenhoej. His goal was to create an easy to understand language that the whole world could learn to tear down an ancient barrier that had kept people apart. As George Soros put it - "Esperanto was a very useful language, because wherever you went, you found someone to speak with." After using this book, the dedicated student will be able to read, speak, and write in Esperanto. The text is divided into three sections, each working towards one of the aforementioned goals, but they can be worked on in any order and still be equally effective. By the conclusion of study, the reader will be able to use a vocabulary of roughly 800 words to effectively correspond in Esperanto.

This book explores how Esperanto – often regarded as a future-oriented utopian project that ended up confined to the past – persists in the present. Constructed in the late nineteenth century to promote global linguistic understanding, this language was historically linked to anarchism, communism and pacifism. Yet, what political relevance does Esperanto retain in the present? What impacts have emerging communication technologies had on the dynamics of this speech community? Unpacking how Esperanto speakers are everywhere, but concentrated nowhere, the author argues that digital media have provided tools for people to (re)politicise acts of communication, produce horizontal learning spaces and, ultimately, build an international community. As Esperanto speakers question the post-political consensus about communication rights, this language becomes an ally of activism for open-source software and global social justice. This book will be of relevance to students and scholars researching political activism, language use and community-building, as well as anyone with an interest in digital media more broadly.

Meet the boy who made up his own language — and brought hope to millions. Once there was a town of many languages but few kind words. Growing up Jewish in Bialystok, Poland, in the late 1800s, young Leyzer Zamenhof was surrounded by languages: Russian, Yiddish, German, Polish, and many others. But the multiethnic Bialystok was full of mistrust and suspicion, and Leyzer couldn’t help but wonder: If everyone could understand each other, wouldn’t they be able to live in peace? So Zamenhof set out to create a new language, one that would be easy to learn and could connect people around the world. He published a book of his new language and signed it Dr. Esperanto — “one who hopes.” Mara Rockliff uses her unique knack for forgotten history to tell the story of a young man who saw possibility where others saw only barriers, while Polish illustrator Zosia Dzierzawska infuses every scene with warmth and energy, bringing the story of Esperanto to life.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SOCIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE brings to students, researchers and practitioners in all of the social and language-related sciences carefully selected book-length publications dealing with sociolinguistic theory, methods, findings and applications. It approaches the study of language in society in its broadest sense, as a truly international and interdisciplinary field in which various approaches, theoretical and empirical, supplement and complement each other. The series invites the attention of linguists, language teachers of all interests, sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, historians etc. to the development of the sociology of language.