Day of Zamenhof, the creator of Esperanto (Zamenhofa Tago)
December 15 is the Day of Zamenhof, the creator of Esperanto (Zamenhofa Tago), which is widely celebrated not only in Eastern Europe, but throughout the world
Initially, the idea of celebrating this date arose in the 20s of the last century, when the poet Gyul Bagi, an admirer of the talent of the creator of Esperanto, proposed organizing a holiday in his honor It is December 15th that is the birthday of Ludwig (Lazar) Zamenhof, who came up with the idea of uniting all peoples and ethnic groups in order to simplify interethnic communication At that time, the English language, which later became international, was not yet so popular, and therefore the issue of interethnic communication remained relevant
The creator himself rightly believed that it would be wrong to give preference to any one language, making it the main one among others He considered it more reasonable to create an artificial analogue containing norms and rules from most languages spoken in the world In addition, artificial linguistics allows you to create in the way that a person needs Therefore, in Esperanto there are only rules without exceptions This greatly simplifies the learning process Once you remember the rule, you don’t have to waste time separately studying exceptions that do not fit into the general linguistic outline
Yes, unfortunately, Esperanto still did not become international, eventually giving way to English, but there are still a large number of people in the world who are sincerely interested in Esperanto It is believed that more than 10 million people have learned it They mainly live in Europe Although there are other estimates that say that the number of Esperanto fans is smaller, amounting to about two million people
And also, the famous linguist thought of everything in such a way that you could master the basics in just a few months, and start speaking fluently in about a year This is facilitated by the fact that there are many international words that came into European languages from Latin Accordingly, they are understandable to many people even without translation
Unfortunately, the fate of the creator Zamenhof, born in 1859, was very difficult He died in 1917 in Poland, when the territory was occupied by German troops And he was born in the city of Bialystok, Russian Empire Today this is also the territory of Poland
The fate of the inventor's children was even more tragic It is known that two of his daughters died in a gas chamber during World War II, and his son was shot, since Poland was occupied by the Nazis at that time Such a tragic fate forced admirers of the famous linguist’s talent to establish a holiday on his birthday so that the world would learn more about the wonderful language Esperanto, created to unite people By the way, Ludwig himself was an ophthalmologist by training, but at the same time he was very successfully engaged in linguistics
This day is usually celebrated in different ways Thus, Esperanto lovers hold meetings, including in the city of Bialystok, the homeland of the inventor, where a special educational center has now been opened, named after the great scientist Many organizations, including historical societies, use this day to once again remind humanity how many scientists and brilliant inventors died during the war, and the world only appreciated their services decades later
The study of Esperanto was not very encouraged in the USSR either At one time, Leon Trotsky popularized this trend, but with Joseph Stalin coming to power, a ban on such activities was imposed Interest began to revive only in the 90s of the last century