Why I learnt Esperanto

Ludwik Zamenhof (1859–1917), the creator of Esperanto (picture from Wikipedia)

I remember when I was a kid just 9 or 10 years old, my mom mentioned the international language that people all over the world could use to communicate freely, across national and linguistic borders. I thought it was the coolest idea ever and I instantly developed a desire to learn that language. My biggest dream back then was – and still is – to travel the world, visiting different countries and meeting people from other cultures. Of course, I knew it was never going to happen. After all, I was growing up in the Soviet Union, where we lived behind the Iron Curtain, so all thoughts of travels abroad were as unrealistic as the American sci-fi stories I loved to read as a kid. ‘Well,’ I used to think, ‘maybe if I grew up an exemplary Communist, a trusted party member, then maybe they would let me on an exchange study trip to Bulgaria or Poland, one of those allied Socialist states’. And then everything changed. The Berlin Wall had fallen, and the fall of the Iron Curtain followed shortly.

I remember finding a short notice in the local newspaper about Esperanto club opening in our town, where people could learn the language and practice it with fellow club members. I was very shy and insecure as a teenager, so I couldn’t imagine myself actually going to that place, meeting strangers and explaining my intention to learn Esperanto. So my dream to master the international language had to wait a little longer.

Me back in 1996. A head full of hair, but with zero confidence. Pretty much opposite to how I am today. ;)

A new opportunity presented itself when we got a modem for a dial-up connection to the Internet. It was around year 1996 and our family was among the first households in town to get online. It was still a year or so before I discovered the browser Mosaic and started to explore what little existed back then of the World-Wide Web, WWW. Prior to that my internet experience was limited to connecting to local Bulletin Board Systems (BBS), downloading batches of emails, and subscribing to electronic mailing lists on Usenet. I remember that the very first e-mail list I subscribed to was dedicated to Esperanto. Through it I discovered an email correspondence course, consisting of 10 lessons, created by the Esperanto League of North America, ELNA, with headquarters in San-Francisco. The course was run by volunteers around the world, completely free of charge. My tutor was based in Wellington, New Zealand. I still remember his name, Donald Rogers.

The language of the course was English. My English was so poor back then that I missed half the grammar explanations and made lots of errors in my exercises. Donald corrected them patiently, pointing out the things that I hadn’t properly understood and encouraging me to try and do better. When I had completed all ten lessons, Donald wrote to me: ‘Congratulations! Now your Esperanto is better than your English!’. I didn’t know if I had to feel happy about my progress in Esperanto or be ashamed of my inadequate English.

Anyhow, I printed out my course certificate and ran across the yard to present it proudly to my grandfather, who lived in a neighbouring apartment block. ‘Grandpa, look! I have just learnt the international language, so I can talk to people all over the world via the Internet!’ I was ecstatic with the new possibilities opening up in front of me.

Still, it took me a couple of years to gather enough courage to attend my first Esperanto convention. I was mainly using Esperanto on the Internet, corresponding with other esperantists over email, ordering books and magazines, and downloading texts and programs in Esperanto. The very first web page that I designed myself and published online was advertising that same free Esperanto course and my voluntary services as its tutor. In the following three years I assisted over twenty students from all over the world, paying back the debt of gratitude to Roger and the ELNA.

I tried to promote Esperanto on the Internet in other ways too. When a new bold idea of the universal online encyclopaedia, Nupedia, was born, I enthusiastically wrote two of its very first twenty articles. My contributions were on Esperanto and its creator, L. L. Zamenhof. Nupedia hadn’t progressed far beyond those first 20-something articles. One of its co-founders, Jimmy Wales, left the project in frustration and started his own encyclopaedia, the Wikipedia. So I transferred my articles there, along with their translations to German, Russian and French.

Screenshot of Wikipedia page in Esperanto, about Esperanto

At my first Esperanto convention in 2001, in a village outside of Saint Petersburg, I met a bunch of young esperantists who were studying to become web developers, just like me, or were already working as one. Together we complained about the poor state of Esperanto on the Internet. There were very few websites in the international language back then and their quality was far from professional. Together we decided to change that.

One of those young esperantists organised a seminar for the esperantist web developers and hosted it in Uppsala, Sweden. I was invited to participate in the event. Visiting Sweden was a huge revelation for me. I fell in love with the nature, with the language, with the people, with the beautiful university town of Uppsala. I decided to return to Sweden one day and study at a university like the one they had in Uppsala. (By the way, I’m still friends with that Swedish fellow and his beautiful family. I visited them just a few weeks ago in Stockholm and stayed in their house.)

At my friend’s wedding in Belgrade, summer 2005

It was one of the major turning points in my life. Many more adventures in Esperanto followed, lots of countries visited, events attended, friends made, guests hosted. Now, twenty years later, I still regard the decision to learn Esperanto as one of the most important steps in the context of my entire life. Quite clearly, Esperanto has been one of the major positive driving forces for me. Thank you, Dr. Esperanto (aka Ludowik Zamenhof), thank you ELNA and Donald Rogers, thank you my friend Håkan, thank you all my esperantist friends and all the Esperanto families that hosted me for free in their homes during my travels in their countries.

Marching for Climate Action through the streets of Montréal, with a banner in Esperanto and the Esperanto flag. December 2005