Cover not available
Part of
Contested Languages: The hidden multilingualism of Europe
Edited by Marco Tamburelli and Mauro Tosco
[Studies in World Language Problems 8] 2021
► pp. 247–268

Chapter 15
The language ideology of Esperanto

From the world language problem to balanced multilingualism

| University of Amsterdam

The status of Esperanto, the language launched by Zamenhof in 1887, has been contested since its beginning. Esperanto became the most relevant of the International Auxiliary Languages (IALs) from a sociolinguistic perspective, as it successfully survived two World Wars in spite of being explicitly persecuted by Hitler and Stalin, among others (Lins 2017). The motivations of the pioneers of Esperanto were put under scrutiny according to the different political context, both across time and place (Forster 1982). Therefore, its language ideology was adapted in order to reduce the level of contestedness of the language, and this adaptation re-framed the self-perception of its speakers and their attitudes toward Esperanto itself. For instance, before the Great War in Europe there was a strong connection between the Esperanto movement and pacifism (Alcalde 2015), while in the 1930s in China and Japan Esperanto was linked to anarchism and communism (Lins 2008). In the aftermath of the Second World War, the language ideology deeply changed (Jordan 1987), and the link between Esperanto and linguistic rights became increasingly stronger (Pietiläinen 2010). Nowadays, the new generation of Esperantists is facing the new challenges of the Digital Era. In particular, there is an ideological convergence with other contested languages, in particular Regional and Minority Languages, also in the Esperanto speaker’s attitudes (Caligaris 2016; Gobbo and Miola 2016). This chapter aims to illustrate the evolution of the language ideology of Esperanto, in comparison with other contested languages.

Published online: 21 January 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/wlp.8.15gob
References
Alcalde, Xavier
2015 The practical internationalism of Esperanto. Peace in Progress 24.Google Scholar
Bauman, Zygmunt
2000 Liquid modernity. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Caligaris, Irene
2016 Una lingua per tutti, una lingua di nessun paese: una ricerca sul campo sulle identità esperantiste. Torino: Aracne.Google Scholar
Cravens, Thomas D.
2014 Italia linguistica and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Forum Italicum 48 (2): 202–218. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dobrzyński, Roman
2008 Bona espero: idealo kaj realo. Slovakio: Stano Marček.Google Scholar
Eckert, Penelope
2006 Communities of practice. In Encyclopedia of language and linguistics, ed. by Keith Brown and Anne Anderson, 683–685. Boston: Elsevier. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ethnologue
(2016, June 2). Editorial Action. URL: [URL]
Fantini, Alvino E., and Timothy G. Reagan
1992 Esperanto and education: toward a research agenda. Washington: Esperantic Studies Foundation.Google Scholar
Fettes, Mark
1996 The Esperanto community: a quasi-ethnic linguistic minority? Language Problems and Language Planning 20: 53–59. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fishman, Joshua A.
1991 Reversing language shift: theoretical and empirical foundations of assistance to threatened languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Forster, Peter G.
1982 The Esperanto movement. The Hague: Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Garvía, Roberto
2015 Esperanto and its rivals: the struggle for an international language. Philadelphia: Penn Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gobbo, Federico
2009 Pianificazione linguistica e lingue pianificate: fondamenti di interlinguistica ed esperantologia. Milano: Raffaello Cortina.Google Scholar
2015 Interlinguïstiek, een vak voor meertaligheid. Interlingvistiko, fako por multlingveco. Interlinguistics, a discipline for multilingualism. Oratie 532, verschenen in de oratiereeks van de Universiteit van Amsterdam op vrijdag 13 maart 2015. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.Google Scholar
2015a Transnational communication in a ‘glocalized’ world: in search of balanced multilingualism. JKI (Język. Komunikacja. Informacja / Language. Communication. Information) 10: 196–208.Google Scholar
2016 Approaches to multilingualism of Esperanto speakers. In Perspectives of language communication in the EU, ed. by Eva Poláková, Seán Ó Riain, and Ildikó Vančo, 69–80. Nitra: Constantine the Philosopher University of Nitra.Google Scholar
2017 Beyond the Nation-State? The Ideology of the Esperanto Movement between Neutralism and Multilingualism. Social Inclusion, 5(4): 38–47. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2020 Introduction to Interlinguistics. Munchen: Grin Publishing.Google Scholar
Gobbo, Federico, and Emanuele Miola
2016 Modificare l’immagine linguistica: esperanto e piemontese a confronto. In Représentations sociales des langues et politiques linguistiques. Déterminismes, implications, regards croisés. Actes du Premier Congrès Mondial des Droits Linguistiques, vol. 1er, ed. by Giovanni Agresti, and Joseph-G. Turi, 287–304. Roma: Aracne.Google Scholar
Gordin, Michael D.
2015 Scientific Babel: How science was done before and after global English. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jordan, David K.
1987 Esperanto and Esperantism: symbols and motivations in a movement for linguistic equality. Language Problems and Language Planning 11 (1): 104–125. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Korzhenkov, Aleksander
2010 Zamenhof: the life, works and ideas of the author of Esperanto. New York: Mondial.Google Scholar
Lapenna, Ivo, Ulrich Lins, and Tazio Carlevaro
1974 Esperanto en perspektivo. Rotterdam: Universala Esperanto-Asocio.Google Scholar
Large, Andrew
1985 The artificial language movement. Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Lindstedt, Jouko
2009 Esperanto: an East European Contact Language? In Die Europäizität der Slawia oder dies Slawizität Europas. Ein Beitrag der kultur- und sprachrelativistischen Linguistik ed. by Christan Voß and Alicja Nagórko. München / Berlin: Otto Sagner.Google Scholar
2016 Ĉu infana Esperanto estas natura Esperanto? In Lingua politica cultura: Serta gratulatoria in honorem Renato Corsetti, ed. by Federico Gobbo, 250–258. New York: Mondial.Google Scholar
Lins, Ulrich
2017 Dangerous language: Esperanto under Hitler and Stalin. London: Palgrave. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2008 Esperanto as language and idea in China and Japan. Language Problems and Language Planning 32 (1): 47–60. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Masson, Henri
1996 Kio estas s.a.t.? Paris: Sennacieca Asocio Tutmonda.Google Scholar
Matthias, Ulrich
2002 Esperanto – the new Latin for the Church and for ecumenism. Antwerpen: Flanda Esperanto-Ligo.Google Scholar
Melnikov, Aleksandro S.
1992 Specifaj kulturaj scioj de la esperantista kvazaŭetno kaj ilia respeguliĝo en la koncerna lingv(aĵ)o. Rostov-na-Donu.Google Scholar
Minnaja, Carlo
2007 L’esperanto in Italia: alla ricerca della democrazia linguistica. Padova: il Poligrafo.Google Scholar
Miola, Emanuele
2017 The misuse of the “language-dialect” opposition in Italy and its consequences in current linguistic research. Paper presented at ICRLIM, Barcelona-Vic 19-21.04.2017.
Nic Craith, Máiréad
2006 Europe and the politics of language: Citizens, migrants and outsiders. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Phillipson, Robert
1992 Linguistic imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pietiläinen, Jukka
2010 Plurlingvismo kaj Esperanto: Ideologia ŝanĝiĝo en la Esperanto-movado. In La arto labori kune: Festlibro por Humphrey Tonkin, ed. by Blanke, Detlev and Ulrich Lins, 781–792. Rotterdam: Universala Esperanto-Asocio.Google Scholar
Schor, Esther
2016 Bridge of words: Esperanto and the dream of a universal language. New York: Metropolitan Books.Google Scholar
Sikosek, Ziko Marcus
2005 Sed homoj kun homoj: Universalaj Kongresoj de Esperanto 1905–2005. Rotterdam: Universala Esperanto-Asocio.Google Scholar
Sikosek, Marcus
2006 Die neutrale Sprache. Eine politische Geschichte des Esperanto-Weltbundes. Bydgoszcz: Skonpres. Doctoral thesis Utrecht University.Google Scholar
Simons, Gary F., and Charles D. Fennig
(eds.) 2017 Ethnologue: languages of the World. 20th edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Online version: [URL]
Stallman, Richard M.
2002 Free software, free society: selected essays of Richard M. Stallman. Boston: GNU Press.Google Scholar
Street, Brain V.
1993 Culture is a Verb: Anthropological aspects of language and cultural process . In Language and culture: papers from the Annual Meeting of the British Association for Applied Linguistics, ed. by David Graddol, Linda Thompson and M. Byram, 23–43. Clevendon: BAAL and Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Sutton, Geoffrey H.
2008 Concise encyclopedia of the original literature of Esperanto. New York: Mondial.Google Scholar
Van Dijk, Ziko
2012 Historio de UEA. Partizánske: Espero.Google Scholar
Zamenhof, Ludoviko Lazaro
1929 Originala verkaro. Redaktis Johannes Dietterle. Leipzig: Ferdinand Hirt & Sohn.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Fians, Guilherme
2021. In the Beginning Was the Word. In Esperanto Revolutionaries and Geeks, ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 1 may 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.