In 1887, a Polish man of Jewish descent named L.L. Zamenhof created the Esperanto language. (Kiselman) Throughout its history Esperantujo, the community of speakers of Esperanto, has called itself one of peace and hope; yet even still it has been oppressed by the likes of Hitler and the communists. This history shapes the way Esperantists see the “outside” world, and it shapes how the outside world sees Esperantujo. The “reclusive, overly political evangelist” frame in which Esperantists are viewed by the outside world is particularly shaped by Esperanto’s simplicity, its proselytism, its Jewish history and the views that Esperantists tend to hold. These factors that change with the rapid evolution of public media and with the evolution of public political opinion, have changed the perception of Esperanto drastically throughout the years.

Zamenhof at his desk in Warsaw apartment, 1910

The outside “non-Esperantist” world certainly holds incredibly diverse views, as the numbers of people who cannot speak Esperanto vastly outnumber the two million who can. (Esperanto.net) However, the Esperanto community’s representation by non-Esperantists is quite consistent. Equally surprising is the positive light in which Esperanto is presented to the world. As an Esperantist, I went into these projects with the assumption that people generally view Esperanto negatively. In my research for this project I have struggled, even when specifically seeking it, to find many negative thoughts about Esperanto. For the most part, when I hear something negative about the community, it’s from someone who knows almost nothing outside of the premise of the language. The outside world seems to view Esperanto through a mixture of self-inflicted frames and popular opinions; they view Esperanto as a novelty of Jewish history that, while being a positive thing, tends to place itself on too high of a pedestal.

Since I am referring to published material, along with the forums and communities to whom I personally reached out to gather thoughts about Esperanto, the points of view I discuss may not perfectly represent an “average” person. However, proper and effective rhetoric requires proper understanding of both sides of an argument. In order to learn more about external opinions about Esperantujo, I decided to reach out to two different communities that I thought would know about Esperanto without being a part of the community. I polled the conlang (constructed language) subreddit and the linguistics subreddit. In total, I received over two hundred and twenty five responses.

Dothraki, Na’vi and Klingon, Conlangs (Photo: TED-Ed YouTube)

In general, the responses were fairly neutral. Most people seem to hold neutral, perhaps slightly positive opinions about the language itself. Members of the conlang community tend to view Esperanto as an “average” language with nothing particularly outstanding, good or bad. The most popular response on the conlang discussion reads, “Esperanto is a decent conlang, and i’ve [sic] studied a bit of the language. It’s not a linguistic masterpiece or anything like that. The reason Esperanto is noticed is because of the native speakers, which is a big deal for a conlang.” (mosin_user, /r/conlangs) This category of thinking is certainly mirrored by most people in this non-Esperantist community. The second comment agrees: “Esperanto is not particularly interesting — it’s [sic] design comes across as ‘my first conlang’ — it would be a decent attempt from a beginner who knows little about how linguistics works, but nothing special.” (draw_it_now, /r/conlangs) Many other comments from both this community and the linguistic community seem to share the same opinions.

People seem to view Esperanto as plain, as average. Redditors voice that they believe Esperanto is “not anything particularly special. It’s very SAE and doesn’t do much that’s particularly interesting linguistically, but that’s by design so it’s not the worst thing.” (sparksbet, /r/conlangs) “SAE” stands for “Standard Average European”. Josh from NativLang, a linguistics learning YouTube channel, explains it best in his video on Euroversals, shared traits in European languages. Josh explains that a language is most likely European if it has words “for both ‘the’ and ‘a’”. Other factors like using “a word like ‘than’” for comparisons tend to classify European languages. (Euroversals) Esperanto, indeed, shares these traits. This seems to be the predominant frame that those knowledgeable about languages view Esperanto through. Those with little knowledge about languages also tend to share similar views.

It is interesting to note how the Esperanto language is presented in media. Current media can be analysed to analyse general public opinion. Esperanto has appeared in many forms of western media, including movies and TV. The 1966 film Incubus starring William Shatner has a script written entirely using the Esperanto language.

Incubus featuring William Shatner (Photo: UH.edu)

However, the grammar and pronunciation shows that writers did not bother with accuracy. Adam Epstein wrote for Quartz that “Incubus did not employ Esperanto to promote world peace. Rather, the filmmakers thought it sounded creepy and might add an otherworldly element to the film.” (Epstein, The Bizarre Story) Fiction writers tend to do this. Various cartoons have used Esperanto as a joke, and media in general uses Esperanto as a plot point, joke, or something to make the work seem more “foreign”. This represents how non-Esperantists see the language; a joke or other passing reference is often their first encounter with Esperanto. Misrepresentation also shapes how Esperantists view others. Esperantists tend to think that outsiders view Esperanto as a “fake” or “novelty” language, and its use in popular media seems to agree with this viewpoint. Esperantist Ĵaredo Gudmano explains that “When I interact with a non-Esperantist, I generally receive one of two reactions. The first is confusion, as they do not know much about Esperanto as a language, or at all. The second reaction is the very negative dismissal of Esperanto as a real language.” (Gudmano) This perspective (of each side about the other) certainly shapes the interactions between either side. Indeed, most of the outside world seems to view Esperanto as something that holds little significance, however, the Esperanto community disagrees.

Esperantujo views its language as the language of peace. Esperantists desire to unify people through the language. L.L. Zamenhof created the language to unify the communities of Jews that were fighting around him which did not share a common language. A line from one of the first poems in Esperanto, written by Zamenhof himself demonstrates this: “all humankind in one family… …unite itself.” (Kiselman) These attempts at unification may be causing the exact opposite, however.

Many people see Esperantists as too “evangelical” about their language. A user on the linguistics subreddit said that his impression of Esperantujo is “informed by the most vocal Esperantists I run into online — which means it’s not flattering, because they are often proselytizing and I think that a lot of what they have to say is misinformed.” (millionsofcats, /r/linguistics) It is not easy to convince someone to learn a new language. Linguists know this better than anyone. After an Esperantist makes someone aware of the language, they generally attempt to convince the person to try to learn it. Speakers of other languages do not, at least in the same way, do this. I have never seen a Japanese person attempt to convince a random stranger to learn the Kansai dialect of Japanese, for example. Esperantujo has very few native speakers, so through this they tend to attempt to grow their community and unify more people, the fundamental goal of Esperanto. This attempt at rhetorical positioning is failing, because people clearly do not respond to the arguments as Esperantists would prefer. People commonly hold disdain for Esperantists’ attempts, saying that they “find language proselytism a bit irritating.” (Choosing_is_a_sin, /r/linguistics) If Esperantujo wants to convince people to join the community, this first impression must change.

Esperanto Flags

Another factor that seems surprisingly persistent in non-Esperantists’ analysis of the language is a trait addressed by non-Esperantists proportionately more. A surprising number of articles mention the Jewish heritage of Esperanto. Traits of the Esperanto language are often compared to other Jewish affairs. In 2016, a Jewish publication called Forward.com published “The Secret Jewish History of Esperanto”. They compare Esperanto and the Jewish history, saying “Almost from its inception, Esperanto has been driven by conflicts and schisms reminiscent of contemporary divisions among Jews — Yiddishists versus Hebraists, secularists versus religious, Ashkenazim versus Sephardim, Diasporists versus Zionists, etc.” (Kellman, The Secret Jewish History of Esperanto) Historically, people have viewed Esperanto as something inherently “Jewish”.

Grave of L.L. Zamenhof, Jewish Cemetery, Warsaw

Interestingly, later in life Zamenhof created his own religion called “Homaranismo” based roughly upon the “do unto others” philosophy. (Homaranismo) This did not dissuade the public from viewing Esperanto as a “Jewish language”, however. Even Hitler considered the language a part of “the Jewish agenda”. In Mein Kampf Hitler states that he believes “As long as the Jew has not become the master of the other peoples, he must speak their languages whether he likes it or not, but as soon as they became his slaves, they would all have to learn a universal language (Esperanto, for instance!), so that by this additional means the Jews could more easily dominate them!” (Hitler, Mein Kampf) Hitler viewed Esperanto as a Jewish language, and throughout history this perspective has spread to others across the world. This viewpoint has mostly disappeared, however. The lense of Esperanto being “Jewish” no longer shapes public perception in any measurable positive or negative way, but I find it interesting to note how frequently non-Esperantists address the Jewish history of Esperanto.

Another villain of history, Josef Stalin, reportedly learned Esperanto. (Dean, How an artificial language from 1887 is finding new life online) Most people consider communism, Stalinism and socialism to be “left-wing”. Many people thusly would consider any community that Stalin was willing to be, at least temporarily, a part of “left-wing” as well. Additionally, Esperantujo’s idea of “peace and unity through a common language for all” closely matches the textbook goals of unity, order and peace found in communist and Stalinist ideals. In the first page of Marx’s Communist Manifesto, he introduces a problem that mirrors the problem that Zamenhof solved in 1800s Poland through Esperanto: “Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other — bourgeoisie and proletariat.” (Marx & Engels 1952) Both Marx and Zamenhof were presented with an almost identical exigence. Bitzer simply defines exigence as “an imperfection marked by urgency.” (Bitzer) Both men created and published their solutions, and both solutions were, to some extent, implemented. The reception and success of communism vs. Esperanto has obviously been very different, but their similar tendencies to linger may be the cause of people’s tendency to associate the two, leading to the belief that all Esperantists are liberal and left-leaning.

Communist Themed Esperanto Publication

Although not every Esperantist hold entirely liberal political views, the majority of Esperantists self-identify as liberal. According to a small research project I organised, approximately eighty five percent of Esperantists identify as left-leaning. (Esploro) This reveals a possible divide in the Esperanto community and a possible barrier-to-entry for non-Esperantists. Political differences, even when people who hold different views are accepting of each other, can cause tension between people. Similarly almost all Esperantists I surveyed identify as an introvert. (Esploro) This personality trait shapes the way Esperantists are viewed and the way they view themselves. Due to this commonly held personality trait, people tend to believe Esperantists to be the type of person that can be found holed-up in their room studying instead of interacting with the outside world. This may be the most true stereotype about the Esperanto community, assuming my research is correct.

Esploro Esperanta Personeca

Those that know anything about Esperanto probably only know its stereotypes. This is sad because without any exposure to the true nature of the Esperanto community, many believe the stereotypes to be completely true. Such stereotypes certainly cause some amount of stagnation in the growth of the Esperanto community. Negative perceptions, whether true or not, often close the minds of uncertain people. The Esperanto community wants the outside world to view them in a certain light, but presently they are not being viewed as such. Esperantujo will have to use rhetoric that matches or exceeds the power of the rhetoric used “against” them to convince the public that Esperanto is not just a “foreign sounding language”, and that Esperantujo is not just an evangelising, liberal group of overly political people. The Esperanto community must work to change the rhetoric they use in some manner, if they wish to convince the world that Esperantujo is an incredibly diverse, global community.