Once upon a time, a boy was born to a Jewish family in Bialystok. The town in the course of its turbulent history had become home to people of diverse nationalities, speaking Yiddish, Russian, Polish, Lithuanian and German. Ludovik Lazarus Zamenhof was a sensitive child, and could not fail to see the misunderstandings and the hate that arose when people could not understand each other, as well as the unfair advantages gained by those whose mother tongue also happened to be the dominant language of their state or profession. He dreamt of a language that could be understood by all races and that would belong to all races equally. Already as a secondary school student, he started to create a language based on existing languages, but without the difficulties inherent in all national languages. Some of his friends joined with him to practise this new language.
However, Ludovik's father was not happy that his son should dedicate so much time to such a seemingly absurd project. He also feared that the artificial language might be seen as a threat to state security by the Russian authorities, especially coming as it did from a Jewish source. Thus, when Ludvik left Bialystok to pursue medical studies, his father destroyed all the manuscripts relating to the "Lingwe Uniwersala". Ludovik was devastated when he found out. However, he set himself to recreate, and to improve, his project. At the same time, he continued with his studies, but found the practice of medicine too emotionally draining, since he constantly identified with the suffering of his patients. He therefore changed direction and became an ophthalmologist. At last, he completed the basic structure of his language. He decided to publish it under the pen name of Dr. Esperanto (= the one who hopes).
No publisher was interested in this idealistic project. Finally, however, Ludovik became engaged, and his fiancee, Clara, persuaded her father to finance the publication of the first edition of the new language. The language had its roots in the Germanic, Romance and (slightly) Slavic languages of Europe, but its grammatical construction had something in common with those of Chinese and some African languages. Its grammar was based on sixteen rules to which there were no exceptions. This regularity made Esperanto simpler than any national language. According to one estimate, it takes at least seven times as much time to reach a certain level of competence in a national language as it does in Esperanto. After a few weeks study, people were able to initiate simple correspondence and have a basic conversation.
Little by little people took up the idea of Esperanto. Right from the start they showed its capacity to render the major works of every national literature. Others started to create an original literature in Esperanto: novels, short stories, poetry, drama. Others created the technical terms required to express all fields of human activity and creativity. Esperantists began to meet regularly, at world, continental and national congresses. Some people within the Esperanto community also emphasized a certain philosophy, the "Internal Idea" of the language, about peace and understanding between nations and therefore also between individuals. Zamenhof even developed a quasi-religious construction "homanarism", which was linked to, but not an essential part of Esperanto, and which tried to unify religious thought into one universal religion.
Zamenhof had always emphasized the neutrality of Esperanto, claiming that no one group had any exclusive right to its use. The concept of neutrality became modified into a concept of political neutrality, which was accepted as the official line of the world Esperanto movement. However, socialists had always been strong supporters of the idea, and a second movement was founded, mainly left-wing, but also with its own principle of "non-nationalism". Some smaller nations saw the advantages, at least theoretically, of a universal second language that was nobody's first language. However, the big powers never supported the concept, and even saw it as a threat; Esperantists were persecuted for their language by Stalin and also by Hitler.
Today, realistically, Esperanto has little chance of finding official acceptance, and the dominance of English appears to grow exponentially. Why then does anyone get involved in Esperanto? Some are still caught up by the idealism, by the desire to communicate, and by the possibility of what might be. For me personally, it was purely for selfish reasons. I found myself in the position of being isolated in a small apartment with two babies. I was desperate to use my brain again, but could not go to any courses, because there was nobody available to look after the babies while I was away, and no money to pay for childcare. One day I found a leaflet in the library about Esperanto. The British Esperanto Association (just like many other national Esperanto associations) was offering a free postal course in the language. Here was a way to use my brain again, at no cost other than postage, and with no need to leave the house.
After a month or so, I was hooked. Although the language is basically very simple, because of its total regularity (e.g. all verbs in present, past and future tense end in -as, -is, -os, respectively; all nouns end in -o (sing.), -oj (plural); all adjectives in -a, -aj (pl.), all adverbs in -e), it can also be extremely subtle, because any root can become any part of speech, and because roots can be combined at will to form new concepts. I found myself becoming frustrated at times, because I wanted to say something and knew that I could never express it quite as precisely in English as in Esperanto! I began to write poetry. I discovered literary works from many different cultures (in translation of course). The principle of non-nationalism rang many bells for me. I had been born in London of Polish parents, and throughout my life had felt a lack of belonging to one or other nation. Suddenly I found spiritual sisters and brothers to whom the concept of "nation" was as meaningless as it always had been to me. As a scientist, I had witnessed the humiliation at international congresses of scientists for whom English was not their first language. It was so easy for a native English speaker to destroy a non-native speaker by linguistic tricks rather than by scientific superiority. I tried to imagine what it was like for a scientist in a small country who not only had to learn and understand the relevant scientific knowledge, but also gain mastery of a foreign language in order to succeed. During the World Esperanto Congress in Brighton in 1987, I sat in the pub with a group of people, chatting away with ease about all subjects under the sun and solving the problems of the universe (the way that people do after a few pints). We came from England, Poland, Germany, Japan, Italy, France and Hungary; some of us were intellectuals, some were manual workers, but not one was a professional linguist. It turned out that Esperanto was our only common language. Some time later, I sat in the foyer of a European Community conference centre, listening to a small group of student interpreters complain about the difficulty of translating some of the phrases in the current meeting. Although each of these students was proficient in at least two EC languages as well as the native language, they had no common language, and had to interpret amongst themselves between French and English so that all could understand. It seemed clear to me which was the more logical solution!