Esperanto

Wikipedia really is the best read ever. Day after day I get lost there, clicking links that interest me and often forgetting why I went in the first place.



Do you ever have moments when you can't remember if something is real or if you dreamed it? Today, it was my dad telling me while I was learning German in high school about him learning a constructed language (a "conlang") when he was a boy in the Forties. For a second there I couldn't imagine my father, sensible to a fault, being involved with anything remotely like Klingon. But it's all true.

Esperanto is an a priori auxiliary language devised in Poland in 1887 to help foster international understanding. Phonetically, it's Slavic but its vocabulary derives mainly from the Romantic languages. Evidently, it was noble enough an ideal for Neutral Moresnet to consider adopting it as their official language when it looked like they might become independent before the First World War - guess what happened instead - and the short-lived micro-nation Rose Island, near Italy, actually did so in 1968. Do I sound like an expert? I just read Wikipedia.

Once again, it's time to feel sorry for the kids. There are up to 2000 native Esperanto speakers in the world today - no small feat for a language without a home or culture to support it. That's how many parents insisted on teaching their offspring a useless, made-up language, and doubtlessly dragged them kicking and screaming to annual Esperanto conventions until they were old enough to stay home alone/together. These dreamers even have their own flag and national anthem!

This is Marcus: reading Wikipedia so you don't have to.