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Esperanto

Noun

Esperanto is the most widely spoken of the constructed languages. The name derives from the pseudonym (Dr. Esperanto) under which L. L. Zamenhof published the first work on the subject, and literally means "one who hopes". Zamenhof, a Jewish oculist from Bialystok, (now Poland, but then part of the Russian empire), and living in Warsaw, published the Unua Libro (first book) of the language in 1887 after working on it for about ten years (see Esperanto history).

His intention was to create an easy-to-learn language, to serve as an international auxiliary language, a second language for everyone in the world, rather than to replace all existing languages in the world. Some Esperanto speakers, or Esperantists, still want this (they are called pracelistoj), but others just want to use the language to meet foreigners and learn about other countries and cultures (called raŭmistoj). Today, thousands of people use it regularly to communicate with others around the world. See Esperanto as an international language.

According to a February 25, 2004, press release, the Esperanto version of the Wikipedia (http://eo.wikipedia.org/) had 11,000 articles, making it the tenth-largest language in the Wikipedia.

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