Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy Egilson and I'm Holly Fry. Way back in
Speaker 1: I was having a conversation with a friend and the
Speaker 1: constructed language Esperanto came up in that conversation, and I
Speaker 1: had that little thought, Hey, maybe we should do a
Speaker 1: podcast on that sometime. And now more than a year later,
Speaker 1: we have come to that sometime. I know it was
Speaker 1: from because we were in a restaurant in Philadelphia, which
Speaker 1: means it was not during the pandemic. Uh was the
Speaker 1: last time I was there. Anyway, I really did not
Speaker 1: know all that much about Esperanto when I got into this,
Speaker 1: aside from the fact that it's a language that was
Speaker 1: intentionally created to be easy to learn. Somehow I associated
Speaker 1: it with the nineteen sixties, and although that was one
Speaker 1: of its peaks and popularity that it's also a way
Speaker 1: older language than that. The other big thing that I
Speaker 1: associated with Esperanto was the scene in Twin Peaks where
Speaker 1: Gordon Cole goes to talk to Shelley at the Double
Speaker 1: R Diner and says he's going to engage in some
Speaker 1: counter Esperanto, and that was just my whole my whole
Speaker 1: knowledge of esperanto, and that right there, mine was largely
Speaker 1: from animaniacs. Oh yeah, yeah, because that's how it's it's
Speaker 1: usually referenced as like a casual side mentioned in pop culture. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So we're having I mean, we're we're talking about this
Speaker 1: in a fun context in this moment. But parts of
Speaker 1: this episode are really really tragic because we're talking about
Speaker 1: a language that was developed by a Jewish man living
Speaker 1: in the Russian Empire in the late nineteenth and early
Speaker 1: twentieth centuries, and then the speakers of that language were
Speaker 1: persecuted and even killed under fascist and totalitarian regimes into
Speaker 1: and after World War Two. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: this is also a profoundly hopeful and idealistic story because
Speaker 1: it's one that's about trying to bring the whole world
Speaker 1: together through a shared second language. Most of the languages
Speaker 1: that people on Earth used today are categorized as natural languages,
Speaker 1: meaning that they evolved over time as people used them,
Speaker 1: often bringing in influences from other similarly evolving languages as
Speaker 1: they went. People generally learned to communicate through those languages
Speaker 1: before formalizing all of the rules associated with them. We
Speaker 1: have talked on the show before about how grammar came
Speaker 1: to be a thing and people started applying rules, and
Speaker 1: how if you look at older texts, you'll see things
Speaker 1: like completely um style, choice based spellings and ramatic grammatical
Speaker 1: usage and um the use of various punctuation. So a
Speaker 1: language does not need, by the way to be spoken
Speaker 1: to be considered a natural language. For example, most sign
Speaker 1: languages are classified as natural languages. Construct did languages or
Speaker 1: calm langs can also evolve over time, and many of
Speaker 1: them do, but they start with someone intentionally planning out
Speaker 1: the language is rules, including things like grammar, syntax, vocabulary,
Speaker 1: and pronunciation. Sometimes this creation is to develop a language
Speaker 1: for a fictional world, like Klingon or Thracky or Tolkien's
Speaker 1: Elvish languages, but constructed languages can also serve more practical purposes.
Speaker 1: For example, constructed international auxiliary languages try to give speakers
Speaker 1: of multiple natural languages a common language to communicate with.
Speaker 1: Esperanto is one of these auxiliary languages. Also, there are
Speaker 1: whole linguistics discussions about the interplay between natural and constructed
Speaker 1: languages and whether these labels are even accurate, So this
Speaker 1: is just the broadest of overviews. Philosophers around the world
Speaker 1: have proposed ideas about constructed languages for millennia. One of
Speaker 1: the earliest surviving examples of a constructed language was created
Speaker 1: by previous podcast subject Hildegard von Bingen, who started constructing
Speaker 1: a language that she called Lingua ignota or hidden language
Speaker 1: in the twelfth century, although her efforts and the surviving
Speaker 1: records of that language are both incomplete. Yeah, after we
Speaker 1: did that episode on her, we got several notes saying,
Speaker 1: the folks for surprised we had not mentioned that, so
Speaker 1: now we have. There have been naturally arising Lingua francas
Speaker 1: and creoles and pigeons and other shared ways of communicating.
Speaker 1: That's also been going on for millennia. But by the
Speaker 1: nineteenth century, people were also trying to intentionally create languages
Speaker 1: that would make it easier for people who didn't share
Speaker 1: a common language to communicate with each other. Before the
Speaker 1: development of Esperanto, the most popular such language was Volapuk,
Speaker 1: which was developed in the early eighteen eighties by German
Speaker 1: priest Johann Martin Schleier. Volapuk drew from English and from Romance, languages,
Speaker 1: but with enough changes that those origins weren't all that
Speaker 1: recognizable to the people trying to learn it. Volapook also
Speaker 1: had a complicated set of grammar rules, so overall it
Speaker 1: was not considered to be easy to learn. But there
Speaker 1: were hundreds of Volapook clubs and more than three hundred
Speaker 1: textbooks written in twenty five different languages during the peak
Speaker 1: of its popularity. That peak was in the late eighteen eighties,
Speaker 1: and one of the big reasons for its decline after
Speaker 1: that point was the introduction of Esperanto in eighteen eight seven.
Speaker 1: Esperanto's creator was a Jewish ophthalmologist known as Laser Ludwik Zamenhoff,
Speaker 1: who went by the initials l L professionally. Zamenhoff was
Speaker 1: born in Biala Stock on December eighteen fifty nine. His
Speaker 1: name from birth was E. Liaser, The name he went
Speaker 1: by morphed a few times over the years before becoming
Speaker 1: those initials that he used as an adult, and you'll
Speaker 1: also see those names transliterated with a number of different spellings. Also,
Speaker 1: that day of his birth is in the Gregorian calendar.
Speaker 1: At the time, the Russian Empire was still using the
Speaker 1: Julian calendar, and that put his date of birth as
Speaker 1: December third, eighteen fifty nine. Today yali Stock is in Poland,
Speaker 1: but at the time it was part of the Russian
Speaker 1: Pale of Settlement, which was the region of Czarist Russia
Speaker 1: in which Jewish people were allowed to live. Consequently, its
Speaker 1: population was about seventy percent Jewish. The other thirty percent
Speaker 1: primarily included Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians who were ethnically Polish, Russian, German,
Speaker 1: and Belarusian. People from these different groups didn't necessarily share
Speaker 1: a common language, and in his childhood Zamenhoff saw a
Speaker 1: lot of tension and strife among these disparate groups of
Speaker 1: people that were all living in Balastock. Some of this
Speaker 1: came from religious divisions, but Zamenhoff thought that a major
Speaker 1: factor was that lack of a common language, people just
Speaker 1: couldn't understand each other. Zamon Hoff's father, Marcus, was a
Speaker 1: language teacher, and in eighteen seventy three, when Laser was
Speaker 1: about thirteen, the family moved to Warsaw so that he
Speaker 1: could take a job teaching at the Warsaw Gymnasium. He
Speaker 1: was actually one of only three Jewish instructors there. Marcus's
Speaker 1: position also meant that Laser could attend the school tuish
Speaker 1: and free. By this point, Laser was following in his
Speaker 1: father's footsteps in terms of studying languages. The Zamenhoff family
Speaker 1: spoke Yiddish and Russian at home and in their day
Speaker 1: to day lives, and they knew Hebrew as a religious
Speaker 1: and scholarly language. In addition, Laser learned Polish, German, Italian, French,
Speaker 1: and English. He had also started to learn Aramaic, Latin,
Speaker 1: and Greek. He had taught himself those last two because
Speaker 1: they were required for admission at the Warsaw Gymnasium, but
Speaker 1: they had not been taught at his school. In Balis talk,
Speaker 1: Marcus Zamenhoff seems to have wanted the family to assimilate
Speaker 1: with Russian society as much as possible, and in eighteen
Speaker 1: ninety eight he started working as a censor for the
Speaker 1: Czarist Regie. He was censoring Yiddish and Hebrew publications. That
Speaker 1: same year, Laser started working on a way to bridge
Speaker 1: the divisions that he saw in the world around him.
Speaker 1: He had this idea for a universal language that would
Speaker 1: be easy enough to learn that people could pick it
Speaker 1: up as a second language without too much trouble. He
Speaker 1: and some of his friends from school started working on
Speaker 1: this project in December of eighteen seventy eight. Even though
Speaker 1: he was a language instructor, Laser's father did not seem
Speaker 1: to have approved of this work. In some accounts, someone
Speaker 1: told Marcus that Laser's focus on a universal language was
Speaker 1: a sign of mental illness. In others, the fear was
Speaker 1: that this project would distract Laser from his studies. But
Speaker 1: either way, Laser decided to study medicine rather than languages
Speaker 1: at the University of Moscow, and when he left for
Speaker 1: university in eighteen seventy nine, his father made him leave
Speaker 1: his notebooks with his language notes behind and later burned them.
Speaker 1: We need to set up a little bit of contact
Speaker 1: before we move on to the next part of the
Speaker 1: story of Esperanto, and we will do that after a
Speaker 1: quick sponsor break. L. L. Zamenhoff was born during the
Speaker 1: reign of Czar Alexander the Second, and as Emperor of Russia,
Speaker 1: Alexander had instituted a series of reforms. This included emancipating
Speaker 1: Russia's surfs. Some of these reforms had also affected the
Speaker 1: Russian Empire's Jewish population. As we noted earlier, Jews could
Speaker 1: live only in the pale of settlement, but Alexander had
Speaker 1: loosened those restrictions at least some what. He had also
Speaker 1: repealed an assimilation program that forced Jewish men into compulsory
Speaker 1: military service. None of this erased anti Semitism by any
Speaker 1: stretch of the imagination, but at least in some ways
Speaker 1: there had been a little bit of progress. But then,
Speaker 1: in one Alexander was assassinated, and rumors spread that his
Speaker 1: assassination had been part of a Jewish plot. This led
Speaker 1: to widespread programs and other violence against Jewish communities. Alexander's successor,
Speaker 1: Alexander the Third, was deeply anti Semitic and blamed his
Speaker 1: predecessor's relative liberality toward the Empire's Jewish population for both
Speaker 1: the assassination and the violence that followed. Zamenhof returned to
Speaker 1: Warsaw from Moscow during this wave of anti Semitic violence.
Speaker 1: He might have been motivated out of concern for his
Speaker 1: family's safety and his father's finances in the wake of
Speaker 1: the programs. He didn't go back to Moscow after this point.
Speaker 1: He enrolled in the University of Warsaw, and he finished
Speaker 1: his medical degree there in eighteen eighty four. The violence
Speaker 1: the Zamenhov witnessed in the early eighteen eighties, including in Warsaw,
Speaker 1: led him to advocate for the establishment of a Jewish homeland,
Speaker 1: But unlike most other Zionists, he didn't think this homeland
Speaker 1: necessarily needed to be in the levant. He knew Jews, Christians,
Speaker 1: and Muslims all saw sites within that region as sacred,
Speaker 1: and as a result, he thought that trying to establish
Speaker 1: a Jewish nation there could lead to further strife. Instead,
Speaker 1: when he first started writing about this, he wrote about
Speaker 1: the possibility of buying a tract of unoccupied land along
Speaker 1: the Mississippi River and the United States and settling there.
Speaker 1: So this is a little bit of a tangle. Land
Speaker 1: along the Mississippi would not really have been unoccupied when
Speaker 1: that was the idea. It was getting unoccupied land. But
Speaker 1: this idea also was not very well received within the
Speaker 1: Jewish community. Zamon Hoff ultimately renounced Zionism, but before he did,
Speaker 1: his later publications on the subject focused more on the
Speaker 1: idea of a Jewish nation in the general region where
Speaker 1: Israel is today. During these same years, zamon Hoff also
Speaker 1: promoted the idea that this proposed Jewish state needed to
Speaker 1: have a modern language to bring together and unify its population.
Speaker 1: In his mind, the Yiddish already being spoken by many
Speaker 1: Ashkenazi Jews where he lived did not exactly fit that bill.
Speaker 1: He thought of Yiddish as a jargon rather than a
Speaker 1: fully developed language, And on top of that, people spoke
Speaker 1: different forms of Yiddish depending on where they lived, and
Speaker 1: Sephardic Jews were more likely to speak Judeo Spanish also
Speaker 1: known as Ladino rather than Yiddish. So as he was
Speaker 1: studying medicine, Zamenhoff was also trying to work out a
Speaker 1: way to modernize Yiddish into what he saw as a
Speaker 1: more robust and functional language. As a side note, at
Speaker 1: almost exactly the same time, another man, Eliezer ben Yehuda,
Speaker 1: was also working on uniting the Jewish people through a
Speaker 1: common language. In this case, this language was Hebrew, which
Speaker 1: was mostly being used for religious texts and observances rather
Speaker 1: than for daily conversation at that point. In eighteen eighty one,
Speaker 1: benya Huda announced that he would speak only Hebrew among
Speaker 1: his friends and family, and in eighteen eighty four, he
Speaker 1: established a Hebrew language newspaper. His efforts went on from there.
Speaker 1: Zamon Hoff later said that he had supported Benya Juda's
Speaker 1: early efforts with the revival of Hebrew, although the specifics
Speaker 1: of that aren't really documented anywhere. After finishing his medical degree,
Speaker 1: zamon Hoff spent some time working as a doctor. Before
Speaker 1: long he decided to specialize and then started an internship
Speaker 1: in ophthalmology at Warsaw Jewish Hospital. He also spent some
Speaker 1: time studying in Vienna. After a couple of years in
Speaker 1: which he moved from place to place, he went back
Speaker 1: to Warsaw and opened an ophthalmology office in his home,
Speaker 1: and he moved away from the idea of modernizing Yiddish
Speaker 1: and back onto his project of developing a universal language
Speaker 1: that could unite all of humanity. While living in Warsaw,
Speaker 1: zamon Hoff met Clara Zilbernick and they fell in love.
Speaker 1: She encouraged his efforts to develop a universal language, and
Speaker 1: the two of them used it to write each other
Speaker 1: love letters. Clara's father was well off, and when she
Speaker 1: and Laser got married, her dowry was ten thousand roubles.
Speaker 1: The intent was that this money would help Zamenhoff establish
Speaker 1: his ophthalmology practice, but with his father in law's permission. Instead,
Speaker 1: he used some of it to publish a forty page
Speaker 1: booklet on his universal language in eighteen eighty seven. This
Speaker 1: first booklet was published in Russian, and additions in Polish, French,
Speaker 1: and German followed soon after. English and Swedish editions came
Speaker 1: out in eighteen eighty nine. In English, it's title read Dr.
Speaker 1: Esperanto's International Language Introduction and Complete Grammar. Esperanto came from
Speaker 1: the language itself, meaning hopeful one. Eventually the language became
Speaker 1: known as Esperanto, and in Esperanto this publication became known
Speaker 1: as Unua Libro or first Book. Here is how Zamenhoff
Speaker 1: described the world he imagined being possible in this first book.
Speaker 1: If everyone spoke the shared language of Esperanto quote, the
Speaker 1: impassable wall that separates literatures and people's would at once
Speaker 1: crumble into dust, and all that was written by another
Speaker 1: nation would be as acceptable as if in our own
Speaker 1: mother tongue. Reading would prove common to all, and it
Speaker 1: would advance education, ideals, convictions, tendencies. The whole world would
Speaker 1: be as one family. To that end, Zamenhoff drew from
Speaker 1: languages that would already be familiar to people in much
Speaker 1: of the Western world. It used the Roman alphabet, with
Speaker 1: the words themselves mainly coming from Latin and Germanic and
Speaker 1: Slavic languages. This actually also comes up as a criticism
Speaker 1: of Esperanto that it's not nearly as easy if you
Speaker 1: don't already speak a Romance, Germanic or Slavic language. If
Speaker 1: you do, you can piece together meanings of things relatively easily,
Speaker 1: but if you don't it's a lot harder. So beyond
Speaker 1: these recognizable roots, salmon Hoff also try to make the
Speaker 1: language itself really simple and easy to learn. It had
Speaker 1: only sixteen basic rules with no exceptions. Every letter had
Speaker 1: only one pronunciation, and every sound was represented by only
Speaker 1: one letter. So in Esperanto there's none of this. Is
Speaker 1: that a long A or a short a, nothing like
Speaker 1: r u f F and r o u g h
Speaker 1: being pronounced the same way like, there's non issues. This
Speaker 1: language had no silent letters or irregular verb endings, and
Speaker 1: the stress always went on the next to last syllable
Speaker 1: of the word. Esperanto also had only one definite article law,
Speaker 1: which was used regardless of gender, number, or case. Words
Speaker 1: in Esperanto also signaled which part of speech they were.
Speaker 1: Singular nouns and died an oh plural nouns, and o
Speaker 1: j adjectives and did an a and adverbs and e
Speaker 1: verbs in their basic form ended an i with past
Speaker 1: ten s ending in i s, present tense in a s,
Speaker 1: and future tense in os. Rather than creating a vocabulary
Speaker 1: of tens or hundreds of thousands of words in this
Speaker 1: first publication, Zamenhoff created nine hundred root words that could
Speaker 1: be modified with prefixes and suffixes to create a vocabulary
Speaker 1: between ten thousand and twelve thousand words. So, for example,
Speaker 1: the prefix mall m l means opposite, and the root
Speaker 1: bona means good, so malbona means bad, or dura means hard,
Speaker 1: so maldura means soft. The idea was that people would
Speaker 1: only need to learn a smaller number of roots and
Speaker 1: then modify them through these prefixes and suffixes to create
Speaker 1: a much wider, more complete vocabulary. We've used the past
Speaker 1: tense here because we're talking about Zamenhoff's first edition of
Speaker 1: the book, but Esperanto still exists. People still speak it today.
Speaker 1: The number of word roots has grown from about nine
Speaker 1: it in that first book to as many as nine
Speaker 1: thousand or even more. We will talk more about how
Speaker 1: Esperanto grew and spread after another sponsor break. L. L.
Speaker 1: Zamenhoff's cope was that this universal language would give people
Speaker 1: from around the world a second language in common. It
Speaker 1: wouldn't be the official language of any nation, so there
Speaker 1: would be no country that could claim ownership of Esperanto,
Speaker 1: and no native speakers to look down on people who
Speaker 1: weren't as fluent. There are a few people who do
Speaker 1: speak Esperanto as their first language, kind of scattered around
Speaker 1: the world today, though salmon Hoff also saw this as
Speaker 1: facilitating all kinds of exchange among different cultures. Rather than
Speaker 1: needing to learn multiple languages to speak to people from
Speaker 1: different countries, you'd only need to learn Esperanto. And rather
Speaker 1: than translating works of literature into new orus languages, they
Speaker 1: could all be translated into one language, Esperanto. The first
Speaker 1: book contained this pledge at the end, quote I the
Speaker 1: subscriber promised to learn the international language invented by Dr
Speaker 1: Esperanto if it be shown that ten millions of persons
Speaker 1: have given publicly the same promise. Reportedly, only about one
Speaker 1: thousand people returned these pledge forms to Zamenhoff, but soon
Speaker 1: Esperanto clubs were being established in Western Russia and in
Speaker 1: other parts of Europe. Esperanto quickly became more popular than
Speaker 1: the constructed language of Volapook that we mentioned earlier. And
Speaker 1: we also mentioned that Volapook had a reputation for being
Speaker 1: hard to learn, and there's a cute nod to it,
Speaker 1: and that the Esperanto word for Gibberish is volapukago. While
Speaker 1: Esperanto clubs are being established around Europe, zamon Hoff was
Speaker 1: really struggling financially. He was trying to promote his universal
Speaker 1: language while also trying to maintain his optimology practice. Eventually,
Speaker 1: money got so tight that he sent his wife and
Speaker 1: their first child, Adam, to live with her father for
Speaker 1: a while so he could look for a place where
Speaker 1: they could afford to live. They had a daughter, Zophia,
Speaker 1: in eighteen eighty nine, and at that point Clara's father
Speaker 1: gave them some money under the condition that they come
Speaker 1: back to Warsaw. They did, although they eventually moved to
Speaker 1: the smaller town of grown Note, which had a lower
Speaker 1: cost of living. In eighteen ninety four, Zaman Hooff tried
Speaker 1: to reform his original rules for Esperanto. It's alphabet used
Speaker 1: diacritical marks on some of the letters, and most of
Speaker 1: the combinations of letters and accent marks didn't exist in
Speaker 1: any other languages. So this caused the problem of printers
Speaker 1: not having them in their type. They were harder for
Speaker 1: people with low vision to read, and they didn't exist
Speaker 1: in Brail at all. It would be a few more
Speaker 1: years before say a Field Kart and de Lander would
Speaker 1: develop a Brail alphabet for Esperanto. The Esperanto community resisted
Speaker 1: these revisions, though, thinking that it would kind of be
Speaker 1: like starting over. The diacritical marks are still part of
Speaker 1: the alphabet, and especially in old printed texts, there have
Speaker 1: been a variety of workarounds for them. Yeah, I would
Speaker 1: say some of these workarounds are more successful than others.
Speaker 1: Like I was reading trying to read one old, old
Speaker 1: printed thing, and it just looked like these letters were identical,
Speaker 1: when really some of them were supposed to have accents
Speaker 1: over them and some of them were not. Samon Hoff
Speaker 1: started an Esperanto magazine called Esperantisto, and he started translating
Speaker 1: literature in other languages into Esperanto. One such translation was
Speaker 1: an excerpt of Leo Tolstoy's Reason or Faith, But then,
Speaker 1: because of Tolstoy's writing on civil disobedience, this translation led
Speaker 1: to La Esperantisto being banned in Russia and it ultimately folded. However,
Speaker 1: translating works of literature, including Hamlet, really helped Samon Haff
Speaker 1: flesh out the Esperanto vocabulary as he coined new root
Speaker 1: words to fit the needs of the text. In eight seven,
Speaker 1: zamon Hoff and his family moved back to Warsaw. He
Speaker 1: re established an optimology practice once again in his home,
Speaker 1: and he maintained it for the rest of his life.
Speaker 1: Many of his patients who were among Warsaw's poorest people
Speaker 1: who lived in the city's Jewish ghetto. Even though zamen
Speaker 1: Hoff had moved away from the idea of Zionism and
Speaker 1: from the idea of creating a common language specifically for
Speaker 1: the Jewish people, he hadn't at all lost sight of
Speaker 1: the ongoing anti Semitism and marginalization that Jewish people were facing.
Speaker 1: He really recognized that Jews were not seen as Russian,
Speaker 1: and he thought that no matter how many generations passed
Speaker 1: that was always going to be the case. In nineteen
Speaker 1: o one, he published Hillelism, a project in response to
Speaker 1: the Jewish question, and that was named for Rabbi Hillel
Speaker 1: the Elder, who was born around a hundred and ten BC.
Speaker 1: Many of Hillel's teachings were rooted in empathy, with one
Speaker 1: of his most widely quoted being do not do to
Speaker 1: your neighbor that which is hateful to you. Initially, Helllism
Speaker 1: reframed Jewish identity to focus on universal ethics rather than
Speaker 1: Jewish law, with rituals having a cultural rather than a
Speaker 1: religious meaning. Basically, it tried to create a religiously neutral
Speaker 1: bridge between Jewish identity and Russian life. Zamenhoff also saw
Speaker 1: Helllism and Esperanto as connected, with Esperanto being part of
Speaker 1: that religiously neutral bridge. Also in nineteen o one, North
Speaker 1: America's first Esperanto club was established. That happened in Montreal.
Speaker 1: In nineteen o four, the language was exhibited at the St.
Speaker 1: Louis Exposition, and Laser and Clara welcomed another daughter named Lydia.
Speaker 1: A group of English and French esperantists that's people who
Speaker 1: are fluent in Esperanto also gathered to plan their first
Speaker 1: international meeting that year as well. That meeting took place
Speaker 1: in Boulogne Surmier, France in nineteen o five. Delegates at
Speaker 1: the five meeting ratified a document that came to be
Speaker 1: known as the Declaration of Boulogne, which specified that Esperanto
Speaker 1: was neutral and that it belonged to no one, and
Speaker 1: that the only authority of the language was the book
Speaker 1: Fundamento to Esperanto, which Zamenhoff published in nineteen o five.
Speaker 1: Esperanto had really taken off among French intellectuals, and this
Speaker 1: French popularity had actually created some issues. France was still
Speaker 1: reeling from the political scandal known as the Dreyfus Affair
Speaker 1: after Jewish Army Captain Alfred Dreyfuss was falsely convicted of
Speaker 1: treason in eighteen ninety four. This conviction had caused a
Speaker 1: massive schism in France, with the anti Dreyfusard faction spreading
Speaker 1: all kinds of deeply anti Semitic propaganda. This is actually
Speaker 1: on the list for a future episode at some point.
Speaker 1: Because of all the fur many of the French intellectuals
Speaker 1: who had become fascinated with Esperanto ide to distance themselves
Speaker 1: from zaman Hooff, his Jewishness and the ideas of Hellelism
Speaker 1: that he was promoting. Even so, zamon Hoff was inducted
Speaker 1: into the French Legion of Honor in nineteen o five.
Speaker 1: Violent programs also continued in the Russian Empire during these
Speaker 1: same years, killing at least two thousand Jewish people between
Speaker 1: nineteen o three and the start of the Russian Revolution
Speaker 1: of nineteen o five. In nineteen o six, Zamenhoff spoke
Speaker 1: about these programs in Geneva, calling for Esperanto to become
Speaker 1: a shared language to try to break down religious barriers.
Speaker 1: By this point, he had also revised his ideas of
Speaker 1: Hellelism into something that he called homer and Esmo that
Speaker 1: roughly translates to humanitism. And although this contained a lot
Speaker 1: of the same concepts that Hellelism had, zamon Hooff saw
Speaker 1: Homeranismo as a neutral ethical framework to unite all of humanity.
Speaker 1: In a lot of ways, esper Onto and Homerinizmo went
Speaker 1: hand in hand. Esperanto was a shared language to unite
Speaker 1: the world, and homeransm was in Zamenhof's words, a neutral
Speaker 1: human religion which would unite not just Jews and Gentiles,
Speaker 1: but also theists and atheists into one global community with
Speaker 1: a shared set of ethical principles. It really really had
Speaker 1: a lot in common with that earlier idea of Hellenism,
Speaker 1: but with a slightly different focus. So although part of
Speaker 1: the Esperanto community shared this sense of global ethics and
Speaker 1: global unity, others, including a lot of the French intellectuals
Speaker 1: that we mentioned earlier, were really more focused on the
Speaker 1: language itself and its practical uses. In Zamenhof sent Louis
Speaker 1: de beau frant to represent him and the language at
Speaker 1: the Delegation for the Adoption of an International Auxiliary Language,
Speaker 1: but rather than representing Esperanto, which he was expected to do,
Speaker 1: de beau front, a non anamously proposed that the committee
Speaker 1: adopt a different language. It was Edo, which was Esperanto
Speaker 1: for offspring. The beau front described Edo as a revised
Speaker 1: version of Esperanto, and it eventually came out that he
Speaker 1: was the one who had submitted it to the committee.
Speaker 1: The sparked the first of several schisms within the Esperanto community,
Speaker 1: as the edists broke away from the Esperantists. Salmon Hoff
Speaker 1: was really shocked and disheartened by de beau Frant's actions
Speaker 1: and by the division that followed. But also in nineteen
Speaker 1: o seven, zamon Hoff was nominated for the Nobel Peace
Speaker 1: Prize for the first of fourteen times. Multiple different parties
Speaker 1: made the nominations over the years. The first nomination came
Speaker 1: from twelve members of the British Parliament. Other nominations included
Speaker 1: forty two members of the French Parliament in nine Painter
Speaker 1: and Esperanto promoter Felix Stone Moschell and Charles Robert Roche,
Speaker 1: who was himself awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or
Speaker 1: Medicine in nineteen thirteen. The Universal Esperanto Association or u
Speaker 1: e A was founded in nineteen o eight, and the
Speaker 1: language continued to spread around the world. It was introduced
Speaker 1: into Japan after the Russo Japanese War, and it became
Speaker 1: something of a fad there in nineteen o five and
Speaker 1: nineteen o six. Eventually, the Japanese religion Omoto adopted Esperanto
Speaker 1: as its language. Dr Vilhel Molli proposed renaming Neutral Morris Net,
Speaker 1: which was a small neutral patch of territory in Western
Speaker 1: Europe as a mikhaeo or place of friendship in Esperanto,
Speaker 1: and he commissioned in Esperanto National Anthem in nineteen o eight.
Speaker 1: Germany eventually annexed Neutral morris Net and it became part
Speaker 1: of Belgium after World War One. Even though the idea
Speaker 1: wasn't for Esperanto to be any nations like official language,
Speaker 1: the idea that this like tiny neutral patch of territory
Speaker 1: might use Esperanto as an official language was kind of
Speaker 1: captivating to people. Zamon Hoff had been a heavy smoker
Speaker 1: for a lot of his life, and by the nineteen
Speaker 1: teens he was showing symptoms of heart disease as he
Speaker 1: became increasingly ill. His son Adam took over part of
Speaker 1: the medical practice, but beyond that, zamon Hoff just didn't
Speaker 1: want to slow down. Calmarinismo and Esperanto were just so
Speaker 1: deeply important to him. He kept promoting and writing about
Speaker 1: them and adding more and more works of literature onto
Speaker 1: his list to translate into Esperanto. Zamon Hoff traveled to
Speaker 1: Paris in nineteen fourteen for an Esperanto convention, and he
Speaker 1: got trapped there when nations started closing borders at the
Speaker 1: start of World War One, a network of Esperantists helped
Speaker 1: him get back home via Scandinavia. That same year, a
Speaker 1: bill was introduced into the US Congress to teach Esperanto
Speaker 1: in the schools of Washington, d c. Although that got
Speaker 1: stuck in committee. There were also people in the US
Speaker 1: who were advocating for the teaching of Esperanto to break
Speaker 1: down racial barriers, including black journalist and essayist William Pickens.
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixteen, Zamenhoff's brother, Alexander took his own life
Speaker 1: after being conscripted into the Russian Army. Alexander had been
Speaker 1: really deeply traumatized by what he had witnessed as a
Speaker 1: doctor earlier during the Russo Japanese War. L. L. Zamenhoff
Speaker 1: died the following year, on April fourteenth of nineteen seventeen,
Speaker 1: at the age of fifty seven. Clara kept up with
Speaker 1: his work after his death, corresponding with esperantists and promoting
Speaker 1: the language. She died of cancer on December six Zamenhoff
Speaker 1: had conceived of Esperanto as a neutral language, and the
Speaker 1: Declaration of Boulogne had affirmed that neutrality, But after Zamenhoff's death,
Speaker 1: and after the end of World War One, a range
Speaker 1: of social and political organizations adopted and advocated for the language.
Speaker 1: These included socialists, labor organizations, vegetarian organizations, and members of
Speaker 1: the High Faith. While there had always been people of
Speaker 1: various religions and political alignments who had learned an advocated
Speaker 1: for Esperanto, in the nineteen twenties it became increasingly associated
Speaker 1: with leftist political and social movements. Meanwhile, the Universal Esperanto
Speaker 1: Association advocated for Esperanto with the League of Nations. A
Speaker 1: proposal for Esperanto to be adopted as the league's official
Speaker 1: language was blocked by France, which argued that French was
Speaker 1: already a universal language. Brazilian ambassador Raoul de Rio Bronco
Speaker 1: blocked a resolution that Esperanto be taught in schools, calling
Speaker 1: it a language of quote ne'er do wells and communists.
Speaker 1: I love the idea that France, the French was a
Speaker 1: neutral language. Well, like this is our universal language. We
Speaker 1: certainly speak it. Yeah, well, I didn't get into it
Speaker 1: in this outline. Will probably talk about it in the
Speaker 1: behind the scenes, but like there's also been a lot
Speaker 1: of conversation about like, but now English is the universal
Speaker 1: language and I'm like, come on, really right. When the
Speaker 1: Russian Revolution and began in nineteen seventeen, Russian esperantists generally
Speaker 1: supported it, and eventually the Bolshevik government officially supported the language.
Speaker 1: In turn, the Esperanto Union of the Soviet Republics. You'll
Speaker 1: see that as s e U organized itself according to
Speaker 1: Bolshevik principles, which led to a schism between the s
Speaker 1: EU and the U e A. Yeah, the U e
Speaker 1: A was like, this goes against the idea of being
Speaker 1: politically neutral. However, when Joseph Stalin came to power, Esperanto
Speaker 1: fell out of favor in the Soviet Union, and by
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty six there were mass arrests of esperantists. The
Speaker 1: SEUs leaders were executed, Esperantists were persecuted, and Imperial Japan
Speaker 1: as well. In these years. In Germany, Heinrich Himmler shut
Speaker 1: down the German Esperanto Association in nineteen thirty six. Overall,
Speaker 1: the Nazi regime saw the language and its associated movement
Speaker 1: as radical and dangerous. Reich Minister of Propaganda of Joseph
Speaker 1: Gebbels called Esperanto quote the language of Jews and communists.
Speaker 1: Adolf Hitler also condemned the idea of Esperanto or a
Speaker 1: similar universal language in his book Mind comp describing it
Speaker 1: as a tool that Jews would use to take over
Speaker 1: the world. The Nazi regime persecuted and killed Esperantists, including
Speaker 1: those with and without Jewish ancestry. World War Two continued
Speaker 1: to strain the idea of Esperanto as being politically neutral.
Speaker 1: Many Esperantists were anti fascists, and the movement had always
Speaker 1: been focused on these principles of peace and international understanding.
Speaker 1: Networks of Esperantists offered to aid people who were being
Speaker 1: persecuted under the Nazi regime, but at the same time,
Speaker 1: national German Esperanto organizations were established during these years that
Speaker 1: excluded Jewish members and otherwise tried to appease the Nazis,
Speaker 1: and in the nineteen thirties, Nazi Party member Anton Vote
Speaker 1: was the vice president of the u e A. The
Speaker 1: Zaminha family were all victims of this violence. In persecution,
Speaker 1: the Zamenhoff home in Warsaw was bombed in nineteen thirty nine,
Speaker 1: and afterward Adam, Zophia and Lydia Zamenhoff, as well as
Speaker 1: Adam's wife, Wanda, were all arrested. Wanda was eventually returned
Speaker 1: to the Warsaw Ghetto, and she and their son went
Speaker 1: into hiding and ultimately survived the Holocaust. So as we
Speaker 1: noted earlier, Adam Zamenhoff was a doctor and he had
Speaker 1: become the director of a hospital. Zophia was a pediatrician.
Speaker 1: Lydia was a writer and a translator. She had converted
Speaker 1: to the High Faith and had traveled all over the
Speaker 1: world studying and teaching and lecturing. The American Assembly of
Speaker 1: the High Faith had invited Lydia to the United States
Speaker 1: to teach esperanto classes in nineteen thirty seven, but when
Speaker 1: it turned out that teaching those classes violated the terms
Speaker 1: of her visa, her request for an extension was denied
Speaker 1: and she was forced to return to Europe. In night,
Speaker 1: Nazi officers shot Adam Zamenhoff to death during the Palmiria massacre.
Speaker 1: In January of nineteen Lydia and Zofia Zamenhoff were both
Speaker 1: executed at the Treblinka death Camp. Zofia reportedly went to
Speaker 1: Triblinka voluntarily, possibly because she did not want to leave
Speaker 1: her patients. Although Esperanto had already spread so many other
Speaker 1: parts of the world before World War Two, many of
Speaker 1: its speakers and its largest organizations had been in Europe,
Speaker 1: and in the face of these horrific tragedies, that really
Speaker 1: took some time before the language started to revive again.
Speaker 1: After the war, the Esperanto community had also faced yet
Speaker 1: another schism after Swiss esperantists undermined a planned move of
Speaker 1: the u e A headquarters from Geneva to London. A
Speaker 1: new organization, the Internacia Esperanto Lego i e L, was
Speaker 1: established in London, and most of the national Esperanto organizations
Speaker 1: left the u e A and joined it. The two
Speaker 1: organizations were merged after the war. The World Esperanto Congress
Speaker 1: was convened in nineteen forty seven. That was the first
Speaker 1: time that it had been held since nineteen thirty nine.
Speaker 1: People started advocating for Esperanto at the United Nations as
Speaker 1: a way to encourage and facilitate international communication. In nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty four, the General Conference at UNESCO past the Montevideo Resolution,
Speaker 1: which supported Esperanto as an international auxiliary language. Poland hosted
Speaker 1: the World Esperanto Congress in nineteen fifty nine, which was
Speaker 1: the first time that the Congress had been held in
Speaker 1: that part of Europe since the World War two years.
Speaker 1: The first feature films in Esperanto were produced in the
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties. There was and Goroy in nineteen sixty four,
Speaker 1: and in Cuba, which is also called Incubus, which starred
Speaker 1: William Shatner in nineteen sixty six. He apparently learned his
Speaker 1: lines sphonetically. Esperanto's progress was complicated in some parts of
Speaker 1: the world during these years. In China, for example, Esperantos
Speaker 1: were imprisoned during the Cultural Revolution in the nineteen sixties
Speaker 1: and seventies, while the Chinese government simultaneously used the language
Speaker 1: for propaganda purposes, even though Zamenhoff had created the language
Speaker 1: with the idea that it would bring peace and unity.
Speaker 1: In the nineteen sixties, the U. S. Army used it
Speaker 1: for war games in which the enemy combatants had their
Speaker 1: own uniforms and spoke Esperanto. As part of this, the
Speaker 1: army put out a publication called Esperanto the Aggressor Language.
Speaker 1: The army eventually dropped this program because it turns out
Speaker 1: that even though Esperanto is meant to be easy to learn,
Speaker 1: it is still time consuming to learn a whole language
Speaker 1: for war games. Esperanto's popularity started to wane a bit
Speaker 1: in the latter part of the twentieth century, but since
Speaker 1: then the Internet has made it a lot more accessible
Speaker 1: to more people. By the early twenty first century, it
Speaker 1: was also becoming more popular in parts of the world
Speaker 1: whose official languages aren't based in Latin, so places like
Speaker 1: China and parts of Africa. The language app Duo lingo
Speaker 1: Is showed the first version of its Esperanto course in
Speaker 1: I took a tiny number of those while working on
Speaker 1: this episode, not enough to hold on any sort of conversation,
Speaker 1: but I did do a few. It is clear that
Speaker 1: online classes and apps have led more people to learn
Speaker 1: at least some Esperanto like Tracy, but exact numbers are
Speaker 1: really pretty unclear. Estimates range all the way from one
Speaker 1: hundred thousand speakers to a couple of million. The Universal
Speaker 1: Esperanto Association has members in more than one d twenty countries.
Speaker 1: But it also seems like in some ways the online
Speaker 1: spread of the language is both a blessing and a curse.
Speaker 1: More people are learning the language, but not necessarily with
Speaker 1: the connection to Zamenhoff's ideals of unity and bridge building.
Speaker 1: Like back when most people learned Esperanto almost exclusively through
Speaker 1: clubs and pen and paper correspondence courses, there were directories
Speaker 1: of people who would welcome other Esperantists into their homes.
Speaker 1: Those directories still exist, but it's just it's not as
Speaker 1: feasible to do something like that when a huge number
Speaker 1: of people are learning a language through an app without
Speaker 1: necessarily that shared cultural context. The Internet's enthusiasm for Esperanto
Speaker 1: also means that resources in Esperanto can weigh out number
Speaker 1: resources for other languages that have a lot more speakers.
Speaker 1: The Fifth World Esperanto Congress was supposed to be held
Speaker 1: in in Montreal, but because of the pandemic, that was
Speaker 1: postponed until instead a series of virtual events took place
Speaker 1: from June to September. Also December fifteen. L. L. Zamenhoff's
Speaker 1: birthday is now Zalmonhoff Day. I enjoyed working on this episode, uh,
Speaker 1: even as the tragic parts are really hard to work on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: um uh, do you have listener mail in Esperanto for us?
Speaker 1: I do this. It's not been Esperanto, but it is
Speaker 1: from Caroline. It's about our nineteen eighteen flu episode, and
Speaker 1: Caroline says, hello, lovely ladies. I hope you're doing well
Speaker 1: and enjoying some lovely spring weather. I'm writing this email
Speaker 1: right after the release of the first part of Revisiting
Speaker 1: the Flu pandemic. While I understand that there's a lot
Speaker 1: to cover there, especially in the overlap of the current pandemic,
Speaker 1: I was disappointed, in a little shock that you did
Speaker 1: not discuss how both pandemics affect those with chronic illness,
Speaker 1: especially in regards to mask mandates. Throughout the episode, I
Speaker 1: noted three opportunities for you to do so, where you didn't.
Speaker 1: I understand that you had a lot to cover, and
Speaker 1: I do not believe this was done maliciously, so I
Speaker 1: thought I'd take the time to do so. I could
Speaker 1: spend all day discussing how the pandemic has negatively impacted
Speaker 1: us with chronic illness, but I wanted to specifically address
Speaker 1: mask mandates because this, in my view, is the most
Speaker 1: problematic in the social realm. Although I could tell you
Speaker 1: did try to be compassionate with this issue, there were
Speaker 1: times where it felt like you slipped into stereotyping those
Speaker 1: who don't wish to wear masks of selfish ne'er duels,
Speaker 1: although there's no denial that this is some the population.
Speaker 1: This again completely dismisses situations where people do have very
Speaker 1: serious but personal reasons for not wearing a mask. UM.
Speaker 1: The remainder of the email talks a lot about Caroline's
Speaker 1: own personal medical history, so I'm not going to read
Speaker 1: all of it, but thank you for sharing that with me, Caroline. UM. So, first,
Speaker 1: I apologize if I made anyone who is chronically ill
Speaker 1: or disabled UM feel excluded or talked over or dismissed
Speaker 1: in working on that episode. There are some valid reasons
Speaker 1: that people have for not wearing masks, and at the
Speaker 1: same time, there are also a lot of non disabled
Speaker 1: people who are using disability as a shield to do
Speaker 1: crap like print out fake Americans with Disabilities Act notices
Speaker 1: and like harass store employees and generally make things unsafe
Speaker 1: for everyone, and it outrages me, and I didn't feel
Speaker 1: like it was something that I could like bring into
Speaker 1: the episode without feeling like I was giving uh acceptability
Speaker 1: or weight to the people who are doing that. UM.
Speaker 1: Because overwhelmingly the disabled and chronically ill people in my
Speaker 1: life feel more unsafe because of that type of behavior
Speaker 1: of people who are like using disability as a shield
Speaker 1: to not wear masks just because they don't want to
Speaker 1: do it and want to be jerks to others. UM. Also, Uh,
Speaker 1: there is just not a lot of data yet about
Speaker 1: disability and chronic illness in the flu pandemic, beyond the
Speaker 1: chronic respiratory diseases that came up several times in the episodes,
Speaker 1: like tuberculosis. UM. And part of that is because the
Speaker 1: nine eighteen flu was happening during the eugenics movement, during
Speaker 1: a time when overwhelmingly disabled and chronically ill people were
Speaker 1: living in like special homes and special schools or being
Speaker 1: cared for at home in a way that they weren't
Speaker 1: in the public eye very much. UM also like a
Speaker 1: shortcoming within the field of history that's just isn't something
Speaker 1: that historians have looked at a whole lot recently, and
Speaker 1: the papers that have started to be coming out over
Speaker 1: the last decade or so or kind of like, wow,
Speaker 1: there's almost nothing about this. UM. The field of disability
Speaker 1: studies itself is also really new, so it's like that
Speaker 1: field has not had a lot of time to go
Speaker 1: back into like the archives, to really pour over that
Speaker 1: and create a comprehensive history of how the pandemic affected
Speaker 1: people with chronic illnesses and disabilities. So again, UM, I
Speaker 1: apologize if there were people. I apologize if the way
Speaker 1: I wrote that episode made people feel excluded or anything
Speaker 1: like that. I I feel like there's a lot of
Speaker 1: complicated stuff with this, So thank you again to Caroline
Speaker 1: for sending that note. UM, if you would like to
Speaker 1: write to us about the US or any other podcast
Speaker 1: or history podcast at i heeart radio dot com. We're
Speaker 1: also all over social media at MS in History, and
Speaker 1: that's where you'll find our Facebook and Twitter and Pinterest
Speaker 1: and Instagram, and you can subscribe to our show on
Speaker 1: the i heeart Radio app and Apple Podcasts and anywhere
Speaker 1: else that you get your podcasts. Stuff you missed in
Speaker 1: History Class is a production of I heart Radio. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.