What is Esperanto?
Despite the international power of the English speaking world, Esperanto (celebrating its 125th birthday this year) is considered to be the universal language of our time by at least two million people who use the language every day just like any other.

Created in Warsaw on the 26th July 1887 by the young, 27 year-old, Polish ophthalmologist, Ludwig Zamenhof, Esperanto attempts to break down language barriers that exist between different countries and different cultures. It was Zamenhof’s idea to eradicate the problems that we encounter when we are unable to communicate in a common language. It was Zamenhof’s hope to create a universal understanding through Esperanto (esperanza being the Latin based word for hope).

Esperanto’s Journey Through History
In Nazi Germany, Esperanto was associated with rebel movements and many people who spoke the language were persecuted because it was believed that Esperanto speakers formed part of the Jewish conspiracy to enslave members of the Arian race, for example. During the formative years of the 20th Century in Spain, the working classes saw the language as the perfect vehicle towards the development of a society built on equal opportunities.

In the 1980s, thanks to the huge development of the Internet, Esperanto experienced an increase in popularity once more (it experienced its very own kind of renaissance, as it were) as more and more people began to learn the language via Internet courses and online programs. In 1991, Pope John Paul II was the first Pope ever to use Esperanto in a public address and in 2012 (having celebrated its 125th birthday) it is one of the most widely-distributed languages on the planet.

In fact, out of the 6000 most popular languages spoken and understood worldwide, Wikipedia ranks Esperanto as the 27th most utilized language when it comes to online articles and social networking platforms, including Facebook.

Some Fascinating Facts about Esperanto
Owing to the innovative purpose behind its creation (the idea of generating a universal language that will forever prevent communication barriers in the future), fascinating facts about Esperanto abound. Some of the most interesting are as follows:

• World renowned writer, Leo Tolstoy, was an Esperanto speaker and avid fan of the language.
• It is believed that there are roughly two million Esperanto speakers living in the world today.
• In Mexico alone, The Mexican Esperanto Federation can verify that roughly 800 people take online language courses in Esperanto every year.
• Google, Skype, Firefox and Facebook are all available in Esperanto.
• Many foreign language students across the world are choosing to study Esperanto as one of their language choices owing to the fact that, with few grammar irregularities to take into account, it’s fairly easy and quick to learn.
• The Esperanto alphabet is made up of 28 letters and each letter has its own particular sound.
• Approximately 70% of Esperanto’s language roots are Latin-based.
• Most of the words are created by mixing and matching prefixes and suffixes.
• There are only 16 grammar rules to learn in Esperanto.
• Native Esperanto speakers exist. Esperanto is, for a few dozens of people, their first or native language.
• It is now possible to buy books and newspapers (both originals and translations) or to listen to radio and television programs, in Esperanto.
• The language does not incorporate the use of synonyms.

What Lies Ahead in the Future for Esperanto?
The future of Esperanto most certainly lies in the possibility that it provides for coming into contact with other cultures, making friends worldwide and for travel. The “Pasporta Servo,” which is a kind of guide that lists other Esperanto speakers living all over the world, offers the interested Esperanto speaker a list of places where they can stay when travelling the world (usually the house of a fellow Esperanto speaker, for example).

Without a doubt, the initial hope that Zamenhof had when he created the language in 1887 is on its way to be realized on a large scale. Esperanto is breaking down the language and cultural barriers that we experience on a day to day basis and it is its simplicity that has made it so attractive to so many people.

Esperanto is the world’s best example of a universal language because, unlike English, it isn’t attached to any particular culture and it isn’t the property of any one country. Perhaps by 2050, Esperanto will have taken over the throne that the English language world has held onto for such a long time.

Happy birthday Esperanto!

Pasporta Servo website

With more and more languages fading into obscurity each year, linguists and other interested scholars find themselves frantically trying to record the details of these rare tongues before they completely disappear. Ultimately, while a language’s salvation lies in the hands of its population of current and potential speakers, the field of mathematics may be able to help when people decide that a language is indeed worth preserving.

A mathematician and her team of colleagues have worked to create a model consisting of several different equations, which describes the current state of an endangered local language. Cultural programs and organizations that promote learning of the language in question can utilize the data generated from calculations performed with this model to determine what steps must be taken for a stable population of bilinguals to develop, thus securing the language’s continued existence.

The model must be specifically tailored to variables such as a language’s cultural and economic value, and at the moment, the model only functions with Scottish Gaelic; however, researchers are hoping to expand to other languages such as Quechua and Chinook.

For more information about this research bringing together math and language, take a look at this article at Discover Magazine.

The idea that different languages may bestow different cog­nitive abilities has existed for hundreds of years, but only recently have cognitive researchers gradually uncovered evidence that the language we speak may have an impact on the way we think and process events that take place in the world around us. According to scientists, our understanding of events, causality, spatial relationships and time are shaped by cultural constructs and language.

Linguists discovered some time ago that language conventions influence our spatial representations of time. For example, in languages that are written left to right, such as English, people tend to think of the passage of time as a phenomenon that flows from left to right. The converse is true for speakers of Arabic, for whom time moves from right to left, just like their written language.

Researchers have noted that Mandarin Chinese speakers construct vertical timelines as opposed to the horizontal timelines favored by English and Arabic speakers. Speakers of Mandarin occasionally use horizontal terms to discuss time, but they frequently make mention of earlier events as “up” and later events as “down”. May, for example is “above” July.

A 2010 study of the Pormpuraawan aboriginal people of Australia by researchers Alice Gaby and Lera Boroditsky found that speakers of the community’s indigenous languages oriented themselves in space and time in terms of cardinal directions (north, south, east and west). When they face north, they lay out the progression of time from right to left; however, when they face east, they perceive time as moving towards them. Ultimately, it comes down to the fact that Pormpuraawans normally think of time as moving from east to west, mimicking the sun’s journey in the sky.

Those who speak languages that depend on absolute di­rections also demonstrate a remarkable ability to orient themselves, even in unfamiliar surroundings. The demands of their lan­guages oblige them to hone this particular cognitive skill.

Language also influences how people describe events and, consequently, how well they are able to recall who did what. Eng­lish speakers have a tendency to frame events in terms of people doing things, showing a preference for transitive constructions like “Tom broke the glass,” even in the case of accidents. In con­trast, there’s a lower probability that Japanese or Spanish speakers will mention the agent when talking about an ac­cidental event. A Spanish speaker might say, “Se rompió el vaso,” which translates to “the glass broke” or “the glass broke itself,” a construction that removes blame from the agent. In a study performed at Stanford, after viewing clips of people spilling drinks or breaking items, the Japanese and Spanish speakers demonstrated a decreased ability to remember who caused accidental events, as compared to the English speakers. Thus, lin­guistic differences have an impact on how people interpret events, and they have important consequences for eyewitness memory.

This research highlights just how complex the interaction between culture, language and cognition truly is—yet one more reason why competent professional translators are indispensable when it comes to communicating across cultures and languages.