Long seen as a hobby for idealistic eccentrics, the constructed language has had a resurgence in the age of Brexit and Trump. And it’s all centred on a small village near Stoke on Trent

In the village of Barlaston, just outside Stoke-on-Trent, a strange language can be heard. It’s not the friendly Potteries dialect, but something that sounds a little like the lovechild of French and German. A Tudor house here is home to the Esperanto Association of Britain (EAB), which encourages people to learn the constructed language.

Esperanto summer schools were first established in Stoke in 1960, and were funded by the council for more than 50 years. The concept of an easy-to-learn, universal second tongue was energetically promoted, drawing prominent speakers to the area. And the city still bears traces of its Esperanto history. In Smallthorne, in the north-east of the city, drinkers can stop off on Esperanto Way to get a pint at the Green Star – the symbol of the Esperantist movement. A row of terraced houses a short walk away are located on Zamenhof Grove, named after the inventor of Esperanto, LL Zamenhof.

The language isn’t a relic; in fact, while exact figures are difficult to pin down, there has been a resurgence in people taking it up. The Esperanto Association has increased the number of beginners’ courses it offers four-fold to keep up with demand, says Viv O’Dunne, the charity’s operations and events director.

The “inner idea” of Esperanto, Zamenhof once said, was to promote world peace. A Jewish-Polish doctor born in 1859 in Białystok, now in Poland, Zamenhof grew up under Russian occupation. Violence between different groups was common – Białystok which was a melting pot of Protestant Germans, Catholic Poles, Orthodox Russians and Jews. While still a child, Zamenhof hit upon the idea that a constructed second language that was easy to learn and understand would allow people to talk as peers, rather than fight. In 1887, after tinkering away for more than 10 years, Zamenhof published his ideas in a pamphlet. By 1905, the fundamental rules of Esperanto had been established by a conference of speakers in France, and Esperantist groups began popping up across the world.

Tim Owen, education director for the EAB, gives me a crash course in what makes it straight-forward. “Probably the main factor is that you can acquire a huge vocabulary without knowing so many words,” he says.

All words ending -o are nouns, an -a ending is for an adjective, while -e denotes an adverb. He shows me that, for instance, “vidi” – meaning to see – can become “vido” for vision, “vida” for visual and “vide” for visually, concepts that require different words in English. If you need to find an opposite, you can add the “mal” prefix: “pura” is clean, “malpura” is dirty. These building blocks can help speakers learn new words very quickly. “It’s like working with a magic multiplier,” says Owen. The spellings are phonetic, there are no grammatical genders, verbs are strictly regular, and the vocabulary is a blend of European languages familiar to many. It’s child’s play to learn compared with my years of torturous high-school language lessons.

But isn’t a universal constructed language just a hobby for idealistic eccentrics? O’Dunne laughs, and concedes the stereotype might have a grain of truth: “We’ve still got those!” But, he says, there’s been a marked change in the demographic of attendees recently. “Over the last two or three years, there’s been much more interest from younger people who want to use it to travel and correspond ... it just feels like it’s been rejuvenated,” she says.

At the charity’s headquarters at Esperanto House, there are rows of old academic tomes on the linguistics of constructed languages, but it’s the colourful translations of bestsellers and bright current affairs magazines that catch the eye. “[Esperanto is] a little bit geeky, but geeky is cool now, right?” says one recent convert.

Nineteen-year-old Sammy Kennedy, an aspiring photographer who works in retail in Manchester, is one of the young Esperantists helping the language shake off its niche image. He has attended events run by the EAB and has noticed more and more people taking an interest. Esperanto groups where he lives were defunct for ages, he tells me. “Now, there’s a new Manchester Esperanto group that meets up monthly,” he says.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest LL Zamenhof. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

Esperanto has become steadily more accessible largely thanks to the language-learning app Duolingo. The Esperanto course recently reached a million learners worldwide, more than are currently learning Hungarian or Czech on the site. There’s a dizzying array of other online options to help would-be learners, too. A few taps on the Amikumu (or “do the friendly thing”) app shows users local Esperantists to chat with, while numerous Facebook groups help beginners with vocab and grammar. Esperanto may have been the brainchild of a Polish doctor in the 19th century, but it has adapted for the 21st.

Simone Davis, a civil servant, began learning Esperanto online to distract her from painful chronic health conditions. She found that even at her most tired or ill, she could manage a lesson on her tablet. “One lesson easily becomes two or three and before I knew it I was hooked,” she says. In just over a year, she learned more Esperanto than she has French, despite taking French classes for five years.

It’s the values underpinning the language, as well as its ease, that drew in Davis. Esperanto is “a symbol of intentional goodwill towards others”, she says. Esperantists place a heavy value on the language being “neutral”, not belonging to one country. Many tell me they were inspired to pick up the books in response to what they see as rising isolationism in the era of Donald Trump and Brexit. Learning the language isn’t just a hobby, but a commitment to making connections across borders on a level playing field.

I initially write this off as simply a nice sentiment, but there’s plenty of practise behind the principle. O’Dunne shows me the Pasporta Servo, a pocket-sized directory of Esperantists all around the world. They offer fellow speakers a place to stay in their home country, often completely free of charge. For language enthusiasts under 25, the charity NoJef will pay for travel and accommodation for attendance at Esperanto-themed events.

The Pasporta Servo led 26-year-old James McMurray, a data engineer from Crawley, to make learning Esperanto his New Year’s resolution several years ago. He had first became familiar with the language while leafing through his grandfather’s books – he had become an Esperantist while stationed in India during the second world war. “I remember growing up and seeing his books in Esperanto, without being able to understand it, and his correspondence with people all over the world who may not speak English and be able to communicate,” McMurray says. He has since attended Esperantist music events in France, and met up with fellow learners in Prague and Malaga. His first serious relationship started through a shared interest in Esperanto.

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Despite the resolutely internationalist spirit of Esperanto, it hard to imagine global business being conducted with a cheery “Saluton!” Some utopian-minded speakers say its day as a lingua franca will come (“Esperanto” means “one who hopes” in the language), but most acknowledge that this is unlikely. Partly to blame is repression throughout the 20th century by authoritarian regimes. Adolf Hitler condemned Esperanto in Mein Kampf as a “secret language” for Jewish plots, and even the very small minority of pro-fascist Esperanto speakers were targeted by the Nazi party.

Mostly, however, it’s the omnipresence of English that explains why Esperanto isn’t the current go-to for international communication. Esperanto is “neutral” because it is not a national language, but that also means it does not have a state backing its use abroad. (For context, the British Council allocated more than £1bn last year to promote English-language education overseas.) “People having to make a choice will see English as the financially better option,” Kennedy says. “However, Esperanto gives you things that English will never be able to give you … [such as] a sense of belonging.” He credits the “accepting and caring” Esperanto-speaking community with helping him to overcome loneliness and bullying.

Whether to learn a national language or a constructed one is a debate Kennedy has had with others. But one piece of advice from another Esperanto-speaker stayed with him: “Learn English if you want to make money; learn Esperanto if you want to make friends.” “It’s one of the truest things I’ve ever heard,” he says.