A united voice

Esperanto Association president David Ryan still aims for the language to be a worldwide second tongue. To that end, he is teaching it to his 6-year-old twins Sofia and Victoria. Photo / Mark Mitchell

David Ryan was 14 years old when, while looking for a French dictionary at a Christchurch library, his eyes were drawn to a book about Esperanto.

With a healthy interest in languages and being unacquainted with this particular one, his curiosity was piqued. He took out the book, taught himself Esperanto and now, at the age of 42, he's a fluent speaker and president of the NZ Esperanto Association; he's even teaching the language to his twin 6-year-old daughters. "The whole idea of Esperanto [is that] it is incumbent upon us who speak it to keep it going," says Ryan. "The aim of Esperanto was that it would be the second language of everyone. That's what we still aim for. Whether or not it's still realistic, well, that's the next question." And the answer? "Well, yes, [it is realistic] because the idea is still valid."

The idea, indeed the language itself, was the brainchild of a young Polish Jew called Ludovic Zamenhof. Surrounded by speakers of many languages, he witnessed the misunderstandings that arose from an inability to effectively communicate with each other. His solution was to invent Esperanto as a universal second language in 1887.

This planned language had high ideals to unite the world with a common shared tongue. Politically neutral and culturally free, Esperanto was devised to erase the communication barriers created by nationalistic mother tongues. The theory was simple: we all learn our native language and then Esperanto as our second language.

A grasp of this universal language would enable unprecedented levels of dialogue and understanding in academic, diplomatic, economic and scientific international circles. World peace was even touted as a potential eventual spin-off.

No one could accuse the 27-year-old Zamenhof of thinking small. His idea attracted global attention - not always favourable: it was denounced by Hitler as a Jewish tool of world domination and Stalin is said to have killed thousands of Esperanto speakers in the 1930s. Esperanto literally means "one who hopes" and, despite Zamenhof's big dreams, it's still a boutique language.

Last year, membership of the NZ Esperanto Association totalled 37 (down from 41 in 2007). This year their numbers have climbed to 50. "We've had a renaissance," says Ryan. "But still I'm not getting excited. It's only 50 out of 4.3 million people." Indeed, census figures show speakers throughout the country are in decline; there were 180 speakers in 1996 and just 123 a decade later. This despite the fact the Universal Esperanto Association is championing the democratisation of language - specifically our right to a universal, neutral language - and, closer to home, the NZEA is also trying to raise Esperanto's profile.

The future lies with the internet. It has been a boon for Esperantists worldwide with its chat-rooms, radio broadcasts, video and blogs, and will likely determine whether there is any future significant proliferation of the language.

The ease with which Esperanto can be learnt is a key distinguishing factor that has set it apart from the outset. "You've still got to get to grips with a new language and grammar," says Ryan. "but compared with French or Japanese or German or Spanish it's an easy language."

University of Auckland linguist Dr Fay Wouk doesn't agree, however. She is broadly critical of Esperanto, claiming it is "not very workable, not something that would be very likely to succeed".

"There are a number of complexities in Esperanto ... They have to remember to put tense onto verbs. They have to remember to distinguish between masculine and feminine," she says. "If you were going to make a really simple language to be an international language, you would do better to model it off a language that doesn't have those kinds of grammatical complexities."

Wouk cites sociological issues as a key reason it hasn't been widely adopted. She says people typically have deep personal and cultural connections to the languages they speak - connections that a manufactured language does not offer. "Most linguists are interested in naturally occurring languages. Why do you need to create a language ... rather than using a language that already exists?" But Esperanto is not without a local Antipodean link.

An Australian and NZ Esperanto Dictionary lists Esperanto versions of Maori and other words specific to our part of the world: barbecue is barbekuo, bungy-jump is bungiplongi, paua is iriza halioto and Vegemite is vegemito. Ryan does admit the language could be a little simpler. "I'm not a linguist but, yeah, you could go and invent a new language from scratch and make it easier," he says.

"Esperanto's not without its faults. There are some letters where you have accents on them ... There are some letters that are hard to pronounce." Yet as a language it must be doing something right. Estimates vary, but there are likely to be between one million and a few million speakers worldwide - a respectable count for a language that has no parochial national borders from which to automatically recruit its speakers.

Of course, its neutrality is considered one of its core strengths. But how neutral is it really? Perhaps not quite to the degree its advocates would wish. While it is aligned to no one particular country, much of its vocabulary and grammar is derived from European languages, making it challenging for learners unfamiliar with this particular language group.

There's a quiet disappointment among devotees that Esperanto hasn't lived up to the promise shown in its heyday back in the 1960s and 1970s when its growth was expected to increase exponentially. Still, Esperantists remain optimistic: those Canvas spoke to believe it's only a matter of time before the rest of the world cottons on. "I think you can say [Esperanto] has been a success because it was created 122 years ago and there are still millions of people around the world who are speaking it," he says. "It's the only planned language that has succeeded." Two other artificial languages have rivalled Esperanto for the universal language throne.

Volapuk (invented in 1879 by a German priest) was created earlier than Esperanto yet today claims only 20 to 30 speakers worldwide thanks in part to its complex grammar. "If you were designing a language you wouldn't design Volapuk," says Ryan. Ido, created by a group of reformist Esperanto speakers in 1907, was more successful but today its supporters are numbered only in the thousands.

Aucklander Bradley McDonald was attracted to Esperanto about 20 years ago when he was exploring the Baha'i faith. A key tenet of this religion is the principle of the Universal Auxiliary Language - one that could be everyone's second language. With a latent awareness of Esperanto, McDonald immediately understood the concept. "I became a Baha'i but at the same time I said: 'I'm going to learn this language Esperanto'."

McDonald had struggled with languages at school and was seduced by Esperanto's user-friendly reputation. "If Esperanto's the easiest language, surely that's the one to go for," he says. Now in his mid-50s, he's a fluent speaker and a believer in its core principle, what aficionados call la interna ideo or the internal idea - the notion of breaking down prejudice that is encapsulated within the language.

A member of the Universal Esperanto Association, McDonald believes it won't be too long before an organisation that matters, perhaps even the United Nations, accords Esperanto the status and recognition he thinks it deserves. He also believes the internet, with its online courses and social networking sites, will draw in young people to the cause. He thinks that "missionary zeal" for the language is missing from club nights these days. "We used to sing what was called the Esperanto hymn or the anthem. There was almost a feeling of religiosity about it," he says. "It's not like that anymore."

Fellow Esperanto convert, Ivan Pivac, was 12 when an accident robbed him of his eyesight. Unable to participate in the outdoor activities he'd previously enjoyed as a boy growing up in Matamata, and because his father was an Esperantist, he found himself drawn to the language - with the aid of Braille.

While studying physiotherapy in London, Pivac attended regular Friday night sessions of the local Esperanto club where the state of the language in Buenos Aires or Frankfurt or Helsinki would be debated over tea and cake.

Pivac, now 58 and living in West Auckland, admits he did let the language lapse for a time when life was busy but he is part of a contingent of born-again Esperantists: those with a renewed involvement following a long hiatus. He still marvels at the sheer ease with which Esperanto can be learned. "Within 30 seconds you would have all the tenses - the present, the future and the past," he says, adding that it could take two years to grasp the tenses of the French language. "[With Esperanto] there are no irregularities whatsoever. From a grammatical point of view it's perfect. From a logic point of view it's perfect," he says.

"It is as perfect as a language is going to be. I speak a number of languages ... and Esperanto is spot-on. If it wasn't, to be quite honest, I wouldn't be bothered with it." Tauranga-based Vicky Crickett is another born-again; she dabbled with Esperanto as a teenager before putting it on the backburner until about a year ago.

Ultimately, it was the "easy-to-learn" nature of Esperanto that drove her return to the language. With her desire to be bilingual, Esperanto presented a fast-track option. Crickett is also teaching it to her children, aged 5 and 2. The 40-year-old IT consultant would love to see the language taught in schools and believes the groundswell of acceptance needs to begin with an emerging generation "rather than trying to convince all adults to try and learn it".

Nineteen-year-old Rouan van Ryn has been learning Esperanto for a year and "can hold a decent conversation in it". Currently studying linguistics and media at the University of Auckland, he's attracted to it primarily from a linguistic viewpoint and buys into the core philosophy of the language "but not as much as some". As far as Kiwi Esperantists go, van Ryn believes he's probably the youngest active NZEA member who doesn't have an Esperantist for a parent. Last month, David Ryan attended an Esperanto summer school in Sydney which attracted enthusiasts from all over the world.

"It's a really powerful image when you sit around a table and you've got people from different continents, races, mother tongues, all speaking Esperanto fluently," he says. "That's Esperanto in action. That's what it's designed to do."