I WAS interested to hear recently that there is a Scottish Esperanto Association which is having its annual congress near Lanark in May. Also the National Library of Scotland boasts some 5000 books in and about Esperanto (including translations of the works of RL Stevenson, Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott).

It was in 1887 that Ludovik Zamenhof, a Jewish-Polish doctor, published a book on an international language he had devised. He styled himself “Doktoro Esperanto.” It translates roughly as “Dr Hopeful” and Esperanto became the name of the new language.

It attracted the attention of a Richard Geoghegan. Born in England but living in Dublin, he became the second Esperanto author and introduced it to the English speaking world.

In Dublin an Esperanto group was set up in 1905. Then in 1907 the all-Ireland organisation La Irlanda Esperanto-Asocio was formed. Joseph Plunkett, later one of the signatories of the 1916 Proclamation, was on its inaugural committee.

There is also strong evidence that James Connolly, the socialist hero of the Easter Rising, spoke Esperanto. Certainly his biographer Desmond Ryan thinks so.

Connolly had written in Workers’ Republic as far back as 1890 of the need to establish a “universal language to facilitate communication” between various peoples. Later in 1908, whilst in the USA, he wrote in The Harp that he still believed in a universal language, however that it should supplement rather than replace the mother tongues of smaller nations. And one of the great powers should not be allowed to impose its language.

Hitler denounced Esperanto in Mein Kampf as “an arm of the Jews.” Stalin also attacked Esperantists as “dangerous cosmopolitans and spies.” Followers were imprisoned and killed.

Yet despite this repression the language survived into the post-war period.

The World Esperanto Association today has members in 117 countries and national associations in more than 60. It has consultative status with Unesco and NGO status with the UN.

And it is good news also that is alive and well in Scotland too!

Alan Stewart

Glasgow

THERE is much I agree with in Robin McAlpine’s proposals (Here are 10 questions for backers of Growth Commission proposals, March 30). Others will disagree with parts of it. That’s the point.

All these decisions will be made by a government we have elected as we negotiate our withdrawal from the UK after we have actually voted for independence. So now is not the time for detailed discussion of decisions we cannot presently make.

For the record, I believe that Scotland should have its own central bank and its own currency fully reserved, which gives strongest control over our economy.

Others have other ideas. So it is options we should be putting together at the moment, not fixed positions.

This is the case all across the board on all sorts of issues. We should not be fixing a constitution but establishing options for a range of founding principles for the one we will design in our parliament when we are independent.

The bottom line is that we can have the best ideas in the world, the finest policies, the vision of the great new country, but if we don’t persuade a majority of the people of Scotland that we are economically viable and able to offer and afford to build that new country, we will lose the referendum.

But once we have established that we are self-supporting, just think of the excitement across this nation as our imagination, ambition and invention provides us with the massively exciting options available to us.

David McEwan Hill

Sandbank, Argyll

I HAVE no cavil about Messrs Sillars and Fairlie objecting to SNP policy over Europe (Letters, throughout March) but simply wonder if it is an issue best left till independence.

The overwhelming majority of Scots elected to stay in the EU and the conduct of the Scottish Government since 2016 has respected that decision.

Our government and parliament have fought hard to represent the will of the Scottish electorate but have been treated with unmitigated contempt.

The reality of Westminster has been revealed to us all.

Right now we need all of us to be firm and stand fast and the last thing we need is squabbling which might leave any of us sulking in our tents. Of course there are very serious issues between us, but let us defer these until we have the right to discuss them among ourselves without Westminster (or even Europe) having the right to interfere.

We need to be united, regardless of our differences, if we are to recover what is rightfully ours from the Baying Etonians of Whitehall.

KM Campbell

Doune