The Jewish-Lithuanian ophthalmologist and philologist Lejzer Zamenhof designed the international auxiliary language Esperanto. The language is spoken in more than one hundred and twenty countries today.
Zamenhof was born in the place Bialystok, which at the time was part of the Lithuanian province of the Russian Tsar Empire. Today Bialystok belongs to Poland. In the city where Zamenhof grew up, ethnic conflicts were the order of the day. The city had about 30,000 inhabitants. About ten percent of that was Polish, 17 percent German, 13 percent Russian and six percent Jewish. As a result, many different languages were spoken in the city. The miscommunication that resulted from the many languages made Zamenhof think about a connecting and fraternizing language. Despite the fact that Zamenhof moved to Warsaw at the age of thirteen, the ‘language confusion’ never left him. His birthplace was therefore not the only place where different languages caused misunderstandings and mutual incomprehension.
Zionism
Because of his Jewish descent, Lejzer Zamenhof probably spoke a lot of Yiddish himself . His father was not religious, but his mother was devoutly Jewish. When anti-Semitic riots broke out in Warsaw at the end of 1881 – Jewish shops and houses were smashed to pieces – Zamenhof wrote a report in Russian about these riots. This report was published in the Russian-Jewish weekly Rassvet . The riots caused many Jews to become attracted to Zionism. In January and February 1882 Zamenhof wrote a series of articles in which he discussed these problems. He indicated that he had lost all hope of assimilation of the Jews and believed that there was only one solution: a land of their own for the Jews. Initially, Zamenhof believed that Palestine was not the right place for the Jews to have their own country. Later, he no longer sees this place as the best location. The creator of Esperanto then, despite the fact that Zionism was banned in Russia, founded a Zionist youth movement that operated under the name Sheerit Yisrael (Israel’s Remnant). Several hundred young people joined Warsaw’s first Zionist movement. A few years later, Zamenhof lost his interest in Zionism.
The first Esperanto textbook contained sixteen basic rules, nine hundred root words and several translations, including the biblical Lord’s Prayer.
Initially, few people were enthusiastic about the artificial language of Lejzer Zamenhof. This was mainly because of another constructed language, Volapük , a language developed in 1880 by the Catholic German priest Johann Martin Schleyer. However, this language had had little success and many people did not see much in a new attempt.
After some time, Zamenhof received positive reactions to his Esperanto. The language also became more popular abroad. Propaganda clubs were established in several countries and followers of the language began to correspond with each other in the new language. After the first World Congress of Esperanto in 1905 in the French took Boulogne-sur-Mer, the language went more and more people in Western Europe appeal. An Esperanto World Congress is still held every year, each time in a different country.
Esperanto but also Homaranism
Zamenhof continued to work on translations into Esperanto until the end of his life. He also worked on Homaranism , a concept from Esperanto , which he also developed . Zamenhof made a doctrine that linked different religions on the basis of tolerance and mutual understanding. The basic principle upon which the teaching of homaranismo was based was that ‘everyone is first human and only then a member of a particular nation’. He described that all nations are equal and that no nation has the right to impose its language or religion on another or to appropriate any part of the earth.
Lejzer Zamenhof died on April 14, 1917 from heart and lung complaints and was buried in the Jewish cemetery on Okopowa Street in Warsaw.
