Learning Esperanto
How many people speak Esperanto?
If you are outgoing and like travelling you should learn Esperanto. Wherever you go, you will meet friends who will show you around and tell you about their country. There are books with names of people around the world who are prepared to accept you as a guest in their home, for a shorter or longer period, usually for free. Something for cosmopolitans, backpackers, indeed for anyone who wants to get to know other cultures and countries from the inside, through the personal meetings that are made possible by a common language.
Every year a large number of congresses, seminars and different international events are arranged worldwide, where people from different parts of the world meet. The most famous one is the world congress, with several thousand participants from 60 or so countries. During a week it presents courses, conferences, discussions, song, music, theatre, excursions, lectures and informal gatherings.
There are about 100 magazines in Esperanto, of which some are highly specialised or focussed on culture. Radio stations in Poland, Brazil, China, Cuba, Estonia, Hungary, Italy and the Vatican State send in Esperanto regularly.
Through joining an Esperanto association or, if under the age of 30, the youth association SEJU, one can receive information about what is going on and get tips about different events.
One of the great advantages of Esperanto is that one can learn it without a teacher, using good text-books. Courses are organised in many countries.
Even if you do not learn Esperanto you can make your contribution by working for the introduction of Esperanto as a working language in the UN and the EU. If we are successful the benefits will be enormous.
The costs of the EU will decrease yearly by many hundreds of millions of English pounds or US $. Moreover, we will in many ways have a better world, as the opportunities for dialogues between the people of the world rather than just their leaders will increase dramatically. We will also have a more just world. When specialist literature, the results of scientific research, instructions etc are written in Esperanto as well, it will raise welfare around the world as engineers, teachers etc in small language areas will be able to follow developments in a wholly new way.
“In the following two generations we are likely to see as many changes in the world as we have since the birth of Jesus.” (Gunnar Adler-Karlsson, Professor of Social Science, economist).
“We have to run if we do not want to go backwards” - Pelagius.
Learning Esperanto |
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© Hans Malv, 2004