Mobility and Inclusionin Multilingual Europe

Esperanto a language for a Global IdentityCan Esperanto foster European identity

Federico Gobbo⟨Amsterdam Milano-Bicocca Torino⟩⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

1 June 2016de Brakke Grond Amsterdam NLGlobal Identities A Conference on Statelessness Citizenship and Migration1 of 76

A RetrospectiveWhy I learnt Esperanto

2 of 76

The linguistic heritage of my family

3 of 76

The importance of science fictionhellip

Cover of my old edition of Stefano Bennirsquos Terra SF-novelfrom Luigi Serafinirsquos Codex Seraphinianus

4 of 76

hellipand of Tolkienrsquos Middle Earth

Esperanto edition of The Lord of the Rings The Two Towers

The influence of Esperanto on Tolkienrsquos languages

Tolkien gave at the Esperanto Congress in Oxford in 1930 entitled AHobby for the Home later known as A Secret Vice

Personally I am a believer in an lsquoartificialrsquo language at any ratefor Europe a believer that is in its desirability as the one thingantecedently necessary for uniting Europe before it isswallowed by non-Europe [hellip] also I particularly likeEsperantohellipwhich is good a description of the ideal artificiallanguage [but] my concern is not with that kind of artificiallanguage at all (my emphasis)

from A Secret Vice J R R Tolkien

6 of 76

The pleasure of inventing languages

[During the war ] I shall never forget a little manhelliprevealinghimself by accident as a devotee [of Esperanto] in a moment ofextreme ennuihellipcrowded with (mostly) depressed and wetcreatures We were listening to somebody lecturing onmap-reading or camp-hygienehelliprather we were trying to avoidlisteninghellip[He] said suddenly in a dreamy ovice lsquoYes I think Ishall express the accusative case by a prefixrsquo A memorableremark [hellip] Just consider the splendour of the words lsquoI shallexpress the accusative casersquo Magnificent (authorrsquos emphasis)

from A Secret Vice J R R Tolkien

7 of 76

Inventing languages for fantasy role-playing (1980s)hellip

8 of 76

Nowadays you can roleplay in Esperanto too

Home page of the web site httpdrakojiksojnet

A RetrospectiveWhy I learnt Esperanto

2 of 76

The linguistic heritage of my family

3 of 76

The importance of science fictionhellip

Cover of my old edition of Stefano Bennirsquos Terra SF-novelfrom Luigi Serafinirsquos Codex Seraphinianus

4 of 76

hellipand of Tolkienrsquos Middle Earth

Esperanto edition of The Lord of the Rings The Two Towers

The influence of Esperanto on Tolkienrsquos languages

Tolkien gave at the Esperanto Congress in Oxford in 1930 entitled AHobby for the Home later known as A Secret Vice

Personally I am a believer in an lsquoartificialrsquo language at any ratefor Europe a believer that is in its desirability as the one thingantecedently necessary for uniting Europe before it isswallowed by non-Europe [hellip] also I particularly likeEsperantohellipwhich is good a description of the ideal artificiallanguage [but] my concern is not with that kind of artificiallanguage at all (my emphasis)

from A Secret Vice J R R Tolkien

6 of 76

The pleasure of inventing languages

[During the war ] I shall never forget a little manhelliprevealinghimself by accident as a devotee [of Esperanto] in a moment ofextreme ennuihellipcrowded with (mostly) depressed and wetcreatures We were listening to somebody lecturing onmap-reading or camp-hygienehelliprather we were trying to avoidlisteninghellip[He] said suddenly in a dreamy ovice lsquoYes I think Ishall express the accusative case by a prefixrsquo A memorableremark [hellip] Just consider the splendour of the words lsquoI shallexpress the accusative casersquo Magnificent (authorrsquos emphasis)

from A Secret Vice J R R Tolkien

7 of 76

Inventing languages for fantasy role-playing (1980s)hellip

8 of 76

Nowadays you can roleplay in Esperanto too

Home page of the web site httpdrakojiksojnet

The linguistic heritage of my family

3 of 76

The importance of science fictionhellip

Cover of my old edition of Stefano Bennirsquos Terra SF-novelfrom Luigi Serafinirsquos Codex Seraphinianus

4 of 76

hellipand of Tolkienrsquos Middle Earth

Esperanto edition of The Lord of the Rings The Two Towers

The influence of Esperanto on Tolkienrsquos languages

Tolkien gave at the Esperanto Congress in Oxford in 1930 entitled AHobby for the Home later known as A Secret Vice

Personally I am a believer in an lsquoartificialrsquo language at any ratefor Europe a believer that is in its desirability as the one thingantecedently necessary for uniting Europe before it isswallowed by non-Europe [hellip] also I particularly likeEsperantohellipwhich is good a description of the ideal artificiallanguage [but] my concern is not with that kind of artificiallanguage at all (my emphasis)

from A Secret Vice J R R Tolkien

6 of 76

The pleasure of inventing languages

[During the war ] I shall never forget a little manhelliprevealinghimself by accident as a devotee [of Esperanto] in a moment ofextreme ennuihellipcrowded with (mostly) depressed and wetcreatures We were listening to somebody lecturing onmap-reading or camp-hygienehelliprather we were trying to avoidlisteninghellip[He] said suddenly in a dreamy ovice lsquoYes I think Ishall express the accusative case by a prefixrsquo A memorableremark [hellip] Just consider the splendour of the words lsquoI shallexpress the accusative casersquo Magnificent (authorrsquos emphasis)

from A Secret Vice J R R Tolkien

7 of 76

Inventing languages for fantasy role-playing (1980s)hellip

8 of 76

Nowadays you can roleplay in Esperanto too

Home page of the web site httpdrakojiksojnet

The importance of science fictionhellip

Cover of my old edition of Stefano Bennirsquos Terra SF-novelfrom Luigi Serafinirsquos Codex Seraphinianus

4 of 76

hellipand of Tolkienrsquos Middle Earth

Esperanto edition of The Lord of the Rings The Two Towers

The influence of Esperanto on Tolkienrsquos languages

Tolkien gave at the Esperanto Congress in Oxford in 1930 entitled AHobby for the Home later known as A Secret Vice

Personally I am a believer in an lsquoartificialrsquo language at any ratefor Europe a believer that is in its desirability as the one thingantecedently necessary for uniting Europe before it isswallowed by non-Europe [hellip] also I particularly likeEsperantohellipwhich is good a description of the ideal artificiallanguage [but] my concern is not with that kind of artificiallanguage at all (my emphasis)

from A Secret Vice J R R Tolkien

6 of 76

The pleasure of inventing languages

[During the war ] I shall never forget a little manhelliprevealinghimself by accident as a devotee [of Esperanto] in a moment ofextreme ennuihellipcrowded with (mostly) depressed and wetcreatures We were listening to somebody lecturing onmap-reading or camp-hygienehelliprather we were trying to avoidlisteninghellip[He] said suddenly in a dreamy ovice lsquoYes I think Ishall express the accusative case by a prefixrsquo A memorableremark [hellip] Just consider the splendour of the words lsquoI shallexpress the accusative casersquo Magnificent (authorrsquos emphasis)

from A Secret Vice J R R Tolkien

7 of 76

Inventing languages for fantasy role-playing (1980s)hellip

8 of 76

Nowadays you can roleplay in Esperanto too

Home page of the web site httpdrakojiksojnet

hellipand of Tolkienrsquos Middle Earth

Esperanto edition of The Lord of the Rings The Two Towers

The influence of Esperanto on Tolkienrsquos languages

Tolkien gave at the Esperanto Congress in Oxford in 1930 entitled AHobby for the Home later known as A Secret Vice

Personally I am a believer in an lsquoartificialrsquo language at any ratefor Europe a believer that is in its desirability as the one thingantecedently necessary for uniting Europe before it isswallowed by non-Europe [hellip] also I particularly likeEsperantohellipwhich is good a description of the ideal artificiallanguage [but] my concern is not with that kind of artificiallanguage at all (my emphasis)

from A Secret Vice J R R Tolkien

6 of 76

The pleasure of inventing languages

[During the war ] I shall never forget a little manhelliprevealinghimself by accident as a devotee [of Esperanto] in a moment ofextreme ennuihellipcrowded with (mostly) depressed and wetcreatures We were listening to somebody lecturing onmap-reading or camp-hygienehelliprather we were trying to avoidlisteninghellip[He] said suddenly in a dreamy ovice lsquoYes I think Ishall express the accusative case by a prefixrsquo A memorableremark [hellip] Just consider the splendour of the words lsquoI shallexpress the accusative casersquo Magnificent (authorrsquos emphasis)

from A Secret Vice J R R Tolkien

7 of 76

Inventing languages for fantasy role-playing (1980s)hellip

8 of 76

Nowadays you can roleplay in Esperanto too

Home page of the web site httpdrakojiksojnet

The influence of Esperanto on Tolkienrsquos languages

Tolkien gave at the Esperanto Congress in Oxford in 1930 entitled AHobby for the Home later known as A Secret Vice

Personally I am a believer in an lsquoartificialrsquo language at any ratefor Europe a believer that is in its desirability as the one thingantecedently necessary for uniting Europe before it isswallowed by non-Europe [hellip] also I particularly likeEsperantohellipwhich is good a description of the ideal artificiallanguage [but] my concern is not with that kind of artificiallanguage at all (my emphasis)

from A Secret Vice J R R Tolkien

6 of 76

The pleasure of inventing languages

[During the war ] I shall never forget a little manhelliprevealinghimself by accident as a devotee [of Esperanto] in a moment ofextreme ennuihellipcrowded with (mostly) depressed and wetcreatures We were listening to somebody lecturing onmap-reading or camp-hygienehelliprather we were trying to avoidlisteninghellip[He] said suddenly in a dreamy ovice lsquoYes I think Ishall express the accusative case by a prefixrsquo A memorableremark [hellip] Just consider the splendour of the words lsquoI shallexpress the accusative casersquo Magnificent (authorrsquos emphasis)

from A Secret Vice J R R Tolkien

7 of 76

Inventing languages for fantasy role-playing (1980s)hellip

8 of 76

Nowadays you can roleplay in Esperanto too

Home page of the web site httpdrakojiksojnet

The pleasure of inventing languages

[During the war ] I shall never forget a little manhelliprevealinghimself by accident as a devotee [of Esperanto] in a moment ofextreme ennuihellipcrowded with (mostly) depressed and wetcreatures We were listening to somebody lecturing onmap-reading or camp-hygienehelliprather we were trying to avoidlisteninghellip[He] said suddenly in a dreamy ovice lsquoYes I think Ishall express the accusative case by a prefixrsquo A memorableremark [hellip] Just consider the splendour of the words lsquoI shallexpress the accusative casersquo Magnificent (authorrsquos emphasis)

from A Secret Vice J R R Tolkien

7 of 76

Inventing languages for fantasy role-playing (1980s)hellip

8 of 76

Nowadays you can roleplay in Esperanto too

Home page of the web site httpdrakojiksojnet

Inventing languages for fantasy role-playing (1980s)hellip

8 of 76

Nowadays you can roleplay in Esperanto too

Home page of the web site httpdrakojiksojnet

Nowadays you can roleplay in Esperanto too

Home page of the web site httpdrakojiksojnet

1993 my interest in Esperanto becomes academic

Cover of the Esperanto edition of The search for the perfect languageoriginally in Italian

1998 my MA thesis on the sociolinguistics of EO

I received the Premio Lapenna for the best thesis on Esperanto with colleague Sabine Fiedler11 of 76

Since Feb 2014 bijzonder hoogleraar here

My official web page in Dutch at the UvA12 of 76

Why Esperanto is a fascinatinglanguage

13 of 76

Esperanto an offspring of the first globalisation

According to Thomas Piketty (2014) the first globalisation happenedbetween 1870 and 1914 when the major European colonizingnation-states conquered the world and established their empires (dejure or de facto)

The faith in science and technology to foster the Kantian dream oflsquoperpetual peacersquo was absolute for many members of the eacutelites ndashphilosophical position called positivism

Esperanto came out in that moment

14 of 76

Esperanto an offspring of the first globalisation

According to Thomas Piketty (2014) the first globalisation happenedbetween 1870 and 1914 when the major European colonizingnation-states conquered the world and established their empires (dejure or de facto)

The faith in science and technology to foster the Kantian dream oflsquoperpetual peacersquo was absolute for many members of the eacutelites ndashphilosophical position called positivism

Esperanto came out in that moment

14 of 76

Esperanto as part of the innovations of its time

1865 International Telegraph Union 1874 Universal Postal Union 1876 Alexander Graham Bell makes the first phone call 1884 International Meridian Conference (Greenwich) 1886 the Coca-Cola was born in Atlanta US 1887 Zamenhof publishes Esperanto in Warsaw Poland 1888 The Kodak camera was born lsquoyou press the button - we do

the restrsquo 1889 inauguration of the Tour Eiffel in Paris 1894 Pierre de Coubertin restores the Olympic Games 1900 LrsquoExposition de Paris the cinema was born

15 of 76

The patent of the telephone by A G Bell

The cover of the first book of Esperanto 1887

Ludwik Lejzer ZamenhofBorn in Białystok 1859 a town now in Poland ndash then under the Tsarndash Zamenhof was a Jew (Litvak Ashkenazi) bilingual Yiddish (with hismother) and Russian (with his father)

He had a twofold dream in his life to set an ethnic-free bridge acrossthe nations beyond any kind of wall through a neutral religion(Hillelism) and a neutral language (Esperanto)

19 of 76

Esperanto as a contact language

(Germanic + Romance + Slavic) x regularization = Esperanto

La viro salutas nin

copy2014 Stanislavo Belov Foto de si mem en Fejsbuko

Colour codes adopted here

1 substantives (NP heads) are in blue2 adjectives determiners numerals (any NP tail) are in cyan3 verbs and predications (VP heads) are in red4 adverbs and the like (MAdv V tails) are in orange5 affixes (prefixes and suffixes) are in gray6 accusative marker (ending in -n) is in green

Possible descriptions of the photo

La viro salutas la publikon La viro salutas vin La viro salutas vin afable La viro salutas vin per

⟨desegno

⟩

La viro salutas vin per⟨desegno sur

⟨la nigra tabulo

⟩⟩

La viro apogas la manon sur⟨la muro

⟩

23 of 76

Verbs have 6 possible endings No exceptions

1 -as for present tense2 -is for past tense3 -os for future tense4 -us for conditional5 -u for imperative6 -i for infinitive

24 of 76

Ne forgesu la akuzativon

Esperanto estas regula lingvo

La viro salutas vin afable

verbo

artikolo

subjekto

objekto

adverbo

De man begroet jullie vriendelijk

The man greets you kindly

26 of 76

Just one rule for nouns and adjectives

en Esperanto en la nederlanda en la anglagranda elefanto een grote olifant a big elephantmalgranda elefanto een kleine olifant a small elephantrapida ĉevalo een snel paard a fast horsemalrapidaj ĉevaloj langzame paarden slow horses

27 of 76

Granda elefanto kun malgranda elefanto

copy 2015 Huffington Post

The power of suffixes (example)

en Esperanto en la nederlanda en la anglaĉevalo paard horseĉevalino merrie mareĉevalido veulen coltĉevalejo stal stableĉevalaro een kudde paarden a herd of horses

29 of 76

Familio de ĉevaloj

copy 2013 Kelly Walkotten on Flickr

Europe is the lullaby ofEsperanto

31 of 76

French Esperantists come into the arena

Source Garviacutea (201578)

From Białystok to Paris

Universala Kongreso 1905Esperantists from various countries met in Boulogne-sur-Mer France

34 of 76

From the speech of Zamenhof 1905

En la malgrandan urbon de la franca marbordo kunvenis homojel la plej diversaj landoj kaj nacioj kaj ili renkontas sin reciprokene mute kaj surde sed ili komprenas unu la alian ili parolasunu kun la alia kiel fratoj kiel membroj de unu nacio

Rough translation in EnglishIn the small town of the French seaside came together personsfrom the most different countries and nations and they meetone the other reciprocally not mute and deaf but theyunderstand one the other they speak one with the other asbrothers as members of just one nation

35 of 76

La bela sonĝo de lrsquo homarohellip

hellip ends with the Great War (1914-1918)

copy 1915 Louis Raemaekers satirieke kaart van Europa Het gekkenhuis (oud liedje nieuwe wijs)

Appeal to the Diplomats 1915

Will you begin simply to remake and patch up the map ofEurope Will you simply decide that territory A must belong tothe nation X and territory B to the nation Y True such workyou will have to do but it must be only an insignificant portionof your work [hellip] in handing over any territory to the people ofthis or that race you will always do an injustice to other peoplewho have the same natural rights in respect of that territory[hellip] It would be best if instead of various large and smallEuropean states we should some day have proportionally andgeographically arranged ldquoUnited States of Europerdquo

38 of 76

Esperanto should reinvent itself after the Great War

According to the demographic analysis by Roberto Garviacutea (2015100)summarizing the work by the pioneer Tanquist (1927) these are themain motivation in learning Esperanto (US UK Germany-Austria)

Examples Esperanto Movement of the Workershellip

CC⃝ 1936

hellipCatholic Esperantists in Austriahellip

CC⃝ 1929

hellipvegetarians etc

copy 1914 Vegetarano the official bulletin of the Vegetara Ligo

lsquoVestaĵoj malnovajrsquo from The Great Dictator 1940

CC⃝ 2014 Vikimedio

Hitler and Stalin against Esperanto

copy 2014 Dan Mazur Esperantists

Esperanto today

45 of 76

Esperanto history and geography

There is no Esperanto state or specific territtory However we canconsider congresses festivals and meetings in local clubs as thelsquolanguage territoriesrsquo of the language where the community membersgather This is the geography of Esperanto

The places where these events happen ndash as well as some places whereEsperanto is used on a firm basis ndash form the geography of EsperantoThe history of Esperanto drives new initiatives rooted in virtualand real places

46 of 76

Local clubs around the world

Esperanto lives today Lille (FR) 2015

World Congress 100 near Boulogne-sur-Mer 110 years after the 1st

one48 of 76

Une maison de la culture de lrsquoespeacuteranto agrave Boulogne

49 of 76

The new Esperanto train in Poland

source Facebook page of the Polish government asking for polling

Virtual places the success of Duolinguo2

screenshot made the 28th of OMay 2016

Approximately 30 persons per day finish the learning tree

Esperanto between language and culture

The fascination of Esperanto comes1 internally from the structural character of the language and2 externally from the community of practice surrounding the

language itself which is used to produce original culturalproducts (poetry prose theater music comics films etc)

52 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

1998 my MA thesis on the sociolinguistics of EO

I received the Premio Lapenna for the best thesis on Esperanto with colleague Sabine Fiedler11 of 76

Since Feb 2014 bijzonder hoogleraar here

My official web page in Dutch at the UvA12 of 76

Why Esperanto is a fascinatinglanguage

13 of 76

Esperanto an offspring of the first globalisation

According to Thomas Piketty (2014) the first globalisation happenedbetween 1870 and 1914 when the major European colonizingnation-states conquered the world and established their empires (dejure or de facto)

The faith in science and technology to foster the Kantian dream oflsquoperpetual peacersquo was absolute for many members of the eacutelites ndashphilosophical position called positivism

Esperanto came out in that moment

14 of 76

Esperanto an offspring of the first globalisation

According to Thomas Piketty (2014) the first globalisation happenedbetween 1870 and 1914 when the major European colonizingnation-states conquered the world and established their empires (dejure or de facto)

The faith in science and technology to foster the Kantian dream oflsquoperpetual peacersquo was absolute for many members of the eacutelites ndashphilosophical position called positivism

Esperanto came out in that moment

14 of 76

Esperanto as part of the innovations of its time

1865 International Telegraph Union 1874 Universal Postal Union 1876 Alexander Graham Bell makes the first phone call 1884 International Meridian Conference (Greenwich) 1886 the Coca-Cola was born in Atlanta US 1887 Zamenhof publishes Esperanto in Warsaw Poland 1888 The Kodak camera was born lsquoyou press the button - we do

the restrsquo 1889 inauguration of the Tour Eiffel in Paris 1894 Pierre de Coubertin restores the Olympic Games 1900 LrsquoExposition de Paris the cinema was born

15 of 76

The patent of the telephone by A G Bell

The cover of the first book of Esperanto 1887

Ludwik Lejzer ZamenhofBorn in Białystok 1859 a town now in Poland ndash then under the Tsarndash Zamenhof was a Jew (Litvak Ashkenazi) bilingual Yiddish (with hismother) and Russian (with his father)

He had a twofold dream in his life to set an ethnic-free bridge acrossthe nations beyond any kind of wall through a neutral religion(Hillelism) and a neutral language (Esperanto)

19 of 76

Esperanto as a contact language

(Germanic + Romance + Slavic) x regularization = Esperanto

La viro salutas nin

copy2014 Stanislavo Belov Foto de si mem en Fejsbuko

Colour codes adopted here

1 substantives (NP heads) are in blue2 adjectives determiners numerals (any NP tail) are in cyan3 verbs and predications (VP heads) are in red4 adverbs and the like (MAdv V tails) are in orange5 affixes (prefixes and suffixes) are in gray6 accusative marker (ending in -n) is in green

Possible descriptions of the photo

La viro salutas la publikon La viro salutas vin La viro salutas vin afable La viro salutas vin per

⟨desegno

⟩

La viro salutas vin per⟨desegno sur

⟨la nigra tabulo

⟩⟩

La viro apogas la manon sur⟨la muro

⟩

23 of 76

Verbs have 6 possible endings No exceptions

1 -as for present tense2 -is for past tense3 -os for future tense4 -us for conditional5 -u for imperative6 -i for infinitive

24 of 76

Ne forgesu la akuzativon

Esperanto estas regula lingvo

La viro salutas vin afable

verbo

artikolo

subjekto

objekto

adverbo

De man begroet jullie vriendelijk

The man greets you kindly

26 of 76

Just one rule for nouns and adjectives

en Esperanto en la nederlanda en la anglagranda elefanto een grote olifant a big elephantmalgranda elefanto een kleine olifant a small elephantrapida ĉevalo een snel paard a fast horsemalrapidaj ĉevaloj langzame paarden slow horses

27 of 76

Granda elefanto kun malgranda elefanto

copy 2015 Huffington Post

The power of suffixes (example)

en Esperanto en la nederlanda en la anglaĉevalo paard horseĉevalino merrie mareĉevalido veulen coltĉevalejo stal stableĉevalaro een kudde paarden a herd of horses

29 of 76

Familio de ĉevaloj

copy 2013 Kelly Walkotten on Flickr

Europe is the lullaby ofEsperanto

31 of 76

French Esperantists come into the arena

Source Garviacutea (201578)

From Białystok to Paris

Universala Kongreso 1905Esperantists from various countries met in Boulogne-sur-Mer France

34 of 76

From the speech of Zamenhof 1905

En la malgrandan urbon de la franca marbordo kunvenis homojel la plej diversaj landoj kaj nacioj kaj ili renkontas sin reciprokene mute kaj surde sed ili komprenas unu la alian ili parolasunu kun la alia kiel fratoj kiel membroj de unu nacio

Rough translation in EnglishIn the small town of the French seaside came together personsfrom the most different countries and nations and they meetone the other reciprocally not mute and deaf but theyunderstand one the other they speak one with the other asbrothers as members of just one nation

35 of 76

La bela sonĝo de lrsquo homarohellip

hellip ends with the Great War (1914-1918)

copy 1915 Louis Raemaekers satirieke kaart van Europa Het gekkenhuis (oud liedje nieuwe wijs)

Appeal to the Diplomats 1915

Will you begin simply to remake and patch up the map ofEurope Will you simply decide that territory A must belong tothe nation X and territory B to the nation Y True such workyou will have to do but it must be only an insignificant portionof your work [hellip] in handing over any territory to the people ofthis or that race you will always do an injustice to other peoplewho have the same natural rights in respect of that territory[hellip] It would be best if instead of various large and smallEuropean states we should some day have proportionally andgeographically arranged ldquoUnited States of Europerdquo

38 of 76

Esperanto should reinvent itself after the Great War

According to the demographic analysis by Roberto Garviacutea (2015100)summarizing the work by the pioneer Tanquist (1927) these are themain motivation in learning Esperanto (US UK Germany-Austria)

Examples Esperanto Movement of the Workershellip

CC⃝ 1936

hellipCatholic Esperantists in Austriahellip

CC⃝ 1929

hellipvegetarians etc

copy 1914 Vegetarano the official bulletin of the Vegetara Ligo

lsquoVestaĵoj malnovajrsquo from The Great Dictator 1940

CC⃝ 2014 Vikimedio

Hitler and Stalin against Esperanto

copy 2014 Dan Mazur Esperantists

Esperanto today

45 of 76

Esperanto history and geography

There is no Esperanto state or specific territtory However we canconsider congresses festivals and meetings in local clubs as thelsquolanguage territoriesrsquo of the language where the community membersgather This is the geography of Esperanto

The places where these events happen ndash as well as some places whereEsperanto is used on a firm basis ndash form the geography of EsperantoThe history of Esperanto drives new initiatives rooted in virtualand real places

46 of 76

Local clubs around the world

Esperanto lives today Lille (FR) 2015

World Congress 100 near Boulogne-sur-Mer 110 years after the 1st

one48 of 76

Une maison de la culture de lrsquoespeacuteranto agrave Boulogne

49 of 76

The new Esperanto train in Poland

source Facebook page of the Polish government asking for polling

Virtual places the success of Duolinguo2

screenshot made the 28th of OMay 2016

Approximately 30 persons per day finish the learning tree

Esperanto between language and culture

The fascination of Esperanto comes1 internally from the structural character of the language and2 externally from the community of practice surrounding the

language itself which is used to produce original culturalproducts (poetry prose theater music comics films etc)

52 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

Since Feb 2014 bijzonder hoogleraar here

My official web page in Dutch at the UvA12 of 76

Why Esperanto is a fascinatinglanguage

13 of 76

Esperanto an offspring of the first globalisation

According to Thomas Piketty (2014) the first globalisation happenedbetween 1870 and 1914 when the major European colonizingnation-states conquered the world and established their empires (dejure or de facto)

The faith in science and technology to foster the Kantian dream oflsquoperpetual peacersquo was absolute for many members of the eacutelites ndashphilosophical position called positivism

Esperanto came out in that moment

14 of 76

Esperanto an offspring of the first globalisation

According to Thomas Piketty (2014) the first globalisation happenedbetween 1870 and 1914 when the major European colonizingnation-states conquered the world and established their empires (dejure or de facto)

The faith in science and technology to foster the Kantian dream oflsquoperpetual peacersquo was absolute for many members of the eacutelites ndashphilosophical position called positivism

Esperanto came out in that moment

14 of 76

Esperanto as part of the innovations of its time

1865 International Telegraph Union 1874 Universal Postal Union 1876 Alexander Graham Bell makes the first phone call 1884 International Meridian Conference (Greenwich) 1886 the Coca-Cola was born in Atlanta US 1887 Zamenhof publishes Esperanto in Warsaw Poland 1888 The Kodak camera was born lsquoyou press the button - we do

the restrsquo 1889 inauguration of the Tour Eiffel in Paris 1894 Pierre de Coubertin restores the Olympic Games 1900 LrsquoExposition de Paris the cinema was born

15 of 76

The patent of the telephone by A G Bell

The cover of the first book of Esperanto 1887

Ludwik Lejzer ZamenhofBorn in Białystok 1859 a town now in Poland ndash then under the Tsarndash Zamenhof was a Jew (Litvak Ashkenazi) bilingual Yiddish (with hismother) and Russian (with his father)

He had a twofold dream in his life to set an ethnic-free bridge acrossthe nations beyond any kind of wall through a neutral religion(Hillelism) and a neutral language (Esperanto)

19 of 76

Esperanto as a contact language

(Germanic + Romance + Slavic) x regularization = Esperanto

La viro salutas nin

copy2014 Stanislavo Belov Foto de si mem en Fejsbuko

Colour codes adopted here

1 substantives (NP heads) are in blue2 adjectives determiners numerals (any NP tail) are in cyan3 verbs and predications (VP heads) are in red4 adverbs and the like (MAdv V tails) are in orange5 affixes (prefixes and suffixes) are in gray6 accusative marker (ending in -n) is in green

Possible descriptions of the photo

La viro salutas la publikon La viro salutas vin La viro salutas vin afable La viro salutas vin per

⟨desegno

⟩

La viro salutas vin per⟨desegno sur

⟨la nigra tabulo

⟩⟩

La viro apogas la manon sur⟨la muro

⟩

23 of 76

Verbs have 6 possible endings No exceptions

1 -as for present tense2 -is for past tense3 -os for future tense4 -us for conditional5 -u for imperative6 -i for infinitive

24 of 76

Ne forgesu la akuzativon

Esperanto estas regula lingvo

La viro salutas vin afable

verbo

artikolo

subjekto

objekto

adverbo

De man begroet jullie vriendelijk

The man greets you kindly

26 of 76

Just one rule for nouns and adjectives

en Esperanto en la nederlanda en la anglagranda elefanto een grote olifant a big elephantmalgranda elefanto een kleine olifant a small elephantrapida ĉevalo een snel paard a fast horsemalrapidaj ĉevaloj langzame paarden slow horses

27 of 76

Granda elefanto kun malgranda elefanto

copy 2015 Huffington Post

The power of suffixes (example)

en Esperanto en la nederlanda en la anglaĉevalo paard horseĉevalino merrie mareĉevalido veulen coltĉevalejo stal stableĉevalaro een kudde paarden a herd of horses

29 of 76

Familio de ĉevaloj

copy 2013 Kelly Walkotten on Flickr

Europe is the lullaby ofEsperanto

31 of 76

French Esperantists come into the arena

Source Garviacutea (201578)

From Białystok to Paris

Universala Kongreso 1905Esperantists from various countries met in Boulogne-sur-Mer France

34 of 76

From the speech of Zamenhof 1905

En la malgrandan urbon de la franca marbordo kunvenis homojel la plej diversaj landoj kaj nacioj kaj ili renkontas sin reciprokene mute kaj surde sed ili komprenas unu la alian ili parolasunu kun la alia kiel fratoj kiel membroj de unu nacio

Rough translation in EnglishIn the small town of the French seaside came together personsfrom the most different countries and nations and they meetone the other reciprocally not mute and deaf but theyunderstand one the other they speak one with the other asbrothers as members of just one nation

35 of 76

La bela sonĝo de lrsquo homarohellip

hellip ends with the Great War (1914-1918)

copy 1915 Louis Raemaekers satirieke kaart van Europa Het gekkenhuis (oud liedje nieuwe wijs)

Appeal to the Diplomats 1915

Will you begin simply to remake and patch up the map ofEurope Will you simply decide that territory A must belong tothe nation X and territory B to the nation Y True such workyou will have to do but it must be only an insignificant portionof your work [hellip] in handing over any territory to the people ofthis or that race you will always do an injustice to other peoplewho have the same natural rights in respect of that territory[hellip] It would be best if instead of various large and smallEuropean states we should some day have proportionally andgeographically arranged ldquoUnited States of Europerdquo

38 of 76

Esperanto should reinvent itself after the Great War

According to the demographic analysis by Roberto Garviacutea (2015100)summarizing the work by the pioneer Tanquist (1927) these are themain motivation in learning Esperanto (US UK Germany-Austria)

Examples Esperanto Movement of the Workershellip

CC⃝ 1936

hellipCatholic Esperantists in Austriahellip

CC⃝ 1929

hellipvegetarians etc

copy 1914 Vegetarano the official bulletin of the Vegetara Ligo

lsquoVestaĵoj malnovajrsquo from The Great Dictator 1940

CC⃝ 2014 Vikimedio

Hitler and Stalin against Esperanto

copy 2014 Dan Mazur Esperantists

Esperanto today

45 of 76

Esperanto history and geography

There is no Esperanto state or specific territtory However we canconsider congresses festivals and meetings in local clubs as thelsquolanguage territoriesrsquo of the language where the community membersgather This is the geography of Esperanto

The places where these events happen ndash as well as some places whereEsperanto is used on a firm basis ndash form the geography of EsperantoThe history of Esperanto drives new initiatives rooted in virtualand real places

46 of 76

Local clubs around the world

Esperanto lives today Lille (FR) 2015

World Congress 100 near Boulogne-sur-Mer 110 years after the 1st

one48 of 76

Une maison de la culture de lrsquoespeacuteranto agrave Boulogne

49 of 76

The new Esperanto train in Poland

source Facebook page of the Polish government asking for polling

Virtual places the success of Duolinguo2

screenshot made the 28th of OMay 2016

Approximately 30 persons per day finish the learning tree

Esperanto between language and culture

The fascination of Esperanto comes1 internally from the structural character of the language and2 externally from the community of practice surrounding the

language itself which is used to produce original culturalproducts (poetry prose theater music comics films etc)

52 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

Why Esperanto is a fascinatinglanguage

13 of 76

Esperanto an offspring of the first globalisation

According to Thomas Piketty (2014) the first globalisation happenedbetween 1870 and 1914 when the major European colonizingnation-states conquered the world and established their empires (dejure or de facto)

The faith in science and technology to foster the Kantian dream oflsquoperpetual peacersquo was absolute for many members of the eacutelites ndashphilosophical position called positivism

Esperanto came out in that moment

14 of 76

Esperanto an offspring of the first globalisation

According to Thomas Piketty (2014) the first globalisation happenedbetween 1870 and 1914 when the major European colonizingnation-states conquered the world and established their empires (dejure or de facto)

The faith in science and technology to foster the Kantian dream oflsquoperpetual peacersquo was absolute for many members of the eacutelites ndashphilosophical position called positivism

Esperanto came out in that moment

14 of 76

Esperanto as part of the innovations of its time

1865 International Telegraph Union 1874 Universal Postal Union 1876 Alexander Graham Bell makes the first phone call 1884 International Meridian Conference (Greenwich) 1886 the Coca-Cola was born in Atlanta US 1887 Zamenhof publishes Esperanto in Warsaw Poland 1888 The Kodak camera was born lsquoyou press the button - we do

the restrsquo 1889 inauguration of the Tour Eiffel in Paris 1894 Pierre de Coubertin restores the Olympic Games 1900 LrsquoExposition de Paris the cinema was born

15 of 76

The patent of the telephone by A G Bell

The cover of the first book of Esperanto 1887

Ludwik Lejzer ZamenhofBorn in Białystok 1859 a town now in Poland ndash then under the Tsarndash Zamenhof was a Jew (Litvak Ashkenazi) bilingual Yiddish (with hismother) and Russian (with his father)

He had a twofold dream in his life to set an ethnic-free bridge acrossthe nations beyond any kind of wall through a neutral religion(Hillelism) and a neutral language (Esperanto)

19 of 76

Esperanto as a contact language

(Germanic + Romance + Slavic) x regularization = Esperanto

La viro salutas nin

copy2014 Stanislavo Belov Foto de si mem en Fejsbuko

Colour codes adopted here

1 substantives (NP heads) are in blue2 adjectives determiners numerals (any NP tail) are in cyan3 verbs and predications (VP heads) are in red4 adverbs and the like (MAdv V tails) are in orange5 affixes (prefixes and suffixes) are in gray6 accusative marker (ending in -n) is in green

Possible descriptions of the photo

La viro salutas la publikon La viro salutas vin La viro salutas vin afable La viro salutas vin per

⟨desegno

⟩

La viro salutas vin per⟨desegno sur

⟨la nigra tabulo

⟩⟩

La viro apogas la manon sur⟨la muro

⟩

23 of 76

Verbs have 6 possible endings No exceptions

1 -as for present tense2 -is for past tense3 -os for future tense4 -us for conditional5 -u for imperative6 -i for infinitive

24 of 76

Ne forgesu la akuzativon

Esperanto estas regula lingvo

La viro salutas vin afable

verbo

artikolo

subjekto

objekto

adverbo

De man begroet jullie vriendelijk

The man greets you kindly

26 of 76

Just one rule for nouns and adjectives

en Esperanto en la nederlanda en la anglagranda elefanto een grote olifant a big elephantmalgranda elefanto een kleine olifant a small elephantrapida ĉevalo een snel paard a fast horsemalrapidaj ĉevaloj langzame paarden slow horses

27 of 76

Granda elefanto kun malgranda elefanto

copy 2015 Huffington Post

The power of suffixes (example)

en Esperanto en la nederlanda en la anglaĉevalo paard horseĉevalino merrie mareĉevalido veulen coltĉevalejo stal stableĉevalaro een kudde paarden a herd of horses

29 of 76

Familio de ĉevaloj

copy 2013 Kelly Walkotten on Flickr

Europe is the lullaby ofEsperanto

31 of 76

French Esperantists come into the arena

Source Garviacutea (201578)

From Białystok to Paris

Universala Kongreso 1905Esperantists from various countries met in Boulogne-sur-Mer France

34 of 76

From the speech of Zamenhof 1905

En la malgrandan urbon de la franca marbordo kunvenis homojel la plej diversaj landoj kaj nacioj kaj ili renkontas sin reciprokene mute kaj surde sed ili komprenas unu la alian ili parolasunu kun la alia kiel fratoj kiel membroj de unu nacio

Rough translation in EnglishIn the small town of the French seaside came together personsfrom the most different countries and nations and they meetone the other reciprocally not mute and deaf but theyunderstand one the other they speak one with the other asbrothers as members of just one nation

35 of 76

La bela sonĝo de lrsquo homarohellip

hellip ends with the Great War (1914-1918)

copy 1915 Louis Raemaekers satirieke kaart van Europa Het gekkenhuis (oud liedje nieuwe wijs)

Appeal to the Diplomats 1915

Will you begin simply to remake and patch up the map ofEurope Will you simply decide that territory A must belong tothe nation X and territory B to the nation Y True such workyou will have to do but it must be only an insignificant portionof your work [hellip] in handing over any territory to the people ofthis or that race you will always do an injustice to other peoplewho have the same natural rights in respect of that territory[hellip] It would be best if instead of various large and smallEuropean states we should some day have proportionally andgeographically arranged ldquoUnited States of Europerdquo

38 of 76

Esperanto should reinvent itself after the Great War

According to the demographic analysis by Roberto Garviacutea (2015100)summarizing the work by the pioneer Tanquist (1927) these are themain motivation in learning Esperanto (US UK Germany-Austria)

Examples Esperanto Movement of the Workershellip

CC⃝ 1936

hellipCatholic Esperantists in Austriahellip

CC⃝ 1929

hellipvegetarians etc

copy 1914 Vegetarano the official bulletin of the Vegetara Ligo

lsquoVestaĵoj malnovajrsquo from The Great Dictator 1940

CC⃝ 2014 Vikimedio

Hitler and Stalin against Esperanto

copy 2014 Dan Mazur Esperantists

Esperanto today

45 of 76

Esperanto history and geography

There is no Esperanto state or specific territtory However we canconsider congresses festivals and meetings in local clubs as thelsquolanguage territoriesrsquo of the language where the community membersgather This is the geography of Esperanto

The places where these events happen ndash as well as some places whereEsperanto is used on a firm basis ndash form the geography of EsperantoThe history of Esperanto drives new initiatives rooted in virtualand real places

46 of 76

Local clubs around the world

Esperanto lives today Lille (FR) 2015

World Congress 100 near Boulogne-sur-Mer 110 years after the 1st

one48 of 76

Une maison de la culture de lrsquoespeacuteranto agrave Boulogne

49 of 76

The new Esperanto train in Poland

source Facebook page of the Polish government asking for polling

Virtual places the success of Duolinguo2

screenshot made the 28th of OMay 2016

Approximately 30 persons per day finish the learning tree

Esperanto between language and culture

The fascination of Esperanto comes1 internally from the structural character of the language and2 externally from the community of practice surrounding the

language itself which is used to produce original culturalproducts (poetry prose theater music comics films etc)

52 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

Esperanto an offspring of the first globalisation

According to Thomas Piketty (2014) the first globalisation happenedbetween 1870 and 1914 when the major European colonizingnation-states conquered the world and established their empires (dejure or de facto)

The faith in science and technology to foster the Kantian dream oflsquoperpetual peacersquo was absolute for many members of the eacutelites ndashphilosophical position called positivism

Esperanto came out in that moment

14 of 76

Esperanto an offspring of the first globalisation

According to Thomas Piketty (2014) the first globalisation happenedbetween 1870 and 1914 when the major European colonizingnation-states conquered the world and established their empires (dejure or de facto)

The faith in science and technology to foster the Kantian dream oflsquoperpetual peacersquo was absolute for many members of the eacutelites ndashphilosophical position called positivism

Esperanto came out in that moment

14 of 76

Esperanto as part of the innovations of its time

1865 International Telegraph Union 1874 Universal Postal Union 1876 Alexander Graham Bell makes the first phone call 1884 International Meridian Conference (Greenwich) 1886 the Coca-Cola was born in Atlanta US 1887 Zamenhof publishes Esperanto in Warsaw Poland 1888 The Kodak camera was born lsquoyou press the button - we do

the restrsquo 1889 inauguration of the Tour Eiffel in Paris 1894 Pierre de Coubertin restores the Olympic Games 1900 LrsquoExposition de Paris the cinema was born

15 of 76

The patent of the telephone by A G Bell

The cover of the first book of Esperanto 1887

Ludwik Lejzer ZamenhofBorn in Białystok 1859 a town now in Poland ndash then under the Tsarndash Zamenhof was a Jew (Litvak Ashkenazi) bilingual Yiddish (with hismother) and Russian (with his father)

He had a twofold dream in his life to set an ethnic-free bridge acrossthe nations beyond any kind of wall through a neutral religion(Hillelism) and a neutral language (Esperanto)

19 of 76

Esperanto as a contact language

(Germanic + Romance + Slavic) x regularization = Esperanto

La viro salutas nin

copy2014 Stanislavo Belov Foto de si mem en Fejsbuko

Colour codes adopted here

1 substantives (NP heads) are in blue2 adjectives determiners numerals (any NP tail) are in cyan3 verbs and predications (VP heads) are in red4 adverbs and the like (MAdv V tails) are in orange5 affixes (prefixes and suffixes) are in gray6 accusative marker (ending in -n) is in green

Possible descriptions of the photo

La viro salutas la publikon La viro salutas vin La viro salutas vin afable La viro salutas vin per

⟨desegno

⟩

La viro salutas vin per⟨desegno sur

⟨la nigra tabulo

⟩⟩

La viro apogas la manon sur⟨la muro

⟩

23 of 76

Verbs have 6 possible endings No exceptions

1 -as for present tense2 -is for past tense3 -os for future tense4 -us for conditional5 -u for imperative6 -i for infinitive

24 of 76

Ne forgesu la akuzativon

Esperanto estas regula lingvo

La viro salutas vin afable

verbo

artikolo

subjekto

objekto

adverbo

De man begroet jullie vriendelijk

The man greets you kindly

26 of 76

Just one rule for nouns and adjectives

en Esperanto en la nederlanda en la anglagranda elefanto een grote olifant a big elephantmalgranda elefanto een kleine olifant a small elephantrapida ĉevalo een snel paard a fast horsemalrapidaj ĉevaloj langzame paarden slow horses

27 of 76

Granda elefanto kun malgranda elefanto

copy 2015 Huffington Post

The power of suffixes (example)

en Esperanto en la nederlanda en la anglaĉevalo paard horseĉevalino merrie mareĉevalido veulen coltĉevalejo stal stableĉevalaro een kudde paarden a herd of horses

29 of 76

Familio de ĉevaloj

copy 2013 Kelly Walkotten on Flickr

Europe is the lullaby ofEsperanto

31 of 76

French Esperantists come into the arena

Source Garviacutea (201578)

From Białystok to Paris

Universala Kongreso 1905Esperantists from various countries met in Boulogne-sur-Mer France

34 of 76

From the speech of Zamenhof 1905

En la malgrandan urbon de la franca marbordo kunvenis homojel la plej diversaj landoj kaj nacioj kaj ili renkontas sin reciprokene mute kaj surde sed ili komprenas unu la alian ili parolasunu kun la alia kiel fratoj kiel membroj de unu nacio

Rough translation in EnglishIn the small town of the French seaside came together personsfrom the most different countries and nations and they meetone the other reciprocally not mute and deaf but theyunderstand one the other they speak one with the other asbrothers as members of just one nation

35 of 76

La bela sonĝo de lrsquo homarohellip

hellip ends with the Great War (1914-1918)

copy 1915 Louis Raemaekers satirieke kaart van Europa Het gekkenhuis (oud liedje nieuwe wijs)

Appeal to the Diplomats 1915

Will you begin simply to remake and patch up the map ofEurope Will you simply decide that territory A must belong tothe nation X and territory B to the nation Y True such workyou will have to do but it must be only an insignificant portionof your work [hellip] in handing over any territory to the people ofthis or that race you will always do an injustice to other peoplewho have the same natural rights in respect of that territory[hellip] It would be best if instead of various large and smallEuropean states we should some day have proportionally andgeographically arranged ldquoUnited States of Europerdquo

38 of 76

Esperanto should reinvent itself after the Great War

According to the demographic analysis by Roberto Garviacutea (2015100)summarizing the work by the pioneer Tanquist (1927) these are themain motivation in learning Esperanto (US UK Germany-Austria)

Examples Esperanto Movement of the Workershellip

CC⃝ 1936

hellipCatholic Esperantists in Austriahellip

CC⃝ 1929

hellipvegetarians etc

copy 1914 Vegetarano the official bulletin of the Vegetara Ligo

lsquoVestaĵoj malnovajrsquo from The Great Dictator 1940

CC⃝ 2014 Vikimedio

Hitler and Stalin against Esperanto

copy 2014 Dan Mazur Esperantists

Esperanto today

45 of 76

Esperanto history and geography

There is no Esperanto state or specific territtory However we canconsider congresses festivals and meetings in local clubs as thelsquolanguage territoriesrsquo of the language where the community membersgather This is the geography of Esperanto

The places where these events happen ndash as well as some places whereEsperanto is used on a firm basis ndash form the geography of EsperantoThe history of Esperanto drives new initiatives rooted in virtualand real places

46 of 76

Local clubs around the world

Esperanto lives today Lille (FR) 2015

World Congress 100 near Boulogne-sur-Mer 110 years after the 1st

one48 of 76

Une maison de la culture de lrsquoespeacuteranto agrave Boulogne

49 of 76

The new Esperanto train in Poland

source Facebook page of the Polish government asking for polling

Virtual places the success of Duolinguo2

screenshot made the 28th of OMay 2016

Approximately 30 persons per day finish the learning tree

Esperanto between language and culture

The fascination of Esperanto comes1 internally from the structural character of the language and2 externally from the community of practice surrounding the

language itself which is used to produce original culturalproducts (poetry prose theater music comics films etc)

52 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

Esperanto an offspring of the first globalisation

According to Thomas Piketty (2014) the first globalisation happenedbetween 1870 and 1914 when the major European colonizingnation-states conquered the world and established their empires (dejure or de facto)

The faith in science and technology to foster the Kantian dream oflsquoperpetual peacersquo was absolute for many members of the eacutelites ndashphilosophical position called positivism

Esperanto came out in that moment

14 of 76

Esperanto as part of the innovations of its time

1865 International Telegraph Union 1874 Universal Postal Union 1876 Alexander Graham Bell makes the first phone call 1884 International Meridian Conference (Greenwich) 1886 the Coca-Cola was born in Atlanta US 1887 Zamenhof publishes Esperanto in Warsaw Poland 1888 The Kodak camera was born lsquoyou press the button - we do

the restrsquo 1889 inauguration of the Tour Eiffel in Paris 1894 Pierre de Coubertin restores the Olympic Games 1900 LrsquoExposition de Paris the cinema was born

15 of 76

The patent of the telephone by A G Bell

The cover of the first book of Esperanto 1887

Ludwik Lejzer ZamenhofBorn in Białystok 1859 a town now in Poland ndash then under the Tsarndash Zamenhof was a Jew (Litvak Ashkenazi) bilingual Yiddish (with hismother) and Russian (with his father)

He had a twofold dream in his life to set an ethnic-free bridge acrossthe nations beyond any kind of wall through a neutral religion(Hillelism) and a neutral language (Esperanto)

19 of 76

Esperanto as a contact language

(Germanic + Romance + Slavic) x regularization = Esperanto

La viro salutas nin

copy2014 Stanislavo Belov Foto de si mem en Fejsbuko

Colour codes adopted here

1 substantives (NP heads) are in blue2 adjectives determiners numerals (any NP tail) are in cyan3 verbs and predications (VP heads) are in red4 adverbs and the like (MAdv V tails) are in orange5 affixes (prefixes and suffixes) are in gray6 accusative marker (ending in -n) is in green

Possible descriptions of the photo

La viro salutas la publikon La viro salutas vin La viro salutas vin afable La viro salutas vin per

⟨desegno

⟩

La viro salutas vin per⟨desegno sur

⟨la nigra tabulo

⟩⟩

La viro apogas la manon sur⟨la muro

⟩

23 of 76

Verbs have 6 possible endings No exceptions

1 -as for present tense2 -is for past tense3 -os for future tense4 -us for conditional5 -u for imperative6 -i for infinitive

24 of 76

Ne forgesu la akuzativon

Esperanto estas regula lingvo

La viro salutas vin afable

verbo

artikolo

subjekto

objekto

adverbo

De man begroet jullie vriendelijk

The man greets you kindly

26 of 76

Just one rule for nouns and adjectives

en Esperanto en la nederlanda en la anglagranda elefanto een grote olifant a big elephantmalgranda elefanto een kleine olifant a small elephantrapida ĉevalo een snel paard a fast horsemalrapidaj ĉevaloj langzame paarden slow horses

27 of 76

Granda elefanto kun malgranda elefanto

copy 2015 Huffington Post

The power of suffixes (example)

en Esperanto en la nederlanda en la anglaĉevalo paard horseĉevalino merrie mareĉevalido veulen coltĉevalejo stal stableĉevalaro een kudde paarden a herd of horses

29 of 76

Familio de ĉevaloj

copy 2013 Kelly Walkotten on Flickr

Europe is the lullaby ofEsperanto

31 of 76

French Esperantists come into the arena

Source Garviacutea (201578)

From Białystok to Paris

Universala Kongreso 1905Esperantists from various countries met in Boulogne-sur-Mer France

34 of 76

From the speech of Zamenhof 1905

En la malgrandan urbon de la franca marbordo kunvenis homojel la plej diversaj landoj kaj nacioj kaj ili renkontas sin reciprokene mute kaj surde sed ili komprenas unu la alian ili parolasunu kun la alia kiel fratoj kiel membroj de unu nacio

Rough translation in EnglishIn the small town of the French seaside came together personsfrom the most different countries and nations and they meetone the other reciprocally not mute and deaf but theyunderstand one the other they speak one with the other asbrothers as members of just one nation

35 of 76

La bela sonĝo de lrsquo homarohellip

hellip ends with the Great War (1914-1918)

copy 1915 Louis Raemaekers satirieke kaart van Europa Het gekkenhuis (oud liedje nieuwe wijs)

Appeal to the Diplomats 1915

Will you begin simply to remake and patch up the map ofEurope Will you simply decide that territory A must belong tothe nation X and territory B to the nation Y True such workyou will have to do but it must be only an insignificant portionof your work [hellip] in handing over any territory to the people ofthis or that race you will always do an injustice to other peoplewho have the same natural rights in respect of that territory[hellip] It would be best if instead of various large and smallEuropean states we should some day have proportionally andgeographically arranged ldquoUnited States of Europerdquo

38 of 76

Esperanto should reinvent itself after the Great War

According to the demographic analysis by Roberto Garviacutea (2015100)summarizing the work by the pioneer Tanquist (1927) these are themain motivation in learning Esperanto (US UK Germany-Austria)

Examples Esperanto Movement of the Workershellip

CC⃝ 1936

hellipCatholic Esperantists in Austriahellip

CC⃝ 1929

hellipvegetarians etc

copy 1914 Vegetarano the official bulletin of the Vegetara Ligo

lsquoVestaĵoj malnovajrsquo from The Great Dictator 1940

CC⃝ 2014 Vikimedio

Hitler and Stalin against Esperanto

copy 2014 Dan Mazur Esperantists

Esperanto today

45 of 76

Esperanto history and geography

There is no Esperanto state or specific territtory However we canconsider congresses festivals and meetings in local clubs as thelsquolanguage territoriesrsquo of the language where the community membersgather This is the geography of Esperanto

The places where these events happen ndash as well as some places whereEsperanto is used on a firm basis ndash form the geography of EsperantoThe history of Esperanto drives new initiatives rooted in virtualand real places

46 of 76

Local clubs around the world

Esperanto lives today Lille (FR) 2015

World Congress 100 near Boulogne-sur-Mer 110 years after the 1st

one48 of 76

Une maison de la culture de lrsquoespeacuteranto agrave Boulogne

49 of 76

The new Esperanto train in Poland

source Facebook page of the Polish government asking for polling

Virtual places the success of Duolinguo2

screenshot made the 28th of OMay 2016

Approximately 30 persons per day finish the learning tree

Esperanto between language and culture

The fascination of Esperanto comes1 internally from the structural character of the language and2 externally from the community of practice surrounding the

language itself which is used to produce original culturalproducts (poetry prose theater music comics films etc)

52 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

Esperanto as part of the innovations of its time

1865 International Telegraph Union 1874 Universal Postal Union 1876 Alexander Graham Bell makes the first phone call 1884 International Meridian Conference (Greenwich) 1886 the Coca-Cola was born in Atlanta US 1887 Zamenhof publishes Esperanto in Warsaw Poland 1888 The Kodak camera was born lsquoyou press the button - we do

the restrsquo 1889 inauguration of the Tour Eiffel in Paris 1894 Pierre de Coubertin restores the Olympic Games 1900 LrsquoExposition de Paris the cinema was born

15 of 76

The patent of the telephone by A G Bell

The cover of the first book of Esperanto 1887

Ludwik Lejzer ZamenhofBorn in Białystok 1859 a town now in Poland ndash then under the Tsarndash Zamenhof was a Jew (Litvak Ashkenazi) bilingual Yiddish (with hismother) and Russian (with his father)

He had a twofold dream in his life to set an ethnic-free bridge acrossthe nations beyond any kind of wall through a neutral religion(Hillelism) and a neutral language (Esperanto)

19 of 76

Esperanto as a contact language

(Germanic + Romance + Slavic) x regularization = Esperanto

La viro salutas nin

copy2014 Stanislavo Belov Foto de si mem en Fejsbuko

Colour codes adopted here

1 substantives (NP heads) are in blue2 adjectives determiners numerals (any NP tail) are in cyan3 verbs and predications (VP heads) are in red4 adverbs and the like (MAdv V tails) are in orange5 affixes (prefixes and suffixes) are in gray6 accusative marker (ending in -n) is in green

Possible descriptions of the photo

La viro salutas la publikon La viro salutas vin La viro salutas vin afable La viro salutas vin per

⟨desegno

⟩

La viro salutas vin per⟨desegno sur

⟨la nigra tabulo

⟩⟩

La viro apogas la manon sur⟨la muro

⟩

23 of 76

Verbs have 6 possible endings No exceptions

1 -as for present tense2 -is for past tense3 -os for future tense4 -us for conditional5 -u for imperative6 -i for infinitive

24 of 76

Ne forgesu la akuzativon

Esperanto estas regula lingvo

La viro salutas vin afable

verbo

artikolo

subjekto

objekto

adverbo

De man begroet jullie vriendelijk

The man greets you kindly

26 of 76

Just one rule for nouns and adjectives

en Esperanto en la nederlanda en la anglagranda elefanto een grote olifant a big elephantmalgranda elefanto een kleine olifant a small elephantrapida ĉevalo een snel paard a fast horsemalrapidaj ĉevaloj langzame paarden slow horses

27 of 76

Granda elefanto kun malgranda elefanto

copy 2015 Huffington Post

The power of suffixes (example)

en Esperanto en la nederlanda en la anglaĉevalo paard horseĉevalino merrie mareĉevalido veulen coltĉevalejo stal stableĉevalaro een kudde paarden a herd of horses

29 of 76

Familio de ĉevaloj

copy 2013 Kelly Walkotten on Flickr

Europe is the lullaby ofEsperanto

31 of 76

French Esperantists come into the arena

Source Garviacutea (201578)

From Białystok to Paris

Universala Kongreso 1905Esperantists from various countries met in Boulogne-sur-Mer France

34 of 76

From the speech of Zamenhof 1905

En la malgrandan urbon de la franca marbordo kunvenis homojel la plej diversaj landoj kaj nacioj kaj ili renkontas sin reciprokene mute kaj surde sed ili komprenas unu la alian ili parolasunu kun la alia kiel fratoj kiel membroj de unu nacio

Rough translation in EnglishIn the small town of the French seaside came together personsfrom the most different countries and nations and they meetone the other reciprocally not mute and deaf but theyunderstand one the other they speak one with the other asbrothers as members of just one nation

35 of 76

La bela sonĝo de lrsquo homarohellip

hellip ends with the Great War (1914-1918)

copy 1915 Louis Raemaekers satirieke kaart van Europa Het gekkenhuis (oud liedje nieuwe wijs)

Appeal to the Diplomats 1915

Will you begin simply to remake and patch up the map ofEurope Will you simply decide that territory A must belong tothe nation X and territory B to the nation Y True such workyou will have to do but it must be only an insignificant portionof your work [hellip] in handing over any territory to the people ofthis or that race you will always do an injustice to other peoplewho have the same natural rights in respect of that territory[hellip] It would be best if instead of various large and smallEuropean states we should some day have proportionally andgeographically arranged ldquoUnited States of Europerdquo

38 of 76

Esperanto should reinvent itself after the Great War

According to the demographic analysis by Roberto Garviacutea (2015100)summarizing the work by the pioneer Tanquist (1927) these are themain motivation in learning Esperanto (US UK Germany-Austria)

Examples Esperanto Movement of the Workershellip

CC⃝ 1936

hellipCatholic Esperantists in Austriahellip

CC⃝ 1929

hellipvegetarians etc

copy 1914 Vegetarano the official bulletin of the Vegetara Ligo

lsquoVestaĵoj malnovajrsquo from The Great Dictator 1940

CC⃝ 2014 Vikimedio

Hitler and Stalin against Esperanto

copy 2014 Dan Mazur Esperantists

Esperanto today

45 of 76

Esperanto history and geography

There is no Esperanto state or specific territtory However we canconsider congresses festivals and meetings in local clubs as thelsquolanguage territoriesrsquo of the language where the community membersgather This is the geography of Esperanto

The places where these events happen ndash as well as some places whereEsperanto is used on a firm basis ndash form the geography of EsperantoThe history of Esperanto drives new initiatives rooted in virtualand real places

46 of 76

Local clubs around the world

Esperanto lives today Lille (FR) 2015

World Congress 100 near Boulogne-sur-Mer 110 years after the 1st

one48 of 76

Une maison de la culture de lrsquoespeacuteranto agrave Boulogne

49 of 76

The new Esperanto train in Poland

source Facebook page of the Polish government asking for polling

Virtual places the success of Duolinguo2

screenshot made the 28th of OMay 2016

Approximately 30 persons per day finish the learning tree

Esperanto between language and culture

The fascination of Esperanto comes1 internally from the structural character of the language and2 externally from the community of practice surrounding the

language itself which is used to produce original culturalproducts (poetry prose theater music comics films etc)

52 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

The patent of the telephone by A G Bell

The cover of the first book of Esperanto 1887

Ludwik Lejzer ZamenhofBorn in Białystok 1859 a town now in Poland ndash then under the Tsarndash Zamenhof was a Jew (Litvak Ashkenazi) bilingual Yiddish (with hismother) and Russian (with his father)

He had a twofold dream in his life to set an ethnic-free bridge acrossthe nations beyond any kind of wall through a neutral religion(Hillelism) and a neutral language (Esperanto)

19 of 76

Esperanto as a contact language

(Germanic + Romance + Slavic) x regularization = Esperanto

La viro salutas nin

copy2014 Stanislavo Belov Foto de si mem en Fejsbuko

Colour codes adopted here

1 substantives (NP heads) are in blue2 adjectives determiners numerals (any NP tail) are in cyan3 verbs and predications (VP heads) are in red4 adverbs and the like (MAdv V tails) are in orange5 affixes (prefixes and suffixes) are in gray6 accusative marker (ending in -n) is in green

Possible descriptions of the photo

La viro salutas la publikon La viro salutas vin La viro salutas vin afable La viro salutas vin per

⟨desegno

⟩

La viro salutas vin per⟨desegno sur

⟨la nigra tabulo

⟩⟩

La viro apogas la manon sur⟨la muro

⟩

23 of 76

Verbs have 6 possible endings No exceptions

1 -as for present tense2 -is for past tense3 -os for future tense4 -us for conditional5 -u for imperative6 -i for infinitive

24 of 76

Ne forgesu la akuzativon

Esperanto estas regula lingvo

La viro salutas vin afable

verbo

artikolo

subjekto

objekto

adverbo

De man begroet jullie vriendelijk

The man greets you kindly

26 of 76

Just one rule for nouns and adjectives

en Esperanto en la nederlanda en la anglagranda elefanto een grote olifant a big elephantmalgranda elefanto een kleine olifant a small elephantrapida ĉevalo een snel paard a fast horsemalrapidaj ĉevaloj langzame paarden slow horses

27 of 76

Granda elefanto kun malgranda elefanto

copy 2015 Huffington Post

The power of suffixes (example)

en Esperanto en la nederlanda en la anglaĉevalo paard horseĉevalino merrie mareĉevalido veulen coltĉevalejo stal stableĉevalaro een kudde paarden a herd of horses

29 of 76

Familio de ĉevaloj

copy 2013 Kelly Walkotten on Flickr

Europe is the lullaby ofEsperanto

31 of 76

French Esperantists come into the arena

Source Garviacutea (201578)

From Białystok to Paris

Universala Kongreso 1905Esperantists from various countries met in Boulogne-sur-Mer France

34 of 76

From the speech of Zamenhof 1905

En la malgrandan urbon de la franca marbordo kunvenis homojel la plej diversaj landoj kaj nacioj kaj ili renkontas sin reciprokene mute kaj surde sed ili komprenas unu la alian ili parolasunu kun la alia kiel fratoj kiel membroj de unu nacio

Rough translation in EnglishIn the small town of the French seaside came together personsfrom the most different countries and nations and they meetone the other reciprocally not mute and deaf but theyunderstand one the other they speak one with the other asbrothers as members of just one nation

35 of 76

La bela sonĝo de lrsquo homarohellip

hellip ends with the Great War (1914-1918)

copy 1915 Louis Raemaekers satirieke kaart van Europa Het gekkenhuis (oud liedje nieuwe wijs)

Appeal to the Diplomats 1915

Will you begin simply to remake and patch up the map ofEurope Will you simply decide that territory A must belong tothe nation X and territory B to the nation Y True such workyou will have to do but it must be only an insignificant portionof your work [hellip] in handing over any territory to the people ofthis or that race you will always do an injustice to other peoplewho have the same natural rights in respect of that territory[hellip] It would be best if instead of various large and smallEuropean states we should some day have proportionally andgeographically arranged ldquoUnited States of Europerdquo

38 of 76

Esperanto should reinvent itself after the Great War

According to the demographic analysis by Roberto Garviacutea (2015100)summarizing the work by the pioneer Tanquist (1927) these are themain motivation in learning Esperanto (US UK Germany-Austria)

Examples Esperanto Movement of the Workershellip

CC⃝ 1936

hellipCatholic Esperantists in Austriahellip

CC⃝ 1929

hellipvegetarians etc

copy 1914 Vegetarano the official bulletin of the Vegetara Ligo

lsquoVestaĵoj malnovajrsquo from The Great Dictator 1940

CC⃝ 2014 Vikimedio

Hitler and Stalin against Esperanto

copy 2014 Dan Mazur Esperantists

Esperanto today

45 of 76

Esperanto history and geography

There is no Esperanto state or specific territtory However we canconsider congresses festivals and meetings in local clubs as thelsquolanguage territoriesrsquo of the language where the community membersgather This is the geography of Esperanto

The places where these events happen ndash as well as some places whereEsperanto is used on a firm basis ndash form the geography of EsperantoThe history of Esperanto drives new initiatives rooted in virtualand real places

46 of 76

Local clubs around the world

Esperanto lives today Lille (FR) 2015

World Congress 100 near Boulogne-sur-Mer 110 years after the 1st

one48 of 76

Une maison de la culture de lrsquoespeacuteranto agrave Boulogne

49 of 76

The new Esperanto train in Poland

source Facebook page of the Polish government asking for polling

Virtual places the success of Duolinguo2

screenshot made the 28th of OMay 2016

Approximately 30 persons per day finish the learning tree

Esperanto between language and culture

The fascination of Esperanto comes1 internally from the structural character of the language and2 externally from the community of practice surrounding the

language itself which is used to produce original culturalproducts (poetry prose theater music comics films etc)

52 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

The cover of the first book of Esperanto 1887

Ludwik Lejzer ZamenhofBorn in Białystok 1859 a town now in Poland ndash then under the Tsarndash Zamenhof was a Jew (Litvak Ashkenazi) bilingual Yiddish (with hismother) and Russian (with his father)

He had a twofold dream in his life to set an ethnic-free bridge acrossthe nations beyond any kind of wall through a neutral religion(Hillelism) and a neutral language (Esperanto)

19 of 76

Esperanto as a contact language

(Germanic + Romance + Slavic) x regularization = Esperanto

La viro salutas nin

copy2014 Stanislavo Belov Foto de si mem en Fejsbuko

Colour codes adopted here

1 substantives (NP heads) are in blue2 adjectives determiners numerals (any NP tail) are in cyan3 verbs and predications (VP heads) are in red4 adverbs and the like (MAdv V tails) are in orange5 affixes (prefixes and suffixes) are in gray6 accusative marker (ending in -n) is in green

Possible descriptions of the photo

La viro salutas la publikon La viro salutas vin La viro salutas vin afable La viro salutas vin per

⟨desegno

⟩

La viro salutas vin per⟨desegno sur

⟨la nigra tabulo

⟩⟩

La viro apogas la manon sur⟨la muro

⟩

23 of 76

Verbs have 6 possible endings No exceptions

1 -as for present tense2 -is for past tense3 -os for future tense4 -us for conditional5 -u for imperative6 -i for infinitive

24 of 76

Ne forgesu la akuzativon

Esperanto estas regula lingvo

La viro salutas vin afable

verbo

artikolo

subjekto

objekto

adverbo

De man begroet jullie vriendelijk

The man greets you kindly

26 of 76

Just one rule for nouns and adjectives

en Esperanto en la nederlanda en la anglagranda elefanto een grote olifant a big elephantmalgranda elefanto een kleine olifant a small elephantrapida ĉevalo een snel paard a fast horsemalrapidaj ĉevaloj langzame paarden slow horses

27 of 76

Granda elefanto kun malgranda elefanto

copy 2015 Huffington Post

The power of suffixes (example)

en Esperanto en la nederlanda en la anglaĉevalo paard horseĉevalino merrie mareĉevalido veulen coltĉevalejo stal stableĉevalaro een kudde paarden a herd of horses

29 of 76

Familio de ĉevaloj

copy 2013 Kelly Walkotten on Flickr

Europe is the lullaby ofEsperanto

31 of 76

French Esperantists come into the arena

Source Garviacutea (201578)

From Białystok to Paris

Universala Kongreso 1905Esperantists from various countries met in Boulogne-sur-Mer France

34 of 76

From the speech of Zamenhof 1905

En la malgrandan urbon de la franca marbordo kunvenis homojel la plej diversaj landoj kaj nacioj kaj ili renkontas sin reciprokene mute kaj surde sed ili komprenas unu la alian ili parolasunu kun la alia kiel fratoj kiel membroj de unu nacio

Rough translation in EnglishIn the small town of the French seaside came together personsfrom the most different countries and nations and they meetone the other reciprocally not mute and deaf but theyunderstand one the other they speak one with the other asbrothers as members of just one nation

35 of 76

La bela sonĝo de lrsquo homarohellip

hellip ends with the Great War (1914-1918)

copy 1915 Louis Raemaekers satirieke kaart van Europa Het gekkenhuis (oud liedje nieuwe wijs)

Appeal to the Diplomats 1915

Will you begin simply to remake and patch up the map ofEurope Will you simply decide that territory A must belong tothe nation X and territory B to the nation Y True such workyou will have to do but it must be only an insignificant portionof your work [hellip] in handing over any territory to the people ofthis or that race you will always do an injustice to other peoplewho have the same natural rights in respect of that territory[hellip] It would be best if instead of various large and smallEuropean states we should some day have proportionally andgeographically arranged ldquoUnited States of Europerdquo

38 of 76

Esperanto should reinvent itself after the Great War

According to the demographic analysis by Roberto Garviacutea (2015100)summarizing the work by the pioneer Tanquist (1927) these are themain motivation in learning Esperanto (US UK Germany-Austria)

Examples Esperanto Movement of the Workershellip

CC⃝ 1936

hellipCatholic Esperantists in Austriahellip

CC⃝ 1929

hellipvegetarians etc

copy 1914 Vegetarano the official bulletin of the Vegetara Ligo

lsquoVestaĵoj malnovajrsquo from The Great Dictator 1940

CC⃝ 2014 Vikimedio

Hitler and Stalin against Esperanto

copy 2014 Dan Mazur Esperantists

Esperanto today

45 of 76

Esperanto history and geography

There is no Esperanto state or specific territtory However we canconsider congresses festivals and meetings in local clubs as thelsquolanguage territoriesrsquo of the language where the community membersgather This is the geography of Esperanto

The places where these events happen ndash as well as some places whereEsperanto is used on a firm basis ndash form the geography of EsperantoThe history of Esperanto drives new initiatives rooted in virtualand real places

46 of 76

Local clubs around the world

Esperanto lives today Lille (FR) 2015

World Congress 100 near Boulogne-sur-Mer 110 years after the 1st

one48 of 76

Une maison de la culture de lrsquoespeacuteranto agrave Boulogne

49 of 76

The new Esperanto train in Poland

source Facebook page of the Polish government asking for polling

Virtual places the success of Duolinguo2

screenshot made the 28th of OMay 2016

Approximately 30 persons per day finish the learning tree

Esperanto between language and culture

The fascination of Esperanto comes1 internally from the structural character of the language and2 externally from the community of practice surrounding the

language itself which is used to produce original culturalproducts (poetry prose theater music comics films etc)

52 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

Ludwik Lejzer ZamenhofBorn in Białystok 1859 a town now in Poland ndash then under the Tsarndash Zamenhof was a Jew (Litvak Ashkenazi) bilingual Yiddish (with hismother) and Russian (with his father)

He had a twofold dream in his life to set an ethnic-free bridge acrossthe nations beyond any kind of wall through a neutral religion(Hillelism) and a neutral language (Esperanto)

19 of 76

Esperanto as a contact language

(Germanic + Romance + Slavic) x regularization = Esperanto

La viro salutas nin

copy2014 Stanislavo Belov Foto de si mem en Fejsbuko

Colour codes adopted here

1 substantives (NP heads) are in blue2 adjectives determiners numerals (any NP tail) are in cyan3 verbs and predications (VP heads) are in red4 adverbs and the like (MAdv V tails) are in orange5 affixes (prefixes and suffixes) are in gray6 accusative marker (ending in -n) is in green

Possible descriptions of the photo

La viro salutas la publikon La viro salutas vin La viro salutas vin afable La viro salutas vin per

⟨desegno

⟩

La viro salutas vin per⟨desegno sur

⟨la nigra tabulo

⟩⟩

La viro apogas la manon sur⟨la muro

⟩

23 of 76

Verbs have 6 possible endings No exceptions

1 -as for present tense2 -is for past tense3 -os for future tense4 -us for conditional5 -u for imperative6 -i for infinitive

24 of 76

Ne forgesu la akuzativon

Esperanto estas regula lingvo

La viro salutas vin afable

verbo

artikolo

subjekto

objekto

adverbo

De man begroet jullie vriendelijk

The man greets you kindly

26 of 76

Just one rule for nouns and adjectives

en Esperanto en la nederlanda en la anglagranda elefanto een grote olifant a big elephantmalgranda elefanto een kleine olifant a small elephantrapida ĉevalo een snel paard a fast horsemalrapidaj ĉevaloj langzame paarden slow horses

27 of 76

Granda elefanto kun malgranda elefanto

copy 2015 Huffington Post

The power of suffixes (example)

en Esperanto en la nederlanda en la anglaĉevalo paard horseĉevalino merrie mareĉevalido veulen coltĉevalejo stal stableĉevalaro een kudde paarden a herd of horses

29 of 76

Familio de ĉevaloj

copy 2013 Kelly Walkotten on Flickr

Europe is the lullaby ofEsperanto

31 of 76

French Esperantists come into the arena

Source Garviacutea (201578)

From Białystok to Paris

Universala Kongreso 1905Esperantists from various countries met in Boulogne-sur-Mer France

34 of 76

From the speech of Zamenhof 1905

En la malgrandan urbon de la franca marbordo kunvenis homojel la plej diversaj landoj kaj nacioj kaj ili renkontas sin reciprokene mute kaj surde sed ili komprenas unu la alian ili parolasunu kun la alia kiel fratoj kiel membroj de unu nacio

Rough translation in EnglishIn the small town of the French seaside came together personsfrom the most different countries and nations and they meetone the other reciprocally not mute and deaf but theyunderstand one the other they speak one with the other asbrothers as members of just one nation

35 of 76

La bela sonĝo de lrsquo homarohellip

hellip ends with the Great War (1914-1918)

copy 1915 Louis Raemaekers satirieke kaart van Europa Het gekkenhuis (oud liedje nieuwe wijs)

Appeal to the Diplomats 1915

Will you begin simply to remake and patch up the map ofEurope Will you simply decide that territory A must belong tothe nation X and territory B to the nation Y True such workyou will have to do but it must be only an insignificant portionof your work [hellip] in handing over any territory to the people ofthis or that race you will always do an injustice to other peoplewho have the same natural rights in respect of that territory[hellip] It would be best if instead of various large and smallEuropean states we should some day have proportionally andgeographically arranged ldquoUnited States of Europerdquo

38 of 76

Esperanto should reinvent itself after the Great War

According to the demographic analysis by Roberto Garviacutea (2015100)summarizing the work by the pioneer Tanquist (1927) these are themain motivation in learning Esperanto (US UK Germany-Austria)

Examples Esperanto Movement of the Workershellip

CC⃝ 1936

hellipCatholic Esperantists in Austriahellip

CC⃝ 1929

hellipvegetarians etc

copy 1914 Vegetarano the official bulletin of the Vegetara Ligo

lsquoVestaĵoj malnovajrsquo from The Great Dictator 1940

CC⃝ 2014 Vikimedio

Hitler and Stalin against Esperanto

copy 2014 Dan Mazur Esperantists

Esperanto today

45 of 76

Esperanto history and geography

There is no Esperanto state or specific territtory However we canconsider congresses festivals and meetings in local clubs as thelsquolanguage territoriesrsquo of the language where the community membersgather This is the geography of Esperanto

The places where these events happen ndash as well as some places whereEsperanto is used on a firm basis ndash form the geography of EsperantoThe history of Esperanto drives new initiatives rooted in virtualand real places

46 of 76

Local clubs around the world

Esperanto lives today Lille (FR) 2015

World Congress 100 near Boulogne-sur-Mer 110 years after the 1st

one48 of 76

Une maison de la culture de lrsquoespeacuteranto agrave Boulogne

49 of 76

The new Esperanto train in Poland

source Facebook page of the Polish government asking for polling

Virtual places the success of Duolinguo2

screenshot made the 28th of OMay 2016

Approximately 30 persons per day finish the learning tree

Esperanto between language and culture

The fascination of Esperanto comes1 internally from the structural character of the language and2 externally from the community of practice surrounding the

language itself which is used to produce original culturalproducts (poetry prose theater music comics films etc)

52 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

Esperanto as a contact language

(Germanic + Romance + Slavic) x regularization = Esperanto

La viro salutas nin

copy2014 Stanislavo Belov Foto de si mem en Fejsbuko

Colour codes adopted here

1 substantives (NP heads) are in blue2 adjectives determiners numerals (any NP tail) are in cyan3 verbs and predications (VP heads) are in red4 adverbs and the like (MAdv V tails) are in orange5 affixes (prefixes and suffixes) are in gray6 accusative marker (ending in -n) is in green

Possible descriptions of the photo

La viro salutas la publikon La viro salutas vin La viro salutas vin afable La viro salutas vin per

⟨desegno

⟩

La viro salutas vin per⟨desegno sur

⟨la nigra tabulo

⟩⟩

La viro apogas la manon sur⟨la muro

⟩

23 of 76

Verbs have 6 possible endings No exceptions

1 -as for present tense2 -is for past tense3 -os for future tense4 -us for conditional5 -u for imperative6 -i for infinitive

24 of 76

Ne forgesu la akuzativon

Esperanto estas regula lingvo

La viro salutas vin afable

verbo

artikolo

subjekto

objekto

adverbo

De man begroet jullie vriendelijk

The man greets you kindly

26 of 76

Just one rule for nouns and adjectives

en Esperanto en la nederlanda en la anglagranda elefanto een grote olifant a big elephantmalgranda elefanto een kleine olifant a small elephantrapida ĉevalo een snel paard a fast horsemalrapidaj ĉevaloj langzame paarden slow horses

27 of 76

Granda elefanto kun malgranda elefanto

copy 2015 Huffington Post

The power of suffixes (example)

en Esperanto en la nederlanda en la anglaĉevalo paard horseĉevalino merrie mareĉevalido veulen coltĉevalejo stal stableĉevalaro een kudde paarden a herd of horses

29 of 76

Familio de ĉevaloj

copy 2013 Kelly Walkotten on Flickr

Europe is the lullaby ofEsperanto

31 of 76

French Esperantists come into the arena

Source Garviacutea (201578)

From Białystok to Paris

Universala Kongreso 1905Esperantists from various countries met in Boulogne-sur-Mer France

34 of 76

From the speech of Zamenhof 1905

En la malgrandan urbon de la franca marbordo kunvenis homojel la plej diversaj landoj kaj nacioj kaj ili renkontas sin reciprokene mute kaj surde sed ili komprenas unu la alian ili parolasunu kun la alia kiel fratoj kiel membroj de unu nacio

Rough translation in EnglishIn the small town of the French seaside came together personsfrom the most different countries and nations and they meetone the other reciprocally not mute and deaf but theyunderstand one the other they speak one with the other asbrothers as members of just one nation

35 of 76

La bela sonĝo de lrsquo homarohellip

hellip ends with the Great War (1914-1918)

copy 1915 Louis Raemaekers satirieke kaart van Europa Het gekkenhuis (oud liedje nieuwe wijs)

Appeal to the Diplomats 1915

Will you begin simply to remake and patch up the map ofEurope Will you simply decide that territory A must belong tothe nation X and territory B to the nation Y True such workyou will have to do but it must be only an insignificant portionof your work [hellip] in handing over any territory to the people ofthis or that race you will always do an injustice to other peoplewho have the same natural rights in respect of that territory[hellip] It would be best if instead of various large and smallEuropean states we should some day have proportionally andgeographically arranged ldquoUnited States of Europerdquo

38 of 76

Esperanto should reinvent itself after the Great War

According to the demographic analysis by Roberto Garviacutea (2015100)summarizing the work by the pioneer Tanquist (1927) these are themain motivation in learning Esperanto (US UK Germany-Austria)

Examples Esperanto Movement of the Workershellip

CC⃝ 1936

hellipCatholic Esperantists in Austriahellip

CC⃝ 1929

hellipvegetarians etc

copy 1914 Vegetarano the official bulletin of the Vegetara Ligo

lsquoVestaĵoj malnovajrsquo from The Great Dictator 1940

CC⃝ 2014 Vikimedio

Hitler and Stalin against Esperanto

copy 2014 Dan Mazur Esperantists

Esperanto today

45 of 76

Esperanto history and geography

There is no Esperanto state or specific territtory However we canconsider congresses festivals and meetings in local clubs as thelsquolanguage territoriesrsquo of the language where the community membersgather This is the geography of Esperanto

The places where these events happen ndash as well as some places whereEsperanto is used on a firm basis ndash form the geography of EsperantoThe history of Esperanto drives new initiatives rooted in virtualand real places

46 of 76

Local clubs around the world

Esperanto lives today Lille (FR) 2015

World Congress 100 near Boulogne-sur-Mer 110 years after the 1st

one48 of 76

Une maison de la culture de lrsquoespeacuteranto agrave Boulogne

49 of 76

The new Esperanto train in Poland

source Facebook page of the Polish government asking for polling

Virtual places the success of Duolinguo2

screenshot made the 28th of OMay 2016

Approximately 30 persons per day finish the learning tree

Esperanto between language and culture

The fascination of Esperanto comes1 internally from the structural character of the language and2 externally from the community of practice surrounding the

language itself which is used to produce original culturalproducts (poetry prose theater music comics films etc)

52 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

La viro salutas nin

copy2014 Stanislavo Belov Foto de si mem en Fejsbuko

Colour codes adopted here

1 substantives (NP heads) are in blue2 adjectives determiners numerals (any NP tail) are in cyan3 verbs and predications (VP heads) are in red4 adverbs and the like (MAdv V tails) are in orange5 affixes (prefixes and suffixes) are in gray6 accusative marker (ending in -n) is in green

Possible descriptions of the photo

La viro salutas la publikon La viro salutas vin La viro salutas vin afable La viro salutas vin per

⟨desegno

⟩

La viro salutas vin per⟨desegno sur

⟨la nigra tabulo

⟩⟩

La viro apogas la manon sur⟨la muro

⟩

23 of 76

Verbs have 6 possible endings No exceptions

1 -as for present tense2 -is for past tense3 -os for future tense4 -us for conditional5 -u for imperative6 -i for infinitive

24 of 76

Ne forgesu la akuzativon

Esperanto estas regula lingvo

La viro salutas vin afable

verbo

artikolo

subjekto

objekto

adverbo

De man begroet jullie vriendelijk

The man greets you kindly

26 of 76

Just one rule for nouns and adjectives

en Esperanto en la nederlanda en la anglagranda elefanto een grote olifant a big elephantmalgranda elefanto een kleine olifant a small elephantrapida ĉevalo een snel paard a fast horsemalrapidaj ĉevaloj langzame paarden slow horses

27 of 76

Granda elefanto kun malgranda elefanto

copy 2015 Huffington Post

The power of suffixes (example)

en Esperanto en la nederlanda en la anglaĉevalo paard horseĉevalino merrie mareĉevalido veulen coltĉevalejo stal stableĉevalaro een kudde paarden a herd of horses

29 of 76

Familio de ĉevaloj

copy 2013 Kelly Walkotten on Flickr

Europe is the lullaby ofEsperanto

31 of 76

French Esperantists come into the arena

Source Garviacutea (201578)

From Białystok to Paris

Universala Kongreso 1905Esperantists from various countries met in Boulogne-sur-Mer France

34 of 76

From the speech of Zamenhof 1905

En la malgrandan urbon de la franca marbordo kunvenis homojel la plej diversaj landoj kaj nacioj kaj ili renkontas sin reciprokene mute kaj surde sed ili komprenas unu la alian ili parolasunu kun la alia kiel fratoj kiel membroj de unu nacio

Rough translation in EnglishIn the small town of the French seaside came together personsfrom the most different countries and nations and they meetone the other reciprocally not mute and deaf but theyunderstand one the other they speak one with the other asbrothers as members of just one nation

35 of 76

La bela sonĝo de lrsquo homarohellip

hellip ends with the Great War (1914-1918)

copy 1915 Louis Raemaekers satirieke kaart van Europa Het gekkenhuis (oud liedje nieuwe wijs)

Appeal to the Diplomats 1915

Will you begin simply to remake and patch up the map ofEurope Will you simply decide that territory A must belong tothe nation X and territory B to the nation Y True such workyou will have to do but it must be only an insignificant portionof your work [hellip] in handing over any territory to the people ofthis or that race you will always do an injustice to other peoplewho have the same natural rights in respect of that territory[hellip] It would be best if instead of various large and smallEuropean states we should some day have proportionally andgeographically arranged ldquoUnited States of Europerdquo

38 of 76

Esperanto should reinvent itself after the Great War

According to the demographic analysis by Roberto Garviacutea (2015100)summarizing the work by the pioneer Tanquist (1927) these are themain motivation in learning Esperanto (US UK Germany-Austria)

Examples Esperanto Movement of the Workershellip

CC⃝ 1936

hellipCatholic Esperantists in Austriahellip

CC⃝ 1929

hellipvegetarians etc

copy 1914 Vegetarano the official bulletin of the Vegetara Ligo

lsquoVestaĵoj malnovajrsquo from The Great Dictator 1940

CC⃝ 2014 Vikimedio

Hitler and Stalin against Esperanto

copy 2014 Dan Mazur Esperantists

Esperanto today

45 of 76

Esperanto history and geography

There is no Esperanto state or specific territtory However we canconsider congresses festivals and meetings in local clubs as thelsquolanguage territoriesrsquo of the language where the community membersgather This is the geography of Esperanto

The places where these events happen ndash as well as some places whereEsperanto is used on a firm basis ndash form the geography of EsperantoThe history of Esperanto drives new initiatives rooted in virtualand real places

46 of 76

Local clubs around the world

Esperanto lives today Lille (FR) 2015

World Congress 100 near Boulogne-sur-Mer 110 years after the 1st

one48 of 76

Une maison de la culture de lrsquoespeacuteranto agrave Boulogne

49 of 76

The new Esperanto train in Poland

source Facebook page of the Polish government asking for polling

Virtual places the success of Duolinguo2

screenshot made the 28th of OMay 2016

Approximately 30 persons per day finish the learning tree

Esperanto between language and culture

The fascination of Esperanto comes1 internally from the structural character of the language and2 externally from the community of practice surrounding the

language itself which is used to produce original culturalproducts (poetry prose theater music comics films etc)

52 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

Colour codes adopted here

1 substantives (NP heads) are in blue2 adjectives determiners numerals (any NP tail) are in cyan3 verbs and predications (VP heads) are in red4 adverbs and the like (MAdv V tails) are in orange5 affixes (prefixes and suffixes) are in gray6 accusative marker (ending in -n) is in green

Possible descriptions of the photo

La viro salutas la publikon La viro salutas vin La viro salutas vin afable La viro salutas vin per

⟨desegno

⟩

La viro salutas vin per⟨desegno sur

⟨la nigra tabulo

⟩⟩

La viro apogas la manon sur⟨la muro

⟩

23 of 76

Verbs have 6 possible endings No exceptions

1 -as for present tense2 -is for past tense3 -os for future tense4 -us for conditional5 -u for imperative6 -i for infinitive

24 of 76

Ne forgesu la akuzativon

Esperanto estas regula lingvo

La viro salutas vin afable

verbo

artikolo

subjekto

objekto

adverbo

De man begroet jullie vriendelijk

The man greets you kindly

26 of 76

Just one rule for nouns and adjectives

en Esperanto en la nederlanda en la anglagranda elefanto een grote olifant a big elephantmalgranda elefanto een kleine olifant a small elephantrapida ĉevalo een snel paard a fast horsemalrapidaj ĉevaloj langzame paarden slow horses

27 of 76

Granda elefanto kun malgranda elefanto

copy 2015 Huffington Post

The power of suffixes (example)

en Esperanto en la nederlanda en la anglaĉevalo paard horseĉevalino merrie mareĉevalido veulen coltĉevalejo stal stableĉevalaro een kudde paarden a herd of horses

29 of 76

Familio de ĉevaloj

copy 2013 Kelly Walkotten on Flickr

Europe is the lullaby ofEsperanto

31 of 76

French Esperantists come into the arena

Source Garviacutea (201578)

From Białystok to Paris

Universala Kongreso 1905Esperantists from various countries met in Boulogne-sur-Mer France

34 of 76

From the speech of Zamenhof 1905

En la malgrandan urbon de la franca marbordo kunvenis homojel la plej diversaj landoj kaj nacioj kaj ili renkontas sin reciprokene mute kaj surde sed ili komprenas unu la alian ili parolasunu kun la alia kiel fratoj kiel membroj de unu nacio

Rough translation in EnglishIn the small town of the French seaside came together personsfrom the most different countries and nations and they meetone the other reciprocally not mute and deaf but theyunderstand one the other they speak one with the other asbrothers as members of just one nation

35 of 76

La bela sonĝo de lrsquo homarohellip

hellip ends with the Great War (1914-1918)

copy 1915 Louis Raemaekers satirieke kaart van Europa Het gekkenhuis (oud liedje nieuwe wijs)

Appeal to the Diplomats 1915

Will you begin simply to remake and patch up the map ofEurope Will you simply decide that territory A must belong tothe nation X and territory B to the nation Y True such workyou will have to do but it must be only an insignificant portionof your work [hellip] in handing over any territory to the people ofthis or that race you will always do an injustice to other peoplewho have the same natural rights in respect of that territory[hellip] It would be best if instead of various large and smallEuropean states we should some day have proportionally andgeographically arranged ldquoUnited States of Europerdquo

38 of 76

Esperanto should reinvent itself after the Great War

According to the demographic analysis by Roberto Garviacutea (2015100)summarizing the work by the pioneer Tanquist (1927) these are themain motivation in learning Esperanto (US UK Germany-Austria)

Examples Esperanto Movement of the Workershellip

CC⃝ 1936

hellipCatholic Esperantists in Austriahellip

CC⃝ 1929

hellipvegetarians etc

copy 1914 Vegetarano the official bulletin of the Vegetara Ligo

lsquoVestaĵoj malnovajrsquo from The Great Dictator 1940

CC⃝ 2014 Vikimedio

Hitler and Stalin against Esperanto

copy 2014 Dan Mazur Esperantists

Esperanto today

45 of 76

Esperanto history and geography

There is no Esperanto state or specific territtory However we canconsider congresses festivals and meetings in local clubs as thelsquolanguage territoriesrsquo of the language where the community membersgather This is the geography of Esperanto

The places where these events happen ndash as well as some places whereEsperanto is used on a firm basis ndash form the geography of EsperantoThe history of Esperanto drives new initiatives rooted in virtualand real places

46 of 76

Local clubs around the world

Esperanto lives today Lille (FR) 2015

World Congress 100 near Boulogne-sur-Mer 110 years after the 1st

one48 of 76

Une maison de la culture de lrsquoespeacuteranto agrave Boulogne

49 of 76

The new Esperanto train in Poland

source Facebook page of the Polish government asking for polling

Virtual places the success of Duolinguo2

screenshot made the 28th of OMay 2016

Approximately 30 persons per day finish the learning tree

Esperanto between language and culture

The fascination of Esperanto comes1 internally from the structural character of the language and2 externally from the community of practice surrounding the

language itself which is used to produce original culturalproducts (poetry prose theater music comics films etc)

52 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

Possible descriptions of the photo

La viro salutas la publikon La viro salutas vin La viro salutas vin afable La viro salutas vin per

⟨desegno

⟩

La viro salutas vin per⟨desegno sur

⟨la nigra tabulo

⟩⟩

La viro apogas la manon sur⟨la muro

⟩

23 of 76

Verbs have 6 possible endings No exceptions

1 -as for present tense2 -is for past tense3 -os for future tense4 -us for conditional5 -u for imperative6 -i for infinitive

24 of 76

Ne forgesu la akuzativon

Esperanto estas regula lingvo

La viro salutas vin afable

verbo

artikolo

subjekto

objekto

adverbo

De man begroet jullie vriendelijk

The man greets you kindly

26 of 76

Just one rule for nouns and adjectives

en Esperanto en la nederlanda en la anglagranda elefanto een grote olifant a big elephantmalgranda elefanto een kleine olifant a small elephantrapida ĉevalo een snel paard a fast horsemalrapidaj ĉevaloj langzame paarden slow horses

27 of 76

Granda elefanto kun malgranda elefanto

copy 2015 Huffington Post

The power of suffixes (example)

en Esperanto en la nederlanda en la anglaĉevalo paard horseĉevalino merrie mareĉevalido veulen coltĉevalejo stal stableĉevalaro een kudde paarden a herd of horses

29 of 76

Familio de ĉevaloj

copy 2013 Kelly Walkotten on Flickr

Europe is the lullaby ofEsperanto

31 of 76

French Esperantists come into the arena

Source Garviacutea (201578)

From Białystok to Paris

Universala Kongreso 1905Esperantists from various countries met in Boulogne-sur-Mer France

34 of 76

From the speech of Zamenhof 1905

En la malgrandan urbon de la franca marbordo kunvenis homojel la plej diversaj landoj kaj nacioj kaj ili renkontas sin reciprokene mute kaj surde sed ili komprenas unu la alian ili parolasunu kun la alia kiel fratoj kiel membroj de unu nacio

Rough translation in EnglishIn the small town of the French seaside came together personsfrom the most different countries and nations and they meetone the other reciprocally not mute and deaf but theyunderstand one the other they speak one with the other asbrothers as members of just one nation

35 of 76

La bela sonĝo de lrsquo homarohellip

hellip ends with the Great War (1914-1918)

copy 1915 Louis Raemaekers satirieke kaart van Europa Het gekkenhuis (oud liedje nieuwe wijs)

Appeal to the Diplomats 1915

Will you begin simply to remake and patch up the map ofEurope Will you simply decide that territory A must belong tothe nation X and territory B to the nation Y True such workyou will have to do but it must be only an insignificant portionof your work [hellip] in handing over any territory to the people ofthis or that race you will always do an injustice to other peoplewho have the same natural rights in respect of that territory[hellip] It would be best if instead of various large and smallEuropean states we should some day have proportionally andgeographically arranged ldquoUnited States of Europerdquo

38 of 76

Esperanto should reinvent itself after the Great War

According to the demographic analysis by Roberto Garviacutea (2015100)summarizing the work by the pioneer Tanquist (1927) these are themain motivation in learning Esperanto (US UK Germany-Austria)

Examples Esperanto Movement of the Workershellip

CC⃝ 1936

hellipCatholic Esperantists in Austriahellip

CC⃝ 1929

hellipvegetarians etc

copy 1914 Vegetarano the official bulletin of the Vegetara Ligo

lsquoVestaĵoj malnovajrsquo from The Great Dictator 1940

CC⃝ 2014 Vikimedio

Hitler and Stalin against Esperanto

copy 2014 Dan Mazur Esperantists

Esperanto today

45 of 76

Esperanto history and geography

There is no Esperanto state or specific territtory However we canconsider congresses festivals and meetings in local clubs as thelsquolanguage territoriesrsquo of the language where the community membersgather This is the geography of Esperanto

The places where these events happen ndash as well as some places whereEsperanto is used on a firm basis ndash form the geography of EsperantoThe history of Esperanto drives new initiatives rooted in virtualand real places

46 of 76

Local clubs around the world

Esperanto lives today Lille (FR) 2015

World Congress 100 near Boulogne-sur-Mer 110 years after the 1st

one48 of 76

Une maison de la culture de lrsquoespeacuteranto agrave Boulogne

49 of 76

The new Esperanto train in Poland

source Facebook page of the Polish government asking for polling

Virtual places the success of Duolinguo2

screenshot made the 28th of OMay 2016

Approximately 30 persons per day finish the learning tree

Esperanto between language and culture

The fascination of Esperanto comes1 internally from the structural character of the language and2 externally from the community of practice surrounding the

language itself which is used to produce original culturalproducts (poetry prose theater music comics films etc)

52 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

Verbs have 6 possible endings No exceptions

1 -as for present tense2 -is for past tense3 -os for future tense4 -us for conditional5 -u for imperative6 -i for infinitive

24 of 76

Ne forgesu la akuzativon

Esperanto estas regula lingvo

La viro salutas vin afable

verbo

artikolo

subjekto

objekto

adverbo

De man begroet jullie vriendelijk

The man greets you kindly

26 of 76

Just one rule for nouns and adjectives

en Esperanto en la nederlanda en la anglagranda elefanto een grote olifant a big elephantmalgranda elefanto een kleine olifant a small elephantrapida ĉevalo een snel paard a fast horsemalrapidaj ĉevaloj langzame paarden slow horses

27 of 76

Granda elefanto kun malgranda elefanto

copy 2015 Huffington Post

The power of suffixes (example)

en Esperanto en la nederlanda en la anglaĉevalo paard horseĉevalino merrie mareĉevalido veulen coltĉevalejo stal stableĉevalaro een kudde paarden a herd of horses

29 of 76

Familio de ĉevaloj

copy 2013 Kelly Walkotten on Flickr

Europe is the lullaby ofEsperanto

31 of 76

French Esperantists come into the arena

Source Garviacutea (201578)

From Białystok to Paris

Universala Kongreso 1905Esperantists from various countries met in Boulogne-sur-Mer France

34 of 76

From the speech of Zamenhof 1905

En la malgrandan urbon de la franca marbordo kunvenis homojel la plej diversaj landoj kaj nacioj kaj ili renkontas sin reciprokene mute kaj surde sed ili komprenas unu la alian ili parolasunu kun la alia kiel fratoj kiel membroj de unu nacio

Rough translation in EnglishIn the small town of the French seaside came together personsfrom the most different countries and nations and they meetone the other reciprocally not mute and deaf but theyunderstand one the other they speak one with the other asbrothers as members of just one nation

35 of 76

La bela sonĝo de lrsquo homarohellip

hellip ends with the Great War (1914-1918)

copy 1915 Louis Raemaekers satirieke kaart van Europa Het gekkenhuis (oud liedje nieuwe wijs)

Appeal to the Diplomats 1915

Will you begin simply to remake and patch up the map ofEurope Will you simply decide that territory A must belong tothe nation X and territory B to the nation Y True such workyou will have to do but it must be only an insignificant portionof your work [hellip] in handing over any territory to the people ofthis or that race you will always do an injustice to other peoplewho have the same natural rights in respect of that territory[hellip] It would be best if instead of various large and smallEuropean states we should some day have proportionally andgeographically arranged ldquoUnited States of Europerdquo

38 of 76

Esperanto should reinvent itself after the Great War

According to the demographic analysis by Roberto Garviacutea (2015100)summarizing the work by the pioneer Tanquist (1927) these are themain motivation in learning Esperanto (US UK Germany-Austria)

Examples Esperanto Movement of the Workershellip

CC⃝ 1936

hellipCatholic Esperantists in Austriahellip

CC⃝ 1929

hellipvegetarians etc

copy 1914 Vegetarano the official bulletin of the Vegetara Ligo

lsquoVestaĵoj malnovajrsquo from The Great Dictator 1940

CC⃝ 2014 Vikimedio

Hitler and Stalin against Esperanto

copy 2014 Dan Mazur Esperantists

Esperanto today

45 of 76

Esperanto history and geography

There is no Esperanto state or specific territtory However we canconsider congresses festivals and meetings in local clubs as thelsquolanguage territoriesrsquo of the language where the community membersgather This is the geography of Esperanto

The places where these events happen ndash as well as some places whereEsperanto is used on a firm basis ndash form the geography of EsperantoThe history of Esperanto drives new initiatives rooted in virtualand real places

46 of 76

Local clubs around the world

Esperanto lives today Lille (FR) 2015

World Congress 100 near Boulogne-sur-Mer 110 years after the 1st

one48 of 76

Une maison de la culture de lrsquoespeacuteranto agrave Boulogne

49 of 76

The new Esperanto train in Poland

source Facebook page of the Polish government asking for polling

Virtual places the success of Duolinguo2

screenshot made the 28th of OMay 2016

Approximately 30 persons per day finish the learning tree

Esperanto between language and culture

The fascination of Esperanto comes1 internally from the structural character of the language and2 externally from the community of practice surrounding the

language itself which is used to produce original culturalproducts (poetry prose theater music comics films etc)

52 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

Ne forgesu la akuzativon

Esperanto estas regula lingvo

La viro salutas vin afable

verbo

artikolo

subjekto

objekto

adverbo

De man begroet jullie vriendelijk

The man greets you kindly

26 of 76

Just one rule for nouns and adjectives

en Esperanto en la nederlanda en la anglagranda elefanto een grote olifant a big elephantmalgranda elefanto een kleine olifant a small elephantrapida ĉevalo een snel paard a fast horsemalrapidaj ĉevaloj langzame paarden slow horses

27 of 76

Granda elefanto kun malgranda elefanto

copy 2015 Huffington Post

The power of suffixes (example)

en Esperanto en la nederlanda en la anglaĉevalo paard horseĉevalino merrie mareĉevalido veulen coltĉevalejo stal stableĉevalaro een kudde paarden a herd of horses

29 of 76

Familio de ĉevaloj

copy 2013 Kelly Walkotten on Flickr

Europe is the lullaby ofEsperanto

31 of 76

French Esperantists come into the arena

Source Garviacutea (201578)

From Białystok to Paris

Universala Kongreso 1905Esperantists from various countries met in Boulogne-sur-Mer France

34 of 76

From the speech of Zamenhof 1905

En la malgrandan urbon de la franca marbordo kunvenis homojel la plej diversaj landoj kaj nacioj kaj ili renkontas sin reciprokene mute kaj surde sed ili komprenas unu la alian ili parolasunu kun la alia kiel fratoj kiel membroj de unu nacio

Rough translation in EnglishIn the small town of the French seaside came together personsfrom the most different countries and nations and they meetone the other reciprocally not mute and deaf but theyunderstand one the other they speak one with the other asbrothers as members of just one nation

35 of 76

La bela sonĝo de lrsquo homarohellip

hellip ends with the Great War (1914-1918)

copy 1915 Louis Raemaekers satirieke kaart van Europa Het gekkenhuis (oud liedje nieuwe wijs)

Appeal to the Diplomats 1915

Will you begin simply to remake and patch up the map ofEurope Will you simply decide that territory A must belong tothe nation X and territory B to the nation Y True such workyou will have to do but it must be only an insignificant portionof your work [hellip] in handing over any territory to the people ofthis or that race you will always do an injustice to other peoplewho have the same natural rights in respect of that territory[hellip] It would be best if instead of various large and smallEuropean states we should some day have proportionally andgeographically arranged ldquoUnited States of Europerdquo

38 of 76

Esperanto should reinvent itself after the Great War

According to the demographic analysis by Roberto Garviacutea (2015100)summarizing the work by the pioneer Tanquist (1927) these are themain motivation in learning Esperanto (US UK Germany-Austria)

Examples Esperanto Movement of the Workershellip

CC⃝ 1936

hellipCatholic Esperantists in Austriahellip

CC⃝ 1929

hellipvegetarians etc

copy 1914 Vegetarano the official bulletin of the Vegetara Ligo

lsquoVestaĵoj malnovajrsquo from The Great Dictator 1940

CC⃝ 2014 Vikimedio

Hitler and Stalin against Esperanto

copy 2014 Dan Mazur Esperantists

Esperanto today

45 of 76

Esperanto history and geography

There is no Esperanto state or specific territtory However we canconsider congresses festivals and meetings in local clubs as thelsquolanguage territoriesrsquo of the language where the community membersgather This is the geography of Esperanto

The places where these events happen ndash as well as some places whereEsperanto is used on a firm basis ndash form the geography of EsperantoThe history of Esperanto drives new initiatives rooted in virtualand real places

46 of 76

Local clubs around the world

Esperanto lives today Lille (FR) 2015

World Congress 100 near Boulogne-sur-Mer 110 years after the 1st

one48 of 76

Une maison de la culture de lrsquoespeacuteranto agrave Boulogne

49 of 76

The new Esperanto train in Poland

source Facebook page of the Polish government asking for polling

Virtual places the success of Duolinguo2

screenshot made the 28th of OMay 2016

Approximately 30 persons per day finish the learning tree

Esperanto between language and culture

The fascination of Esperanto comes1 internally from the structural character of the language and2 externally from the community of practice surrounding the

language itself which is used to produce original culturalproducts (poetry prose theater music comics films etc)

52 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

Esperanto estas regula lingvo

La viro salutas vin afable

verbo

artikolo

subjekto

objekto

adverbo

De man begroet jullie vriendelijk

The man greets you kindly

26 of 76

Just one rule for nouns and adjectives

en Esperanto en la nederlanda en la anglagranda elefanto een grote olifant a big elephantmalgranda elefanto een kleine olifant a small elephantrapida ĉevalo een snel paard a fast horsemalrapidaj ĉevaloj langzame paarden slow horses

27 of 76

Granda elefanto kun malgranda elefanto

copy 2015 Huffington Post

The power of suffixes (example)

en Esperanto en la nederlanda en la anglaĉevalo paard horseĉevalino merrie mareĉevalido veulen coltĉevalejo stal stableĉevalaro een kudde paarden a herd of horses

29 of 76

Familio de ĉevaloj

copy 2013 Kelly Walkotten on Flickr

Europe is the lullaby ofEsperanto

31 of 76

French Esperantists come into the arena

Source Garviacutea (201578)

From Białystok to Paris

Universala Kongreso 1905Esperantists from various countries met in Boulogne-sur-Mer France

34 of 76

From the speech of Zamenhof 1905

En la malgrandan urbon de la franca marbordo kunvenis homojel la plej diversaj landoj kaj nacioj kaj ili renkontas sin reciprokene mute kaj surde sed ili komprenas unu la alian ili parolasunu kun la alia kiel fratoj kiel membroj de unu nacio

Rough translation in EnglishIn the small town of the French seaside came together personsfrom the most different countries and nations and they meetone the other reciprocally not mute and deaf but theyunderstand one the other they speak one with the other asbrothers as members of just one nation

35 of 76

La bela sonĝo de lrsquo homarohellip

hellip ends with the Great War (1914-1918)

copy 1915 Louis Raemaekers satirieke kaart van Europa Het gekkenhuis (oud liedje nieuwe wijs)

Appeal to the Diplomats 1915

Will you begin simply to remake and patch up the map ofEurope Will you simply decide that territory A must belong tothe nation X and territory B to the nation Y True such workyou will have to do but it must be only an insignificant portionof your work [hellip] in handing over any territory to the people ofthis or that race you will always do an injustice to other peoplewho have the same natural rights in respect of that territory[hellip] It would be best if instead of various large and smallEuropean states we should some day have proportionally andgeographically arranged ldquoUnited States of Europerdquo

38 of 76

Esperanto should reinvent itself after the Great War

According to the demographic analysis by Roberto Garviacutea (2015100)summarizing the work by the pioneer Tanquist (1927) these are themain motivation in learning Esperanto (US UK Germany-Austria)

Examples Esperanto Movement of the Workershellip

CC⃝ 1936

hellipCatholic Esperantists in Austriahellip

CC⃝ 1929

hellipvegetarians etc

copy 1914 Vegetarano the official bulletin of the Vegetara Ligo

lsquoVestaĵoj malnovajrsquo from The Great Dictator 1940

CC⃝ 2014 Vikimedio

Hitler and Stalin against Esperanto

copy 2014 Dan Mazur Esperantists

Esperanto today

45 of 76

Esperanto history and geography

There is no Esperanto state or specific territtory However we canconsider congresses festivals and meetings in local clubs as thelsquolanguage territoriesrsquo of the language where the community membersgather This is the geography of Esperanto

The places where these events happen ndash as well as some places whereEsperanto is used on a firm basis ndash form the geography of EsperantoThe history of Esperanto drives new initiatives rooted in virtualand real places

46 of 76

Local clubs around the world

Esperanto lives today Lille (FR) 2015

World Congress 100 near Boulogne-sur-Mer 110 years after the 1st

one48 of 76

Une maison de la culture de lrsquoespeacuteranto agrave Boulogne

49 of 76

The new Esperanto train in Poland

source Facebook page of the Polish government asking for polling

Virtual places the success of Duolinguo2

screenshot made the 28th of OMay 2016

Approximately 30 persons per day finish the learning tree

Esperanto between language and culture

The fascination of Esperanto comes1 internally from the structural character of the language and2 externally from the community of practice surrounding the

language itself which is used to produce original culturalproducts (poetry prose theater music comics films etc)

52 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

Just one rule for nouns and adjectives

en Esperanto en la nederlanda en la anglagranda elefanto een grote olifant a big elephantmalgranda elefanto een kleine olifant a small elephantrapida ĉevalo een snel paard a fast horsemalrapidaj ĉevaloj langzame paarden slow horses

27 of 76

Granda elefanto kun malgranda elefanto

copy 2015 Huffington Post

The power of suffixes (example)

en Esperanto en la nederlanda en la anglaĉevalo paard horseĉevalino merrie mareĉevalido veulen coltĉevalejo stal stableĉevalaro een kudde paarden a herd of horses

29 of 76

Familio de ĉevaloj

copy 2013 Kelly Walkotten on Flickr

Europe is the lullaby ofEsperanto

31 of 76

French Esperantists come into the arena

Source Garviacutea (201578)

From Białystok to Paris

Universala Kongreso 1905Esperantists from various countries met in Boulogne-sur-Mer France

34 of 76

From the speech of Zamenhof 1905

En la malgrandan urbon de la franca marbordo kunvenis homojel la plej diversaj landoj kaj nacioj kaj ili renkontas sin reciprokene mute kaj surde sed ili komprenas unu la alian ili parolasunu kun la alia kiel fratoj kiel membroj de unu nacio

Rough translation in EnglishIn the small town of the French seaside came together personsfrom the most different countries and nations and they meetone the other reciprocally not mute and deaf but theyunderstand one the other they speak one with the other asbrothers as members of just one nation

35 of 76

La bela sonĝo de lrsquo homarohellip

hellip ends with the Great War (1914-1918)

copy 1915 Louis Raemaekers satirieke kaart van Europa Het gekkenhuis (oud liedje nieuwe wijs)

Appeal to the Diplomats 1915

Will you begin simply to remake and patch up the map ofEurope Will you simply decide that territory A must belong tothe nation X and territory B to the nation Y True such workyou will have to do but it must be only an insignificant portionof your work [hellip] in handing over any territory to the people ofthis or that race you will always do an injustice to other peoplewho have the same natural rights in respect of that territory[hellip] It would be best if instead of various large and smallEuropean states we should some day have proportionally andgeographically arranged ldquoUnited States of Europerdquo

38 of 76

Esperanto should reinvent itself after the Great War

According to the demographic analysis by Roberto Garviacutea (2015100)summarizing the work by the pioneer Tanquist (1927) these are themain motivation in learning Esperanto (US UK Germany-Austria)

Examples Esperanto Movement of the Workershellip

CC⃝ 1936

hellipCatholic Esperantists in Austriahellip

CC⃝ 1929

hellipvegetarians etc

copy 1914 Vegetarano the official bulletin of the Vegetara Ligo

lsquoVestaĵoj malnovajrsquo from The Great Dictator 1940

CC⃝ 2014 Vikimedio

Hitler and Stalin against Esperanto

copy 2014 Dan Mazur Esperantists

Esperanto today

45 of 76

Esperanto history and geography

There is no Esperanto state or specific territtory However we canconsider congresses festivals and meetings in local clubs as thelsquolanguage territoriesrsquo of the language where the community membersgather This is the geography of Esperanto

The places where these events happen ndash as well as some places whereEsperanto is used on a firm basis ndash form the geography of EsperantoThe history of Esperanto drives new initiatives rooted in virtualand real places

46 of 76

Local clubs around the world

Esperanto lives today Lille (FR) 2015

World Congress 100 near Boulogne-sur-Mer 110 years after the 1st

one48 of 76

Une maison de la culture de lrsquoespeacuteranto agrave Boulogne

49 of 76

The new Esperanto train in Poland

source Facebook page of the Polish government asking for polling

Virtual places the success of Duolinguo2

screenshot made the 28th of OMay 2016

Approximately 30 persons per day finish the learning tree

Esperanto between language and culture

The fascination of Esperanto comes1 internally from the structural character of the language and2 externally from the community of practice surrounding the

language itself which is used to produce original culturalproducts (poetry prose theater music comics films etc)

52 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

Granda elefanto kun malgranda elefanto

copy 2015 Huffington Post

The power of suffixes (example)

en Esperanto en la nederlanda en la anglaĉevalo paard horseĉevalino merrie mareĉevalido veulen coltĉevalejo stal stableĉevalaro een kudde paarden a herd of horses

29 of 76

Familio de ĉevaloj

copy 2013 Kelly Walkotten on Flickr

Europe is the lullaby ofEsperanto

31 of 76

French Esperantists come into the arena

Source Garviacutea (201578)

From Białystok to Paris

Universala Kongreso 1905Esperantists from various countries met in Boulogne-sur-Mer France

34 of 76

From the speech of Zamenhof 1905

En la malgrandan urbon de la franca marbordo kunvenis homojel la plej diversaj landoj kaj nacioj kaj ili renkontas sin reciprokene mute kaj surde sed ili komprenas unu la alian ili parolasunu kun la alia kiel fratoj kiel membroj de unu nacio

Rough translation in EnglishIn the small town of the French seaside came together personsfrom the most different countries and nations and they meetone the other reciprocally not mute and deaf but theyunderstand one the other they speak one with the other asbrothers as members of just one nation

35 of 76

La bela sonĝo de lrsquo homarohellip

hellip ends with the Great War (1914-1918)

copy 1915 Louis Raemaekers satirieke kaart van Europa Het gekkenhuis (oud liedje nieuwe wijs)

Appeal to the Diplomats 1915

Will you begin simply to remake and patch up the map ofEurope Will you simply decide that territory A must belong tothe nation X and territory B to the nation Y True such workyou will have to do but it must be only an insignificant portionof your work [hellip] in handing over any territory to the people ofthis or that race you will always do an injustice to other peoplewho have the same natural rights in respect of that territory[hellip] It would be best if instead of various large and smallEuropean states we should some day have proportionally andgeographically arranged ldquoUnited States of Europerdquo

38 of 76

Esperanto should reinvent itself after the Great War

According to the demographic analysis by Roberto Garviacutea (2015100)summarizing the work by the pioneer Tanquist (1927) these are themain motivation in learning Esperanto (US UK Germany-Austria)

Examples Esperanto Movement of the Workershellip

CC⃝ 1936

hellipCatholic Esperantists in Austriahellip

CC⃝ 1929

hellipvegetarians etc

copy 1914 Vegetarano the official bulletin of the Vegetara Ligo

lsquoVestaĵoj malnovajrsquo from The Great Dictator 1940

CC⃝ 2014 Vikimedio

Hitler and Stalin against Esperanto

copy 2014 Dan Mazur Esperantists

Esperanto today

45 of 76

Esperanto history and geography

There is no Esperanto state or specific territtory However we canconsider congresses festivals and meetings in local clubs as thelsquolanguage territoriesrsquo of the language where the community membersgather This is the geography of Esperanto

The places where these events happen ndash as well as some places whereEsperanto is used on a firm basis ndash form the geography of EsperantoThe history of Esperanto drives new initiatives rooted in virtualand real places

46 of 76

Local clubs around the world

Esperanto lives today Lille (FR) 2015

World Congress 100 near Boulogne-sur-Mer 110 years after the 1st

one48 of 76

Une maison de la culture de lrsquoespeacuteranto agrave Boulogne

49 of 76

The new Esperanto train in Poland

source Facebook page of the Polish government asking for polling

Virtual places the success of Duolinguo2

screenshot made the 28th of OMay 2016

Approximately 30 persons per day finish the learning tree

Esperanto between language and culture

The fascination of Esperanto comes1 internally from the structural character of the language and2 externally from the community of practice surrounding the

language itself which is used to produce original culturalproducts (poetry prose theater music comics films etc)

52 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

The power of suffixes (example)

en Esperanto en la nederlanda en la anglaĉevalo paard horseĉevalino merrie mareĉevalido veulen coltĉevalejo stal stableĉevalaro een kudde paarden a herd of horses

29 of 76

Familio de ĉevaloj

copy 2013 Kelly Walkotten on Flickr

Europe is the lullaby ofEsperanto

31 of 76

French Esperantists come into the arena

Source Garviacutea (201578)

From Białystok to Paris

Universala Kongreso 1905Esperantists from various countries met in Boulogne-sur-Mer France

34 of 76

From the speech of Zamenhof 1905

En la malgrandan urbon de la franca marbordo kunvenis homojel la plej diversaj landoj kaj nacioj kaj ili renkontas sin reciprokene mute kaj surde sed ili komprenas unu la alian ili parolasunu kun la alia kiel fratoj kiel membroj de unu nacio

Rough translation in EnglishIn the small town of the French seaside came together personsfrom the most different countries and nations and they meetone the other reciprocally not mute and deaf but theyunderstand one the other they speak one with the other asbrothers as members of just one nation

35 of 76

La bela sonĝo de lrsquo homarohellip

hellip ends with the Great War (1914-1918)

copy 1915 Louis Raemaekers satirieke kaart van Europa Het gekkenhuis (oud liedje nieuwe wijs)

Appeal to the Diplomats 1915

Will you begin simply to remake and patch up the map ofEurope Will you simply decide that territory A must belong tothe nation X and territory B to the nation Y True such workyou will have to do but it must be only an insignificant portionof your work [hellip] in handing over any territory to the people ofthis or that race you will always do an injustice to other peoplewho have the same natural rights in respect of that territory[hellip] It would be best if instead of various large and smallEuropean states we should some day have proportionally andgeographically arranged ldquoUnited States of Europerdquo

38 of 76

Esperanto should reinvent itself after the Great War

According to the demographic analysis by Roberto Garviacutea (2015100)summarizing the work by the pioneer Tanquist (1927) these are themain motivation in learning Esperanto (US UK Germany-Austria)

Examples Esperanto Movement of the Workershellip

CC⃝ 1936

hellipCatholic Esperantists in Austriahellip

CC⃝ 1929

hellipvegetarians etc

copy 1914 Vegetarano the official bulletin of the Vegetara Ligo

lsquoVestaĵoj malnovajrsquo from The Great Dictator 1940

CC⃝ 2014 Vikimedio

Hitler and Stalin against Esperanto

copy 2014 Dan Mazur Esperantists

Esperanto today

45 of 76

Esperanto history and geography

There is no Esperanto state or specific territtory However we canconsider congresses festivals and meetings in local clubs as thelsquolanguage territoriesrsquo of the language where the community membersgather This is the geography of Esperanto

The places where these events happen ndash as well as some places whereEsperanto is used on a firm basis ndash form the geography of EsperantoThe history of Esperanto drives new initiatives rooted in virtualand real places

46 of 76

Local clubs around the world

Esperanto lives today Lille (FR) 2015

World Congress 100 near Boulogne-sur-Mer 110 years after the 1st

one48 of 76

Une maison de la culture de lrsquoespeacuteranto agrave Boulogne

49 of 76

The new Esperanto train in Poland

source Facebook page of the Polish government asking for polling

Virtual places the success of Duolinguo2

screenshot made the 28th of OMay 2016

Approximately 30 persons per day finish the learning tree

Esperanto between language and culture

The fascination of Esperanto comes1 internally from the structural character of the language and2 externally from the community of practice surrounding the

language itself which is used to produce original culturalproducts (poetry prose theater music comics films etc)

52 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

Familio de ĉevaloj

copy 2013 Kelly Walkotten on Flickr

Europe is the lullaby ofEsperanto

31 of 76

French Esperantists come into the arena

Source Garviacutea (201578)

From Białystok to Paris

Universala Kongreso 1905Esperantists from various countries met in Boulogne-sur-Mer France

34 of 76

From the speech of Zamenhof 1905

En la malgrandan urbon de la franca marbordo kunvenis homojel la plej diversaj landoj kaj nacioj kaj ili renkontas sin reciprokene mute kaj surde sed ili komprenas unu la alian ili parolasunu kun la alia kiel fratoj kiel membroj de unu nacio

Rough translation in EnglishIn the small town of the French seaside came together personsfrom the most different countries and nations and they meetone the other reciprocally not mute and deaf but theyunderstand one the other they speak one with the other asbrothers as members of just one nation

35 of 76

La bela sonĝo de lrsquo homarohellip

hellip ends with the Great War (1914-1918)

copy 1915 Louis Raemaekers satirieke kaart van Europa Het gekkenhuis (oud liedje nieuwe wijs)

Appeal to the Diplomats 1915

Will you begin simply to remake and patch up the map ofEurope Will you simply decide that territory A must belong tothe nation X and territory B to the nation Y True such workyou will have to do but it must be only an insignificant portionof your work [hellip] in handing over any territory to the people ofthis or that race you will always do an injustice to other peoplewho have the same natural rights in respect of that territory[hellip] It would be best if instead of various large and smallEuropean states we should some day have proportionally andgeographically arranged ldquoUnited States of Europerdquo

38 of 76

Esperanto should reinvent itself after the Great War

According to the demographic analysis by Roberto Garviacutea (2015100)summarizing the work by the pioneer Tanquist (1927) these are themain motivation in learning Esperanto (US UK Germany-Austria)

Examples Esperanto Movement of the Workershellip

CC⃝ 1936

hellipCatholic Esperantists in Austriahellip

CC⃝ 1929

hellipvegetarians etc

copy 1914 Vegetarano the official bulletin of the Vegetara Ligo

lsquoVestaĵoj malnovajrsquo from The Great Dictator 1940

CC⃝ 2014 Vikimedio

Hitler and Stalin against Esperanto

copy 2014 Dan Mazur Esperantists

Esperanto today

45 of 76

Esperanto history and geography

There is no Esperanto state or specific territtory However we canconsider congresses festivals and meetings in local clubs as thelsquolanguage territoriesrsquo of the language where the community membersgather This is the geography of Esperanto

The places where these events happen ndash as well as some places whereEsperanto is used on a firm basis ndash form the geography of EsperantoThe history of Esperanto drives new initiatives rooted in virtualand real places

46 of 76

Local clubs around the world

Esperanto lives today Lille (FR) 2015

World Congress 100 near Boulogne-sur-Mer 110 years after the 1st

one48 of 76

Une maison de la culture de lrsquoespeacuteranto agrave Boulogne

49 of 76

The new Esperanto train in Poland

source Facebook page of the Polish government asking for polling

Virtual places the success of Duolinguo2

screenshot made the 28th of OMay 2016

Approximately 30 persons per day finish the learning tree

Esperanto between language and culture

The fascination of Esperanto comes1 internally from the structural character of the language and2 externally from the community of practice surrounding the

language itself which is used to produce original culturalproducts (poetry prose theater music comics films etc)

52 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

Europe is the lullaby ofEsperanto

31 of 76

French Esperantists come into the arena

Source Garviacutea (201578)

From Białystok to Paris

Universala Kongreso 1905Esperantists from various countries met in Boulogne-sur-Mer France

34 of 76

From the speech of Zamenhof 1905

En la malgrandan urbon de la franca marbordo kunvenis homojel la plej diversaj landoj kaj nacioj kaj ili renkontas sin reciprokene mute kaj surde sed ili komprenas unu la alian ili parolasunu kun la alia kiel fratoj kiel membroj de unu nacio

Rough translation in EnglishIn the small town of the French seaside came together personsfrom the most different countries and nations and they meetone the other reciprocally not mute and deaf but theyunderstand one the other they speak one with the other asbrothers as members of just one nation

35 of 76

La bela sonĝo de lrsquo homarohellip

hellip ends with the Great War (1914-1918)

copy 1915 Louis Raemaekers satirieke kaart van Europa Het gekkenhuis (oud liedje nieuwe wijs)

Appeal to the Diplomats 1915

Will you begin simply to remake and patch up the map ofEurope Will you simply decide that territory A must belong tothe nation X and territory B to the nation Y True such workyou will have to do but it must be only an insignificant portionof your work [hellip] in handing over any territory to the people ofthis or that race you will always do an injustice to other peoplewho have the same natural rights in respect of that territory[hellip] It would be best if instead of various large and smallEuropean states we should some day have proportionally andgeographically arranged ldquoUnited States of Europerdquo

38 of 76

Esperanto should reinvent itself after the Great War

According to the demographic analysis by Roberto Garviacutea (2015100)summarizing the work by the pioneer Tanquist (1927) these are themain motivation in learning Esperanto (US UK Germany-Austria)

Examples Esperanto Movement of the Workershellip

CC⃝ 1936

hellipCatholic Esperantists in Austriahellip

CC⃝ 1929

hellipvegetarians etc

copy 1914 Vegetarano the official bulletin of the Vegetara Ligo

lsquoVestaĵoj malnovajrsquo from The Great Dictator 1940

CC⃝ 2014 Vikimedio

Hitler and Stalin against Esperanto

copy 2014 Dan Mazur Esperantists

Esperanto today

45 of 76

Esperanto history and geography

There is no Esperanto state or specific territtory However we canconsider congresses festivals and meetings in local clubs as thelsquolanguage territoriesrsquo of the language where the community membersgather This is the geography of Esperanto

The places where these events happen ndash as well as some places whereEsperanto is used on a firm basis ndash form the geography of EsperantoThe history of Esperanto drives new initiatives rooted in virtualand real places

46 of 76

Local clubs around the world

Esperanto lives today Lille (FR) 2015

World Congress 100 near Boulogne-sur-Mer 110 years after the 1st

one48 of 76

Une maison de la culture de lrsquoespeacuteranto agrave Boulogne

49 of 76

The new Esperanto train in Poland

source Facebook page of the Polish government asking for polling

Virtual places the success of Duolinguo2

screenshot made the 28th of OMay 2016

Approximately 30 persons per day finish the learning tree

Esperanto between language and culture

The fascination of Esperanto comes1 internally from the structural character of the language and2 externally from the community of practice surrounding the

language itself which is used to produce original culturalproducts (poetry prose theater music comics films etc)

52 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

French Esperantists come into the arena

Source Garviacutea (201578)

From Białystok to Paris

Universala Kongreso 1905Esperantists from various countries met in Boulogne-sur-Mer France

34 of 76

From the speech of Zamenhof 1905

En la malgrandan urbon de la franca marbordo kunvenis homojel la plej diversaj landoj kaj nacioj kaj ili renkontas sin reciprokene mute kaj surde sed ili komprenas unu la alian ili parolasunu kun la alia kiel fratoj kiel membroj de unu nacio

Rough translation in EnglishIn the small town of the French seaside came together personsfrom the most different countries and nations and they meetone the other reciprocally not mute and deaf but theyunderstand one the other they speak one with the other asbrothers as members of just one nation

35 of 76

La bela sonĝo de lrsquo homarohellip

hellip ends with the Great War (1914-1918)

copy 1915 Louis Raemaekers satirieke kaart van Europa Het gekkenhuis (oud liedje nieuwe wijs)

Appeal to the Diplomats 1915

Will you begin simply to remake and patch up the map ofEurope Will you simply decide that territory A must belong tothe nation X and territory B to the nation Y True such workyou will have to do but it must be only an insignificant portionof your work [hellip] in handing over any territory to the people ofthis or that race you will always do an injustice to other peoplewho have the same natural rights in respect of that territory[hellip] It would be best if instead of various large and smallEuropean states we should some day have proportionally andgeographically arranged ldquoUnited States of Europerdquo

38 of 76

Esperanto should reinvent itself after the Great War

According to the demographic analysis by Roberto Garviacutea (2015100)summarizing the work by the pioneer Tanquist (1927) these are themain motivation in learning Esperanto (US UK Germany-Austria)

Examples Esperanto Movement of the Workershellip

CC⃝ 1936

hellipCatholic Esperantists in Austriahellip

CC⃝ 1929

hellipvegetarians etc

copy 1914 Vegetarano the official bulletin of the Vegetara Ligo

lsquoVestaĵoj malnovajrsquo from The Great Dictator 1940

CC⃝ 2014 Vikimedio

Hitler and Stalin against Esperanto

copy 2014 Dan Mazur Esperantists

Esperanto today

45 of 76

Esperanto history and geography

There is no Esperanto state or specific territtory However we canconsider congresses festivals and meetings in local clubs as thelsquolanguage territoriesrsquo of the language where the community membersgather This is the geography of Esperanto

The places where these events happen ndash as well as some places whereEsperanto is used on a firm basis ndash form the geography of EsperantoThe history of Esperanto drives new initiatives rooted in virtualand real places

46 of 76

Local clubs around the world

Esperanto lives today Lille (FR) 2015

World Congress 100 near Boulogne-sur-Mer 110 years after the 1st

one48 of 76

Une maison de la culture de lrsquoespeacuteranto agrave Boulogne

49 of 76

The new Esperanto train in Poland

source Facebook page of the Polish government asking for polling

Virtual places the success of Duolinguo2

screenshot made the 28th of OMay 2016

Approximately 30 persons per day finish the learning tree

Esperanto between language and culture

The fascination of Esperanto comes1 internally from the structural character of the language and2 externally from the community of practice surrounding the

language itself which is used to produce original culturalproducts (poetry prose theater music comics films etc)

52 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

From Białystok to Paris

Universala Kongreso 1905Esperantists from various countries met in Boulogne-sur-Mer France

34 of 76

From the speech of Zamenhof 1905

En la malgrandan urbon de la franca marbordo kunvenis homojel la plej diversaj landoj kaj nacioj kaj ili renkontas sin reciprokene mute kaj surde sed ili komprenas unu la alian ili parolasunu kun la alia kiel fratoj kiel membroj de unu nacio

Rough translation in EnglishIn the small town of the French seaside came together personsfrom the most different countries and nations and they meetone the other reciprocally not mute and deaf but theyunderstand one the other they speak one with the other asbrothers as members of just one nation

35 of 76

La bela sonĝo de lrsquo homarohellip

hellip ends with the Great War (1914-1918)

copy 1915 Louis Raemaekers satirieke kaart van Europa Het gekkenhuis (oud liedje nieuwe wijs)

Appeal to the Diplomats 1915

Will you begin simply to remake and patch up the map ofEurope Will you simply decide that territory A must belong tothe nation X and territory B to the nation Y True such workyou will have to do but it must be only an insignificant portionof your work [hellip] in handing over any territory to the people ofthis or that race you will always do an injustice to other peoplewho have the same natural rights in respect of that territory[hellip] It would be best if instead of various large and smallEuropean states we should some day have proportionally andgeographically arranged ldquoUnited States of Europerdquo

38 of 76

Esperanto should reinvent itself after the Great War

According to the demographic analysis by Roberto Garviacutea (2015100)summarizing the work by the pioneer Tanquist (1927) these are themain motivation in learning Esperanto (US UK Germany-Austria)

Examples Esperanto Movement of the Workershellip

CC⃝ 1936

hellipCatholic Esperantists in Austriahellip

CC⃝ 1929

hellipvegetarians etc

copy 1914 Vegetarano the official bulletin of the Vegetara Ligo

lsquoVestaĵoj malnovajrsquo from The Great Dictator 1940

CC⃝ 2014 Vikimedio

Hitler and Stalin against Esperanto

copy 2014 Dan Mazur Esperantists

Esperanto today

45 of 76

Esperanto history and geography

There is no Esperanto state or specific territtory However we canconsider congresses festivals and meetings in local clubs as thelsquolanguage territoriesrsquo of the language where the community membersgather This is the geography of Esperanto

The places where these events happen ndash as well as some places whereEsperanto is used on a firm basis ndash form the geography of EsperantoThe history of Esperanto drives new initiatives rooted in virtualand real places

46 of 76

Local clubs around the world

Esperanto lives today Lille (FR) 2015

World Congress 100 near Boulogne-sur-Mer 110 years after the 1st

one48 of 76

Une maison de la culture de lrsquoespeacuteranto agrave Boulogne

49 of 76

The new Esperanto train in Poland

source Facebook page of the Polish government asking for polling

Virtual places the success of Duolinguo2

screenshot made the 28th of OMay 2016

Approximately 30 persons per day finish the learning tree

Esperanto between language and culture

The fascination of Esperanto comes1 internally from the structural character of the language and2 externally from the community of practice surrounding the

language itself which is used to produce original culturalproducts (poetry prose theater music comics films etc)

52 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

Universala Kongreso 1905Esperantists from various countries met in Boulogne-sur-Mer France

34 of 76

From the speech of Zamenhof 1905

En la malgrandan urbon de la franca marbordo kunvenis homojel la plej diversaj landoj kaj nacioj kaj ili renkontas sin reciprokene mute kaj surde sed ili komprenas unu la alian ili parolasunu kun la alia kiel fratoj kiel membroj de unu nacio

Rough translation in EnglishIn the small town of the French seaside came together personsfrom the most different countries and nations and they meetone the other reciprocally not mute and deaf but theyunderstand one the other they speak one with the other asbrothers as members of just one nation

35 of 76

La bela sonĝo de lrsquo homarohellip

hellip ends with the Great War (1914-1918)

copy 1915 Louis Raemaekers satirieke kaart van Europa Het gekkenhuis (oud liedje nieuwe wijs)

Appeal to the Diplomats 1915

Will you begin simply to remake and patch up the map ofEurope Will you simply decide that territory A must belong tothe nation X and territory B to the nation Y True such workyou will have to do but it must be only an insignificant portionof your work [hellip] in handing over any territory to the people ofthis or that race you will always do an injustice to other peoplewho have the same natural rights in respect of that territory[hellip] It would be best if instead of various large and smallEuropean states we should some day have proportionally andgeographically arranged ldquoUnited States of Europerdquo

38 of 76

Esperanto should reinvent itself after the Great War

According to the demographic analysis by Roberto Garviacutea (2015100)summarizing the work by the pioneer Tanquist (1927) these are themain motivation in learning Esperanto (US UK Germany-Austria)

Examples Esperanto Movement of the Workershellip

CC⃝ 1936

hellipCatholic Esperantists in Austriahellip

CC⃝ 1929

hellipvegetarians etc

copy 1914 Vegetarano the official bulletin of the Vegetara Ligo

lsquoVestaĵoj malnovajrsquo from The Great Dictator 1940

CC⃝ 2014 Vikimedio

Hitler and Stalin against Esperanto

copy 2014 Dan Mazur Esperantists

Esperanto today

45 of 76

Esperanto history and geography

There is no Esperanto state or specific territtory However we canconsider congresses festivals and meetings in local clubs as thelsquolanguage territoriesrsquo of the language where the community membersgather This is the geography of Esperanto

The places where these events happen ndash as well as some places whereEsperanto is used on a firm basis ndash form the geography of EsperantoThe history of Esperanto drives new initiatives rooted in virtualand real places

46 of 76

Local clubs around the world

Esperanto lives today Lille (FR) 2015

World Congress 100 near Boulogne-sur-Mer 110 years after the 1st

one48 of 76

Une maison de la culture de lrsquoespeacuteranto agrave Boulogne

49 of 76

The new Esperanto train in Poland

source Facebook page of the Polish government asking for polling

Virtual places the success of Duolinguo2

screenshot made the 28th of OMay 2016

Approximately 30 persons per day finish the learning tree

Esperanto between language and culture

The fascination of Esperanto comes1 internally from the structural character of the language and2 externally from the community of practice surrounding the

language itself which is used to produce original culturalproducts (poetry prose theater music comics films etc)

52 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

From the speech of Zamenhof 1905

En la malgrandan urbon de la franca marbordo kunvenis homojel la plej diversaj landoj kaj nacioj kaj ili renkontas sin reciprokene mute kaj surde sed ili komprenas unu la alian ili parolasunu kun la alia kiel fratoj kiel membroj de unu nacio

Rough translation in EnglishIn the small town of the French seaside came together personsfrom the most different countries and nations and they meetone the other reciprocally not mute and deaf but theyunderstand one the other they speak one with the other asbrothers as members of just one nation

35 of 76

La bela sonĝo de lrsquo homarohellip

hellip ends with the Great War (1914-1918)

copy 1915 Louis Raemaekers satirieke kaart van Europa Het gekkenhuis (oud liedje nieuwe wijs)

Appeal to the Diplomats 1915

Will you begin simply to remake and patch up the map ofEurope Will you simply decide that territory A must belong tothe nation X and territory B to the nation Y True such workyou will have to do but it must be only an insignificant portionof your work [hellip] in handing over any territory to the people ofthis or that race you will always do an injustice to other peoplewho have the same natural rights in respect of that territory[hellip] It would be best if instead of various large and smallEuropean states we should some day have proportionally andgeographically arranged ldquoUnited States of Europerdquo

38 of 76

Esperanto should reinvent itself after the Great War

According to the demographic analysis by Roberto Garviacutea (2015100)summarizing the work by the pioneer Tanquist (1927) these are themain motivation in learning Esperanto (US UK Germany-Austria)

Examples Esperanto Movement of the Workershellip

CC⃝ 1936

hellipCatholic Esperantists in Austriahellip

CC⃝ 1929

hellipvegetarians etc

copy 1914 Vegetarano the official bulletin of the Vegetara Ligo

lsquoVestaĵoj malnovajrsquo from The Great Dictator 1940

CC⃝ 2014 Vikimedio

Hitler and Stalin against Esperanto

copy 2014 Dan Mazur Esperantists

Esperanto today

45 of 76

Esperanto history and geography

There is no Esperanto state or specific territtory However we canconsider congresses festivals and meetings in local clubs as thelsquolanguage territoriesrsquo of the language where the community membersgather This is the geography of Esperanto

The places where these events happen ndash as well as some places whereEsperanto is used on a firm basis ndash form the geography of EsperantoThe history of Esperanto drives new initiatives rooted in virtualand real places

46 of 76

Local clubs around the world

Esperanto lives today Lille (FR) 2015

World Congress 100 near Boulogne-sur-Mer 110 years after the 1st

one48 of 76

Une maison de la culture de lrsquoespeacuteranto agrave Boulogne

49 of 76

The new Esperanto train in Poland

source Facebook page of the Polish government asking for polling

Virtual places the success of Duolinguo2

screenshot made the 28th of OMay 2016

Approximately 30 persons per day finish the learning tree

Esperanto between language and culture

The fascination of Esperanto comes1 internally from the structural character of the language and2 externally from the community of practice surrounding the

language itself which is used to produce original culturalproducts (poetry prose theater music comics films etc)

52 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

La bela sonĝo de lrsquo homarohellip

hellip ends with the Great War (1914-1918)

copy 1915 Louis Raemaekers satirieke kaart van Europa Het gekkenhuis (oud liedje nieuwe wijs)

Appeal to the Diplomats 1915

Will you begin simply to remake and patch up the map ofEurope Will you simply decide that territory A must belong tothe nation X and territory B to the nation Y True such workyou will have to do but it must be only an insignificant portionof your work [hellip] in handing over any territory to the people ofthis or that race you will always do an injustice to other peoplewho have the same natural rights in respect of that territory[hellip] It would be best if instead of various large and smallEuropean states we should some day have proportionally andgeographically arranged ldquoUnited States of Europerdquo

38 of 76

Esperanto should reinvent itself after the Great War

According to the demographic analysis by Roberto Garviacutea (2015100)summarizing the work by the pioneer Tanquist (1927) these are themain motivation in learning Esperanto (US UK Germany-Austria)

Examples Esperanto Movement of the Workershellip

CC⃝ 1936

hellipCatholic Esperantists in Austriahellip

CC⃝ 1929

hellipvegetarians etc

copy 1914 Vegetarano the official bulletin of the Vegetara Ligo

lsquoVestaĵoj malnovajrsquo from The Great Dictator 1940

CC⃝ 2014 Vikimedio

Hitler and Stalin against Esperanto

copy 2014 Dan Mazur Esperantists

Esperanto today

45 of 76

Esperanto history and geography

There is no Esperanto state or specific territtory However we canconsider congresses festivals and meetings in local clubs as thelsquolanguage territoriesrsquo of the language where the community membersgather This is the geography of Esperanto

The places where these events happen ndash as well as some places whereEsperanto is used on a firm basis ndash form the geography of EsperantoThe history of Esperanto drives new initiatives rooted in virtualand real places

46 of 76

Local clubs around the world

Esperanto lives today Lille (FR) 2015

World Congress 100 near Boulogne-sur-Mer 110 years after the 1st

one48 of 76

Une maison de la culture de lrsquoespeacuteranto agrave Boulogne

49 of 76

The new Esperanto train in Poland

source Facebook page of the Polish government asking for polling

Virtual places the success of Duolinguo2

screenshot made the 28th of OMay 2016

Approximately 30 persons per day finish the learning tree

Esperanto between language and culture

The fascination of Esperanto comes1 internally from the structural character of the language and2 externally from the community of practice surrounding the

language itself which is used to produce original culturalproducts (poetry prose theater music comics films etc)

52 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

hellip ends with the Great War (1914-1918)

copy 1915 Louis Raemaekers satirieke kaart van Europa Het gekkenhuis (oud liedje nieuwe wijs)

Appeal to the Diplomats 1915

Will you begin simply to remake and patch up the map ofEurope Will you simply decide that territory A must belong tothe nation X and territory B to the nation Y True such workyou will have to do but it must be only an insignificant portionof your work [hellip] in handing over any territory to the people ofthis or that race you will always do an injustice to other peoplewho have the same natural rights in respect of that territory[hellip] It would be best if instead of various large and smallEuropean states we should some day have proportionally andgeographically arranged ldquoUnited States of Europerdquo

38 of 76

Esperanto should reinvent itself after the Great War

According to the demographic analysis by Roberto Garviacutea (2015100)summarizing the work by the pioneer Tanquist (1927) these are themain motivation in learning Esperanto (US UK Germany-Austria)

Examples Esperanto Movement of the Workershellip

CC⃝ 1936

hellipCatholic Esperantists in Austriahellip

CC⃝ 1929

hellipvegetarians etc

copy 1914 Vegetarano the official bulletin of the Vegetara Ligo

lsquoVestaĵoj malnovajrsquo from The Great Dictator 1940

CC⃝ 2014 Vikimedio

Hitler and Stalin against Esperanto

copy 2014 Dan Mazur Esperantists

Esperanto today

45 of 76

Esperanto history and geography

There is no Esperanto state or specific territtory However we canconsider congresses festivals and meetings in local clubs as thelsquolanguage territoriesrsquo of the language where the community membersgather This is the geography of Esperanto

The places where these events happen ndash as well as some places whereEsperanto is used on a firm basis ndash form the geography of EsperantoThe history of Esperanto drives new initiatives rooted in virtualand real places

46 of 76

Local clubs around the world

Esperanto lives today Lille (FR) 2015

World Congress 100 near Boulogne-sur-Mer 110 years after the 1st

one48 of 76

Une maison de la culture de lrsquoespeacuteranto agrave Boulogne

49 of 76

The new Esperanto train in Poland

source Facebook page of the Polish government asking for polling

Virtual places the success of Duolinguo2

screenshot made the 28th of OMay 2016

Approximately 30 persons per day finish the learning tree

Esperanto between language and culture

The fascination of Esperanto comes1 internally from the structural character of the language and2 externally from the community of practice surrounding the

language itself which is used to produce original culturalproducts (poetry prose theater music comics films etc)

52 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

Appeal to the Diplomats 1915

Will you begin simply to remake and patch up the map ofEurope Will you simply decide that territory A must belong tothe nation X and territory B to the nation Y True such workyou will have to do but it must be only an insignificant portionof your work [hellip] in handing over any territory to the people ofthis or that race you will always do an injustice to other peoplewho have the same natural rights in respect of that territory[hellip] It would be best if instead of various large and smallEuropean states we should some day have proportionally andgeographically arranged ldquoUnited States of Europerdquo

38 of 76

Esperanto should reinvent itself after the Great War

According to the demographic analysis by Roberto Garviacutea (2015100)summarizing the work by the pioneer Tanquist (1927) these are themain motivation in learning Esperanto (US UK Germany-Austria)

Examples Esperanto Movement of the Workershellip

CC⃝ 1936

hellipCatholic Esperantists in Austriahellip

CC⃝ 1929

hellipvegetarians etc

copy 1914 Vegetarano the official bulletin of the Vegetara Ligo

lsquoVestaĵoj malnovajrsquo from The Great Dictator 1940

CC⃝ 2014 Vikimedio

Hitler and Stalin against Esperanto

copy 2014 Dan Mazur Esperantists

Esperanto today

45 of 76

Esperanto history and geography

There is no Esperanto state or specific territtory However we canconsider congresses festivals and meetings in local clubs as thelsquolanguage territoriesrsquo of the language where the community membersgather This is the geography of Esperanto

The places where these events happen ndash as well as some places whereEsperanto is used on a firm basis ndash form the geography of EsperantoThe history of Esperanto drives new initiatives rooted in virtualand real places

46 of 76

Local clubs around the world

Esperanto lives today Lille (FR) 2015

World Congress 100 near Boulogne-sur-Mer 110 years after the 1st

one48 of 76

Une maison de la culture de lrsquoespeacuteranto agrave Boulogne

49 of 76

The new Esperanto train in Poland

source Facebook page of the Polish government asking for polling

Virtual places the success of Duolinguo2

screenshot made the 28th of OMay 2016

Approximately 30 persons per day finish the learning tree

Esperanto between language and culture

The fascination of Esperanto comes1 internally from the structural character of the language and2 externally from the community of practice surrounding the

language itself which is used to produce original culturalproducts (poetry prose theater music comics films etc)

52 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

Esperanto should reinvent itself after the Great War

According to the demographic analysis by Roberto Garviacutea (2015100)summarizing the work by the pioneer Tanquist (1927) these are themain motivation in learning Esperanto (US UK Germany-Austria)

Examples Esperanto Movement of the Workershellip

CC⃝ 1936

hellipCatholic Esperantists in Austriahellip

CC⃝ 1929

hellipvegetarians etc

copy 1914 Vegetarano the official bulletin of the Vegetara Ligo

lsquoVestaĵoj malnovajrsquo from The Great Dictator 1940

CC⃝ 2014 Vikimedio

Hitler and Stalin against Esperanto

copy 2014 Dan Mazur Esperantists

Esperanto today

45 of 76

Esperanto history and geography

There is no Esperanto state or specific territtory However we canconsider congresses festivals and meetings in local clubs as thelsquolanguage territoriesrsquo of the language where the community membersgather This is the geography of Esperanto

The places where these events happen ndash as well as some places whereEsperanto is used on a firm basis ndash form the geography of EsperantoThe history of Esperanto drives new initiatives rooted in virtualand real places

46 of 76

Local clubs around the world

Esperanto lives today Lille (FR) 2015

World Congress 100 near Boulogne-sur-Mer 110 years after the 1st

one48 of 76

Une maison de la culture de lrsquoespeacuteranto agrave Boulogne

49 of 76

The new Esperanto train in Poland

source Facebook page of the Polish government asking for polling

Virtual places the success of Duolinguo2

screenshot made the 28th of OMay 2016

Approximately 30 persons per day finish the learning tree

Esperanto between language and culture

The fascination of Esperanto comes1 internally from the structural character of the language and2 externally from the community of practice surrounding the

language itself which is used to produce original culturalproducts (poetry prose theater music comics films etc)

52 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

Examples Esperanto Movement of the Workershellip

CC⃝ 1936

hellipCatholic Esperantists in Austriahellip

CC⃝ 1929

hellipvegetarians etc

copy 1914 Vegetarano the official bulletin of the Vegetara Ligo

lsquoVestaĵoj malnovajrsquo from The Great Dictator 1940

CC⃝ 2014 Vikimedio

Hitler and Stalin against Esperanto

copy 2014 Dan Mazur Esperantists

Esperanto today

45 of 76

Esperanto history and geography

There is no Esperanto state or specific territtory However we canconsider congresses festivals and meetings in local clubs as thelsquolanguage territoriesrsquo of the language where the community membersgather This is the geography of Esperanto

The places where these events happen ndash as well as some places whereEsperanto is used on a firm basis ndash form the geography of EsperantoThe history of Esperanto drives new initiatives rooted in virtualand real places

46 of 76

Local clubs around the world

Esperanto lives today Lille (FR) 2015

World Congress 100 near Boulogne-sur-Mer 110 years after the 1st

one48 of 76

Une maison de la culture de lrsquoespeacuteranto agrave Boulogne

49 of 76

The new Esperanto train in Poland

source Facebook page of the Polish government asking for polling

Virtual places the success of Duolinguo2

screenshot made the 28th of OMay 2016

Approximately 30 persons per day finish the learning tree

Esperanto between language and culture

The fascination of Esperanto comes1 internally from the structural character of the language and2 externally from the community of practice surrounding the

language itself which is used to produce original culturalproducts (poetry prose theater music comics films etc)

52 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

hellipCatholic Esperantists in Austriahellip

CC⃝ 1929

hellipvegetarians etc

copy 1914 Vegetarano the official bulletin of the Vegetara Ligo

lsquoVestaĵoj malnovajrsquo from The Great Dictator 1940

CC⃝ 2014 Vikimedio

Hitler and Stalin against Esperanto

copy 2014 Dan Mazur Esperantists

Esperanto today

45 of 76

Esperanto history and geography

There is no Esperanto state or specific territtory However we canconsider congresses festivals and meetings in local clubs as thelsquolanguage territoriesrsquo of the language where the community membersgather This is the geography of Esperanto

The places where these events happen ndash as well as some places whereEsperanto is used on a firm basis ndash form the geography of EsperantoThe history of Esperanto drives new initiatives rooted in virtualand real places

46 of 76

Local clubs around the world

Esperanto lives today Lille (FR) 2015

World Congress 100 near Boulogne-sur-Mer 110 years after the 1st

one48 of 76

Une maison de la culture de lrsquoespeacuteranto agrave Boulogne

49 of 76

The new Esperanto train in Poland

source Facebook page of the Polish government asking for polling

Virtual places the success of Duolinguo2

screenshot made the 28th of OMay 2016

Approximately 30 persons per day finish the learning tree

Esperanto between language and culture

The fascination of Esperanto comes1 internally from the structural character of the language and2 externally from the community of practice surrounding the

language itself which is used to produce original culturalproducts (poetry prose theater music comics films etc)

52 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

hellipvegetarians etc

copy 1914 Vegetarano the official bulletin of the Vegetara Ligo

lsquoVestaĵoj malnovajrsquo from The Great Dictator 1940

CC⃝ 2014 Vikimedio

Hitler and Stalin against Esperanto

copy 2014 Dan Mazur Esperantists

Esperanto today

45 of 76

Esperanto history and geography

There is no Esperanto state or specific territtory However we canconsider congresses festivals and meetings in local clubs as thelsquolanguage territoriesrsquo of the language where the community membersgather This is the geography of Esperanto

The places where these events happen ndash as well as some places whereEsperanto is used on a firm basis ndash form the geography of EsperantoThe history of Esperanto drives new initiatives rooted in virtualand real places

46 of 76

Local clubs around the world

Esperanto lives today Lille (FR) 2015

World Congress 100 near Boulogne-sur-Mer 110 years after the 1st

one48 of 76

Une maison de la culture de lrsquoespeacuteranto agrave Boulogne

49 of 76

The new Esperanto train in Poland

source Facebook page of the Polish government asking for polling

Virtual places the success of Duolinguo2

screenshot made the 28th of OMay 2016

Approximately 30 persons per day finish the learning tree

Esperanto between language and culture

The fascination of Esperanto comes1 internally from the structural character of the language and2 externally from the community of practice surrounding the

language itself which is used to produce original culturalproducts (poetry prose theater music comics films etc)

52 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

lsquoVestaĵoj malnovajrsquo from The Great Dictator 1940

CC⃝ 2014 Vikimedio

Hitler and Stalin against Esperanto

copy 2014 Dan Mazur Esperantists

Esperanto today

45 of 76

Esperanto history and geography

There is no Esperanto state or specific territtory However we canconsider congresses festivals and meetings in local clubs as thelsquolanguage territoriesrsquo of the language where the community membersgather This is the geography of Esperanto

The places where these events happen ndash as well as some places whereEsperanto is used on a firm basis ndash form the geography of EsperantoThe history of Esperanto drives new initiatives rooted in virtualand real places

46 of 76

Local clubs around the world

Esperanto lives today Lille (FR) 2015

World Congress 100 near Boulogne-sur-Mer 110 years after the 1st

one48 of 76

Une maison de la culture de lrsquoespeacuteranto agrave Boulogne

49 of 76

The new Esperanto train in Poland

source Facebook page of the Polish government asking for polling

Virtual places the success of Duolinguo2

screenshot made the 28th of OMay 2016

Approximately 30 persons per day finish the learning tree

Esperanto between language and culture

The fascination of Esperanto comes1 internally from the structural character of the language and2 externally from the community of practice surrounding the

language itself which is used to produce original culturalproducts (poetry prose theater music comics films etc)

52 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

Hitler and Stalin against Esperanto

copy 2014 Dan Mazur Esperantists

Esperanto today

45 of 76

Esperanto history and geography

There is no Esperanto state or specific territtory However we canconsider congresses festivals and meetings in local clubs as thelsquolanguage territoriesrsquo of the language where the community membersgather This is the geography of Esperanto

The places where these events happen ndash as well as some places whereEsperanto is used on a firm basis ndash form the geography of EsperantoThe history of Esperanto drives new initiatives rooted in virtualand real places

46 of 76

Local clubs around the world

Esperanto lives today Lille (FR) 2015

World Congress 100 near Boulogne-sur-Mer 110 years after the 1st

one48 of 76

Une maison de la culture de lrsquoespeacuteranto agrave Boulogne

49 of 76

The new Esperanto train in Poland

source Facebook page of the Polish government asking for polling

Virtual places the success of Duolinguo2

screenshot made the 28th of OMay 2016

Approximately 30 persons per day finish the learning tree

Esperanto between language and culture

The fascination of Esperanto comes1 internally from the structural character of the language and2 externally from the community of practice surrounding the

language itself which is used to produce original culturalproducts (poetry prose theater music comics films etc)

52 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

Esperanto today

45 of 76

Esperanto history and geography

There is no Esperanto state or specific territtory However we canconsider congresses festivals and meetings in local clubs as thelsquolanguage territoriesrsquo of the language where the community membersgather This is the geography of Esperanto

The places where these events happen ndash as well as some places whereEsperanto is used on a firm basis ndash form the geography of EsperantoThe history of Esperanto drives new initiatives rooted in virtualand real places

46 of 76

Local clubs around the world

Esperanto lives today Lille (FR) 2015

World Congress 100 near Boulogne-sur-Mer 110 years after the 1st

one48 of 76

Une maison de la culture de lrsquoespeacuteranto agrave Boulogne

49 of 76

The new Esperanto train in Poland

source Facebook page of the Polish government asking for polling

Virtual places the success of Duolinguo2

screenshot made the 28th of OMay 2016

Approximately 30 persons per day finish the learning tree

Esperanto between language and culture

The fascination of Esperanto comes1 internally from the structural character of the language and2 externally from the community of practice surrounding the

language itself which is used to produce original culturalproducts (poetry prose theater music comics films etc)

52 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

Esperanto history and geography

There is no Esperanto state or specific territtory However we canconsider congresses festivals and meetings in local clubs as thelsquolanguage territoriesrsquo of the language where the community membersgather This is the geography of Esperanto

The places where these events happen ndash as well as some places whereEsperanto is used on a firm basis ndash form the geography of EsperantoThe history of Esperanto drives new initiatives rooted in virtualand real places

46 of 76

Local clubs around the world

Esperanto lives today Lille (FR) 2015

World Congress 100 near Boulogne-sur-Mer 110 years after the 1st

one48 of 76

Une maison de la culture de lrsquoespeacuteranto agrave Boulogne

49 of 76

The new Esperanto train in Poland

source Facebook page of the Polish government asking for polling

Virtual places the success of Duolinguo2

screenshot made the 28th of OMay 2016

Approximately 30 persons per day finish the learning tree

Esperanto between language and culture

The fascination of Esperanto comes1 internally from the structural character of the language and2 externally from the community of practice surrounding the

language itself which is used to produce original culturalproducts (poetry prose theater music comics films etc)

52 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

Local clubs around the world

Esperanto lives today Lille (FR) 2015

World Congress 100 near Boulogne-sur-Mer 110 years after the 1st

one48 of 76

Une maison de la culture de lrsquoespeacuteranto agrave Boulogne

49 of 76

The new Esperanto train in Poland

source Facebook page of the Polish government asking for polling

Virtual places the success of Duolinguo2

screenshot made the 28th of OMay 2016

Approximately 30 persons per day finish the learning tree

Esperanto between language and culture

The fascination of Esperanto comes1 internally from the structural character of the language and2 externally from the community of practice surrounding the

language itself which is used to produce original culturalproducts (poetry prose theater music comics films etc)

52 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

Esperanto lives today Lille (FR) 2015

World Congress 100 near Boulogne-sur-Mer 110 years after the 1st

one48 of 76

Une maison de la culture de lrsquoespeacuteranto agrave Boulogne

49 of 76

The new Esperanto train in Poland

source Facebook page of the Polish government asking for polling

Virtual places the success of Duolinguo2

screenshot made the 28th of OMay 2016

Approximately 30 persons per day finish the learning tree

Esperanto between language and culture

The fascination of Esperanto comes1 internally from the structural character of the language and2 externally from the community of practice surrounding the

language itself which is used to produce original culturalproducts (poetry prose theater music comics films etc)

52 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

Une maison de la culture de lrsquoespeacuteranto agrave Boulogne

49 of 76

The new Esperanto train in Poland

source Facebook page of the Polish government asking for polling

Virtual places the success of Duolinguo2

screenshot made the 28th of OMay 2016

Approximately 30 persons per day finish the learning tree

Esperanto between language and culture

The fascination of Esperanto comes1 internally from the structural character of the language and2 externally from the community of practice surrounding the

language itself which is used to produce original culturalproducts (poetry prose theater music comics films etc)

52 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

The new Esperanto train in Poland

source Facebook page of the Polish government asking for polling

Virtual places the success of Duolinguo2

screenshot made the 28th of OMay 2016

Approximately 30 persons per day finish the learning tree

Esperanto between language and culture

The fascination of Esperanto comes1 internally from the structural character of the language and2 externally from the community of practice surrounding the

language itself which is used to produce original culturalproducts (poetry prose theater music comics films etc)

52 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

Virtual places the success of Duolinguo2

screenshot made the 28th of OMay 2016

Approximately 30 persons per day finish the learning tree

Esperanto between language and culture

The fascination of Esperanto comes1 internally from the structural character of the language and2 externally from the community of practice surrounding the

language itself which is used to produce original culturalproducts (poetry prose theater music comics films etc)

52 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

Esperanto between language and culture

The fascination of Esperanto comes1 internally from the structural character of the language and2 externally from the community of practice surrounding the

language itself which is used to produce original culturalproducts (poetry prose theater music comics films etc)

52 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

The four factors that motivates esperantists

1 political factor for an alternative globalisation2 cultural factor as everybody can contribute to a ethnic-free

worldwide culture3 cognitive factor to foster native bilingualism especially when

only one language is at disposal in the family4 ICT factor for geeks and nerds the Esperanto culture fits the

culture of open source and free software

53 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

An alternative globalisation is possibleFronte al la nunaj minacoj de malpaco ekologia krizaropliprofundigo de la breĉo inter riĉaj kaj malriĉaj landoj kulturaunuformigo (MakDonaldigo) de la mondo kaj malfortiĝo de lademokratia vivo de la socioj la alimondisma movado [hellip]senperforte celas alternativan solidaran tutmondiĝon de lahomaj rajtoj socia justo kaj funda demokratioo

Rough translation in EnglishWith the actual minaces of war ecological crisis the growinggap between rich and poor countries cultural homologation(McDonaldization) of the world and weakening of thedemocratic life of societies the movements from the other world[eg World Social Forum] aims to a non-violent differentfair globalisation of human rights social justice andprofound democracy (my emphasis)

Joseacute Antonio Vergara (2006)

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

A poem by Jorge Camacho 2013

poemoestas kiel ovo

se ĝi venas memellasu ĝin se ne dotute ne gravas sed

se tamen fine ĝivenos preferedemetu ĝin

ronda

J Camacho (2013) En la profundo Mondial Novjorko p 5 Recenzo de N Rašić en Beletra Almanako 20 Junio 2014

55 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

The point of view of the Google Translate team

The Google Translate team was actually surprised about thehigh quality of machine translation for Esperanto ForEsperanto the number of existing translations is comparativelysmall German or Spanish for example have more than 100times the data other languages on which we focus our researchefforts have similar amounts of data as Esperanto but donrsquotachieve comparable quality yet Esperanto was constructedsuch that it is easy to learn for humans and this seems tohelp automatic translation as well

Thorsten Brants Research Scientist Google Translate

56 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

A living language has new words

A neologism that is entering ordinary register of Esperanto

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

A mother tongue mainly spoken by fathersThe fact that Esperanto can be acquired as a first language canbe regarded as a further proof that it has all the basicproperties of a natural language The use of Esperanto as afamily language may thus mean it is used between the spousesor between the parents (or one of the parents) and the childrenwho thus become native speakers There exist evensecond-generation and third-generation native speakersthough other languages are handed down in such families inparallel with Esperanto and there are no compact native speechcommunities All first-language speakers of Esperanto areat least bilingual many of them even trilingual and practicallyall of them use another language more often than Esperanto intheir adult lives (my emphasis)

Source Lindstedt (2010)

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

Can Esperanto foster Europeanidentity

59 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

Is this picture right

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

A pilot experiment

I asked Esperanto families living in Europe if they feel Europeanidentity somehow and what does it mean This was done through amailing list used by Esperanto families to coordinate themselves

I got 13 responses that I will keep anonymous All answers were inEsperanto Translations in English are mine unless stated otherwiseQuality analysis only was done

Some details are changed for privacy concerns

61 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

A first answer

ldquoOn my side I do not have identity I simply am Because of mybirthplace I am Xish so I am Xish and European Similarly I am awhite man bald or a mammal I am such

Of course when I am with non-Xish I notes the differences with Xishpeople With non-Europeans I note the lsquoEuropehoodrsquo I would feelmyself cosmopolitan when I meet an extraterrestrial until when itwill happen

For the family I do not like too much when they teach the nationalanthems or when they paint national flags on the facerdquo

62 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

Sport-like and linguistic feelingshellip

Some informants argues that they feel Europeans like in the WorldCup in a competition against Americas or Asia they cheer onEurope

ldquoNothing to serious to be called lsquoEuropean identityrsquo thoughrdquo (orthe question is meaningless)

ldquoIf you do not know English French and German you cannot feelEuropean You have to travel a lot spending time to live in differentcountries Multilingualism shape European identityrdquo (note no apartmention of Esperanto)

63 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

hellipand a family answer

4-member family father from Sweden mother from Bosnia Theylive in Norway They feel that Europe is wider than the EU Children(11 and 8) feel to be Norwegian-Bosnian When asked directly

ldquoDo you feel to be a EuropeanrdquoldquoNo but I am an Esperantistrdquo

64 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

Context-based answershellip

ldquoIt depends on the contextrdquo said a French woman married with aHungarian living in Luxembourg ldquoWhen I cook for example I amFrenchrdquo

ldquoI feel European with non-Europeans for differences But I do notadhere to the European ideology when it is warlike and imperialisticI also feel cosmopolitanrdquo said a German woman

ldquoWe are lucky being Europeans as now we fight with words not withweapons anymore among usrdquo says a Belgian ldquoWhen we see refugeeswe cannot not think that we are so luckyrdquo

65 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

hellipand one context-free answer

ldquoBeing an Esperantist implies that there should be no Europeanidentity Human beings are one big family The warlike spirit camefrom Europe and was exported everywhere in the other continentsEU did not deserve the Nobel Prize for Peacerdquo

66 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 12 (original in English)

ldquoIrsquom a German and Argentinian grew up mainly in Germany studiedin the UK and am now living in Luxembourg At age 16 I startedlearning Esperanto which Irsquom using a lot since then and throughwhich I have made friends with people from all over the worldincluding many European countries I identify more as a Europeanand a world citizen than as a German I am very happy that theEuropean Union has brought peace to us Europeans and that it itmakes it possible for us to move freely in most of our home continentwithout showing a passport or having to change money But I am alsoafraid that the current conglomeration of crises could bring aboutsteps backwardsrdquo

67 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

A man in Luxembourg 22

ldquoWith my children I speak mainly Esperanto and sometimes GermanMy main motive for speaking Esperanto with them is so that they canalready as children participate with me and my wife in theinternational and culturally rich Esperanto community which isenriching our lives a lot Since my half Russian half German wifespeaks Russian with them and since the main language of theirenvironment is Luxembourgish the children grow up speaking fourlanguages [hellip] Our sixshyyearshyold on the other hand alreadyunderstands that Esperanto is a special language without territoryand is proud that she can sometimes explain this to adults who donrsquotknow about Esperantordquo

68 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 12

ldquoI am 20 years old and a native Esperanto speaker [hellip] My mother isFrench and my father is Hungarian so they spoke their respectivelanguages to me also living in the Netherlands I learned Dutch frommy nanny from the age of three months Where would a fourthlanguage have fit Having met at an Esperanto meeting my parentsspoke the language to each other and brought me with them tointernational meetings where I heard it spoken Sometimes we hadguests sometimes we were guests They made a point of not activelyteaching me Esperanto or encouraging me to speak it calling it theirsecret language I learned it anywayrdquo

69 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

A young woman in Luxembourg 22

ldquoHow does this relate to European identity I think I was doublylucky because I had Esperanto and I also went to the EuropeanSchool of Luxembourg In these schools pupils with origins from allover Europe grow up together I think this makes us veryopen-minded and multicultural and it definitely makes you feelEuropean especially as many of us ndash like me ndash cannot pinpoint onecountry where they lsquocome fromrsquo Once a German asked me if I wasGerman and I said lsquoyes if you wantrsquo After all I speak Germanfluently am familiar with German culture and I have a lot of Germanfriends so why not Sometimes I say I am kind of Dutch just not onpaper Sometimes I say Irsquom a French-Hungarian from the BeneluxSometimes I say Irsquom Europeanrdquo

70 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

An evaluation

The European feelings of Esperanto speakers are variegate Commontraits are a refusal of military and imperialistic behaviour a lsquoludicrsquo orsomehow lsquolightrsquo sense of territorial identity sometimes linked toEurope sometimes not

Esperanto in itself does not bring special values of European identityat least in its present situation But Esperanto really is a vehicleof a practical cosmopolitanism a vehicle for an alternativeGlobal Identity

71 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

So yes this picture is righthellip

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

But this picture is also righthellip

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

And this one too

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

CC⃝ BY⃝ $⃝ c⃝ Federico Gobbo 2016

76 of 76

Acknowledgement of funding

MIME ndash Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe

The research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Communityrsquos Seventh Frame-work Programme under grant agreement No 613344(Project MIME)

UEA ndash Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Rotterdam NL)

The author is appointed as holder of the Special Chairin Interlinguistics and Esperanto at the University ofAmsterdam on behalf of UEA The content and opin-ions expressed here are the authorrsquos ones and they donot necessarily reflect the opinions of UEA

75 of 76

Thanks for your attention Dankon por via atento

Questions Comments ⟨FGobbouvanl⟩

goberiko federicogobbo +FedericoGobbo

httpfedericogobbonamepub

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