by Kim
Hoo-ran
January 28, 2002
|
In a cramped, one-room office on the fourth floor of a run-down
building in Myeong-dong, downtown Seoul, four women sit facing the whiteboard,
repeating words and sentences after the teacher.
"Kant, kantejo," says
the teacher. "Kant, kantejo," repeats the class in unison. "Kant means 'song.'
By adding 'ej' denoting place and 'o' denoting a noun to 'kant,' we have created
another noun, 'kantejo,' meaning noraebang, or singing room," explains Lee
Jung-kee, the instructor, with enthusiasm.
"How about 'lernejo?' What
does that mean? Remember 'lerni' is 'learn,'" says Mr. Lee, soliciting a
response from the students. A student volunteers hesitantly, "School?"
"That's right. This is the beauty of Esperanto. Do you see how simple it
is?" says Mr. Lee.
Such is the simplicity of Esperanto that Mr. Lee, who
has been teaching the language for more than 10 years at the Seoul Esperanto
Cultural Center in Myeong-dong, assures the students that they will be able to
master the basics in just 12 hours of instruction.
Esperanto is an
artificial language created to facilitate communication among people of
different countries and cultures. The language was first introduced in 1887 with
the publication of "Lingvo Internacia," ("International Language") by Dr. L.L.
Zamenhof, a Polish physician and oculist, who believed that peace could be
achieved if all people spoke the same language. He wrote under the pseudonym
"Doktoro Esperanto" (Doctor Hopeful), and the name Esperanto stuck.
The
biblical account of the Tower of Babel is a reminder of how critical language
barriers can be. Over the centuries, there have been many attempts to create
artificial languages, also known as international auxiliary languages, to
facilitate international communication. Esperanto is one of the most well-known
and the longest surviving of those attempts.
Esperanto contains 28
letters, consisting of 5 vowels and 23 consonants. Each letter is given its own
sound. Esperanto is phonetic, meaning that every word is pronounced exactly as
it is spelled. Indeed, the need to learn spellings is eliminated with this
language.
Intentionally designed to be as easy to learn as possible, the
grammar is concise and regular, with no verb conjugations or noun genders to be
memorized. "There are only 16 grammatical rules," Mr. Lee says.
The basic
vocabulary consists of approximately 2,000 words. About 75 percent of
Esperanto's vocabulary comes from Latin and Romance languages, about 20 percent
from Germanic languages and the rest from Russian and Polish, and Greek for
scientific terms. All other words are formed with regular endings and other
similar arrangements.
Even to the uninitiated, many of the words in an
Esperanto textbook look familiar. "If you speak a Western European language,
Esperanto is very easy to pick up," Mr. Lee said. This is because the most
commonly used words from 11 different languages were culled to form the basic
vocabulary of Esperanto, according to Mr. Lee. In fact, to hear the language
being spoken for the first time, it sounds like Spanish or Italian with its
rolled r's. As for the accent, it is always placed on the penultimate
syllable.
Although Esperanto has often been called a failed experiment in
an artificial language, mostly because it is not used commonly in everyday
situations, Mr. Lee disagrees, pointing out the continued interest in the
language. An estimated 10 million people around the world speak Esperanto,
according to Mr. Lee.
In Korea, 1,200 people have taken classes offered
by the Korea Esperanto Association, and the association's membership tops 2,000.
Dankook University in Seoul offers Esperanto as part of its curriculum. The
Esperanto class draws about 300 students each semester, according to Mr. Lee,
who also teaches at the university.
"I've always been interested in
languages and Esperanto seemed like a unique one," says Shin Ji-soo, a senior at
Sookmyung Women's University who is attending her second class at the cultural
center.
Another student, Kim Jin, a high school senior, has a practical
goal. "I have a Polish pen pal. We write each other in English, but since she
speaks Esperanto, I thought it would be neat if we could communicate in a
neutral language," Ms. Kim says.
The fact that Esperanto does not belong
to any one culture attracted Cho Sung-ho, 47, a professor of biology at Inha
University in Incheon, to the language when he was first exposed to it as a
college freshman. "One does not feel inferior learning Esperanto, as when
learning a foreign language like, let's say, English, because no one can claim
it as his native language," Mr. Cho says.
Mr. Cho was learning French and
German when he picked up Esperanto. "I abandoned French and German soon
thereafter because Esperanto was far easier," he says. A wise decision,
according to Mr. Cho, who says he has little use for German or French in his
academic work anyway since almost all work is available in English.
Esperanto is more than just a pastime for Mr. Cho, who has written
"Korea Antologio Noveloj," an anthology of modern Korean short stories in
Esperanto, and translated a collection of Korean folktales, "Korea Malnovaj
Rakontoj." While these books will never make it to the best-seller's list, the
folktale collection has sold about 700 copies since its publication in 1997. He
even translated an introductory book on genetics, originally written in English,
into Esperanto.
Which is not to say that Esperanto is exclusively for
intellectual exchanges. "It is intended to foster communication across language
and cultural barriers and in the process promote world peace," Mr. Lee
says.
For Mr. Cho, Esperanto has provided a whole new group of friends
from around the world, an international network of Esperantists who play host to
visiting Esperanto speakers. When he travels to Germany, for example, Mr. Cho
stays with local Esperantists who go out of their way to show him around and
introduce him to German culture. "Such wholehearted hospitality would be
unimaginable if not for the common bond of Esperanto," Mr. Cho
says.
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Welcome
to Esperanto 101:
Esperanto has 28 letters, 23
consonants and
5 vowels, and each letter has only one
sound.
The Vowels:
A Pronounced "ah" as in
"father"
E Pronounced "eh" as in "get"
I Pronounced "ee" as
in "machine"
O Pronounced "oh" as in "boat"
U Pronounced
"oo" as in "chute"
The Consonants:
B, D, F, H, K, M, N, P, S, T, V and Z are pronounced the same as in English. Following are the
exceptions:
C Pronounced "ts" as in "bits"
Ĉ Pronounced "ch"
as in "church"
G Hard "g" as in "goose"
Ĝ Soft "g" as in
"George"
H^ Hard "k" as in "ach"
J Pronounced "y" as in
"year"
Ĵ Pronounced "zh" as in "leisure"
L Same as in
English, just quicker
R Trilled "r"
Ŝ Pronounced "sh" as in
"shush"
Ŭ Pronounced like the "w" sound in "water"
Note
that there is no Q,W, X or Y as in English.
Counting in
Esperanto
unu, du, tri, kva, kvin, ses, sep, ok, naŭ,
dek
Greetings
A: Saluton, sinjoro. (Hello,
mister.)
B: Saluton, fraŭlino. (Hello, miss.)
A: Ĝis
revido, fraŭlino. (Good-bye, miss.)
B: Ĝis morgaŭ! (See you
tomorrow!)
JoongAng Ilbo - International Herald Tribune, 2002
JoongAng Ilbo, Joins.com. All rights reserved.