Happy is the nation that has no history,—still happier the international language; for a policy of "pacific penetration" offers few picturesque incidents to furnish forth a readable narrative. In the case of Esperanto there have been no splits or factions; no narrow ring of oligarchs has cornered the language for its own purposes, or insisted upon its aristocratic and non-popular side in the supposed interests of culture or literary taste; consequently
there has been no secession of the plebs. In the early days of Esperanto there was indeed an attempt to found an Esperanto league; but when it was seen that the league did little beyond suggest alterations, it was wisely dissolved in 1894. Since then Esperanto has been run purely on its merits as a language, and has expressly dissociated itself from any political, pacifist, or other propaganda. Its story is one of quiet progress—at first very slow, but within the last five years wonderfully rapid, and still accelerating. The most sensational episode in this peaceful advance was the prohibition of the principal Esperantist organ by the Russian censorship, so that there is little to do, save record one or two leading facts and dates.
The inventor of Esperanto is a Polish doctor, Ludwig Lazarus Zamenhof, now living in Warsaw. He was born in 1859 at Bielostock, a town which has lately become notorious as the scene of one of the terrible Russian pogroms, or interracial butcheries. This tragedy was only the culmination of a chronic state of misunderstanding, which long ago so impressed the young Zamenhof that, when still quite a boy, he resolved to labour for the removal of one cause of it by facilitating mutual intercourse. He has practically devoted his life first to the elaboration of his language, and of later years to the vast amount of business that its extension involves. And it has been a labour of love. Zamenhof is an idealist. His action, in all that concerns Esperanto, has been characterized throughout by a generosity and self-effacement that well correspond to the humanitarian nature of the inspiration that produced it. He has renounced all personal rights in and control of the Esperanto language, and kept studiously in the background till the first International Congress two years ago forced him into the open, when he emerged from his retirement to take his rightful place before the eyes of the peoples whom his invention had brought together.
But he is not merely an idealist: he is a practical idealist. This is shown by his self-restraint and practical wisdom in guiding events. One of the symptoms of "catching Esperanto" is a
desire to introduce improvements. This morbid propensity to jejune amateur tinkering, a kind of measles of the mind (morbus linguificus1) attacks the immature in years or judgment. A riper acquaintance with the history and practical aims of international language purges it from the system. We have all been through it. For the inventor of Esperanto, accustomed for so many years to retouch, modify, and revise, it must require no ordinary degree of self-control to keep his hands off, and leave the fate of his offspring to others. It grew with his growth, developing with his experience, and he best knows where the shoe pinches and what might yet be done. But he has the fate of Volapük before his eyes. He knows that, having wrought speech for the people, he must leave it to the people, if he wishes them to use and keep using it.
1An expressive (homoeopathic) name for this malady may be coined in Esperanto: malsano lingvotrudema = officious or intrusive disease, consisting in an itch for coining language.
Contrast the uncompromising attitude of the inventor of Volapük, Bishop Schleyer. It will be remembered how he let Volapük run upon the rocks rather than relinquish the helm. He has been nicknamed "the Volapükist Pope"—and indeed he made the great and fatal bull of believing in his own infallibility. Zamenhof has never pretended to this. When he first published his language, he made no claim to finality on its behalf. He called for criticisms, and contemplated completing and modifying his scheme in accordance with them. He even offered to make over this task to a duly constituted academy, if people would come forward and throw themselves into the work. Again, some years later, in a pamphlet, Choix d'une langue Internationale, he proposed a scheme for obtaining a competent impartial verdict, and declared his willingness to submit to it. At one time he thought of something in the nature of a plebiscite. Later, his renunciation of the last vestige of control, in giving up the aprobo, or official sanction of books; his attitude at the international congresses; his refusal to accept the presidency; his reluctance
to name or influence the selection of the members of the body charged with the control of the language; his declaration that his own works have no legislative power, but are merely those of an Esperantist; finally, his sane conception of the scope and method of future development of the language to meet new needs, and of the limits within which it is possible—all this bespeaks the man who has a clear idea of what he is aiming at, and a shrewd grasp of the conditions necessary to ensure success.
The word Esperanto is the present participle of the verb esperi—"to hope," used substantially. It was under the pseudonym of Dr. Esperanto that Zamenhof published his scheme in 1887 at Warsaw, and the name has stuck to the language. Before publication it had been cast and recast many times in the mind of its author, and it is curious to note that in the course of its evolution he had himself been through the principal stages exhibited in the history of artificial language projects for the last three hundred years. That is to say, he began with the idea of an a priori language with made-up words and arbitrary grammar, and gradually advanced to the conception of an a posteriori language, borrowing its vocabulary from the roots common to several existing languages and presenting in its grammar a simplification of Indo-European grammar.
He began to learn English at a comparatively advanced stage of his education, and the simplicity of its grammar and syntax was a revelation to him. It had a powerful influence in helping him to frame his grammar, which underwent a new transformation. Specimens of the language as Zamenhof used to speak it with his school and student friends show a wide divergence from its present form. He seems to have had cruel disappointments, and was disillusioned by the falling away of youthful comrades who had promised to fight the battles of the language they practised with enthusiasm at school. During long years of depression work at the language seems to have been almost his one resource. Its absolute simplicity is deceptive as to the immense labour it